Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Hybrid Diesel-Wind­PV-Based Energy Generation System With Brushless Generators

This paper presents an experimental implementation of a standalone microgrid topology based on a single voltage source converter (VSC) and brushless generators. The microgrid system is energised with different renewable energy sources namely wind and solar PV array. However, a diesel generator (DG) set and a battery energy storage system (BESS) are also used to maintain the reliability of the system. The proposed topology has the advantage of reduced switching devices and simple control. The implemented topology has DG set as an ac source. The wind generator and the solar PV array are dc sources which are connected to the dc link of the VSC. The BESS is also used at the dc link to facilitate the instantaneous power balance under dynamic conditions. Along with the system integration, the VSC also has the capability to mitigate the power quality problems such as harmonic currents, load balancing, and voltage regulation. A wide variety of test results are presented to demonstrate all the features of the proposed system.
Highlighting issues in children's literature through semantic webbing

Craig J. Cleland Children's books can be excellent vehicles for affording students the opportunity to reflect upon impor tant societal issues. Social concerns such as the family, ethnic and racial identity, expanding roles of men and women, the disabled, war and peace, and coping with death have been skillfully presented in many modern children's books. Too often, how ever, reading teachers report that their students "miss the issue" while enjoying the book. The instructional technique of semantic webbing (Freedman and Reynolds, 1980) can help students to identify and talk about these issues. Semantic webbing is helpful be cause it organizes a subject visually. Many children experience difficulties in organizing cognitively what they hear or read (Adams, 1977). Teacher directed semantic webbing can help them to see relationships between ideas and characters in a story. Later, these same students may be able to draw semantic webs of their own.
Multicell Sleeping Control and Transmit Power Adaptation in Green Heterogeneous Networks

The introduction of small cells has displayed its energy-saving potentials in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) for the low operational and transmit power consumptions. To cope with the severity of inter-cell interference induced by the deployed small cells, existing research has been investigating base station (BS) sleeping incorporated with coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmissions for the greenness of HetNets. Unfortunately, the fundamentals of multicell sleeping control and transmit power adaptation (MST) in green HetNets are in essence an NP-hard problem, which motivates us to find approximate solutions with provable performance guarantees. In this paper, we formulate the MST problem as a mixed integer linear program (MILP) and show its NP-hardness. By applying linear programming (LP) relaxation to the MST problem, we propose the progressive sleeping control with LP-based transmit power adaptation (PSLA) algorithm. We further prove that the achieved total power consumption can be upper-bounded, and show that the tightness of the upper bounds hinges on the factors of user satisfiability and network heterogeneity. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the energy-saving performance of our proposed solution, as well as the impacts of the number of users and small cells in the network.
Alkali concentration monitoring system based on ZigBee

Aiming at the real-time monitoring requirement of alkali concentration in textiles, chemicals, paper and food production, an alkali concentration monitoring system based on ZigBee wireless networks and sensor technology was proposed, network structure of the system was also presented at the same time. CC2430 chip from TI corporation was adopted to design the circuit diagram of Sensor Nodes and Master Nodes, simultaneously network protocol and program flow of the system was simplified and designed. Finally the operational results demonstrate: characterized by low-cost, simple structure, anti-jamming and better reliability, the system provides a new monitoring method for pre-treatment process and alkali concentration in textile, chemicals, paper and food production.
The biomimetic propulsion of two tandem foils with different sizes

With numerical studies of two tandem foils, the effect of size gaps and distance between two tandem foils on reducing drag is presented. A symmetric 4-digit NACA0012 foil has been used as the outline of leading foil, while the trailing foil has been redesigned as multiple of scale down of leading one, by which the size gaps between two tandem foil can be non-dimensionalized as a parameter Sg. Moreover, the ratios of the spatial gaps between two tandem foils to the length of leading foil have been used as another non-dimensionalized parameter Dg to describe the effect of distance gaps on drag reduce. As a result, it is found that the leading foil would enjoy the biggest drag reduction at Sg = 1 and Dg = 0.3, as 24%. It is also revealed that the trailing foils would also enjoy an drag reduction or thrust increase, and the biggest drag reduction of trailing foils has been observed as 67%, moreover, the trailing foil would increase thrust when Sg = 2, as the biggest value is 37%.
A faster UDP

