Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
All-InGaN Phosphorless White Light Emitting Diodes: An Efficiency Estimation

In this theoretical study we investigate the efficiency potential of monolithic white light emitting diodes (LEDs) that are free of wavelength-converting phosphors and are based solely on the InGaN material system. For that purpose we develop a numerical model that handles multiple active layers of different emission wavelength and takes photon reabsorption and -emission as well as internal non-radiative and optical losses into account. It is applied both to thin film structures as well as novel nanorod LEDs featuring disc-like active layers. In both cases, the active layers may either consist of multiple thin quantum wells or a single thick, bulk-like InGaN layer.
Roles of autophagy in cetuximab-mediated cancer therapy against EGFR

Cetuximab is an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-blocking antibody that is approved to treat several types of solid cancers in patients. We recently showed that cetuximab can induce autophagy in cancer cells by both inhibiting the class I phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PtdIns3K)/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway and activating the class III PtdIns3K (hVps34)/beclin 1 pathway. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between cetuximab-induced autophagy and apoptosis and the biological roles of autophagy in cetuximab-mediated cancer therapy. We found that cetuximab induced autophagy in cancer cells that show strong or weak induction of apoptosis after cetuximab treatment but not in those that show only cytostatic growth inhibition. Inhibition of cetuximab-induced apoptosis by a caspase inhibitor prevented the induction of autophagy. Conversely, inhibition of cetuximab-induced autophagy by silencing the expression of autophagy-related genes (Atg) or treating the cancer cells with lysosomal inhibitors enhanced the cetuximab-induced apoptosis, suggesting that autophagy was a protective cellular response to cetuximab treatment. On the other hand, cotreatment of cancer cells with cetuximab and the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin resulted in an Atg-dependent and lysosomal inhibition-sensitive death of cancer cells that show only growth inhibition or weak apoptosis after cetuximab treatment, indicating that cell death may be achieved by activating the autophagy pathway in these cells. Together, our findings may guide the development of novel clinical strategies for sensitizing cancer cells to EGFR-targeted therapy.
A nuclear translation-like factor eIF4AIII is recruited to the mRNA during splicing and functions in nonsense-mediated decay

In eukaryotes, a surveillance mechanism known as nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) degrades the mRNA when a premature-termination codon (PTC) is present. NMD requires translation to read the frame of the mRNA and detect the PTC. During pre-mRNA splicing, the exon–exon junction complex (EJC) is recruited to a region 20–24 nt upstream of the exon junction on the mature mRNA. The presence of a PTC upstream from the EJC elicits NMD. Eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (eIF4A) III is a nuclear protein that interacts physically or functionally with translation initiation factors eIF4G and eIF4B, respectively, and shares strikingly high identity with the initiation factors eIF4AI/II. Here we show that siRNA against eIF4AIII, but not against eIF4AI/II, inhibits NMD. Moreover, eIF4AIII, but not eIF4AI, is specifically recruited to the EJC during splicing. The observations that eIF4AIII is loaded onto the mRNA during splicing in the nucleus, has properties related to a translation initiation factor, and functions in NMD raises the possibility that eIF4AIII substitutes for eIF4AI/II during NMD.
Influence of serum selenium concentrations on hypertension: the Lipid Analytic Cologne cross-sectional study

