Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Etude théorique de la translocation de biomolécules à travers une membrane fine

Afin de faciliter le sequencage des genomes, une troisieme generation de systemes de sequencage est necessaire. La translocation de biomolecules est le phenomene cle mis en jeu dans l'optique d'un sequencage par nanopore. Nous nous sommes interesse a ce phenomene avec une approche a la fois theorique et numerique. Dans le cadre de nos travaux, nous avons tout d'abord elabore un modele dit gros grain de polymere structure (presentant une structure proche de celle de l'ADN) adapte a une etude par dynamique moleculaire. Apres avoir verifie la pertinence de notre modele avec les lois de la physique statistique des polymeres, nous nous sommes concentres sur la translocation. Nous avons revisite le cas standard d'un nanopore au sein d'une membrane fixe et propose un modele theorique dans le cas de la traction du polymere. L'arrivee des membranes fines, cles du succes d'un eventuel sequencage non destructif par nanopore entraine de nouvelles interactions avec la membrane qui n'ont pas encore ete etudiees. Nous presentons la premiere etude numerique de grande ampleur sur ses interactions. Nos resultats permettent d'etudier l'influence des vibrations, de la deformabilite et de la flexibilite de la membrane.
Parvovirus B19 infection in pediatric solid‐organ and bone marrow transplantation

The clinical significance of parvovirus B19 infection in pediatric solid-organ and bone marrow transplanted patients is unclear. The overall prevalence of parvovirus B19 infection in these patients is about 1-2% during the first year after transplantation. The most common symptom is anemia, but leukopenia and thrombocytopenia have also been observed. Rare cases of hepatic dysfunction, myocarditis, vasculitis and respiratory failure have also been reported. Whereas serology is of limited value around the time of transplantation, it is recommended that a search for B19 DNA is included in first-line investigations in any transplanted patient with unexplained anemia. Specific antiviral therapy is not available, however, intravenous immunoglobulin produces rapid improvement in most cases. Although relatively rare, the severe complications following parvovirus B19 infection in the transplant setting can be avoided by early diagnosis and treatment.
Delay-Based Congestion Avoidance for QoS Provisioning in Wired/Wireless Networks

With the emergence of high bandwidth-delay product and heterogeneous wired / wireless networks, the standard TCP appears to be too conservative to offer reasonable performance. The use of parallel TCP connections has been suggested in such environments. We have demonstrated that, with the same level of aggressiveness, this approach can outperform the single-connection based approach. However, this approach also introduces new problems: the complexity of managing multiple connections and its performance sensitive to the number of the connections in use. This paper presents a few methods to overcome these problems. In particular, we propose a novel method using a delay-based Congestion Avoidance (CA) algorithm with multiple connections. This method is not sensitive to the number of the connections in use. We also suggest using a smaller number of connections to emulate the behaviours of a number of standard TCP connections, in order to reduce the complexity of connection management.
Research laboratory for grid-integration of distributed renewable energy resources - Integration analysis of DERs -

The growing amount of electric energy generated from distributed or decentralized energy resources (DER), mainly of renewables, requires their appropriate grid integration. Measurements at downscaled systems in a laboratory environment are a time- and cost-efficient way to investigate grid-integration of distributed renewable energy resources. These renewable power sources have special characteristics as they are fluctuating, time-and locally-dependent and most of the feed in is by means of a converter. Moreover the properties of the electrical mains, amplitude and impedance, are also time dependent. These properties have to be emulated for the measurement. A dedicated laboratory test-bench has been developed. Here an overview on the self developed laboratory special systems and some exemplary analysis' of the grid integration of DERs by measurement on this laboratory test-bench are presented. These are the performance of DERs at low voltage, application of FACTs to support this performance, analyzing of PLLs at distorted voltage and grid adaptive control of DERs. A perspective application for a micro grid is presented.
Value Creation in Digital Application Marketplaces: A Developers' Perspective

