Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative structure–permeability relationships at various pH values for acidic and basic drugs and drug-like compounds$

Absorption in gastrointestinal tract compartments varies and is largely influenced by pH. Therefore, considering pH in studies and analyses of membrane permeability provides an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of compounds and to obtain good permeability estimates for prediction purposes. This study concentrates on relationships between the chemical structure and membrane permeability of acidic and basic drugs and drug-like compounds. The membrane permeability of 36 acidic and 61 basic compounds was measured using the parallel artificial membrane permeability assay (PAMPA) at pH 3, 5, 7.4 and 9. Descriptive and/or predictive single-parameter quantitative structure-permeability relationships were derived for all pH values. For acidic compounds, membrane permeability is mainly influenced by hydrogen bond donor properties, as revealed by models with r2 > 0.8 for pH 3 and pH 5. For basic compounds, the best (r2 > 0.7) structure–permeability relationships are obtained with the octanol–water distribution coefficient for pH 7.4 and pH 9, indicating the importance of partition properties. In addition to the validation set, the prediction quality of the developed models was tested with folic acid and astemizole, showing good matches between experimental and calculated membrane permeabilities at key pHs. Selected QSAR models are available at the QsarDB repository (http://dx.doi.org/10.15152/QDB.166).
Exports, Imports, FDI and Trade Openness on Economic Growth: Evidence from ARDL Bounds Testing For United Arab Emirates

The aim of this paper to investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI), exports(EX), import (IM) and trade openness (TO) on economic growth(GDP) in UAE.This paper provides a survey of literature on FDI, export, and growth, and empirically investigates the causal relationship between economic growth, export, and FDI for UAE. The ARDL bounds testing approach is used to investigate the existence of long-run relationship between FDI, export, import and economic growth for UAE. After detection of cointegration relationship, the error-correction based Granger causality test is employed to examine the both longrun and short-run causality issues between the variables by using data from 1977 to 2012. The bounds tests suggest that the variables of interest are bound together in the long-run when foreign direct investment is the dependent variable. The results indicate also that there is significant Granger causality from economic growth to FDI, from FDI to economic growth and there is significant and strong Granger causality from FDI to Imports and from Imports to FDI. The results indicate also that there is no significant Granger causality from EX to IM, from IM to EX, in the short run. In brief, our results show that there is a positive relationship between FDI and GDP in UAE. And the main point to consider which is evident through statistics and results is that there is a greater impact of FDI on GDP, Exports, and Imports.
Modelling of MMC including half-bridge and Full-bridge submodules for EMT study

Modelling of Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) for electromagnetic transient type (EMT-type) simulations is challenging due to numerous IGBTs/diode devices. Detailed models of HVDC-MMC transmission systems require long computation times. Simplified models have been proposed in the past to overcome this problem. However, some of these types of model require a hard-coding development which depends on the EMT software used. This article presents a simple and efficient approach for modelling these types of MMC using only generic EMT blocks (i.e. power circuits and control components) that can be found in most EMT software libraries. Half- and Full-bridge submodules are considered. The models developed include the blocking state of submodule. A realistic HVDC-MMC link is used as a test case for validating the MMC models proposed.
Metabolic fates and effects of nitrite in brown trout under normoxic and hypoxic conditions: blood and tissue nitrite metabolism and interactions with branchial NOS, Na+/K+-ATPase and hsp70 expression

ABSTRACT Nitrite secures essential nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability in hypoxia at low endogenous concentrations, whereas it becomes toxic at high concentrations. We exposed brown trout to normoxic and hypoxic water in the absence and presence of added ambient nitrite to decipher the cellular metabolism and effects of nitrite at basal and elevated concentrations under different oxygen regimes. We also tested hypotheses concerning the influence of nitrite on branchial nitric oxide synthase (NOS), Na+/K+-ATPase (nka) and heat shock protein (hsp70) mRNA expression. Basal plasma and erythrocyte nitrite levels were higher in hypoxia than normoxia, suggesting increased NOS activity. Nitrite exposure strongly elevated nitrite concentrations in plasma, erythrocytes, heart tissue and white muscle, which was associated with an extensive metabolism of nitrite to nitrate and to iron-nitrosylated and S-nitrosated compounds. Nitrite uptake was slightly higher in hypoxia than normoxia, and high internal nitrite levels extensively converted blood hemoglobin to methemoglobin and nitrosylhemoglobin. Hypoxia increased inducible NOS (iNOS) mRNA levels in the gills, which was overruled by a strong inhibition of iNOS expression by nitrite in both normoxia and hypoxia, suggesting negative-feedback regulation of iNOS gene expression by nitrite. A similar inhibition was absent for neuronal NOS. Branchial NKA activity stayed unchanged, but mRNA levels of the nkaα1a subunit increased with hypoxia and nitrite, which may have countered an initial NKA inhibition. Nitrite also increased hsp70 gene expression, probably contributing to the cytoprotective effects of nitrite at low concentrations. Nitrite displays a concentration-dependent switch between positive and negative effects similar to other signaling molecules. Summary: A concentration-dependent switch between the positive and negative effects of nitrite is revealed by studying its metabolism at basal and elevated concentrations under different oxygen regimes in the brown trout.
Research on an adaptive solar photovoltaic array using shading degree model-based reconfiguration algorithm