Aims: Selenium is an antioxidant micronutrient with potential associations with hypertension. Few studies have investigated the association of serum selenium concentrations with blood pressure and hypertension in countries with low dietary selenium intake such as Germany, with inconsistent findings. Methods: We undertook a cross-sectional analysis of participants in the Lipid Analytic Cologne (LIANCO) cohort. To reduce potential confounding, we restricted the analysis to 792 participants who were never smokers, who did not use antihypertensive medications, and who did not have diabetes or known atherosclerotic disease. Hypertension was defined as blood pressure at least 140 and/or at least 90 mmHg. About half of the cohort was diagnosed as hypertensive. Selenium was measured by inductively coupled plasma-dynamic reaction cell-mass spectrometry (ICP-DRC-MS). Results: Mean ± standard deviation (SD) serum selenium concentration was 68 ± 32 &mgr;g/l. The multivariable adjusted differences (95% confidence intervals) in blood pressure levels comparing the highest (>91.9 &mgr;g/l) to the lowest (⩽42.8 &mgr;g/l) quartile of serum selenium were 5.2 (1.4 to 8.9), 2.8 (0.7 to 4.8), and 2.4 (−0.4 to 5.2) mmHg for systolic, diastolic, and pulse pressure, respectively (P for trend for all <0.003). The corresponding multivariable adjusted odds ratio for the presence of hypertension was 1.52 (0.98 to 2.36; P trend = 0.004). Conclusions: The data suggest that even in a population with very low serum selenium concentrations higher serum selenium concentrations are associated with higher blood pressure levels and a higher prevalence of hypertension. These findings call for careful evaluation of the effects of selenium on blood pressure endpoints in randomized clinical trials.
Frequency of Sperm DNA Fragmentation According to Selection Method: Comparison and Relevance of a Microfluidic Device and a Swim-up Procedure.

INTRODUCTION Multiple rounds of centrifugation or washing spermatozoa can cause sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF); however, a microfluidic approach to select spermatozoa does not require centrifugation. Reports have suggested that sperm sorting using a microfluidic device is an effective method to select good quality spermatozoa, however, it is not known whether it reduces sperm DNA damage. We investigated whether the frequency of SDF was affected by selection method during sperm processing. MATERIALS AND METHODS Semen samples from ten men with normal, oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia were split into two groups and sorted using a microfluidic device or by a swim-up method. Subsequently, semen parameters and SDF were measured and analyzed using paired or non-paired Student's t-tests. RESULTS For samples sorted by the microfluidic device (Sperm Sorter Qualis(®); Menicon, Kasugai, Japan) or the swim-up method, both showed a decrease in SDF. However, the decrease was more significant when the microfluidic device was used. CONCLUSION Sorting using the microfluidic device resulted in less SDF than did the swim-up method.
Collective Thomson Scattering Study Using Gyrotron in LHD

The collective Thomson scattering (CTS) is one of the most promising methods for evaluating the ion velocity distribution function. The study of CTS diagnostic has been started utilizing the gyrotron and antenna/transmission systems installed in LHD for high power local electron heating. One of the high power gyrotrons at 77 GHz is selected as a probing power source and a set of highly focused antenna system is used for the probing and receiving antenna. The specific feature of the system, receiver design are described and preliminary data obtained in for ECRH plasma in LHD are discussed.
Complexity of Hedonic Games with Dichotomous Preferences

Hedonic games provide a model of coalition formation in which a set of agents is partitioned into coalitions and the agents have preferences over which set they belong to. Recently, Aziz et. al. (2014) have initiated the study of hedonic games with dichotomous preferences, where each agent either approves or disapproves of a given coalition. In this work, we study the computational complexity of questions related to finding optimal and stable partitions in dichotomous hedonic games under various ways of restricting and representing the collection of approved coalitions. Encouragingly, many of these problems turn out to be polynomial-time solvable. In particular, we show that an individually stable outcome always exists and can be found in polynomial time. We also provide efficient algorithms for cases in which agents approve only few coalitions, in which they only approve intervals, and in which they only approve sets of size 2 (the roommates case). These algorithms are complemented by NP-hardness results, especially for representations that are very expressive, such as in the case when agents' goals are given by propositional formulas.
Quality of life and radiotherapy complications of Chinese nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients at different 3DCRT.

