Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship of Maternal Psychological Distress Classes to Later Mother-Infant Interaction, Home Environment, and Infant Development in Preterm Infants.

Latent class analyses can be used early in the postpartum period to identify mothers of preterm infants experiencing similar patterns of psychological distress symptoms, but whether these classes of mothers also differ in parental responses to their infants or in their infants' development is largely unknown. In this longitudinal multisite-repeated measures study, we evaluated the usefulness of three psychological distress classes (low distress, high depressive and anxiety symptoms, and extreme distress) in predicting mother-infant interactions, quality of home environment, and infant development in 229 mother-preterm infant pairs. Mothers completed psychological distress questionnaires at study entry; parent-infant interaction was recorded at 2 and 6 months of age corrected for prematurity; and infant developmental data were collected 12 months corrected age. Mothers in the extreme distress class engaged in more developmental stimulation at 2 months (β = .99, p < 0.01) and at 6 months (β = 1.38, p < .01) than mothers in the other classes and had better quality of home environment at 2 months (β = 2.52, p = .03). When not controlling for neurological insult, infants of mothers in the extreme distress class had poorer cognitive (β = -10.28, p = .01) and motor (β = -15.12, p < .01) development scores at 12 months corrected age than infants of mothers in the other distress classes, but after controlling for infant neurological insult, there were no differences in cognitive, motor, and language development based on maternal psychological distress class. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An Examination of Thermal Features’ Relevance in the Task of Battery-Fault Detection

Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), represented by lead-acid batteries, play an important role in various kinds of industries. They protect industrial technologies from being damaged by dangerous interruptions of an electric power supply. Advanced UPS monitoring performed by a complex battery management system (BMS) prevents the UPS from sustaining more serious damage due to its timely and accurate battery-fault detection based on voltage metering. This technique is very advanced and precise but also very expensive on a long-term basis. This article describes an experiment applying infrared thermographic measurements during a long term monitoring and fault detection in UPS. The assumption that the battery overheat implies its damaged state is the leading factor of our experiments. They are based on real measured data on various UPS battery sets and several statistical examinations confirming the high relevancy of the thermal features with mostly over 90% detection accuracy. Such a model can be used as a supplement for lead-acid battery based UPS monitoring to ensure their higher reliability under significantly lower maintenance costs.
Is Alcohol Drinking Associated with Renal Impairment in the General Population of South Korea?

Background/Aims: We examined relationships between the average amount of daily alcohol intake, drinking patterns, and renal dysfunction among South Korean adultsaged ≥ 20 years. Methods: The analysis used data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), a cross-sectional survey of Korean civilians, conducted from January to December 2011. In this study, a sample of 5,251 participants was analysed. Results: Compared with abstinence, the odds ratio for a decrease in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 0.14 (95% CI: 0.01-0.91) among heavy drinkers, and 0.42 (95% CI: 0.17-0.98) among binge drinkers and the association between the amount of mean daily alcohol intake, binge-drinking status and a likelihood of reduced eGFR value showed significant trends (p = 0.041 and p = 0.038, respectively), after adjusting for age, smoking status, amount of physical activity, morbid hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidaemia, anaemia and body mass index. There was no significant association between alcohol consumption and the urine albumin to creatinine ratio in men, or between alcohol consumption and renal dysfunction in women. Conclusions: Alcohol consumption was inversely associated with a reduction in eGFR in Korean men. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously, given the other harmful effects related to alcohol consumption, especially heavy and binge drinking.
Patterns and trends in food portion sizes, 1977-1998.

CONTEXT While general consensus holds that food portion sizes are increasing, no empirical data have documented actual increases. OBJECTIVE To determine trends in food portion sizes consumed in the United States, by eating location and food source. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Nationally representative data from the Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (1977-1978) and the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (1989-1991, 1994-1996, and 1998). The sample consists of 63 380 individuals aged 2 years and older. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE For each survey year, average portion size consumed from specific food items (salty snacks, desserts, soft drinks, fruit drinks, french fries, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pizza, and Mexican food) by eating location (home, restaurant, or fast food). RESULTS Portion sizes vary by food source, with the largest portions consumed at fast food establishments and the smallest at other restaurants. Between 1977 and 1996, food portion sizes increased both inside and outside the home for all categories except pizza. The energy intake and portion size of salty snacks increased by 93 kcal (from 1.0 to 1.6 oz [28.4 to 45.4 g]), soft drinks by 49 kcal (13.1 to 19.9 fl oz [387.4 to 588.4 mL]), hamburgers by 97 kcal (5.7 to 7.0 oz [161.6 to 198.4 g]), french fries by 68 kcal (3.1 to 3.6 oz [87.9 to 102.1 g]), and Mexican food by 133 kcal (6.3 to 8.0 oz [178.6 to 226.8 g]). CONCLUSION Portion sizes and energy intake for specific food types have increased markedly with greatest increases for food consumed at fast food establishments and in the home.
Implementation and test of an online embedded grid impedance estimation technique for PV inverters

