Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation on dexterity of human lower limbs and a powered orthosis experiment

Dexterity has significant influence on studies on rehabilitation robot. By researching the dexterity of lower limbs, the paper aimed at improving design mechanism, optimizing control and providing a reference for designs related to rehabilitation robot. Based on anatomy of human lower limbs, this paper not only studies its structure and extends conventional three-dimensional method to six-dimensional approach by virtue of spinor theory, but also builds up kinetics analysis model and analyzes manipulability and dexterity of lower limbs. With the help of experimental platform (powered RGO), feasibility of the foregoing analyses is verified. It is of much feasibility to analyze and evaluate the dexterity of human lower limbs. The experimental platform proves that the new method is useful for design of rehabilitation devices. In addition, there are some best motion points (BMPs) in human motion which is very helpful for construction of human analysis model and the design of such rehabilitation devices.
Understanding differential equations through diffusion point of view: non-symmetric discrete equations

In this paper, we propose a new adaptation of the D-iteration algorithm to numerically solve the differential equations. This problem can be reinterpreted in 2D or 3D (or higher dimensions) as a limit of a diffusion process where the boundary or initial conditions are replaced by fluid catalysts. Pre-computing the diffusion process for an elementary catalyst case as a fundamental block of a class of differential equations, we show that the computation efficiency can be greatly improved. The method can be applied on the class of problems that can be addressed by the Gauss-Seidel iteration, based on the linear approximation of the differential equations.
A Review on PSO Models in Power System Operation

Optimization is one of the most important aspects in power system study fields, especially in power system operation, and a verity of models and approaches has been presented in this area. Each model tries to get the best solution as an optimal point, without trapping in local optima. As a powerful tool, modeling based on expert systems and simulation of natural process has an importance and noticeable value in this regard. Since most of power system optimization problems are complex and nonlinear with heavy equality and inequality constraints, the heuristic optimization techniques such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) are considered as realistic and powerful solution schemes to obtain the optimal or quasi-optimal solutions in power system optimization problems. As a lot of papers and researches have been published based on applying PSO in power system operation studies, in this paper a general view on PSO proposed models and approaches in this related is presented. The studies such as UC, ED, OPF, Reactive power compensation, Load forecasting, FACTS, and so on based on PSO proposed models, comparing their benefits and drawbacks are presented. Keywords—Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Power
Dual camera system for face detection in unconstrained environments

A system for face detection in outdoor environments for multisensor video surveillance applications is presented. The system is characterized by a combination of two pan-tilt video cameras, which cooperate in order to track and to characterize moving objects with positioning and biometric informations. The final result of the action of the system is the collection of small video shots regarding the face of humans detected in outdoor environments with a robust behavior.
The Merit of Synesthesia for Consciousness Research

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which additional perceptual experiences are elicited by sensory stimuli or cognitive concepts. Synesthetes possess a unique type of phenomenal experiences not directly triggered by sensory stimulation. Therefore, for better understanding of consciousness it is relevant to identify the mental and physiological processes that subserve synesthetic experience. In the present work we suggest several reasons why synesthesia has merit for research on consciousness. We first review the research on the dynamic and rapidly growing field of the studies of synesthesia. We particularly draw attention to the role of semantics in synesthesia, which is important for establishing synesthetic associations in the brain. We then propose that the interplay between semantics and sensory input in synesthesia can be helpful for the study of the neural correlates of consciousness, especially when making use of ambiguous stimuli for inducing synesthesia. Finally, synesthesia-related alterations of brain networks and functional connectivity can be of merit for the study of consciousness.
In vivo CD40 ligation can induce T cell‐independent antitumor effects that involve macrophages

We have previously demonstrated T cell‐independent antitumor and antimetastatic effects of CD40 ligation that involved natural killer (NK) cells. As CD40 molecules are expressed on the surface of macrophages (Mφ), we hypothesized that Mφ may also serve as antitumor effector cells when activated by CD40 ligation. Progression of subcutaneous NXS2 murine neuroblastomas was delayed significantly by agonistic CD40 monoclonal antibody (anti‐CD40 mAb) therapy in immunocompetent A/J mice, as well as in T and B cell‐deficient severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Although NK cells can be activated by anti‐CD40 mAb, anti‐CD40 mAb treatment also induced a significant antitumor effect in SCID/beige mice in the absence of T and NK effector cells, even when noncytolytic NK cells and polymorphonuclear cells (PMN) were depleted. Furthermore, in vivo treatment with anti‐CD40 mAb resulted in enhanced expression of cytokines and cell surface activation markers, as well as Mφ‐mediated tumor inhibition in A/J mice, C57BL/6 mice, and SCID/beige mice, as measured in vitro. A role for Mφ was shown by reduction in the antitumor effect of anti‐CD40 mAb when Mφ functions were inhibited in vivo by silica. In addition, activation of peritoneal Mφ by anti‐CD40 mAb resulted in survival benefits in mice bearing intraperitoneal tumors. Taken together, our results show that anti‐CD40 mAb immunotherapy of mice can inhibit tumor growth in the absence of T cells, NK cells, and PMN through the involvement of activated Mφ.
Using Domain Ontology as Domain Knowledge for Requirements Elicitation

