Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Power Consumption Variation over Activation Functions

The power that machine learning models consume when making predictions can be affected by a model's architecture. This paper presents various estimates of power consumption for a range of different activation functions, a core factor in neural network model architecture design. Substantial differences in hardware performance exist between activation functions. This difference informs how power consumption in machine learning models can be reduced.
Effect of Platform Switching on Implant Crest Bone Stress: A Finite Element Analysis

Objectives:The purpose of this study was to investigate, in a model, the interaction phenomena of platform switching on the trans-cortical section of bone adjacent to an endosseous dental implant. Materials:A 2-dimensional finite element model was fabricated to analyze the bone-implant interactions under masticatory forces. Two abutment diameters, 4.5 mm representing platform switching and 5 mm representing a standard platform, were used in conjunction with a 5-mm diameter fixture. A 100-N static force was applied vertically (90 degrees) and obliquely (15 degrees) to the abutments. All models were obtained using a reverse engineering process with values obtained from other studies to create a hypothetical implant system that demonstrates basic implant features. Results:The standard platform model demonstrated a maximum crestal Von-Mises stress of 28 and 6.977 MPa under oblique and vertical load-ing, respectively. The platform switching model showed 27.43 and 6.502 MPa under oblique and vertical loading, respectively. This implies that a 10% reduction in abutment diameter results in a 2.04% and 6.81% decrease under oblique and vertical loading, respectively, in Von-Mises stress. The distribution pattern of forces was minimally altered between both abutment models, with a slightly more significant change in the vertical loading scenario. Conclusions:Results from this study showed the reduction of abutment diameter (i.e., platform switching) resulted in a measurable but minimal effect on Von-Mises stress in the crestal region of cortical bone. However, future clinical trials in this area are warranted before any firm conclusion is drawn.
Top angle control and vibration reduction of flexible marine risers

In this article, control of the flexible marine riser top angle and the reduction of forced vibration under a time-varying distributed load are considered using boundary control approach. A torque actuator is introduced in the upper riser package and a boundary control law is designed for riser angle control and vibration reduction with guaranteed closed-loop stability. The proposed controller is independent of system parameters, thus possesses stability robustness to variations in parameters. Numerical simulations with a worst case excitation are provided to verify the effectiveness of the approach presented.
Lesion Characteristics of Chronic Dysphagia in Patients With Supratentorial Stroke

Objective To analyze the relationship between brain lesion location and type of chronic dysphagia in patients with supratentorial stroke. Methods Data from 82 chronic stroke patients who underwent videofluoroscopic swallowing studies at >6 months after an initial stroke event were retrospectively analyzed. Delayed oral transit time, delayed pharyngeal transit time, and the presence of aspiration were extracted. A voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis was used to correlate types of dysphagia with specific brain lesions. Results VLSM identified several clusters of voxels that significantly correlated with type of dysphagia. Delayed oral transit time mainly correlated with lesions in the left inferior frontal lobe and precentral gyrus; delayed pharyngeal time mainly correlated with lesions in the right basal ganglia and corona radiate; and aspiration was mainly correlated with lesions in the putamen. Conclusion Understanding the association between lesion location and dysphagia in chronic stroke patients is an important first step towards predicting permanent dysphagia after stroke. Improved understanding of the neural correlates of dysphagia will inform the utility of interventions for its treatment and prevention after stroke.
A tungstate modification of the Golgi-Cox method.

Pieces of fresh nervous tissue 4-5 mm thick are put into the following solution: HgCl2, 1 gm; K2Cr2O7, 1 gm; K2CrO4, 0.8 gm; K2WO4 (or Na2WO4), 0.5 gm; distilled water 100 ml. They are kept undisturbed in the dark at room temperature for 20-30 days, then transferred to the following alkaline solution: LiOH (or NaOH), 1 gm; KNO3, 15 gm; distilled water, 100 ml. After 12-24 hr in this solution they are washed for 12-24 hr in several changes of distilled water. (If sodium hydroxide was used, 0.5 ml of acetic acid should be added per 100 ml of wash water.) Embedding in celloidin follows dehydration. Sections are dehydrated in 3 parts of absolute alcohol and 1 part of chloroform, cleared in iodobenzene and mounted with a cover slip using a mounting medium with a refractive index around 1.61. The use of tungstate improves the general results and allows especially successful impregnations in very young animals, when the usual technic fails.
From plant virology to vaccinology: The road less travelled