As an experiment in protocol optimizations, the authors undertook to improve the performance of a stateless protocol, namely the user datagram protocol (UDP) in the 4.3 BSD Unix kernel. The authors describe the successful optimizations that were done, along with measurements that shows a UDP performance improvement of between 25-35% on CISC and RISC systems, and overall kernal improvement of between 12% and 18%. >
A century later: Woodworth's (1899) two-component model of goal-directed aiming.

In 1899, R. S. Woodworth published a seminal monograph, "The Accuracy of Voluntary Movement. " As well as making a number of important empirical contributions, Woodworth presented a model of speed-accuracy relations in the control of upper limb movements. The model has come to be known as the two-component model because the control of speeded limb movements was hypothesized to entail both a central and a feedback-based component. Woodworth's (1899) ideas about the control of rapid aiming movements are evaluated in the context of current empirical and theoretical contributions.
Active maintenance of endothelial cells prevents kidney fibrosis

Background Soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) expressed by endothelial cells catalyzes the metabolism of epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs), which are vasoactive agents. Methods We used a unilateral ureteral obstruction mouse model of kidney fibrosis to determine whether inhibition of sEH activity reduces fibrosis, the final common pathway for chronic kidney disease. Results sEH activity was inhibited by continuous release of the inhibitor 12-(3-adamantan-1-ylureido)-dodecanoic acid (AUDA) for 1 or 2 weeks. Treatment with AUDA significantly ameliorated tubulointerstitial fibrosis by reducing fibroblast mobilization and enhancing endothelial cell activity. In an in vitro model of endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) using human vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs), AUDA prevented the morphologic changes associated with EndMT and reduced expression of fibroblast-specific protein 1. Furthermore, HUVECs activated by AUDA prevented the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of tubular epithelial cells in a co-culture system. Conclusion Our findings suggest that regulation of sEH is a potential target for therapies aimed at delaying the progression of kidney fibrosis by inhibiting EndMT and EMT.
A mutation designed to alter crystal packing permits structural analysis of a tight‐binding fluorescein–scFv complex

The structure of the scFv fragment FITC‐E2, obtained from a naive phage antibody scFv library derived from human donors, was determined at 2.1 Å resolution in the free form and at 3.0 Å in the complexed form. The wild‐type (wt) scFv binds fluorescein with a KD of 0.75 nM. The free scFv readily crystallizes by compacting its 18 amino acid‐long CDR‐H3, partially occluding the binding site and further blocking access by binding to the ”bottom” of a neighboring scFv molecule with a cluster of exposed aromatic residues within CDR‐H3. Only upon mutating one of the residues involved in this dominant crystal contact, an exposed tryptophan in the middle of CDR‐H3, crystals of the complex could be obtained. A series of alanine mutants within the putative antigen binding site, covering a range of binding affinities, were used to relate macroscopic thermodynamic and kinetic binding parameters to single‐molecule disruption forces measured by AFM. The effects of the mutations on the binding properties, particularly on the fraction of binding‐competent molecules within the population, cannot be fully explained by changes in the strength of local interactions. The significant conformational change of CDR‐H3 between the free and the liganded form illustrates the plasticity of the binding site. An accompanying study in this issue by Curcio and colleagues presents the molecular dynamics simulation of the forced unbinding experiments and explores possible effects of the mutations on the unbinding pathway of the hapten.
Multistage Path Models of Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use: A Reanalysis