New and stronger power quality requirements are issued due to the increased amount of photovoltaic (PV) installations. In this paper different methods are used for continuous grid monitoring in PV inverters. By injecting a noncharacteristic harmonic current and measuring the grid voltage response it is possible to evaluate the grid impedance directly by the PV inverter, providing a fast and low-cost implementation. This principle theoretically provides an accurate result of the grid impedance but when using it in the context of PV integration, different implementation issues strongly affect the quality of the results. This paper also presents a new impedance estimation method including typical implementation problems encountered, and it also presents adopted solutions for online grid impedance measurement. Practical tests on an existing PV inverter validate the chosen solution.
C/EBP homologous protein–induced loss of intestinal epithelial stemness contributes to bile duct ligation–induced cholestatic liver injury in mice

Impaired intestinal barrier function promotes the progression of various liver diseases, including cholestatic liver diseases. The close association of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) with inflammatory bowel disease highlights the importance of the gut‐liver axis. It has been reported that bile duct ligation (BDL)‐induced liver fibrosis is significantly reduced in C/EBP homologous protein knockout (CHOP−/−) mice. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In the current study, we demonstrate that BDL induces striking and acute hepatic endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress responses after 1 day, which return to normal after 3 days. No significant hepatocyte apoptosis is detected 7‐14 days following BDL. However, the inflammatory response is significantly increased after 7 days, which is similar to what we found in human PSC liver samples. BDL‐induced loss of stemness in intestinal stem cells (ISCs), disruption of intestinal barrier function, bacterial translocation, activation of hepatic inflammation, M2 macrophage polarization and liver fibrosis are significantly reduced in CHOP−/− mice. In addition, intestinal organoids derived from CHOP−/− mice contain more and longer crypt structures than those from wild‐type (WT) mice, which is consistent with the upregulation of stem cell markers (leucine‐rich repeat‐containing G‐protein‐coupled receptor 5, olfactomedin 4, and SRY [sex determining region Y]‐box 9) and in vivo findings that CHOP−/− mice have longer villi and crypts as compared to WT mice. Similarly, mRNA levels of CD14, interleukin‐1β, tumor necrosis factor‐alpha, and monocyte chemotactic protein‐1 are increased and stem cell proliferation is suppressed in the duodenum of patients with cirrhosis. Conclusion: Activation of ER stress and subsequent loss of stemness of ISCs plays a critical role in BDL‐induced systemic inflammation and cholestatic liver injury. Modulation of the ER stress response represents a potential therapeutic strategy for cholestatic liver diseases as well as other inflammatory diseases. (Hepatology 2018;67:1441‐1457).
Synthesizing realistic neural population activity patterns using Generative Adversarial Networks

The ability to synthesize realistic patterns of neural activity is crucial for studying neural information processing. Here we used the Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) framework to simulate the concerted activity of a population of neurons. We adapted the Wasserstein-GAN variant to facilitate the generation of unconstrained neural population activity patterns while still benefiting from parameter sharing in the temporal domain. We demonstrate that our proposed GAN, which we termed Spike-GAN, generates spike trains that match accurately the first- and second-order statistics of datasets of tens of neurons and also approximates well their higher-order statistics. We applied Spike-GAN to a real dataset recorded from salamander retina and showed that it performs as well as state-of-the-art approaches based on the maximum entropy and the dichotomized Gaussian frameworks. Importantly, Spike-GAN does not require to specify a priori the statistics to be matched by the model, and so constitutes a more flexible method than these alternative approaches. Finally, we show how to exploit a trained Spike-GAN to construct 'importance maps' to detect the most relevant statistical structures present in a spike train. Spike-GAN provides a powerful, easy-to-use technique for generating realistic spiking neural activity and for describing the most relevant features of the large-scale neural population recordings studied in modern systems neuroscience.
The design of a tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy setup for measuring salt additives in metal-halide lamps in micro-gravity

Disclaimer This document contains a student thesis (bachelor's or master's), as authored by a student at Eindhoven University of Technology. Student theses are made available in the TU/e repository upon obtaining the required degree. The grade received is not published on the document as presented in the repository. The required complexity or quality of research of student theses may vary by program, and the required minimum study period may vary in duration.
Apodised linear axicons

