Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electric Discharges and the Prolonged Microbial Resistance of Water

One of alternative methods of water disinfection is its treatment by pulsed electric discharges (PEDs). In this case, during the discharges, bacteria are destroyed by UV radiation with a significant share of energy in waves of 200-400 nm and by shock waves, which are formed at the initial stage of the discharge-column widening. This paper describes the electrophysical properties of PED in water, presents the results of an investigation of the physical, chemical, bactericidal, and fungicidal properties of treated water, and explains the prolonged microbial resistance of water (PMRW) - the phenomenon when bacteria continue to be destroyed for a long time (several months) after treatment by PED. The results of investigations make it possible to conclude that the PMRW is caused by the cooperative bactericidal action on microorganisms of both oxide nanoparticles of electrodes metal and positive ions emitted by the nanoparticles.
ISPs’ Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in the Southern Region of Malaysia

The service industry is fast becoming a growth catalyst in most economies, driven by the strategic roles of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Accordingly, strong foundations for future prosperity in Malaysia may depend on the successful deployment of new technologies. A key challenge, of interest to practitioners and academics, therefore, is the assessment of customer satisfaction. What appears unavailable is documentation on critical issues involved and how to address them. This paper, therefore, examines the influence of Malaysian ISPs’ service quality on customer satisfaction. We used survey questionnaire to collect data from 400 respondents. Analysis reveals that Tangibles, Empathy, Responsiveness and Assurance were all significant, but Reliability was insignificant. ISPs in Malaysia could use findings in this paper to assess and enhance their service quality provision. Related government agencies may also use the findings to develop policy directions on Internet infrastructure, which could enable overall better service provision for Malaysian residents.
Automatic feedback for content based image retrieval on the Web

We address the problem of identifying images of persons in large collections, such as the Web, without an existing face image database. We describe a method and a system that automatically constructs an initial face image database for a person using textual evidence obtained from the Web, and then uses this database for identifying images of that person. The initial retrieval results are obtained via text/HTML analysis and face detection. An internal clustering process groups visually similar faces among these initial results and builds a facial database. This database is then used by a face recognizer. The outputs of the textual and visual evidence modules are combined using Dempster-Shafer (1976) evidence combination formula. We present the results of an experimental evaluation where the system was able to improve upon the detection-only method when text/HTML analysis performed poorly.
Marcel Duchamp, art and the ethical signifi cance of a renewed relationship with the object

In this paper I shall show that the artworks of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) harbour as yet unheeded ontological and ethical implications. I shall do this through an investigation of Duchamp’s readymades and his writings on “indi! erence,” as well as Duchamp’s most complex work, e Large Glass. I shall show that Duchamp’s works accomplish a recalibration of the work-spectator relationship through which modern art reclaims and proclaims the object’s inherent rights to self-manifestation and self-a"rmation. I conclude by showing that the challenge posed by Duchamp’s art does not pertain to art alone, but calls for a genuine renewal of our ethical relationship with the other generally.
An area-efficient asynchronous FPGA based on fine-grain power gating and time multiplexed dual rail encoding

A fundamental challenge in the IC manufacturing industry is high performance with minimized power, area and cost. Asynchronous FPGAs have the advantages of lower power consumption, lower electromagnetic interference, and better modularity in large systems. In this paper, we focus on the reduction of dynamic power consumption of FPGAs for which we use two techniques. Fine-grain power gating methods are employed to decrease the power consumption. In the implemented architecture, the granularity size of a power-gated domain is as fine as a single two-input and one-output lookup table. The proposed architecture can directly detect the activity of each look-up-table easily by exploiting the advantageous features of asynchronous architectures. Moreover, the arrival of data can be detected in advance and this prevents the increased delay required for the waking up of a logic block and the power consumption due to unnecessary switching. A comparison study between the existent and proposed dual rail encoding architectures shows that the newly implemented logic block with power gating and TM-LEDR encoding occupies lesser area as compared to the already existing conventional ones.
Extension of hidden Markov models to deal with multiple candidates of observations and its application to mobile-robot-oriented gesture recognition