Digital application marketplaces are increasingly relevant for digital platform owners seeking to reap the benefits of distributing, brokering, and operating applications by third-party developers. Owners of such marketplaces have two vital goals: address the needs of heterogeneous end-users and attract third-party developers. A key element in simultaneously accommodating these goals is value creation. However, while there is emerging literature on digital application marketplaces, little empirical evidence exits about the value creation process for and by application developers. Drawing on a research study of third-party developers, we synthesize the value creation perspective and digital platforms literature to develop an understanding of value creation in digital application marketplaces from the perspective of third-party developers. Our study identifies and explores six different value sources and their associated value creation and realization. In doing this, our research extends and complements existing digital platform literature and contributes new knowledge about new forms of value creation.
Novel “Glove” Access Port for Single Port Surgery in Right Hemicolectomy: A Pilot Study

The trend of single port surgery is increasing recently, and it is technically feasible for right hemicolectomy. However, the operation requires special and expensive access port for the insertion of the instruments. Day et al reported the use of a novel “glove” access port for right hemicolectomy in this pilot study. Four single port right hemicolectomies were performed by using this access port. The access port was found to be user-friendly and durable. No adverse outcome was associated with this access port. This “glove” access port is a suitable device for single port right hemicolectomy.
Casper: Space Exploration through Continuous Planning

The most interesting places can often be the most dangerous ones, and space exploration is no exception. The dynamic surfaces of comets, the turbulent atmospheres of the gas giants, and the hypothesized subsurface ocean of Europa all call for exploration, and are all very risky for on-site robotic explorers. The Casper (continuous activity, scheduling, planning, execution, and replanning) software system provides critical reasoning capabilities to robotic explorers. To show how it works, we first describe Casper's internal workings and then look at the Three Corner Sat and the Autonomous Sciencecraft Constellation missions, highlighting Casper's contributions to each.
Four Archetypes: Mother, Rebirth, Spirit, Trickster

The concept of the archetype is crucial to Jung's radical interpretation of the human mind. Jung believed that every person partakes of a universal or collective unconscious that persists through generations. The origins of the concept can be traced to his very first publication in 1902 and it remained central to his thought throughout his life. As well as explaining the theoretical background behind the idea, in Four Archetypes Jung describes the four archetypes that he considers fundamental to the psychological make-up of every individual: mother, rebirth, spirit and trickster. Exploring their role in myth, fairytale and scripture, Jung engages the reader in discoveries that challenge and enlighten the ways we perceive ourselves and others.
A Review of Mining High Utility Itemsets

Recently, high utility pattern or itemset mining has become the most important research issues in data mining. In high utility itemset mining, the profit values for every item are considered. Generating high utility itemsets from a set of transactions in horizontal data format is a common practice. We hereby present the study of issues related to the different structures used and algorithms for mining the high utility itemsets, so that the astute reader would apprehend the various techniques used in mining high utility itemsets. Keywords— data mining; frequent itemset; high utility itemset; horizontal data format; vertical database layout.
Algoritmo para indução de árvores de classificação para dados desbalanceados

