Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design Procedure for Settling Time Minimization in Three-Stage Nested-Miller Amplifiers

Low-power, low-voltage, and high-performance requirements are badly needed for operational amplifiers (op-amps) in modern applications. In this brief, a design method for minimizing the settling time in three-stage nested-Miller schemes is presented. As an application example, a CMOS 0.35-mum voltage follower with 115-dB dc gain and fastest step response to 1% accuracy level, is designed. Circuital simulations demonstrate that the proposed procedure allows the amplifier settling-time/power-consumption ratio to be significantly improved with respect to conventionally designed op-amps.
Genetic basis for natural variation in seed vitamin E levels in Arabidopsis thaliana

Vitamin E is an essential nutrient for humans and is obtained primarily from food, especially oil, derived from the seed of plants. Genes encoding the committed steps in vitamin E synthesis in plants (VTE, loci 1–5) have been isolated and used for tocopherol pathway engineering with various degrees of success. As a complement to such approaches we have used quantitative trait loci analysis with two sets of Arabidopsis thaliana recombinant inbred lines and have identified 14 QVE (quantitative vitamin E) loci affecting tocopherol content and composition in seeds. Five QVE intervals contain VTE loci that are likely QVE gene candidates. Nine QVE intervals do not contain VTE loci and therefore identify novel loci affecting seed tocopherol content and composition. Several near-isogenic lines containing introgressions of the accession with increased vitamin E levels were shown to confer significantly elevated tocopherol levels compared with the recurrent parent. Fine-mapping has narrowed QVE7 (a γ-tocopherol quantitative trait loci) to an 8.5-kb interval encompassing two genes. Understanding the basis of the QVE loci in Arabidopsis promises to provide insight into the regulation and/or metabolism of vitamin E in plants and has clear ramifications for improving the nutritional content of crops through marker-assisted selection and metabolic engineering.
Structure and evolution of low-mass stars

We present extensive calculations of the structure and the evolution of low-mass stars in the range 0.07-0.8 M, for metallicities 2:0 (M=H) 0:0. These calculations are based on the most recent description of the microphysics char- acteristic of these dense and cool objects and on the latest gen- eration of grainless non-grey atmosphere models. We examine the evolution of the different mechanical and thermal properties of these objects as a function of mass and metallicity. We also demonstrate the inaccuracy of grey models and T() relation- ships under these conditions. We provide detailed tables of the mass-radius-luminosity-effective temperature relations for var- ious ages and metallicities, aimed at calibrating existing or fu- ture observations of low-mass stars and massive brown dwarfs. We derive new hydrogen-burning minimum masses, within the afore-mentioned metallicity range. These minimum masses are found to be smaller than previous estimates, a direct conse- quence of non-grey effects. At last, we examine the evolution of the abundance of light elements, Li;Be and B, as a function of age, mass and metal- licity.
Use of Cone Beam Computed Tomography in Implant Dentistry: The International Congress of Oral Implantologists Consensus Report

Purpose: The International Congress of Oral Implantologists has supported the development of this consensus report involving the use of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) in implant dentistry with the intent of providing scientifically based guidance to clinicians regarding its use as an adjunct to traditional imaging modalities. Materials and Methods: The literature regarding CBCT and implant dentistry was systematically reviewed. A PubMed search that included studies published between January 1, 2000, and July 31, 2011, was conducted. Oral presentations, in conjunction with these studies, were given by Dr. Erika Benavides, Dr. Scott Ganz, Dr. James Mah, Dr. Myung-Jin Kim, and Dr. David Hatcher at a meeting of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists in Seoul, Korea, on October 6–8, 2011. Results: The studies published could be divided into four main groups: diagnostics, implant planning, surgical guidance, and postimplant evaluation. Conclusions: The literature supports the use of CBCT in dental implant treatment planning particularly in regards to linear measurements, three-dimensional evaluation of alveolar ridge topography, proximity to vital anatomical structures, and fabrication of surgical guides. Areas such as CBCT-derived bone density measurements, CBCT-aided surgical navigation, and postimplant CBCT artifacts need further research. ICOI Recommendations: All CBCT examinations, as all other radiographic examinations, must be justified on an individualized needs basis. The benefits to the patient for each CBCT scan must outweigh the potential risks. CBCT scans should not be taken without initially obtaining thorough medical and dental histories and performing a comprehensive clinical examination. CBCT should be considered as an imaging alternative in cases where the projected implant receptor or bone augmentation site(s) are suspect, and conventional radiography may not be able to assess the true regional three-dimensional anatomical presentation. The smallest possible field of view should be used, and the entire image volume should be interpreted.
Secure and image retrieval based on multipurpose watermarking for oracle images databases