We propose a modified hidden Markov model (HMM) with a view to improving gesture recognition in the moving camera condition. We define a new gesture recognition framework in which multiple candidates of feature vectors are generated with confidence measures and the HMM is extended to deal with these multiple feature vectors. Experimental analysis comparing the proposed system with feature vectors based on DCT and the method of selecting only one candidate feature point verifies the effectiveness of the technique.
Association of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism with reduced hippocampal volumes in major depression.

CONTEXT Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) modulates hippocampal plasticity, which is believed to be altered in patients with major depression. OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on hippocampal and amygdala volumes in patients with major depression and in healthy control subjects. DESIGN Cross-sectional comparison between patients and controls. SETTING Inpatients with major depression from the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and healthy controls from the community were recruited. PARTICIPANTS The study population of 120 subjects included 60 patients with major depression and 60 healthy controls. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Using a combined strategy, hippocampal and amygdala volumes were estimated on high-resolution magnetic resonance images, and genotyping was performed for the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism. RESULTS Patients had significantly smaller hippocampal volumes compared with controls (P = .02). Significantly smaller hippocampal volumes were observed for patients and for controls carrying the Met-BDNF allele compared with subjects homozygous for the Val-BDNF allele (P = .006). With respect to amygdala volumes, no significant differences between patients and controls and no significant main effects for the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism were observed. CONCLUSIONS These genotype-related alterations suggest that Met-BDNF allele carriers might be at risk to develop smaller hippocampal volumes and may be susceptible to major depression. This study supports findings from animal studies that the hippocampus is involved in brain development and plasticity.
Rehabilitation Interventions for Pain and Disability in Osteoarthritis

OverviewOsteoarthritis (OA) results in progressive destruction of articular cartilage and bone at the joint margins, leading to impairments extending far beyond the synovial joint. Rehabilitation interventions that target specific impairments and activity restrictions can help restore independence and promote healthy living. Such interventions include exercise, physical modalities (ice, heat, ultrasonography), manual techniques (mobilization and manipulation), and assistive devices. The predominance of evidence on the effects of rehabilitation interventions for knee and hip OA suggest that they afford modest pain relief, reduced disability, and improved function. Research is needed to identify the modes of exercise and the effective doses for relief of symptoms and functional limitations.
Pathways of retinoid synthesis in mouse macrophages and bone marrow cells

In vivo pathways of natural retinoid metabolism and elimination have not been well characterized in primary myeloid cells, even though retinoids and retinoid receptors have been strongly implicated in regulating myeloid maturation. With the use of a upstream activation sequence‐GFP reporter transgene and retrovirally expressed Gal4‐retinoic acid receptor α in primary mouse bone marrow cells, we identified 2 distinct enzymatic pathways used by mouse myeloid cells ex vivo to synthesize retinoic acid receptor α ligands from free vitamin A metabolites (retinyl acetate, retinol, and retinal). Bulk Kit+ bone marrow progenitor cells use diethylaminobenzaldehyde‐sensitive enzymes, whereas bone marrow‐derived macrophages use diethylaminobenzaldehyde‐insensitive enzymes to synthesize natural retinoic acid receptor α‐activating retinoids (all‐trans retinoic acid). Bone marrow‐derived macrophages do not express the diethylaminobenzaldehyde‐sensitive enzymes Aldh1a1, Aldh1a2, or Aldh1a3 but instead, express Aldh3b1, which we found is capable of diethylaminobenzaldehyde‐insensitive synthesis of all trans‐retinoic acid. However, under steady‐state and stimulated conditions in vivo, diverse bone marrow cells and peritoneal macrophages showed no evidence of intracellular retinoic acid receptor α‐activating retinoids, despite expression of these enzymes and a vitamin A‐sufficient diet, suggesting that the enzymatic conversion of retinal is not the rate‐limiting step in the synthesis of intracellular retinoic acid receptor α‐activating retinoids in myeloid bone marrow cells and that retinoic acid receptor α remains in an unliganded configuration during adult hematopoiesis.
3D PET list-mode iterative reconstruction using time-of-flight information