FRIZZARINI, Cláudio. Algorithm for Induction of Classification Trees for Unbalanced Data. 2013. 95 p. Dissertation (Master in Information Systems) – School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, 2013. Data mining techniques and, particularly, machine learning methods, have become very popular in recent years. Many decision support information systems and business intelligence tools have incorporated and made intensive use of such techniques. Top-Down Induction of Decision Trees Algorithms (TDIDT) appear among the most popular tools for supervised learning. One of their advantages with respect to other methods is that a decision tree is frequently easy to be interpreted by the domain specialist, precluding the necessity of previous knowledge about the induction algorithms. On the other hand, several typical classification problems involve unbalanced data (heterogeneous class prevalence). In such cases, algorithms based on global error minimization tend to induce classifiers with low error rates over the high prevalence classes, but with high error rates on the low prevalence classes. This phenomenon may be critical when low prevalence classes represent rare or important events, like the presence of a severe disease or the default in a loan. In order to address this problem, several TDIDT algorithms require the calibration of ad-hoc parameters, or even data balancing techniques. These approaches usually make data mining tools more complex for less expert users, if they are ever available. In this work, we propose a new TDIDT algorithm for problems involving unbalanced data. This algorithm, currently named DDBT (Dynamic Discriminant Bounds Tree), uses a node partition criterion which is not based on absolute class frequencies, but compares the prevalence of each class in the current node with those in the original training sample. For terminal nodes labeling, the algorithm assigns the class with maximum ration between the relative prevalence in the node and the original prevalence in the training sample. Such characteristics provide more flexibility for the treatment of unbalanced data-sets, yielding a higher equilibrium among the error rates in the classes.
Experimental manipulations of pain catastrophizing influence pain levels in patients with chronic pain and healthy volunteers

Abstract Pain catastrophizing (PC) has been related to pain levels in both patients experiencing acute or chronic pain and in healthy volunteers exposed to experimental pain. Still, it is unclear whether high levels of pain catastrophizing lead to high levels of pain or vice versa. We therefore tested whether levels of pain catastrophizing could be increased and decreased in the same participant through hypnotic suggestions and whether the altered level of situation-specific pain catastrophizing was related to increased and decreased pain levels, respectively. Using the spontaneous pain of 22 patients with chronic tension-type headache and experimentally induced pain in 22 healthy volunteers, participants were tested in 3 randomized sessions where they received 3 types of hypnotic suggestions: Negative (based on the 13 items in the Pain Catastrophizing Scale), Positive (coping-oriented reversion of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale), and Neutral (neutral sentence) hypnotic suggestions. The hypnotic suggestions significantly increased and decreased situation-specific PC in both patients and healthy volunteers (P < 0.001). Also, the levels of pain intensity and pain unpleasantness were significantly altered in both patients and healthy volunteers (P < 0.001). Furthermore, regression analyses showed that changes in pain catastrophizing predicted changes in pain in patients (R2 = 0.204-0.304; P < 0.045) and in healthy volunteers (R2 = 0.328-0.252; P < 0.018). This is the first study to successfully manipulate PC in positive and negative directions in both patients with chronic pain and healthy volunteers and to show that these manipulations significantly influence pain levels. These findings may have important theoretical and clinical implications.
Evaluation of Clinical Laboratory Methods for Plasma Cell-Free DNA Analysis in Suspected Septicaemia

Background: The amount and quality of plasma cell free DNA (cfDNA) changes in extreme physiological and pathological conditions. These changes could provide a basis for a novel prognostic biomarker in conditions as diverse as pregnancy, cancer, organ transplantation and septicaemia. Evaluation of current methods for cfDNA analysis is needed to identify the best practical approach to medical diagnostics. Methods: Initially, cf DNA was extracted from plasma of nine patients with febrile illness using both QIAamp Circulating Nucleic Acid and QI Aamp Mini Blood DNA kits. CfDNA concentration was determined by β-globin qPCR using PerfeCta and AmpliTaq mixes. Subsequently, Qubit fluorimetric and gel-on-a-chip assays were used to analyse plasma cfDNA from 64 additional patients with suspected septicaemia and positive blood cultures. Results: Determination of CfDNA concentration by β-globin gene qPCR using AmpliTaq mix was superior to the PerfeCta qPCR. Moreover, unlike PerfeCta AmpliTaq qPCR determined similar genome equivalent copy numbers in cfDNA isolated by either DNA extraction method. QIAamp Mini Blood kit and AmpliTaq qPCR were subsequently used in a larger prospective study for cfDNA isolation and quantification, respectively. However, qPCR was less suited for the detection of high plasma cfDNA levels when compared to direct DNA measurement by Qubit (mean 22.23 ng/ mL vs. 61.38 ng/mL, respectively) despite good correlation between the two methods. The DNA microfluidic chip method was then used to determine cfDNA fragments sizes and their relative concentrations revealing a presence of nucleosome-sized DNA fragments that were in strongly positive correlation with total cfDNA. Furthermore, apoptotic DNA was identified as a major DNA component in plasma with high cfDNA content. Conclusions: β-globin qPCR is more suited to detection of low plasma cfDNA concentrations, while the Qubit assay is a better choice for rapid identification of high plasma concentrations. Apoptosis is a major source of cfDNA in plasma with high cfDNA concentrations based on DNA chip analysis.
Ultramicrotomy of nanocrystalline materials