PURPOSE the study aimed to compare the quality of life (QOL) and radiotherapy complications among Chinese nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients at different 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) stages adjusting for other variables. METHODS 511 NPC patients at different 3DCRT stages were enrolled. They were interviewed regarding SF-36, complications and socio-demographic variables and cancer- or treatment- related variables. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) based on SF-36, complications scores as dependent variables, 3DCRT stages as independent variables, and other variables as covariate were established. RESULTS The influencing factors of PCS included 3DCRT stages and age group. The influencing factors of MCS included 3DCRT stages and income. Most QOL scores of NPC patients were significantly associated with 3DCRT stage, after accounting for other variables. QOL scores of the patients receiving 3DCRT were the lowest, QOL scores of people after 3DCRT gradually increased. PCS scores of people greater than 5 years after 3DCRT was improved to or even better than the level before 3DCRT. The complications with significantly different scores of patients at different 3DCRT status included xerostomia, throat ache, hypogeusia, caries, hearing loss, snuffles. CONCLUSIONS Clinicians should pay more attention to older NPC patients and patients with lower income. When patients receive 3DCRT, measures should be taken to reduce radiation injury to improve the patients' QOL.
Statistical Voice Conversion with WaveNet-Based Waveform Generation

This paper presents a statistical voice conversion (VC) technique with the WaveNet-based waveform generation. VC based on a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) makes it possible to convert the speaker identity of a source speaker into that of a target speaker. However, in the conventional vocoding process, various factors such as F 0 extraction errors, parameterization errors and over-smoothing effects of converted feature trajectory cause the modeling errors of the speech waveform, which usually bring about sound quality degradation of the converted voice. To address this issue, we apply a direct waveform generation technique based on a WaveNet vocoder to VC. In the proposed method, ﬁrst, the acoustic features of the source speaker are converted into those of the target speaker based on the GMM. Then, the waveform samples of the converted voice are generated based on the WaveNet vocoder conditioned on the converted acoustic features. In this paper, to investigate the modeling accuracies of the converted speech waveform, we compare several types of the acoustic features for training and synthesizing based on the WaveNet vocoder. The experimental re-sults conﬁrmed that the proposed VC technique achieves higher conversion accuracy on speaker individuality with comparable sound quality compared to the conventional VC technique.
Thematic Concentration and Vocabulary Richness

The contribution investigates a relation between two stylometric features with promising results in text classification: thematic concentration and vocabulary richness. Namely secondary thematic concentration (STC), moving average type-token ratio (MATTR), and repeat rate (RRMC) are analysed. The main aim is to test the hypothesis that vocabulary richness negatively correlates with thematic concentration. The research is based on a corpus of more than 900 English texts from various genres. This study follows up a similar analysis (Čech 2016) which investigated Czech texts.
Observations on the inadequately excised basal cell carcinomas

We studied 43 cases of reexcised skin where a diagnosis of “inadequately excised basal cell carcinoma” was made at the initial excision. Only 3 cases (7%) revealed microscopic residual tumor. Prior studies have shown a recurrence rate as high as 35% for “inadequately excised basal cell cancers. ” Possible reasons for relatively low incidence of residual tumor in the reexcised specimens are discussed.
The geometric interval type-2 fuzzy logic approach in robotic mobile issue

Recently type-2 Fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) have demonstrated their competence in treating vagueness in real world dynamic systems. But, in the last few years, new trends and theory in Fuzzy Logic have been appeared, proposing the geometric type-2 Fuzzy logic approach. The main idea of this approach was to model fuzzy logic sets using computational geometry providing by this more accurate results and better performance in treating vagueness. Throughout this paper, we study the effect of the geometric approach in robotic mobile issue. We propose two controllers: a geometric interval type-2 fuzzy logic local avoiding obstacles controller and a geometric interval type-2 fuzzy logic wall following controller. The obtained results are presented and are discussed. The geometric type-2 FLSs provide good results…
Hippocampal Blood Flow Is Increased After 20 min of Moderate-Intensity Exercise