This paper presents design of the linear binary phase diffractive axicon with radially varying diffraction efficiency. The designed element was manufactured using the method based on the application of the High Energy Beam Sensitive (HEBS) glasses. The parameters of the produced axicon were measured showing close resemblance to the Bessel beam. The obtained results lead to the conclusion that the linear diffractive axicon with radially varying diffraction efficiency represents an asymptotic version of the Bessel beam and can be successfully used as a single element for producing focal segments of constant width and constant axial intensity.
Bearing Behavior of Joints in Pultruded Composites

Due to the increased use of pultruded composites for structural applications, understanding the bearing behavior of pultruded composites is important for effective structural designs. This paper reports on a comprehensive experimental and analytical study to characterize the influence of geometry and loading condition on the joint strength and failure mode in pultruded composites. The geometric parameters studied were specimen width, end distance, and hole diameter. The experimental study included compressive and tensile bearing tests. The results provide useful information for the structural design with such materials against joint failures. The experimental results for tensile failure load and failure mode are compared with predictions from the tensile, shear and (compressive) bearing strengths based on both average stress analysis and finite element method (FEM). The effect of hole size on the compressive bearing strength was analyzed and good correlation between predictions and test results was observed. The effect of further reinforcing the pultruded composites with a woven fabric was evaluated.
GFF Classifier for Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy in Retinal Images

The emerging situation in today’s world suggests diabetic retinopathy may be a major problem in the medical world. Diabetic retinopathy is dangerous because it cannot be identified in its earlier stages and leads to vision loss. Hence, detection of diabetic retinopathy in early stage is very much important. This paper focuses on Generalized Feed Forward Neural Network (GFFNN) to detect diabetic retinopathy in retinal images. In this paper the authors present the GFFNN as a classifier to classify retinal images as normal and abnormal. 64-point Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and 09 statistical parameters such as Entropy, Mean, Standard deviation, Average, Euler number, Contrast, Correlation, Energy and Homogeneity are extracted from fundus retinal images to form a feature vector. The feature vector is used to train and test the GFFNN. The training and cross validation recognition rate by the GFFNN are 100% and 95.45% respectively for detection of normal and abnormal retinal images. General Terms Neural Network, Classification of retinal images
Establishment of MilletDB: TNAU Released Millet Varieties with their Morphological Traits

Millets are annual grasses and grow well under the marginal conditions of soil fertility and moisture, which provide staple food for millions of people. Millets have strong, deep rooting systems and short life cycles. Breeding research in millets, habitually engages different species, cultivars, and varieties. This makes an immense challenge to maintain the different varieties and their identification characters. On account of this fact, the MilletDB clearly brings out the variations of different morphological traits of the TNAU released millet varieties and germplasm information about the pearl millet. MilletDB is an Internet-accessible database, which is designed by using the front-end language PHP and back-end as MySQL and is equipped with extensive search options. It is a user-friendly database and made publicly available, to improve the research and development of millet crops by making the wealth of available millet varieties.
Scaling leaf respiration with nitrogen and phosphorus in tropical forests across two continents

Summary Leaf dark respiration (R dark) represents an important component controlling the carbon balance in tropical forests. Here, we test how nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) affect R dark and its relationship with photosynthesis using three widely separated tropical forests which differ in soil fertility. R dark was measured on 431 rainforest canopy trees, from 182 species, in French Guiana, Peru and Australia. The variation in R dark was examined in relation to leaf N and P content, leaf structure and maximum photosynthetic rates at ambient and saturating atmospheric CO 2 concentration. We found that the site with the lowest fertility (French Guiana) exhibited greater rates of R dark per unit leaf N, P and photosynthesis. The data from Australia, for which there were no phylogenetic overlaps with the samples from the South American sites, yielded the most distinct relationships of R dark with the measured leaf traits. Our data indicate that no single universal scaling relationship accounts for variation in R dark across this large biogeographical space. Variability between sites in the absolute rates of R dark and the R dark : photosynthesis ratio were driven by variations in N‐ and P‐use efficiency, which were related to both taxonomic and environmental variability.
Robust Visual Localization with Dynamic Uncertainty Management in Omnidirectional SLAM