Partially shaded conditions are common in all kinds of PV systems. The mismatch phenomenon of a Solar PV array, such as partial shade, not only affects the power generated by solar system, but also leads to safety and reliability problems. This paper proposes a new shading degree model-based self-adaptive reconfiguration method to reduce the effect of shadows on solar arrays. A switching matrix dynamically connects a solar adaptive bank to a fixed part of a solar photovoltaic array based on the shading degree model-based control algorithm to increase the power output of the solar PV array.
Locally Smoothed Neural Networks

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and the locally connected layer are limited in capturing the importance and relations of different local receptive fields, which are often crucial for tasks such as face verification, visual question answering, and word sequence prediction. To tackle the issue, we propose a novel locally smoothed neural network (LSNN) in this paper. The main idea is to represent the weight matrix of the locally connected layer as the product of the kernel and the smoother, where the kernel is shared over different local receptive fields, and the smoother is for determining the importance and relations of different local receptive fields. Specifically, a multi-variate Gaussian function is utilized to generate the smoother, for modeling the location relations among different local receptive fields. Furthermore, the content information can also be leveraged by setting the mean and precision of the Gaussian function according to the content. Experiments on some variant of MNIST clearly show our advantages over CNN and locally connected layer.
An Adaptive Algorithm for Real-Time Multi-Tone Estimation and Frequency Tracking of Non-Stationary Signals

Real-time harmonic estimation and frequency tracking are well known pivotal problems in many engineering domains. Incidentally, similar challenges arise in tokamak plasma diagnostics' data processing where the spectral complexity of characteristic signals poses additional obstacles. Building up on previous Kalman filter based developments, this paper describes an adaptive real-time algorithm for simultaneous multi-component frequency tracking and harmonic estimation in noisy signals. Furthermore, the proposed gain adaptation method is shown to improve estimation performance in cases where the amplitude ratio of signal components differs by roughly up to three orders of magnitude. A series of selectively devised tests were carried out for challenging the performance and determining the operational limits of the algorithm when aiming to provide accurate estimates, in real-time, of both instantaneous amplitude and phase plus the instantaneous frequency evolution of dominant tones in noisy signals. Finally, results and performance issues are discussed.
Planning of catheter interventions for pulmonary artery stenosis: Improved measurement agreement with magnetic resonance angiography using identical angulations

Objectives: To evaluate the current disagreement between the gold standard X‐ray angiography (XRA) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) for the measurement of peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis (PPAS). Background: MRA may help planning of catheter interventions for PPAS. However, there are sources of disagreement between XRA and MRA as measures are performed differently. We hypothesized that agreement may improve if identical angulation views are used. Methods: In this retrospective study, 17 patients were included. Four independent observers analyzed the pictures in three technique modalities: (1) XRA, (2) cross‐sectional‐MRA: reformatted to obtain the perpendicular cut‐off view of the vessel, and (3) angulated‐MRA: reformatted using the same angulations used in XRA. We measured: (a) minimal diameter at stenosis, (b) vessel diameter 1 cm proximal, and (c) 1 cm distal to the stenosis. Results: While in elliptical vessels cross‐sectional‐MRA provided both the larger and smaller diameter, XRA and angulated‐MRA typically provided only the larger diameter due to projections. We found poor agreement between the smaller diameter in cross‐sectional‐MRA and XRA. XRA underestimate the diameter at the three locations (<15–22%). However, there was a good agreement between the larger cross‐sectional‐MRA diameter and XRA. This further improved if MRA images were reformatted with the identical angulations used in XRA (angulated‐MRA). Conclusions: Conventional cross‐sectional‐MRA measurements of PPAS only moderately agree with XRA. However, using identical angulations in MRA reduces the bias. Hence, MRA is a valuable tool for planning angulations and measurements of PPAS prior to catheter interventions. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Linking GENESYS application architecture modelling with platform performance simulation

Modern mobile devices support diverse applications that are enabled by rapid increase of computational power of mobile platforms. A brisk performance evaluation phase is required after the application modelling to evaluate feasibility of new applications on the platform. GENESYS modelling methodology employing service-oriented component based application design has been extended for this purpose such that application level services are refined to platform-level services allowing mapping of GENESYS application architecture to workload models used in performance evaluation. The approach is experimented with a case study. MARTE UML2.0 profile, supporting Papyrus modelling tool and SystemC were used for modelling and simulation.
Kallmann Syndrome 1 Gene Is Expressed in the Marsupial Gonad1