Domain knowledge is one of crucial factors to get a great success in requirements elicitation of high quality, and only domain experts, not requirements analysts, have it. We propose a new requirements elicitation method ORE (ontology based requirements elicitation), where a domain ontology can be used as domain knowledge. In our method, a domain ontology plays a role on semantic domain which gives meanings to requirements statements by using a semantic function. By using inference rules on the ontology and a quality metrics on the semantic function, an analyst can be navigated which requirements should be added for improving completeness of the current version of the requirements and/or which requirements should be deleted from the current version for keeping consistency. We define this process as a method and evaluate it by an experimental case study of software music players
Bring on the geeks: the case for improved modelling of capacity requirements

Pearson et al 1 describe a modelling exercise undertaken to estimate the number of beds required for the smooth operation of a multi-specialty paediatric intensive care unit that offers regional and supra-regional services. Several features of this problem are common in healthcare. Every healthcare system around the world has to balance the pressure for high utilisation of an expensive or scarce resource with the pressure for that resource to be available on demand for patients who need it. In the absence of variability, this would be a simple task of matching supply to a steady level of demand. Variability in timing and nature of referrals and in length of stay complicates matters. Striking the balance between utilisation and access is a daily challenge for clinicians. Starting with about the right level of capacity in place can help. Operational Research (OR), the use of mathematical and computer based modelling to address complex problems of this nature, has great potential for informing capacity planning exercises within health services.2 There are many academic groups and OR practitioners active in the UK (see for instance mashnet.info) and internationally able to provide advice and conduct modelling studies in this area. A crucial role OR modelling serves is to allow decision makers to explore the trade-offs that exist between what seems efficient from the perspective of patients and what seems efficient from the perspective of managers. If you engage with Operational Researchers, you will find them to be a bit geeky (though usually in a nice way) and you …
Reliability Evaluation based on the AADL Architecture Model

The structure of the embedded system gets much more complicated. Current basic Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) reliability model cannot meet the requirements of software reliability being evaluated while being designed. For the present, reliability evaluated needs abundant fault analysis which can not be realized in the early of software development. The article has come up with a methodology based on system architecture using AADL to perform reliability evaluate at Early development With good understanding of rules and transformation from AADL based system architecture model to Petri Net, a one-to-one mapping rule was achieved between AADL elements and Petri Net elements. Using current mathematic model of Petri Net to evaluate the reliability of software architecture. At last, a flight control system of AADL model was given as an example to validate the availability of the given method
A new MPPT technique for the maximization of overall system output in solar generation

Various maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods used in solar generation systems have one common point, that is, they all select the output of the solar array as their control target and try to make it maximum. However, a typical solar generation system consists of a solar array and a DC/DC converter. Making the output of the solar array maximum does not certainly result in the maximum DC/DC converter output because the efficiency of the DC/DC converter is dependent upon its input voltage and current and will affect the overall output of the system. This paper describes a new MPPT technique which considers the solar array and the DC/DC converter as one system and maximizes the overall system output. The experiment results verified the validity of the method and some discussions on the new method are made.
Functional Characterization of Stromal Osteopontin in Melanoma Progression and Metastasis