The beginning of my interest in science was when I became fascinated with chemistry at an early age, by helping test the pH of my primary school’s swimming pool: as a child in the Zambia of the mid-1960s, this was quite an important consideration, as I spent a large part of my leisure time in it! I went on to develop a keen interest in medical and other sciences, by way of voracious reading: our little library at home was soon exhausted, but the Lusaka Public Library held me for a while. An early exposure to science fiction by way of a family friend also started a passion that has not yet waned – and further exposure to science, by way of Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, RobertHeinlein, Arthur CClarke and other “hard science” exponents of SF. Senior school in England, Zambia and finally Zimbabwe cemented my desire to be a scientist, with an exposure to mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology at A-level – but it was biology that eventually won, due to the fact it was simply so much more interesting as a fact-rich environment, and biochemistry in particular. I took that interest to the University of Cape Town in 1974, where I quickly learned that I couldn’t do medicine or biology as I had registered too late, but that I could do botany. After an excruciatingly boring year during which I repeated much of my last year of school, doing maths, physics and chemistry, and managed to avoid learning too much about floral plant diversity or dissection, I discovered that now I could do medicine if I wanted to. I declined – I still hope this wasn’t a mistake – as biochemistry and chemistry were now beckoning, with microbiology as filler. Chemistry taught me an appreciation for stereochemistry, mechanism and molecular structure; biochemistry cemented the structure and molecule-as-mechanism basics – but surprisingly it was microbiology that really appealed to me, with glimpses of the different kinds of biology that could result from integrating the same sorts of molecules. This derailed my career plans somewhat, as I was locked into majoring in chemistry – and it now looked like I was going to have to do three majors, if I was to continue with microbiology. It ended up being no contest: given bacteriology with a whiff of immunology and virology in my first semester, I happily tossed biochemistry – and I have never looked back. I was also fortunate in having some inspirational teachers, one of whom – Marc van Regenmortel – I am still in professional contact with.
Social Spending and Automatic Stabilizers in the OECD

The macroeconomic literature on automatic stabilization tends to focus on taxes and dismiss the relevance of government expenditure except for unemployment compensation. Our results go sharply contrary to this view. We engage in an empirical analysis of 21 OECD countries from 1982 to 2003 and find that age- and health-related social expenditure as well as incapacity and sick benefits all react to the cycle in a stabilizing manner. While possibly new in the macro literature, this conforms to many results in studies in labour economics. The policy implications are broad since much previous analysis of discretionary fiscal policy rests on official figures for automatic stabilization. There are also major implications for efforts to incorporate automatic fiscal policy in simulation models. — Julia Darby and Jacques Melitz
Newer Endodontic irrigation devices: An update

The ultimate aim of endodontic therapy is thorough debridement of root canal system. The aim of this review is to give a brief description of endodontic irrigation devices and their efficacy in root canal therapy. Recently developed irrigation devices and their application mode also discussed. Mechanism of these devices and the phenomenon that governs the irrigation efficacy discussed briefly. 5 Irrigation allows for cleaning beyond what might be achieved by root canal instrumentation alone so it is an essential part of root canal debridement. Till date none of the irrigant posses ideal quality that is why in contemporary endodontic practice, dual irrigants such as sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or chlorhexidine (CHX) are often used as initial and final rinses to complement the shortcomings that are associated with the use of a single irrigant. Irrigants must be brought into direct contact with the entire canal wall surfaces for effective action particularly for the apical portions of small root canals. Various methods have been developed in order to provide effective delivery. These systems might be divided into 2 broad categories, manual agitation techniques and machine-assisted agitation devices. The objective of this review was to present an overview of contemporary irrigation methods available in endodontics. II. Manual irrigation techniques Manual irrigation system using needles is still widely accepted by both general practitioners and endodontists. In this technique the dispensing of an irrigant into a canal through needles/cannulas of variable gauges, either passively or with agitation. The agitation might be achieved by moving the needle up and down the canal space. The design of these needles can be closed-ended, side-vented channels. III. Max-i-probe
Hybrid Intelligent Method for Association Rules Mining Using Multiple Strategies

Association rules mining has attracted a lot of attention in the data mining community. It aims to extract the interesting rules from any given transactional database. This paper deals with association rules mining algorithms for very large databases and especially for those existing on the web. The numerous polynomial exact algorithms already proposed in literature processed the data sets of a medium-size in an efficient way. However, they are not capable of handling the huge amount of data in the web context where the response time must be very short. Moreover, the bio-inspired methods have proved to be paramount for the association rules mining problem. In this work, a new association rules mining algorithm based on an improved version of Bees Swarm Optimization and Tabu Search algorithms is proposed. BSO is chosen for its remarkable diversification process while tabu search for its efficient intensification strategy. To make the idea simpler, BSO will browse the search space in such a way to cover most of its regions and the local exploration of each bee is computed by tabu search. Also, the neighborhood search and three strategies for calculating search area are developed. The suggested strategies called (modulo, next, syntactic) are implemented and demonstrated using various data sets of different sizes. Experimental results reveal that the authors' approach in terms of the fitness criterion and the CPU time improves the ones that already exist.
Assignment of the Multifunctional NS 3 Protein of Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus during RNA Replication : an In Vivo and In Vitro Study