Simplex and nonsimplex models containing personality and perceived environment variables as predictors of current use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use were compared in this reanalysis of data reported in a study by Potvin and Lee (1980). Contrary to the results given in the original study, we found that a nonsimplex pattern of relations among different forms of drug use allowed for a more adequate representation of the data than a simplex model for two of the three different age groups of adolescents sampled. Conformity-commitment and religiousness had consistent negative effects on drug use in each sample; parental support-affection and parental approval of friends tended to have small negative effects on drug use; self-esteem and alienation were unrelated to drug use. In general it appears that a nonsimplex model of current drug use provides a more adequate representation of the data than does a simplex model and that religiousness and conformity-commitment are constraining influences on adolescent involvement in drug use.
In vivo proton MR spectroscopy of primary and nodal nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of performing in vivo proton ((1)H) MR spectroscopy of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and to document the (1)H spectrum of this cancer. METHODS Twenty-seven patients with NPC lesions >1 cm(3) underwent localized (1)H MR spectroscopy performed at 1.5 T. Water-suppressed spectra from both primary tumors (nine cases) and metastatic nodes (18 cases) were obtained at TE 136 and 272. Spectra were analyzed in the time domain by using a nonlinear least squares fitting algorithm with incorporation of previous knowledge. Choline (Cho)/creatine (Cr) ratios for primary NPC and metastatic nodes were calculated and compared. Spectra from normal neck muscle of five volunteers were acquired as control data. RESULTS (1)H MR spectroscopy was successfully obtained in seven (78%) of nine primary tumors and 16 (89%) of 18 metastatic nodes. Intense lipid signals in the range of 0.89 to 2.02 ppm were observed in 95% of spectra at TE 136 and 91% of spectra at TE 272. At TE 136, Cho/Cr for metastatic nodes (5.3 +/- 1.6) was significantly higher than the ratio for primary (2.6 +/- 0.5) NPC lesions (P =.02). Cho/Cr ratios for NPC lesions were higher than those for normal neck muscles, for which values ranged from 0 to 0.97 and 0 to 1.1 at TE 136 and 272, respectively. CONCLUSION (1)H MR spectroscopy is a feasible technique for the evaluation of NPC tumors >1 cm(3). Cho/Cr ratios for the lesions were high compared with those for normal neck muscle.
Inbreeding depression in two populations of Arenaria uniflora (Caryophyllaceae) with contrasting mating systems

I used parallel family-structured crossing designs to investigate the relative performance of self and outcross progeny in selfing and predominantly outcrossing populations of the annual plant Arenaria uniflora. The selfer population experienced much lower inbreeding depression (δ=0.05 ± 0.02 SE) than the outcrossers (δ=0.19 ± 0.02 SE). The negative association between genetic load and selfing rate suggests that purgable partially recessive alleles are the primary source of inbreeding depression, as does its late expression in both populations. Inbreeding depression in the selfer population, which naturally consists of highly inbred lines, was used to calculate the mean dominance (h=0.33) and incidence rate (U=0.30) of deleterious mutations. In the outcrosser population, significant variation among individuals in the expression of inbreeding depression may reflect lineage-specific differences in inbreeding history or, more probably, random variation in mutational load. The low (<<0.5) inbreeding depression of outcrossers suggests that the maintenance of a mixed mating system in some A. uniflora populations and the evolution of nearly cleistogamous self-pollination in others may reflect local pollinator-mediated selection for selfing rather than the constant 3:2 genetic advantage invoked by many models.
A hybrid neuro-fuzzy system for ECG classification of myocardial infarction

We present an approach to the automated ECG classification based on a hybrid neuro-fuzzy model. The classification power of the connectionist paradigm has been coupled with the ability of the fuzzy set formalism to treat in a quantitative way natural language. This allows us to build up a system capable of both a good classification accuracy and to give meaningful explanations of the proposed diagnoses, in the form of symbolic IF-THEN rules.
Role of Mechanical Factors in the Morphology of the Primate Cerebral Cortex