The methodology and one of the first attempts to produce transmission electron microscopic (TEM) specimens of nanocrystalline metals, alloys and ceramics by ultramicrotomy are presented. Samples of the pure elements Co, Pd; alloys of Y‐12 at. % Fe, Al‐7 at. % Ag and W‐30 at. % Ga; and ZnO ceramic, were found to section successfully to varying degrees. Advantages of sections prepared through ultramicrotomy over ion beam methods include extensive electron‐transparent regions of uniform thickness and absence of ion beam damage. Typical artefacts were observed (knife marks, tearing, pull‐out, shear lamellae, section curling, and anodic dissolution) but did not impede TEM analysis significantly. A potentially important effect observed was that of a texture development upon sectioning of the Co and Pd samples. It is thought that this unusual phenomenon results from the extremely fine scale of the microstructure and the purity of the Co and Pd samples, and may be enhanced by frictional heating effects and the state of the knife edge. © 1995 Government of Canada. Exclusive worldwide publication rights in the article have been transferred to Wiley‐Liss, Inc., in perpetuity.
Menopausal hormone therapies: Their effect on mammographic density and breast cancer risk

Postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) increases breast density, an effect that is rapidly reversed upon treatment discontinuation. Increased breast density is recognised to be a powerful risk factor for breast cancer. It is therefore important to know whether HT-induced changes in mammographic breast density can provide information about an individual's future risk of breast cancer; or whether an absence of any change in breast density following HT should be viewed as reassuring. Mammographic breast density therefore needs to be examined in further detail in order to better assess the risks of breast cancer in postmenopausal women and further individualize prescribing practices.
Experimental study of the statistical properties of nonlinearly amplified signals in semiconductor optical amplifiers

We examine the effect of nonlinear amplification on the noise properties of an amplified signal. We show that the output noise statistics can be approximated as Gaussian over a wide range of practical parameters. In addition, we show that nonlinear amplification of noise carrying signals may result in an enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Basic principles dictate that this can not improve the bit error rate performance of a communication link, as long as an optimal detection scheme is used. Hence, we conclude that for communication systems that exploit nonlinear amplification in semiconductor optical amplifiers, evaluation of performance on the basis of the SNR can be misleading and should be made with great care.
An articulatory model of standard Chinese using MRI and X-ray movie