Abstract Long-term exercise interventions have been shown to be a potent trigger for both neurogenesis and vascular plasticity. However, little is known about the underlying temporal dynamics and specifically when exercise-induced vascular adaptations first occur, which is vital for therapeutic applications. In this study, we investigated whether a single session of moderate-intensity exercise was sufficient to induce changes in the cerebral vasculature. We employed arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging to measure global and regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) before and after 20 min of cycling. The blood vessels’ ability to dilate, measured by cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) to CO2 inhalation, was measured at baseline and 25-min postexercise. Our data showed that CBF was selectively increased by 10–12% in the hippocampus 15, 40, and 60 min after exercise cessation, whereas CVR to CO2 was unchanged in all regions. The absence of a corresponding change in hippocampal CVR suggests that the immediate and transient hippocampal adaptations observed after exercise are not driven by a mechanical vascular change and more likely represents an adaptive metabolic change, providing a framework for exploring the therapeutic potential of exercise-induced plasticity (neural, vascular, or both) in clinical and aged populations.
Exploration of new drug-like inhibitors for serine/threonine protein phosphatase 5 of Plasmodium falciparum: a docking and simulation study

Protein phosphorylation is an important mechanism that implicates in physiology of any organism including parasitic protozoa. Metallic protein Ser/Thr protein phosphatase 5 (PP5) controls various cellular signaling pathways of Plasmodium falciparum. The structure and inhibitory mechanism of PP5 in P. falciparum is not known. In fact, no experimental structural data are available for P. falciparum Ser/Thr protein phosphatase 5 (PfPP5) till date. Hence, we have proposed computer-generated model of catalytic subunit of PfPP5 and its inhibitory mechanism was analyzed. A set of 42 known natural inhibitors of protein phosphate family were docked against metal-binding catalytic site of PfPP5 and we found that cantharidin and its derivatives shows better binding energy among them. Similarity search was performed by taking these compounds as lead compounds against PubChem and ChemBank. The search result provides 3703 similar compounds; out of which 2245 qualified the Lipinski rule of five. Further, virtual screening of these compounds was performed and selected top 25 were selected on the basis of binding energy. In continuation, rigid and flexible docking of these screened compounds was performed to get the insight of interactions. Finally, top 5 compounds were verified for ADMET properties, and then, all are subjected to MD simulations for 25 ns in order to validate their stability. Compounds CBI: 3554182, CID: 23561913, and CID: 21168680 showed most stable binding, although some of hydrogen bonds pairing varied throughout simulation. These finding would be helpful to the medicinal chemists for the development of antimalarial drugs to combat this deadly disease.
Predicting Publication Inclusion for Diagnostic Accuracy Test Reviews Using Random Forests and Topic Modelling

Finding all relevant publications to perform a systematic review can be a time consuming task, especially in the field of diagnostic test accuracy. Therefore, the CLEF eHealth lab ‘technologically assisted reviews in empirical medicine’ was established to create a basis of comparison between various methods. In this paper we describe a method submitted to the lab. This method consists of a topic model used to extract features and a random forest to classify the relevant papers. Classifier performance shows and average decrease of 33.3% in workload (i.e., documents to read) when aiming for a 95% recall and 24.9% for 100% recall. However, there is a large variety in workload reduction (79.3% to 0.9%) between the diagnostic test accuracy reviews.
Characterization of natural organic matters using flow field-flow fractionation and its implication to membrane fouling

ABSTRACT Transport and deposition characteristics of natural organic matter (NOM) are systematically investigated using flow field-flow fractionation (Fl-FFF) at various chemical and physical conditions. Humic acid (HA) was chosen as model organic foulants. Prior to Fl-FFF analysis, HA was fractionated by membranes with different molecular weight cut-offs. To elucidate physicochemical factors affecting the deposition and transport characteristics of organic foulants, various concentrations of NaCl (i.e. up to seawater level) and CaCl2 were employed as carrier solutions in Fl-FFF. Each fractionated NOM showed different transport and deposition characteristics with respect to the chemical and physical conditions employed during Fl-FFF analysis. When the total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration increased, there was more significant variation in the retention time for large NOM fractions compared with small NOM fractions. This means that the transport and deposition tendency of the larger NOM fractions vari.
A COMPARISON BETWEEN DEFAULT EGS4 AND EGS4 WITH BOUND COMPTON CROSS SECTIONS WHEN SCATTERING OCCURS IN BONE AND FAT