Background Recent studies demonstrated that not only tumor derived- but stroma derived factors play crucial role in cancer development. Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted non-collagenous, sialic acid rich, chemokine-like phosphoglycoprotein that facilitates cell-matrix interactions and promotes tumor progression. Elevated level of OPN has been shown in melanoma patient and predicted as a prognostic marker. Recent reports have indicated that stroma-derived OPN are involved in regulating stem cell microenvironment and pre-neoplastic cell growth. However, the function of stroma derived OPN in regulation of side population (SP) enrichment leading to melanoma growth, angiogenesis and metastasis is not well studied and yet to be the focus of intense investigation. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, using melanoma model, in wild type and OPN knockout mice, we have demonstrated that absence of host OPN effectively curbs melanoma growth, angiogenesis and metastasis. Melanoma cells isolated from tumor of OPN wild type (OPN+/+) mice exhibited more tumorigenic feature as compared to the parental cell line or cells isolated from the tumors of OPN KO (OPN−/−) mice. Furthermore, host OPN induces VEGF, ABCG2 and ERK1/2 expression and activation in B16-WT cells. We report for the first time that stroma derived OPN regulates SP phenotype in murine melanoma cells. Moreover, loss in and gain of function studies demonstrated that stroma-derived OPN regulates SP phenotype specifically through ERK2 activation. Conclusions This study establish at least in part, the molecular mechanism underlying the role of host OPN in melanoma growth and angiogenesis, and better understanding of host OPN-tumor interaction may assist the advancement of novel therapeutic strategy for the management of malignant melanoma.
Analysis of Privacy-Preserving Mechanisms for Outsourcing Data Mining Tasks

Many organizations have to outsource some of their data mining tasks due to inadequate in-house IT expertise. During this process, the organizations lose full security control of their source data which may lead to the exposure of their business privacy. In this paper, we first present different application scenarios of outsourcing computing tasks of data mining, then identify the elements that may expose privacy with a focus on why, how and when these element may expose privacy. We also discuss the properties of promising solutions that can protect these elements thereby preserving privacy in outsourcing scenarios.
Privacy-Aware Multidimensional Indexing

Deleting data from a database system in a forensic secure environment and in a high performant way is a complex challenge. Due to redundant copies and additional information stored about data items, it is not appropriate to delete only data items themselves. Additional challenges arise when using multidimensional index structures. This is because information of data items are used to index the space. As initial result, we present different deletion levels, to overcome this challenge. Based on this classification, we analyze how data can be reconstructed from the index and modify index structures to improve privacy of data items. Second, we benchmark our index structure modifications and quantify our modifications. Our results indicate that forensic secure deletion is possible with modification of multidimensional index structures having only a small impact on computational performance, in some cases.
Microfabrication of optical elements with femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser oscillator

We demonstrate experimentally fabrication of optical elements with femtosecond pulses. The laser source we adopted is a low power Ti: sapphire laser oscillator, with a central wavelength of 790 nm and pulse duration of 100 fs. Positive-photoresist-film-coated glass substrate acts as the sacrificial material. Due to the extreme high intensity of the tightly focused femtosecond laser beam, nonlinear processing occurred between photoresist and the laser pulses, which enable the sub-micron feature processing. In the experiments, we use a translational stage that is controlled by a computer to accurately move for fabrication of optical elements with high precision. Various gratings and phase plates are fabricated by this method. The obtained gratings patterns are checked with a conventional optical microscopy. The fabricating widths and depths are measured with the Taylor Hobson equipment. With the same method, photomask for microelectronics can also be fabricated. From the experimental results, we see that a high processing precision and the feature size exceeding the diffraction limit can be achieved with this method. This technique can be applied to the fields of microoptics and microelectronics. The mechanism between femtosecond laser and photoresist is also investigated. The processing mechanics is considered as laser ablation and nonlinear two-photon absorption phenomenon. Fabrication of optical elements with femtosecond laser reflects a new trend for fabrication of microoptical elements.
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A CIRCULAR RING RESONATOR BASED OPTICAL SWITCH WITH TEMPERATURE EFFECT 1

In this work, a novel design of circular photonic crystal ring resonator based on optical switch is studied. This ring resonator with circular shape provides higher flexibility in manipulation of the light to design a high performance to switch wavelength. The proposed design composed of two waveguides; between them, the photonic crystal ring resonator is placed. Tunability phenomena can change the refractive index of whole structure or some rods with an external effect. Based on this phenomena our proposed design can switch the wavelength1531 nm after an external effect (thermal effect), in which the refractive index of our proposed design is 3.447 and changed slightly to be 3.611. The results achieved of our proposed switch based on novel ring resonator at 1531nm on quality factor and footprints are 248 and 123 m2, respectively. The finite different time domain (FDTD) and plane wave extended (PWE) methods are used to calculate the outputs spectrum and band gap, respectively.
Childhood Fish Consumption and Learning and Behavioral Disorders