In the cancerology domain, we were brought to make periodic mammography images to monitor tumor patients. Oracle Database Management system (DBMS) is a solution to manage these images with patient's data recorder. Knowing the large size of medical images of mammograms, the Oracle DBMS saves these images outside the Oracle database using external LOBs. The link between these images and Oracle is done through the BFILE. At this level, two problems are raised: the first problem is that access to these images can become impossible because the link is likely to be broken. The second problem is security, the fact that the images are saved outside the Oracle database, they do not benefit from its powerful security. The protection of the integrity and confidentiality of data and patient images are a necessity defended by laws and they must be preserved against any unauthorized access, alteration or destruction. In this paper, we propose the method of reversible watermarking technique based on the difference expansion to resolve these two problems and explore its use in search and retrieval strategy of images.
A Widlar-bandgap based intermediate-frequency voltage-controlled oscillator for GSM/DCS transceiver ICs

This paper presents an intermediate-frequency voltage-controlled oscillator using a Widlar-bandgap for stable operation over supply and temperature variations without degrading the phase noise performance. The design is fabricated in a 0.35 /spl mu/m SOI BiCMOS and is packaged in a QFN24 plastic package. The VCO operates at 1 GHz with a tuning range of 250 MHz and achieves a phase noise of -113 dBc/Hz at 400 kHz offset from the carrier. The VCO core and buffer consume 4 mA and 11 mA from a 2.7 V power supply, respectively. The IF-VCO is suitable for GSM/DCS transceiver IC applications.
Optimization of BCI Speller Based on P300 Potential

We report our studies on a brain computer interface (BCI) speller application with an aim to optimize its performance and usability. We study the dependence of the spelling accuracy as a function of (a) the number of visual stimuli (repetitions) presented to the user, (b) the P300 segment length used, (c) the number of channels used, and (d) the amount of data used in training, in terms of the number of characters and repetitions. Reducing the number of repetitions results in a direct reduction of the time needed to spell a character, while minimizing the number of channels translates to shorter subject preparation time and thus improves the usability of the system. The usability is further enhanced by decreasing the training required, while maintaining the accuracy. We show that very high accuracies of the order of 99% can be achieved with a short training session of less than 10 minutes using only about 10 channels. The high accuracies, short training and preparation time requirements along with real-time performance make this BCI speller a viable communication tool for severely disabled individuals, who have no other means to communicate with the external world
Stress and EEG

Many people suffer from stress in their everyday life. While there is a close relationship between stress and mental health, psychological stress (and associated emotions such as anger, anxiety, and depression), can also have effects on physical health. Indeed, chronic psychological stress can change the responsiveness of central-peripheral regulatory systems (Fuchs & Fluegee 1995; Fuchs, Uno, & Fluegge 1995), potentially rendering them less efficient or adaptive in terms of supporting health. Conditions such as chronic stress, depression, and anxiety have been found to be associated with abnormal autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning (Cohen et al., 2000; Hughes & Stoney 2000). Accordingly, stress is one of the major factors contributing to chronic disorders (Decker et al., 1996; Lawrence & Kim 2000). Stress also influences the desire to work, performance at work, and one’s general attitude toward life (NIOSH, 1999). Within the industry sector, higher stress levels and stress-related disease lead to decrease in company performance and increase in medical expenses (Cooper, 1996; Manning, et al., 1996). In 2008 in Korea, there were 1,967 deaths associated with occupational cases. Almost half of these deaths (974, or 49.5%) could be ascribed to heart or brain blood vessel disease (Ministry of Labor, 2008). This is not surprising given that stress is implicated in 75% of all heart and brain blood vessel diseases (Belkic, et al., 2004). It is thus apparent that stress can increase social and economic losses and decrease a country’s competitiveness (Driskell & Salas, 1996). Therefore, precautionary measures to reduce stress and adequate management of this condition are essential for both individual health and the welfare of society at a broader level. This chapter reports on relationships among psychological stress, the EEG (Electroencephalogram), ECG, and salivary cortisol in people suffering from chronic stress. We hypothesized that chronic stress will have negative effects on the central-ANS and physiological responsiveness. There are many bio-signal channels by which stress can be potentially quantified, including ECG, EEG, and the skin conductance response (SCR) (Kohlish & Schaefer 1996; Gevins et al., 1998). Even so, determining the stress level of any given individual can be difficult. Related to this is debate concerning the extent to which the EEG can be used to reliably measure stress. However, this chapter presents data showing that there are significant correlations between EEG measures and other indices of stress, including the ECG and salivary cortisol. Also, it revealed relationships between high beta Source: Convergence and Hybrid Information Technologies, Book edited by: Marius Crisan, ISBN 978-953-307-068-1, pp. 426, March 2010, INTECH, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM
On the use of deep recurrent neural networks for detecting audio spoofing attacks