Kallmann syndrome is characterized by hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism and anosmia. The syndrome can be caused by mutations in several genes, but the X-linked form is caused by mutation in the Kallmann syndrome 1 (KAL1). KAL1 plays a critical role in gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neuronal migration that is essential for the normal development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Interestingly, KAL1 appears to be missing from the rodent X, and no orthologue has been detected as yet. We investigated KAL1 during development and in adults of an Australian marsupial, the tammar wallaby, Macropus eugenii. Marsupial KAL1 maps to an autosome within a group of genes that was added as a block to the X chromosome in eutherian evolution. KAL1 expression was widespread in embryonic and adult tissues. In the adult testis, tammar KAL1 mRNA and protein were detected in the germ cells at specific stages of differentiation. In the adult testis, the protein encoded by KAL1, anosmin-1, was restricted to the round spermatids and elongated spermatids. In the adult ovary, anosmin-1 was not only detected in the oocytes but was also localized in the granulosa cells throughout folliculogenesis. This is the first examination of KAL1 mRNA and protein localization in adult mammalian gonads. The protein localization suggests that KAL1 participates in gametogenesis not only through the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis by activation of GnRH neuronal migration, but also directly within the gonads themselves. Because KAL1 is autosomal in marsupials but is X-linked in eutherians, its conserved involvement in gametogenesis supports the hypothesis that reproduction-related genes were actively recruited to the eutherian X chromosome.
Down‐regulated miRs specifically correlate with non‐cardial gastric cancers and Lauren's classification system

Gastric cancers are usually characterized using Lauren's classification into intestinal and diffuse types. We previously documented the down‐modulation of miR31, miR148a, miR204, and miR375 in gastric cancers. We aimed this manuscript to investigate these miRs with the end‐points of diagnosis, Lauren's classification and prognosis.
A evaluation model of anti-jamming resource control plan base on grey target using improved entropy weight

The research was aimed at how to set a plan evaluation model for anti-jamming resource control of netted radar system (NRS). According to the basic principle of plan evaluation, a new plan evaluation model of anti-jamming resource control is presented based on grey target using improved entropy weight. Using the technology of grey target, the standard mode of these index series is derived, thereby the plans of anti-jamming resource control of NRS as can be evaluated by solving the degrees of approach of each mode of plan to the standard one, and the factors of subjectivity are avoided. Simulation results of a project example show that the new plan evaluation model is feasible and more objective.
Fractal dipole antennas based on Hilbert curves with different line-to-spacing ratio

In this paper, we demonstrate the influence of the line-to-spacing ratio of the Hilbert fractal antenna to its radiation characteristic. The proposed antennas realized using Hilbert fractal curves of the third order have been designed to operate at 2.45 GHz according IEEE 802.15. 1 standard. Due to specific configuration of the Hilbert fractal curves and mutual coupling between fractal segments, the radiation patterns of the proposed antenna can be significantly changed by changing the line-to-spacing ratio of the Hilbert fractal radiators. The proposed antenna has been fabricated in Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology. The measured result of the Hilbert dipole antenna confirmed its good impedance matching and return loss.
A new tool for wind farm optimal design

An Evolutive Algorithm (EA) for wind farm optimal design is presented. The algorithm objective is to optimize the profits given an investment on a wind farm. Net Present Value (NPV) will be used as a figure of the revenue in the proposed method. To estimate the NPV is necessary to calculate the initial capital investment and net cash flow throughout the wind farm life cycle. The maximization of the NPV means the minimization of the investment and the maximization of the net cash flows (to maximize the generation of energy and minimize the power losses). Both terms depend mainly of the number and type of wind turbines, the tower height and geographical position, electrical layout, among others. Besides, other auxiliary costs must be to keep in mind to calculate the initial investment such as the cost of auxiliary roads or tower foundations. The complexity of the problem is mainly due to the fact that there is not analytic function to model the wind farm costs and most of the main variables are linked.
Flexible protein-ligand docking using particle swarm optimization

Many protein-ligand docking problems attempt to predict the bound conformations of two interacting molecules. Consequently, the docking problem requires a powerful search technique to explore the translations, orientations, and each torsion until an ideal site has been found. Therefore, protein-ligand docking can be formulated as a parameter optimization problem. However, highly flexible ligands have a lot of torsions. Therefore, the optimization problem of highly flexible docking would become more difficult due to the increment of parameter number and interactions among these parameters. We proposed a novel method SODOCK based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) for solving flexible protein-ligand docking problems. PSO has significant effect on the optimization of parameters with strong interactions. A commonly used efficient local search is incorporated into SODOCK to improve the efficiency and robustness of PSO. SODOCK is efficient for both types of ligands with small and large numbers of torsions. It is shown by computer simulation that SODOCK performs well in obtaining accurate conformations, compared with some of state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, it is also shown that SODOCK is superior to AutoDock using the same energy function in AutoDock 3.05 in terms of convergence speed, robustness, and docking energy, especially for highly flexible docking problems
Study of the time-varying cortical connectivity changes during the attempt of foot movements by spinal cord injured and healthy subjects