Fish is a major source of nutrients critical for brain development during early life. The importance of childhood fish consumption is supported by several studies reporting associations of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) supplementation with better behavior and school performance. However, fish may have a different effect than n-3 PUFA alone due to the neurotoxic effects of methylmercury, a frequent contaminant. We investigated associations of childhood fish consumption with learning and behavioral disorders in birth cohort study of the neurotoxic effects of early life exposure to solvent-contaminated drinking water. Childhood (age 7–12 years) fish consumption and learning and behavioral problems were reported in self-administered questionnaires (age 23–41 at questionnaire completion). Fish consumption was not meaningfully associated with repeating a grade, tutoring, attending summer school, special class placement, or low educational attainment. However, participants who ate fish several times a week had an elevated odds of Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (odds ratio: 5.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.5–18) compared to participants who did not eat fish. While these findings generally support the safety of the observed level of fish consumption, the absence of a beneficial effect may be attributed to insufficient fish intake or the choice of relatively low n-3 PUFA fish.
Modelling sulphate stream concentrations in the Black Forest catchments Schluchsee and Villingen

The sulphate (SO 4 ) released by mineralisation and desorption from soil can play an important role in determining concentrations of SO 4 in streams. The MAGIC model was calibrated for two catchments in the Black Forest, Germany (Schluchsee and Villingen) and SO 4 concentrations in the streams for the years 2016 and 2030 were predicted. Special emphasis was placed on the dynamics of soil sulphur (S) pools. At Schluchsee, 90% of soil S is stored in the organic S (S org ) pool, whereas at Villingen, 54% is in the inorganic (S inorg ) pool. The Villingen stream chemistry was modelled successfully by measured Langmuir isotherm parameters (LIPs) for S inorg . Schluchsee data could not be modelled satisfactorily using measured or freely adapted LIPs only, as the S inorg pool would have to be more than five times larger than what was measured. With 60.5 mmol c SO 4 m -2 yr -1 as internal soil source by mineralisation and the measured LIPs, stream data was modelled successfully. The modelling shows that in these two catchments pre-industrial concentrations of SO 4 in runoff can be reached in the next two decades if S deposition decreases as intended under currently agreed national and international legislation. S org is the most likely dominant source of SO 4 released at Schluchsee. Mineralization from the S org pool must be included when modelling SO 4 concentrations in the stream. As the dynamics and the controlling factors of S release by mineralisation are not yet clear, this process remains a source of uncertainty for predictions of SO 4 concentrations in streams. Future research should concentrate on dynamics of S mineralisation in the field, such that mathematical descriptions of long-term S-mineralisation can be incorporated into biogeochemical models. Keywords: sulphate release, organic S, mineralisation, acidification, recovery, modelling, MAGIC, catchments, predictions, Germany, forest
The observational signature of the first H ii regions

We use three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations together with a dynamical ray-tracing scheme to investigate the build-up of the first H II regions around massive Population III stars in minihaloes. We trace the highly anisotropic breakout of the ionizing radiation into the intergalactic medium, allowing us to predict the resulting recombination radiation with greatly increased realism. Our simulations, together with Press-Schechter type arguments, allow us to predict the Population III contribution to the radio background at ~100 MHz via bremsstrahlung and 21-cm emission. We find a global bremsstrahlung signal of around 1 mK, and a combined 21-cm signature which is an order of magnitude larger. Both might be within the reach of the planned Square Kilometer Array experiment, although detection of the free-free emission is only marginal. The imprint of the first stars on the cosmic radio background might provide us with one of the few diagnostics to test the otherwise elusive minihalo star formation site.
Characterization of Shape Memory Polymer Estane by Means of Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis Technique

Commercially available shape memory polymer (SMP) Estane (designation: ETE75DT3 NAT022) is investigated by means of dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) technique in torsion mode using the Modular Compact Rheometer MCR-301 (Anton Paar GmbH). Amplitude sweep tests have been run below and above the glass transition temperature to establish the linear viscoelastic range (LVR) in glassy and rubbery phase of this SMP for the correct physical interpretation of DMTA data. Temperature sweep tests were performed at various frequencies to study the influence of this parameter on values of the storage and loss moduli and the storage and loss compliances as well as the viscosities. These tests have been carried out in heating mode with different rates and at different strain amplitudes. The short- and long-term behavior of SMP Estane have been studied by frequency sweep tests performed at different temperatures and data have been transformed into time-domain properties by applying time-temperature superposition principles. All these DMTA data provide the experimental basis for the study of relaxation processes, property-structure relationships, and the shape memory effect in this little-known SMP.