A limited number of time-of-flight (TOF) PET systems were developed and studied in the 1980*s and early 1990's using fast scintillators such as BaF2 or CsF. These systems had the very good timing resolution needed for TOF PET but the lower stopping power and low light output yield of these scintillators could not provide systems with comparable performance to BOO. Recent development of other fast scintillators including LSO and LaBr3 has recently renewed interest in TOF PET. All of the TOF PET developed in the 80's and 90's used axial collimation with a very small axial FOV. Most TOF reconstruction methods that were studied were 2D. In this study, a 3D EM-ML list-mode iterative algorithm using TOF information has been implemented and tested using a new Monte Carlo simulation package, GATE, providing time information related to each photon travel from its annihilation to detection point and list-mode format output. Visually, it appears as if TOF information can improve detectability in reconstructed images.
A real-time evolutionary algorithm for Web prediction

As an increasing number of users access information on the World Wide Web, there is a opportunity to improve well known strategies for Web caching, prefetching, dynamic user modeling and dynamic site customization in order to obtain better subjective performance and satisfaction in Web surfing. We propose a new method to exploit user navigational path behavior to predict, in real-time, future requests. Predicting user next requests is useful not only for document caching/prefetching, it is also suitable for quick dynamic portal adaptation to user behavior. Real-time user adaptation prevents the use of statistical techniques on Web logs, and we propose the adoption of a predictive user model based on finite state machines together with an evolutionary algorithm that evolves a population of FSMs for achieving a good prediction rate.
Spontaneous neuronal activity in insula predicts symptom severity of unmedicated obsessive compulsive disorder adults

Emerging evidence has suggested that the pathophysiology of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) might involve widely distributed large-scale brain systems. The dysfunction within salience network, which is comprised of dorsal anterior cingulated cortex (dACC) and bilateral insular areas, has been proposed to contribute to OCD onset. The mechanism underlying salience network abnormality remains unclear and it is worthwhile to investigate its clinical relevance using functional neuroimaging approaches. In this study, we performed the spontaneous brain activity measurement using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on unmedicated OCD patients (n=23). Specifically, the amplitude of low frequency (0.01-0.08 Hz) fluctuations (ALFF) was calculated for regions in salience network. The voxel-based Pearson's correlative analysis was conducted to explore the relationship beween ALFF measures and symptom severity for OCD patients. The results showed that the spontaneous neuronal activity in insula was significantly correlated to OCD clinical symptoms, especially compulsive behaviors. Our findings consolidated that the salience network played an important role in the pathogenesis of OCD and the intensity of intrinsic brain activity in insula provided a predictive biomarker for OCD symptom severity.
Fault Detection and Isolation for Nonlinear Systems via HOSM Multiple-Observer*

Abstract The fault detection and isolation problem is studied for a class of nonlinear systems. Under structural conditions, a bank of High-Order Sliding-Mode observers is proposed. The value of the equivalent output injection is used for detecting and isolating particular faults in the system. The proposed method provides finite-time isolation of actuator and plant faults. Simulation results support the proposed approach.
Seamless Formation and Robust Control of Distributed Generation Microgrids via Direct Voltage Control and Optimized Dynamic Power Sharing