The convoluted cortex of primates is instantly recognizable in its principal morphologic features, yet puzzling in its complex finer structure. Various hypotheses have been proposed about the mechanisms of its formation. Based on the analysis of databases of quantitative architectonic and connection data for primate prefrontal cortices, we offer support for the hypothesis that tension exerted by corticocortical connections is a significant factor in shaping the cerebral cortical landscape. Moreover, forces generated by cortical folding influence laminar morphology, and appear to have a previously unsuspected impact on cellular migration during cortical development. The evidence for a significant role of mechanical factors in cortical morphology opens the possibility of constructing computational models of cortical develoment based on physical principles. Such models are particularly relevant for understanding the relationship of cortical morphology to the connectivity of normal brains, and structurally altered brains in diseases of developmental origin, such as schizophrenia and autism.
Normal Susceptibility to Visual Illusions in Abnormal Development: Evidence from Williams Syndrome

The perception of visual illusions is a powerful diagnostic of implicit integration of global information. Many illusions occur when length, size, orientation, or luminance are misjudged because neighboring visuospatial information cannot be ignored. We asked if people with Williams syndrome (WS), a rare genetic disorder that results in severely impaired global visuospatial construction abilities, are also susceptible to the context of visual illusions. Remarkably, we found that illusions influenced WS individuals to the same degree as normal adults, although size discrimination was somewhat impaired in WS. Our results are evidence that illusions are a consequence of the brain's bias to implicitly integrate visual information, even in a population known to have difficulty in explicitly representing spatial relationships among objects. Moreover, these results suggest that implicit and non-implicit integration of spatial information have different vulnerabilities in abnormal development.
Adnexectomy for benign pathology at vaginal hysterectomy without laparoscopic assistance

Of 166 consecutive women with a benign adnexal mass scheduled for vaginal hysterectomy with adnexectomy, the operation was successful in 158 (95%). Preoperatively, attempts were made to ascertain that adnexal mass was benign and either freely mobile or with only slightly restricted mobility. Laparotomy was required in eight women, in five for adhesions and in three for malignancy detected during the operation. No woman required laparoscopic‐assisted surgery. The 158 women who had successful vaginal hysterectomy with adnexectomy were compared with 100 similar women who had a laparotomy performed by same single operator. The vaginal group had a lower morbidity, speedier recovery and shorter hospital stay.
The Triangle Model for evaluating the effect of health information technology on healthcare quality and safety

With the proliferation of relatively mature health information technology (IT) systems with large numbers of users, it becomes increasingly important to evaluate the effect of these systems on the quality and safety of healthcare. Previous research on the effectiveness of health IT has had mixed results, which may be in part attributable to the evaluation frameworks used. The authors propose a model for evaluation, the Triangle Model, developed for designing studies of quality and safety outcomes of health IT. This model identifies structure-level predictors, including characteristics of: (1) the technology itself; (2) the provider using the technology; (3) the organizational setting; and (4) the patient population. In addition, the model outlines process predictors, including (1) usage of the technology, (2) organizational support for and customization of the technology, and (3) organizational policies and procedures about quality and safety. The Triangle Model specifies the variables to be measured, but is flexible enough to accommodate both qualitative and quantitative approaches to capturing them. The authors illustrate this model, which integrates perspectives from both health services research and biomedical informatics, with examples from evaluations of electronic prescribing, but it is also applicable to a variety of types of health IT systems.
Semantic decomposition and reconstruction of residential scenes from LiDAR data

We present a complete system to semantically decompose and reconstruct 3D models from point clouds. Different than previous urban modeling approaches, our system is designed for residential scenes, which consist of mainly low-rise buildings that do not exhibit the regularity and repetitiveness as high-rise buildings in downtown areas. Our system first automatically labels the input into distinctive categories using supervised learning techniques. Based on the semantic labels, objects in different categories are reconstructed with domain-specific knowledge. In particular, we present a novel building modeling scheme that aims to decompose and fit the building point cloud into basic blocks that are block-wise symmetric and convex. This building representation and its reconstruction algorithm are flexible, efficient, and robust to missing data. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on various datasets and compare our building modeling scheme with other state-of-the-art reconstruction algorithms to show its advantage in terms of both quality and speed.
Ordinal Coding of Image Microstructure