Abstract—Computer simulation packages are important tools in understanding how radiation interacts with matter. EGS4 is a photon/electron Monte Carlo transport program that is employed in the health/medical physics field. Due to its high energy roots, the default version of EGS4 treats all electrons as unbound and therefore uses the Klein-Nishina cross section formula to determine Compton scattering angle distributions and the probability of Compton scattering through the branching ratio. Researchers have created improvements to EGS4 that account for the bound Compton cross section as well as other scattering properties. Numerical experiments were performed on both the default code and modified EGS4 to examine output differences in low Z materials such as fat and bone. Four incident photon energies were considered. At higher energies (500 keV and 1 MeV) the default and modified EGS4 codes produced results within 2&sfgr; of one another. At 50 and 100 keV differences in scattering angle distribution and branching ratio values were found. In addition, the number of photoelectric absorptions and Compton scatters were also different at these energies.
Feasibility of assessing the needs of stroke patients after six months using the GM-SAT

Objective: To investigate the feasibility of administering the Greater Manchester Stroke Assessment Tool (GM-SAT), a structured evidence-based needs assessment tool, in a community setting and its acceptability to stroke patients and their carers. Setting: Community stroke services. Subjects: One hundred and thirty-seven stroke patients at six months post hospital discharge with no communication or cognitive difficulties residing in their own homes. Intervention: Patients’ needs were assessed by information, advice and support (IAS) coordinators from the UK Stroke Association using the GM-SAT. Main measures: Number and nature of unmet needs identified and actions required to address these; patient/carer feedback; and IAS coordinator feedback. Results: The mean number of unmet needs identified was 3 (min 0, max 14; SD 2.5). The most frequently identified unmet needs related to fatigue (34.3%), memory, concentration and attention (25.5%), secondary prevention non-lifestyle (21.9%) and depression (19.0%). It was found that 50.4% of unmet needs could be addressed through the provision of information and advice. Patients/carers found the assessment process valuable and IAS coordinators found the GM-SAT easy to use. Conclusions: Results demonstrate that the GM-SAT is feasible to administer in the community using IAS coordinators and is acceptable to patients and their carers, as well as staff undertaking the assessments. Further research is needed to determine whether the application of the GM-SAT at six months improves outcomes for patients.
New topology to reduce leakage current in three-phase transformerless grid-connected photovoltaic inverters

Three phase converters are favorable for high power grid connected systems. In photovoltaic (PV) application, it is possible to remove the transformer from the PV system in order to reduce size, losses, and cost; and improve the efficiency. In other hand, presence of the parasitic capacitor between the panel's metal frame and cells causes the leakage current issue. The leakage current increases current harmonics injected into the utility grid, the radiated and conducted electromagnetic interference, and losses. In this paper, a novel grid-connected inverter topology with an optimum modulation technique is proposed to address leakage current issue. The proposed topology also improves output current THD in three-phase transformerless PV inverters. Moreover, the proposed topology is compared by traditional three phase inverter in terms of common mode leakage current and output current THD. In reference to MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation results, the proposed topology is able to reduce the common mode ground leakage current and improve the output current THD by 2.17%.
FCM-BPSO : ENERGY EFFICIENT TASK BASED LOAD BALANCING IN CLOUD COMPUTING

Virtual machine (VM) migration is a methodology used for attaining the system load balancing in a cloud environment by transferring the one VM from one physical host to another host. In this paper, we plan to migrate the extra tasks from overloaded VM to suitable VM instead of migrating the entire overloaded VM. In order to select the host VMs, a FCM clustering algorithm has been used to group the similar kind of host VMs. Once the VMs identified as overloaded, then the corresponding candidate VMs are found using the FCM clustering algorithm. Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) methodology has been used for selecting the host VMs from the set of candidate VMs based on multi-objective fitness function, which includes task transferring time, task execution time and energy consumption. By allocating the extra task from the overloaded VMs to the proper VMs, we achieved the load balancing in the cloud environment. The implementation of proposed methodology FCM-BPSO has been done using CloudSim tool and comparative analysis done to evaluate the FCM-BPSO method with a traditional load balancing algorithm in terms of energy consumption and time.