To better understand speech production from the phonological inputs to articulatory movements and then to acoustic outputs, it is important to establish an elaborate articulatory model of the vocal tract. This paper has explored the articulatory mechanism of speech production in Standard Chinese and developed a geometric articulatory model in both the visual and acoustic modalities. This model was based on the data of MRI images and X-ray movie, with the former providing detailed volumetric information of the vocal tract, and the latter the dynamic information of articulation. In this model, the seven articulators have been studied and modeled, including the hard palate, pharynx, jaw, lips, velum, tongue, and larynx. The tongue is modeled as two parts: tongue tip and tongue body, thus reducing the necessary number of parameters. The relation between larynx height and fundamental frequency in regard to the four tones is also modeled. These two improvements on tongue and larynx modeling have contributed new ideas to the articulatory modeling of Standard Chinese. This model can serve as a research tool for linguists, phoneticians, and speech engineers, and can be used in parameter speech synthesis, virtual speaker, and visual assistant speech training of Standard Chinese. 提要:爲了更好地理解言語的產生過程,即如何從音位輸入到調音器官的動 作、再到聲學輸出,需要建立詳盡的聲道調音模型。 本文是對漢語普 通話言語產生中調音機制的探索與研究,建立了一個具有視覺和聲學 輸出的幾何調音模型。 該調音模型的數據源自於聲道的磁共振圖像和 X 光錄影,前者主要提供聲道的立體形狀,後者提供調音的動態過程。 在這個模型中,聲道被分解為七個調音部位進行研究:硬齶、喉腔後 壁、下頜、雙唇、軟齶、舌頭和喉管。 其中創新性地,舌頭又被分為 舌體(相對簡單)和舌尖(更為靈活)兩部份,從而簡化所需要的參 數;另外,普通話四聲中基頻高低與喉管上下高度的關係也加入到模 型中。 該模型可以作為研究工具服務於語言學、語音學和言語工程, 並可用於語音參數合成、虛擬說話人、普通話輔助教學等領域。
A New Equalization Scheme for Series Connected Battery Cells

Abstract In this paper a new equalization scheme for series connected battery cells or monoblocks is presented which provides both charge and discharge equalization. The equalization scheme described in this paper provides support for the battery operation even with damaged cells, ensures a uniform battery cell voltage fall, thus protecting cells from reverse polarization, and maximizes the energy delivered by the battery (Fig. 2). An evaluation Battery Management System (BMS) was developed in the laboratory, utilizing the proposed equalization scheme, and the experimental results verify the theoretical ones.
Validity of the computer science and applications (CSA) activity monitor in children.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the CSA activity monitor as a measure of children's physical activity using energy expenditure (EE) as a criterion measure. METHODS Thirty subjects aged 10 to 14 performed three 5-min treadmill bouts at 3, 4, and 6 mph, respectively. While on the treadmill, subjects wore CSA (WAM 7164) activity monitors on the right and left hips. VO2 was monitored continuously by an automated system. EE was determined by multiplying the average VO2 by the caloric equivalent of the mean respiratory exchange ratio. RESULTS Repeated measures ANOVA indicated that both CSA monitors were sensitive to changes in treadmill speed. Mean activity counts from each CSA unit were not significantly different and the intraclass reliability coefficient for the two CSA units across all speeds was 0.87. Activity counts from both CSA units were strongly correlated with EE (r = 0.86 and 0.87, P < 0.001). An EE prediction equation was developed from 20 randomly selected subjects and cross-validated on the remaining 10. The equation predicted mean EE within 0.01 kcal.min-1. The correlation between actual and predicted values was 0.93 (P < 0.01) and the SEE was 0.93 kcal.min-1. CONCLUSION These data indicate that the CSA monitor is a valid and reliable tool for quantifying treadmill walking and running in children.
Investigating the Potential for Toxicity from Long-Term Use of the Herbal Products, Goldenseal and Milk Thistle

Two-year toxicity studies were conducted on the widely used herbal products, goldenseal and milk thistle, in male and female F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice. With goldenseal root powder, the primary finding was an increase in liver tumors in rats and mice, and with milk thistle extract, a decrease in spontaneous background tumors including mammary gland tumors in female rats and liver tumors in male mice. Increased tumorigenicity in rodents exposed to goldenseal root powder may be due in part to the topoisomerase inhibition properties of berberine, a major alkaloid constituent in goldenseal, or its metabolite, berberrubine. In the clinic, use of topoisomerase-inhibiting agents has been associated with secondary tumor formation and inhibition in DNA repair processes. In contrast, the radical-scavenging and antioxidant properties of silibinin and other flavonolignans in milk thistle extract may have contributed to the decrease in background tumors in rodents in the present studies. The fate of the active constituents of goldenseal and milk thistle is similar in humans and rodents; therefore, the modes of action may translate across species. Further studies are needed to extrapolate the findings to humans.