Studies on the replication of the pestivirus bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) were considerably facilitated by the recent discovery of an autonomous subgenomic BVDV RNA replicon (DI9c). DI9c comprises mainly the untranslated regions of the viral genome and the coding region of the nonstructural proteins NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B. To assess the significance of the NS3-associated nucleoside triphosphatase/helicase activity during RNA replication and to explore other functional features of NS3, we generated a repertoire of DI9c derivatives bearing in-frame mutations in different parts of the NS3 coding unit. Most alterations resulted in deficient replicons, several of which encoded an NS3 protein with an inhibited protease function. Three lesions permitted replication, though at a lower level than that of the wild-type RNA, i.e., replacement of the third position of the DEYH helicase motif II by either T or F and an insertion of four amino acid residues in the C-terminal part of NS3. While polyprotein proteolysis was found to be almost unaffected in these latter replicons, in vitro studies with the purified mutant NS3 proteins revealed a significantly impaired helicase activity for the motif II substitutions. NS3 with a DEFH motif, moreover, showed a significantly lower ATPase activity. In contrast, the C-terminal insertion had no negative impact on the ATPase/RNA helicase activity of NS3. All three mutations affected the synthesis of both replication products—negative-strand intermediate and progeny positive-strand RNA—in a symmetric manner. Unexpectedly, various attempts to rescue or enhance the replication capability of nonfunctional or less functional DI9c NS3 derivatives, respectively, by providing intact NS3 in trans failed. Our experimental data thus demonstrate that the diverse enzymatic activities of the NS3 protein—in particular the ATPase/RNA helicase—play a pivotal role even during early steps of the viral replication pathway. They may further indicate the C-terminal part of NS3 to be an important functional determinant of the RNA replication process.
Adaptive methods exploiting the time structure in EEG for self-paced brain-computer interfaces

Although self-paced Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is desirable from the users’ point of view, it brings about great technological challenges. This thesis aims to provide novel solutions to several important aspects in developing a realistic self-paced Electroencephalogram (EEG) based BCI. A Sequential Floating Forward Search (SFFS) based method is developed for feature selection, followed by two novel multi-objective optimization approaches to tackle the channel selection problem. The problem of non-stationarity of EEG data is handled by a novel unsupervised adaptive Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). The method involves a new unsupervised classification scheme for GMM that proved to be particularly useful for the onset detection problem in online BCIs. These new techniques were employed in a novel user interface especially designed to be a testbed for adaptive BCIs. Conditional Random Fields (CRF) are suggested as a novel probabilistic approach that can model the embedded temporal information in EEG. The new method is tested on a large set of 3-class synchronous BCI data. The temporal information in self-paced data are also modeled with three different methods based on CRF and Hidden Markov Model (HMM), leading to significant performance improvement over non-temporal methods.
Extracellular acid protease of Aspergillus oryzae grown on liquid media: multiple forms due to association with heterogeneous polysaccharides

The acid protease (EC 2.4.23.6) that is produced extracellularly when Aspergillus oryzae is grown on liquid media has been isolated and characterized. The enzyme was purified by precipitation with tannic acid, chromatography on Duolite A-2, and gel filtration on Sephadex G-100. The last step yielded four active components, with varying molecular weights ranging from 42,000 to 60,000. Two of them, designated E1 and E1a, with molecular weights of 60,000 and 55,000, respectively, were heterogeneous on isoelectric focusing, both giving at least three enzyme species with different isoelectric points, whereas the other two, E1b and E2, with molecular weights of 49,000 and 42,000, respectively, were essentially homogeneous. These four enzymes activated bovine pancreatic trypsinogen and had the same pH optima in the acid pH range. They had essentially the same amino acid composition and immunologically cross-reacted with each other. These catalytic, chemical, and immunological properties are similar to those of acid protease A1 and A2 from A. oryzae grown on solid bran media. Unlike acid protease from solid bran culture, which contains both carbohydrate-containing and the carbohydrate-free species, all of the four enzymes, E1, E1a, E1b, and E2, contained carbohydrate, ranging from 18.9 to 43% and comprising three hexoses, glucose, galactose, and mannose. The carbohydrate portions were polysaccharide in nature and heterogeneous with respect to both molecular weight and sugar composition, and at least a part of the carbohydrate was present in the form of homopolysaccharides such as galactan and mannan. These findings indicate that polysaccharide chains with different molecular weights and with different chemical compositions are apparently responsible for the microheterogeneity of acid protease.
Sojourn-probability-dependent H∞ control for networked switched systems under asynchronous switching