Biometric security systems based on predefined speech sentences are extremely common nowadays, particularly in low-cost applications where the simplicity of the hardware involved is a great advantage. Audio spoofing verification is the problem of detecting whether a speech segment acquired from such a system is genuine, or whether it was synthesized or modified by a computer in order to make it sound like an authorized person. Developing countermeasures for spoofing attacks is clearly essential for having effective biometric and security systems based on audio features, all the more significant due to recent advances in generative machine learning. Nonetheless, the problem is complicated by the possible lack of knowledge on the technique(s) used to put forward the attack, so that anti-spoofing systems should be able to withstand also spoofing attacks that were not considered explicitly in the training stage. In this paper, we analyze the use of deep recurrent networks applied to this task, i.e. networks made by the successive combination of multiple feedforward and recurrent layers. These networks are routinely used in speech recognition and language identification but, to the best of our knowledge, they were never considered for this specific problem. We evaluate several architectures on the dataset released for the ASVspoof 2015 challenge last year. We show that, by working with very standard feature extraction routines and with a minimum amount of fine-tuning, the networks can already reach very promising error rates, comparable to state-of-the-art approaches, paving the way to further investigations on the problem using deep RNN models.
A framework for analyzing software business models

In this study we explore the concept of business model and its essential elements in software business. There are no rigorous previous definitions or descriptions of the term business model in the context of software businesses in existing academic literature. Hence, a conceptual definition was found essential. Furthermore, there is a clear managerial need for constructs that help understanding and managing the bounded variations of different aspects of software businesses. We believe that decomposition of the business model concept is of help on that score, too. Based on cases representing different businesses in software industry, we explore business models for creating of a holistic view of business options based on schemes of things that the managers of our case companies found essential when describing their businesses. As a result of our study, we combine product development, marketing, sales, revenue logic, services and implementation into a cohesive framework describing the generic elements of business models in the software industry.
Online Political Discourse on UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Archbishop Desmond Tutu: The Domain of Atavistic Trolls or Ethical Beings?

Bishop Desmond Tutu's call, in 2013, for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes, led to much reporting and comment in the online pages of UK newspapers. At first sight, it was a topic that seemed particularly conducive to the attraction of trolling, flaming and Ebile in the comments posted below journalistic pieces. Both Tutu and Blair are controversial and divisive characters, and the context of the Iraq War seemed fertile ground for heated exchanges. A content analysis of 2,476 comments and 27,970 likes/dislikes offered a fairly substantial for identification of and evaluation of the value this discourse. In the event, trolling, flaming and Ebile were rare in the context of this political discourse, suggesting, at least a form of discourse closer to the ideals of Habermas.
Fuzzy Approach to the Management of the Environmental Contamination in the city of Santiago from Chile

The purpose of this paper is centred in to apply and to evaluate two techniques used by the Fuzzy Logic for the extraction of Fuzzy Rules. The two approaches are applied to the problem of the environmental contamination in the city of Santiago from Chile, using data that were registered by the monitoring stations located in diverse communes of the city of Santiago from Chile, which are part of the Net of Automatic Monitoring of Atmospheric Pollutants (MACAM). For this purpose, it was developed an application to find Fuzzy Rules from numeric examples, using the proposed algorithm by Wang & Mendel, and the proposed algorithm by Cordón y Herrera. The founded Fuzzy Rules are used to propose a Fuzzy Controller designed with the software Xfuzzy 3.0. Later on, it performs an analysis and evaluation of the obtained
Victimization, Theories of

This entry discusses four theories of victimization: “cycle of violence,” general strain theory, lifestyle/routine activity theory, and low self-control theory. The first two theories offer an explanation of how victimization influences and changes victims' lives and behavior; the latter two theories point out the risk factors of victimization. The entry also discusses the importance of future development in the theory of victimization. Keywords: crime; theories of victimization; victimization
Improving Asynchronous Backtracking for Dealing with Complex Local Problems

Distributed constraint satisfaction, in its most general acceptation, involves a collection of agents solving local constraint satisfaction subproblems, and a communication protocol between agents, in order to allow the distributed system converge to a global solution. The literature, however, often concentrates on the reduction where each agent owns exactly one variable, under the rationale that the corresponding algorithms are easily extended to the most general case. While this is mostly true, the specificities of agents handling local CSPs give way to numerous improvements, since a tradeoff becomes possible between local and distributed search effort. In this paper, we seek to improve nogood learning and solver cooperation in multi-variables distributed constraint satisfaction problems. We propose incremental improvements to be implemented on top of an ABT-like algorithm, and make experimental evaluations of the performance improvement they bring.
A new tool for generating realistic internet traffic in NS-3