Seamless formation and robust control of distributed generation microgrids are essential requirements to facilitate powerful and flexible control infrastructure in future smart power grids. Motivated by this objective, this paper presents a control structure for microgrid converters based on direct-voltage control and optimized dynamic power sharing. The salient features of the proposed scheme are 1) minimum switching actions between grid-connected and isolated microgrids systems to minimize internal microgrid formation disturbances; 2) active damping control performance in the converter control voltage vector to effectively reject both voltage magnitude disturbances and power angle swings associated with mode transition and load disturbances; and 3) high bandwidth direct voltage control loop in both grid-connected and isolated microgrid modes to improve the dynamic response and disturbance rejection performance. Theoretical analysis and comparative experimental results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
Comparison of magnetic resonance enterography and video capsule endoscopy in evaluating small bowel disease

Purpose The goal of this study was to compare magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) and video capsule endoscopy (VCE) in suspected small bowel disease. Materials and methods Nineteen patients with suspected small bowel disease participated in a prospective clinical comparison of MRE versus VCE. Both methods were evaluated separately and in conjunction with respect to a combined diagnostic endpoint based on clinical, laboratory, surgical, and histopathological findings. The Fisher's exact and κ tests were used in comparing MRE and VCE. Results Small bowel pathologies were found in 15 out of 19 patients: Crohn's disease (n=5), lymphoma (n=4), lymphangioma (n=1), adenocarcinoma (n=1), postradiation enteropathy (n=1), NSAID-induced enteropathy (n=1), angiodysplasia (n=1), and small bowel adhesions (n=1). VCE and MRE separately and in conjunction showed sensitivities of 92.9, 71.4, and 100% and specificities of 80, 60, and 80% (κ=0.73 vs. κ=0.29; P=0.31/κ=0.85), respectively. In four patients, VCE depicted mucosal pathologies missed by MRE. MRE revealed 19 extraenteric findings in 11 patients as well as small bowel adhesions not detected on VCE (n=1). Conclusion VCE can readily depict and characterize subtle mucosal lesions missed at MRE, whereas MRE yields additional mural, perienteric, and extraenteric information. Thus, VCE and MRE appear to be complementary methods which, when used in conjunction, may better characterize suspected small bowel disease.
Selecting the best feature set for thai word sense disambiguation using support vector machines

This paper proposes a method of selecting the best feature set for Thai word sense disambiguation by using Support Vector Machines (SVM) algorithm. This research focuses on Thai verb sense disambiguation. Many approaches have been employed to resolve the word sense ambiguity with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Our research focuses on the corpus-based approach that employs a supervised machine learning method for disambiguation. The machine learning method has the ability of selecting the suitable feature. In order to find the best feature set for resolving Thai word sense ambiguity, our method uses characteristics of the words co-occur with the ambiguous word in sentences extracted from Thai corpus for determining sense of the ambiguous word. The ambiguous words are evaluated with 30 feature sets under "word" "part of speech (POS)" and "semantic concept (SM)" features. The result shows that "word & SM" feature set gives the best result as the best feature set of sense indicator and the accuracy rate is approximately 90-96%.
A heterogeneous wireless network integrating smartphones, WLANs and VANET to enhance on-road surveillance and security

In today's scenario, crime is widely prevalent in every sector of the society. However it has been observed that in most of the cases a vehicle was involved in some or the other way. To make the roads safer and to enhance the public safety on roads, various technologies have been combined which constituents Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) network. One example of this field is “Vehicular Ad hoc Networks” (VANETs) which is a subclass of “Mobile Ad hoc Networks” (MANETs). In VANET, automobiles act as mobile nodes and are capable of communicating with one another as well as stationary infrastructure, hence creating an autonomous and dynamic mobile network. This research paper focusses on the proposal of a model for on-road surveillance & security system by integrating various different wireless network technologies/devices, such as Smart phones, WLANs & MANET. The paper also discusses the insecure environment that stirred the need for an efficient surveillance system and how this model approaches to provide a solution. We have used MATLAB tool to simulate and validate the proposed model. The successful implementation of any such system will help in controlling the crime rate as well as it may also aid in providing necessary evidences.
A new phenotype of resistance to lincosamide and streptogramin A-type antibiotics in Streptococcus agalactiae in New Zealand.