This work presents a robust visual localization technique based on an omnidirectional monocular sensor for mobile robotics applications. We intend to overcome the non-linearities and instabilities that the camera projection systems typically introduce, which are especially relevant in catadioptric sensors. In this paper, we come up with several contributions. First, a novel strategy for the uncertainty management is developed, which accounts for a realistic visual localization technique, since it dynamically encodes the instantaneous variations and drifts on the uncertainty, by defining an information metric of the system. Secondly, an epipolar constraint adaption to the omnidirectional geometry reference is devised. Thirdly, Bayesian considerations are also implemented, in order to produce a final global metric for a consistent feature matching between images. The resulting outcomes are supported by real data experiments performed with publicly-available datasets, in order to assess the suitability of the approach and to confirm the reliability of the main contributions. Besides localization results, real visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) comparison experiments with acknowledged methods are also presented, by using a public dataset and benchmark framework.
Cross-Layer Multi-Hopping Scheme for Efficient and Reliable Transmission in Fading Environment

Multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks suffer from temporary link error due to fading. In order to improve packet transmission reliability and achieve efficient transmission in fading environment, this paper proposes an integrated dynamic multi-hopping scheme based on a cross-layer approach and cognitive behavior of local nodes. The scheme provides two important functions, temporary bypassing and dynamic shortcut, to achieve the goals. The proposed MAC protocol avoids their conflict by giving priority to the shortcut path over the bypass and original passes. Moreover, the transmission reliability can be further improved by triple-path diversity. Packet transmission success probability and average transmission delay were analyzed and evaluated for a basic two-hop model. The results show that the proposed scheme can achieve better transmission reliability with reduced transmission delay, compared with previous multi-hop schemes.
Association of Job Stressors With Panic Attack and Panic Disorder in a Working Population in Japan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: This study aimed to investigate associations of job stressors with panic attack (PA) and panic disorder (PD) among Japanese workers. Methods: A cross-sectional online questionnaire survey was conducted of 2060 workers. Job strain, effort/reward imbalance, and workplace social support were measured by the job content questionnaire and effort/reward imbalance questionnaire. These variables were classified into tertiles. PA/PD were measured by self-report based on the mini international neuropsychiatric interview (MINI). Multiple logistic regression was conducted, adjusting for demographic, lifestyle, and health-related covariates. Results: Data from 1965 participants were analyzed. Adjusted odds ratio (OR) of PA/PD was significantly greater for the group with high effort/reward imbalance compared with the group with low effort/reward imbalance (ORs, 2.64 and 2.94, respectively, both P < 0.05). Conclusion: This study found effort/reward imbalance was associated with having PA/PD among Japanese workers.
The relationship between cognitive function and non-prescribed therapy use in older adults

Objectives: To examine the association of cognitive function with use of non-prescribed therapies for managing acute and chronic conditions, and to determine whether use of non-prescribed therapies changes over time in relation to baseline cognitive function. Methods: 200 community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older were recruited from three counties in south central North Carolina. Repeated measures of daily symptoms and treatment were collected on three consecutive days at intervals of at least one month. The Mini-Mental State Examination, the primary cognitive measure, was collected as part of the baseline survey. Data were collected on the daily use of common non-prescribed therapies (use of prayer, ignore symptoms, over-the-counter remedies, food and beverage therapies, home remedies, and vitamin, herb, or supplements) on each of the three days of the follow-up interviews for up to six consecutive months. Results: Older adults with poorer cognitive function were more likely to pray and ignore symptoms on days that they experienced acute symptoms. Poorer cognitive function was associated with increased use of home remedies for treating symptoms related to existing chronic conditions. Conclusions: Cognitive function may play a role in why older patients use some non-prescribed therapies in response to acute and chronic conditions.
Carotid Atherosclerosis and a Reduced Likelihood for Lowered Cognitive Performance in a Canadian First Nations Population

Background: We investigated the associations among cardiovascular risk factors, carotid atherosclerosis and cognitive function in a Canadian First Nations population. Methods: Individuals aged ≥18 years, without stroke, nonpreg- nant and with First Nations status were assessed by the Trail Making Test Parts A and B. Results were combined into a Trail Making Test executive function score (TMT-exec). Doppler ultrasonography assessed carotid stenosis and plaque volume. Anthropometric, vascular and metabolic risk factors were assessed by interview, clinical examinations and blood tests. Results: For 190 individuals with TMT-exec scores, the median age of the population was 39 years. Compared to the reference group, individuals with elevated levels of left carotid stenosis (LCS) and total carotid stenosis (TCS) were less likely to demonstrate lowered cognitive performance [LCS, odds ratio (OR): 0.47, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.24–0.96; TCS, OR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.20–0.80]. No effect was shown for plaque volume. In structural equation modeling, we found that for every 1-unit change in the anthropometric factor in kg/m2, there was a 0.86-fold decrease in the percent of TCS (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Individuals with elevated levels of LCS and TCS were less likely to demonstrate lowered performance. There was some suggestion that TCS mediates the effect of anthropometric risk factors on cognitive function.