Applications of rank-order-based methods to image and signal analyses have primarily focused on filtering. Classical median, min, and max filters have long been part of standard image processing toolboxes. More recent work has focused on more elaborate versions of such filters and associated computational issues. However, the application of these nonlinear methods to problems such as image interpretation has been scarce. We attempt to show that simple rank-order-based methods for coding image patches provide informative and computationally efficient local image descriptors.
Extended-Spectrum (cid:1) -Lactamase CTX-M-15-Producing Klebsiella pneumoniae of Sequence Type ST274 in Companion Animals

Screening of extended-spectrum (cid:1) -lactamase (ESBL)-producing Gram-negative bacteria in companion animals living in the Paris area in France identiﬁed a high rate of CTX-M-15-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae . Those isolates were recovered during the 2010-2011 period from both infections and asymptomatic colonizations. Sequence typing revealed that most of these isolates belonged to sequence type ST274. Interestingly, the bla CTX-M-15 gene was located on a speciﬁc and novel plasmid scaffold. These ﬁndings highlight that companion animals may be reservoirs for CTX-M-15-producing K. pneumoniae evolving separately from the human reservoir of CTX-M-15 producers.
ICA MIXTURE MODELS FOR UNSUPERVISED CLASSIFICATION AND AUTOMATIC CONTEXT SWITCHING

We present an unsupervised classification algorithm based on an ICA mixture model. A mixture model is a model in which the observed data can be categorized into several mutually exclusive data classes. In an ICA mixture model, it is assumed that the data in each class are generated by a linear mixture of independent sources. The algorithm finds the independent sources and the mixing matrix for each class and also computes the class membership probability of for each data point. This approach extends the Gaussian mixture model so that the clusters can have non-Gaussian structure. Performance on a standard classification problem, the Iris flower data set, demonstrates that the new algorithm can improve classification accurately over standard Gaussian mixture models. We also show that the algorithm can be applied to blind source separation in nonstationary environments. The method can switch automatically between learned miving matrices in different environments.
CD 4 ( + ) CD 25 ( + ) regulatory T lymphocytes in bone marrow transplantation

Induction of immunological tolerance to alloantigens would be the treatment of choice to prevent graft-versus-host disease and allograft rejection in transplantation medicine. Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to avoid potentially deadly immunity to selfantigens. The most potent self-tolerance mechanism is probably dominant tolerance assured by regulatory and suppressor T lymphocytes. It appears therefore attractive to use the same mechanism to induce transplantation-tolerance. We here review and discuss recent advances in the use of one of the best-characterized regulatory T lymphocyte populations, CD4CD25 T cells, to prevent graft-versus-host disease and bone marrow allograft rejection.
Next to a Star: Paling, Shining, or Both? Turning Interexemplar Contrast into Interexemplar Assimilation

Four studies, set in the political and marketing domain, investigated how an extreme exemplar influences the evaluation of more moderate exemplars. In Studies 1 to 3, an extremely positive exemplar (star) elicited contrast in the evaluation of more moderate exemplars. However, the contrast effect was eliminated when the shared category membership of the star and the respective exemplar was made salient. Rather than relying on categorization, Study 4 manipulated interexemplar assimilation by using comparison processes to draw attention to the features shared with an extreme exemplar. Whether the extreme exemplar caused contrast or assimilation depended on the direction of comparison with which target and context stimulus were compared. All studies, in particular Studies 3 and 4, suggest that interexemplar contrast and interexemplar assimilation work in parallel rather than alternatively.