ABSTRACT This paper considers H∞ controller design for a class of networked switched discrete systems under asynchronous switching. The sojourn probability information – the probability of the switched systems staying in each subsystem – is first used to rebuild the networked switched systems. Also, a time-varying lag, depending on both the network-induced delays and switching signals, is taken into consideration between the switching instants of the controllers and systems model. By considering both sojourn probability information and asynchronous switching, a new kind of networked switched system model is proposed, wherein a set of random variables are proposed to describe the sojourn probabilities of the subsystems. Then, stability analysis and H∞ performance analysis under asynchronous switching are derived. It should be noted that the system performance depends not only on the time-varying lag, but also on the sojourn probabilities. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Identification of superheat of aluminum electrolytic cell based on computer vision and expert rule

In the aluminum electrolysis production process, the degree of superheat is an influential index of the whole process, reflecting the distribution of the physical field of the electrolytic cell, the current efficiency in the electrolytic production, and the lifespan of the electrolytic cell. Therefore, detection or identification of the superheat is significant for the production process. However, as the temperature detection of the primary crystal needs a long period off-line experiment, real-time measurement of superheat is still a problem beyond solution. Considering the strong link between the fire hole observation and superheat degree, a method of superheat degree identification based on computer vision technology and expert rules is proposed in this paper. First, the corner detection and the optical flow method are used to extract the fluctuation amplitude features from the flame hole video. Then, the color change feature is extracted according to the variation of the brightness value of the fire area of the sampling frame. Finally, some expert rules are developed to determine the degree of superheat. In this method, the computer vision technology is applied to superheat identification for the first time with valid verification by experimental results of superheat degree.
Molecular Epidemiology of HIV-1 Subtypes in Southern China

The driving forces of the HIV-1 epidemic in Guangxi, China were assessed by investigating virologic and epidemiologic data from a cohort of longitudinally followed injection drug users (IDUs) in Binyang and Pingxiang, major urban areas along 2 separate drug routes in the province. Sera and interview data were obtained in September and October of 2000. Sequence analysis of HIV-1 was performed on the gag-pol region (HXB2 nt 1850-3005) and C2 to V4 env (HXB2 nt 6704-7626). Sequence data demonstrated that 88% of the infections in Pingxiang were CRF01_AE, whereas 96% in Bin-yang were CRF08_BC. Three recently infected subjects in Pingxiang were infected with CRF08_BC, and 1 chronically infected subject had evidence of a recombinant virus. Intersubject distances were statistically greater for CRF01_AE-infected subjects than CRF08_BC-infected subjects for all regions except V4. The epidemic in Binyang is similar to previously described IDU-based epidemics, with a strong founder effect with little variation in V3. The epidemic in Pingxiang may have had multiple introductions of the CRF01_AE epidemic into the city and greater spread through sexual transmission, resulting in greater variation in V3 than typically seen in purely parenterally based epidemics.
Fuzzy Adaptive Disturbance-Observer-Based Robust Tracking Control of Electrically Driven Free-Floating Space Manipulator

This paper is concerned with the robust tracking control of an electrically driven free-floating space manipulator with internal parameter uncertainty and external disturbance. An adaptive disturbance-observer-based output feedback control is employed to provide a solution to the control problem, wherein the parameters are tuned online by using fuzzy logic systems to compensate for equivalent disturbance, and the stability condition of the closed-loop system is also derived. The suggested method does not require exact prior knowledge of the system and needs a few parameters to tune. The simulation results of a two-link electrically driven space manipulator show the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control scheme.
A stability-improved single-opamp third-order ΣΔ modulator by using a fully-passive noise-shaping SAR ADC and passive adder

A stability-improved single operational amplifier third-order ΣΔ modulator by using a fully-passive noise shaping SAR ADC as a quantizer is presented in this paper. One operational amplifier is shared to realize 2nd order noise shaping and an additional 1st order noise shaping is realized by a fully-passive technique in the quantizer. An additional switch and capacitor path is introduced to the operational amplifier in order to solve a potential instability issue during non-overlapped clock time slot. Meanwhile, a passive adder is used to realize an analog addition in front of the quantizer. Designed in a 65-nm 1P9M CMOS technology, the modulator gives a 75-dB SNDR with a signal bandwidth of 100 kHz and a sampling clock of 3.2 MHz. The prototype dissipates 45.8 μW with a FoM of 50 fJ/conv. -step when analog supply is 0.7 V and digital supply is 0.85 V.
International entrepreneurial fi rms in Chile : An exploratory pro fi le

a Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad del Desarrollo, Av. Plaza 680, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile b EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico c Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Departamento de Administración, Universidad de Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 257, Santiago, Chile d Facultad de Administración y Economía, Departamento de Contabilidad y Auditoría, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Alameda Lib. Bdo. O'Higgins, 3363 Santiago, Chile e Kingston Business School, Kingston University, Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT2 7 U.K.