OBJECTIVES To characterize a new type of resistance to clindamycin in Streptococcus agalactiae. METHODS Nineteen erythromycin-susceptible, clindamycin-resistant S. agalactiae isolates from New Zealand were studied. MICs of macrolide, lincosamide and streptogramin antibiotics were determined. Clindamycin and streptogramin resistance genes were searched for by PCR. Isolates were compared by serotyping and by DNA macrorestriction patterns determined by PFGE. Conjugative transfer of resistance traits to recipient strains of S. agalactiae and Enterococcus faecium was assayed. RESULTS The 19 S. agalactiae isolates were intermediate or resistant to clindamycin (MIC range: 0.5-2 mg/L) and lincomycin (MIC range: 1-8 mg/L) and had high MICs of dalfopristin (4-32 mg/L), a streptogramin A-type antibiotic, compared with controls. By contrast, the strains were susceptible to macrolides and quinupristin, a streptogramin B-type antibiotic. This new phenotype was called LSA (lincosamide-streptogramin A). Clindamycin resistance could not be transferred to recipient strains. Thirteen isolates belonged to serotype III and to a single PFGE genotype A, and five isolates belonged to serotype I and to genotype B. One isolate was non-typeable and belonged to a distinct genotype C. CONCLUSIONS We have characterized a new LSA phenotype in S. agalactiae. Analysis of restriction patterns of S. agalactiae chromosomal DNA showed that the resistance was spread in a minimum of three bacterial clones. The genetic and biochemical basis for the resistance remains unknown.
Fabrication and Characteristic Analysis for Enzymatic Glucose Biosensor Modified by Graphene Oxide and Magnetic Beads Based on Microfluidic Framework

The indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) was adopted as enzymatic glucose sensing membrane and a screen-printed technology was used to complete fabrication of sensor in this paper. There are some drawbacks for most of the enzymatic glucose biosensors, such as insufficient sensing area and weak immobilization strength, formed between glucose oxidase (GOx) and support materials. For improving drawbacks of enzymatic glucose biosensor, graphene oxide (GO) was directly dropped on the IGZO sensing membrane to improve sensing area and magnetic beads (MBs) were combined with GOx by covalent bonding to enhance immobilization strength for GOx. In addition, the enzymatic glucose biosensor modified by GO and MBs was integrated with microfluidic framework in order to investigate sensing characteristics under the dynamic conditions. According to the experimental results, the optimal average sensitivity and linearity of the enzymatic glucose biosensor were 12.383 mV/mM and 0.999 at 25- $\mu \text{L}$ /min flow rate, respectively.
ISSUES AND METHODS FOR MODIFYING RESPONSIVITY TO HYPNOSIS

A number of diversified methods have been used to significantly increase hypnotic susceptibility when measured on standardized hypnotic test scales and self-ratings following attempted hypnotic inductions.8 Included among these methods are sensory-produced alterations (e.g. sleep and dream suggestions, music, silence and white noise, psychedelic drugs, and sensory restriction) ; hypnotic set and situational variations (e.g. subject’s (9s) attitudes and expectations as well as the hypnotist’s behavior) ; experiential learning (e.g. encounter groups and personal growth programs) ; psychophysiological training (e.g. EEGand EMG-biofeedback; nb: see Wickramasekera 36 for an extensive review of these methods); and training in hypnotic behavior (e.g. classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, and informational control). The most methodologically sophisticated modification studies were performed using the latter, more systematic attempts at training hypnotic behavior. I should like to examine the most successful of these methods briefly before raising several pertinent issues with respect to modifying hypnotizability. The most persistent and generalizable modification effects occur with operant and informational control-based systematic training. Neither classical conditioning nor observational learning procedures produce such effects. The efficacy of operant and informational control procedures is well-established.7. 10, 12, 1 s . 26 , 33 Moreover, the effects of these two procedures have been demonstrated both for Ss initially low and more moderate in susceptibility ’. 25