This paper provides a contribution for NS-3 consisting of a new tool for generating Internet traffic. This tool is based on the Poisson Pareto Burst Process (PPBP), a Long-Range Dependent (LRD) model for network traffic. The PPBP model provides a simple and accurate network traffic generator that matches statistical properties of real-life IP networks. We have implemented this model in NS-3. We evaluate the computing performance of this PPBP implementation. Our results show a moderate overhead introduction in terms of memory needs and a roughly identical cost in CPU time as compared to a simple Poisson traffic generator.
Evaluation of Bone Tissue Formation in a Flat Surface Attachment of a Bone Conduction Implant: A Pilot Study in a Sheep Model

The bone conduction implant (BCI) is a new bone conduction hearing device implanted under intact skin. The transducer has a flat direct contact with the mastoid part of the temporal bone, and no screws are used. The sound signal is transmitted from the external audio processor to the implant by means of magnetic induction. In this study, osseointegration of a flat passive BCI transducer dummy in sheep skulls was assessed using quantitative and qualitative histology as well as cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) and computed tomography (CT). The histology results were also related to the mechanical properties of the bone-to-implant interface. Eight months after the surgical implantation, histology sections of the bone close to the implant showed bone remodeling, compact bone and osseointegration. The histological findings corresponded well to the mechanical measurements indicating stiffer bone close to the implant and unaffected skull vibration transmission. Neither CBCT nor CT had enough resolution to visualize the bone-to-implant interface in detail. In this study, using an animal model, it is shown that a flat implant in contact with bone can be a feasible method for efficient vibration transmission to the skull bone.
RIO DE JANEIRO , BRASIL

A sífilis é uma doença de alta transmissibilidade e de evolução crônica, de incidência no Brasil e com distribuição mundial. É causada pela bactéria Treponema pallidum e as principais formas de transmissão são por via sexual e vertical em gestantes. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a incidência de sífilis na população do município de Bom Jesus do Itabapoana através de uma análise retrospectiva utilizando os dados de sífilis registrados entre janeiro de 2012 e dezembro de 2018 do Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação e da Secretaria Municipal de Saúde de Bom Jesus do Itabapoana. A análise revelou a doença sifilítica em 55 pacientes entre os 106 examinados. Concluiu-se que a sífilis é uma doença incidente no município em estudo e constitui um problema de Saúde Pública. Sugere-se que o serviço de saúde do município elabore estratégias para incentivar a prevenção e intervenção terapêutica a fim de minimizar a transmissão do agente etiológico da sífilis para novos hospedeiros.
Valproate Induced Agitation and Irritability in a Patient With Mania: Case Report

OZET: Bir manik hastada valproata bagli ajitasyon ve irritabilite: olgu sunumu Valproat duygudurum duzenleyici ozellikleri olan bir anti- konvulzan ilactir. Ayni zamanda ajitasyon, irritabilite ve durtusel saldirgan davranislar ile basa cikmak icin de kul- lanilir. Bu yazida 35 yasinda, bipolar bozuklugu olan ve valproat tedavisi sirasinda beklenenin tersine ajitasyon ve irritabilite gelisen bir olgunun sunumu amaclanmistir. Hastanin 10 yildir bipolar bozukluk tanisi vardi ve hastane- mize manik donemde yatirilmisti. Yatisinda oforik olsa da irritabilitesi yoktu. Valproat ve diazepam tedavisi baslandi. Yatisinin dorduncu gununde irritabilite, ajitasyon ve hos- tilite ortaya cikti. Gecmis saglik kayitlari incelendiginde onceden de valproat tedavisi sirasinda ajitasyon ve siddet gosterdigi saptandi. Valproatin kesilmesiyle ajitasyon ve irritabilite hizla duzeldi. Olgu lityum ile iki haftalik tedavi sonrasinda hastaneden remisyon ile taburcu edildi. Eger bir hastada valproat baslanmasindan sonra irritabilite ya da ajitasyon ortaya cikarsa ya da ajitasyon ve irritabiliteyi duzeltmek amaciyla valproat baslandiktan sonra durum daha da kotulesirse bunun valproatin yan etkisi olabilecegi akilda tutulmalidir.
Network Lifetime Analysis of AODV, DSR and ZRP at Different Network Parameters

Enhancement of network l is a key design criterion for most of the energy constrained networks as nodes are battery operated. In multi-hop wireless network, proper utilization of battery power is very much necessary to maintain network connectivity. If the battery power of a node drains quickly then its connectivity in its neighborhood will be l ost. So the study of network lifetime is very much crucial as compared to other network parameters. Considering this importancewe made an attempt to study the behaviour of three most common routing protocols in ad hoc network. Extensive simulations are done on AODV, DSR and ZRP to determine the network lifetime at different node mobility and at different network load. Simulation results suggestthat AODV is the most energy efficient protocol as compared to other.