In this study we estimated time-varying cortical connectivity patterns from a group of Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) patients during the attempt to move a paralyzed limb. These data were compared with the time-varying connectivity patterns estimated in a control group during the real execution of the movement by using time-varying Partial Directed Coherence. Connectivity was estimated from high resolution EEG recordings with the use of realistic head modelling and the linear inverse estimation of the cortical activity in a series of Regions of Interest of the cortex (ROIs). The experimental evidences obtained support the conclusion that the SCI population involved a larger cortical network than those generated by the healthy subjects during the task performance. Such network differs for the involvement of the parietal cortices, which increases in strength near to the movement imagination onset for the SCI when compared to the normal population. Such details about the temporal evolution of the connectivity patterns cannot be obtained with the application of the standard estimators of connectivity.
Interaction Under Pressure: Increased Mental Workload Makes Issues of Intuitive Interaction Visible

Intuitive interaction has become a determining factor for the success of software. This paper contributes to this area of research by describing a novel method for evaluating intuitive interaction as increased mental workload in a dual-task paradigm. During a usability test, mental workload can be measured by analysing the timing of concurrent rhythmic foot tapping. Based on deviations from an individual baseline the method allows to point out the exact moments of increased workload, i.e. these moments where the interaction was likely non-intuitive. In formative usability tests, evaluators can use this information when conducting retrospective interviews to discuss the underlying intuitive-use problems and possible solutions. In contrast to other methods for evaluating intuitive interaction, which are often based on detailed user observations, the proposed method may yield a cost-effective and easily applicable alternative to conduct summative and formative evaluations of intuitive interaction.
Integrating palliative and critical care: Description of an intervention

A large proportion of deaths in the United States occur in the intensive care unit (ICU) or after a stay in the ICU, and there is evidence of problems in the quality of care these patients and their families receive. In an effort to respond to this problem, we developed a multifaceted, nurse-focused, quality improvement intervention that is based on self-efficacy theory applied to changing clinician behavior. We have called the intervention “Integrating Palliative and Critical Care. ” This five-component intervention includes: 1) critical care clinician education to increase knowledge and awareness of the principles and practice of palliative care in the ICU, 2) critical care clinician local champions to provide role modeling and promote attitudinal change concerning end-of-life care, 3) academic detailing of nurse and physician ICU directors to identify and address local barriers to improving end-of-life care in each ICU, 4) feedback of local quality improvement data, and 5) system supports including implementation of palliative care order forms, family information pamphlets, and other system supports for providing palliative care in the ICU. The goal of this report is to describe the conceptual model that led to the development of the intervention, and for each of the five components, we describe the theoretical and empirical support for each component, the content of the component, and the lessons we have learned in implementing the component. Future reports will need to examine the ability of the interventions to improve outcomes of palliative care in the ICU.
Viscoelastic analysis of multistage stacked via structure in build-up substrate

Compact high density electronic equipment is achieved using the stacked via technology in a build-up substrate. In order to design the build-up substrate, the impact of the viscoelasticity behavior of insulating resin under heating and cooling must be considered. This paper investigates how to predict the stacked via fatigue life using a viscoelastic analysis. The thermal cycle test, elastic analysis and the viscoelastic analysis were conducted in eight variations of stacked via structure including either of two resins. Either three, four, five, or six build-up via (BU via) were stacked on the plated-through hole (PTH) in these structures. As a result, the viscoelastic analysis agreed well with that of the thermal cycle test in any stacked via structure.
Did You See Me?: Assessing Perceptual vs. Real Driving Gains Across Multi-Modal Pedestrian Alert Systems

In-vehicle support systems have the potential to reduce the risk of pedestrian collisions and promote gains in braking performance and visual attention when scanning for threats on the road. This study investigated changes in driver behavior in pedestrian collision scenarios with increasing urgency while using varying levels of pedestrian alert system (PAS) support in a medium fidelity driving simulator. During pedestrian collision scenarios, we assessed drivers' eye gaze behavior, braking performance, and acceptance ratings across three levels of PAS and four levels of increasing urgency, defined as time to collision (TTC). Results suggest that both audio- and visually-based PAS do not produce gains in the localization of pedestrians, but can nevertheless improve drivers' braking performance in events where pedestrians may pose a threat. Our results further suggest that drivers exhibit both innate and direct confidence in visually-based PAS support, despite no concurrent gains in visual scanning performance.