Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A narrative review of interstitial lung disease in anti-synthetase syndrome: a clinical approach

Anti-synthetase syndrome (AS) is a rare autoimmune disorder characterized by the presence of aminoacyl-transfer RNA synthetase antibodies in conjunction with clinical features such as interstitial lung disease (ILD), Raynaud’s phenomenon, nonerosive arthritis, and myopathy. AS distinguishes itself from other inflammatory myopathies by its significant lung involvement and rapidly progressive interstitial lung disease (AS-ILD), therefore the management of AS-ILD requires careful clinical, serologic and radiologic assessment. Glucocorticoids are considered the mainstay of therapy; however, additional immunosuppressive agents are often required to achieve disease control. Patient prognosis is highly dependent on early diagnosis and symptom recognition as the antibody profile is thought to influence therapy response. Since progressive ILD is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, this review will discuss the clinical approach to patient with suspected AS, with particular emphasis on diagnosis and management of AS-ILD.
Addressing a billion-entries multi-petabyte distributed file system backup problem with cback: from files to objects

CERNBox is the cloud collaboration hub at CERN. The service has more than 37,000 user accounts. The backup of user and project spaces data is critical for the service. The underlying storage system hosts over a billion files which amount to 12PB of storage distributed over thousands of disks with a tworeplica layout. Performing a backup operation over this vast amount of data and number of files is a non-trivial task. The original CERNBox backup system (an in-house event-driven file-level system) has been reconsidered and replaced by a new distributed and scalable backup infrastructure based on the open source tool RESTIC. The new system, codenamed cback, provides features needed in the HEP community to guarantee data safety and smooth operation from the system administrators. Daily snapshot-based backups of all our user and project areas along with automatic verification and restores are possible with this the new development. The backup data is also de-duplicated in blocks and stored as objects in a disk-based S3 cluster in another geographical location on the CERN campus, reducing storage costs and protecting critical data from major catastrophic events. We report on the design and operational experience of running the system and future improvement possibilities.
Self-Supervised Exclusive-Inclusive Interactive Learning for Multi-Label Facial Expression Recognition in the Wild

Facial Expression Recognition (FER) is a long-standing but challenging research problem in computer vision. Existing approaches mainly focus on single-label emotional prediction, which cannot handle the complex multi-label FER task because of the coupling behavior of multiple emotions on a single facial image. To this end, in this paper, we propose a novel Self-supervised Exclusive-Inclusive Interactive Learning (SEIIL) method to facilitate discriminative multi-label FER in the wild, which can effectively handle the coupled multiple sentiments with limited unconstrained training data. Specifically, we construct an emotion disentangling module to capture the inclusive and exclusive characteristics of facial expressions, which can decouple the compound numerous emotions on an image. Moreover, an adaptively-weighted ensemble technique is conceived to aggregate category-level latent exclusive embeddings, and then a conditional adversarial interactive learning module is designed to fully leverage the complementary between the inclusive and formulated latent representations. Furthermore, to tackle the insufficient data for training, we introduce a self-supervised learning strategy to augment the amount and diversity of facial images, which can endow the model with advanced generalization ability. Under this strategy, the proposed two modules can be concurrently utilized in our SEIIL to jointly handle the coupled emotions and alleviate the overfitting problem. Extensive experimental results on six databases illustrate the superb performance of our method against state-of-the-art baselines.
Broadband Electrically Small VLF/LF Transmitter via Time-Varying Antenna Properties

We describe a new approach to transmitting broadband signals from electrically small antennas (ESAs), with a focus on lower frequencies where ESA limitations are most pronounced. ESAs traditionally suffer from a stringent tradeoff between bandwidth and efficiency that is caused by a high reactive input impedance. Conventional resonant-matching networks can reduce this impedance to improve efficiency, but at the cost of having a narrow operational bandwidth and often a large physical structure. In this article, we propose a time-varying matching technique that removes the need for resonant matching entirely. Our concept is to rapidly vary the conductivity of the antenna in order to prevent reflections from returning to the antenna feed, effectively making the antenna nonreciprocal so that it appears infinitely long and is therefore matched to the characteristic impedance of the surrounding transmission line. An ESA with such a matching scheme would be able to radiate over a wider bandwidth since the matching occurs in the time domain. This technique would be particularly useful for generating very-low-frequency (VLF)/low-frequency (LF) waves, which are uniquely suited for many applications such as long-range and underwater communication. We present the theory of operation for such an antenna as well as results from numerical modeling, which suggests improved performance over that of a conventional ESA.
Gut Microbiota from Lower Groups of Animals: An Upcoming Source for Cellulolytic Enzymes with Industrial Potentials

Cellulosic plant materials are a reliable source of renewable energy. Cellulose-based plant materials are now being used for bioenergy production as alternatives to fossil fuels. The traditional way of converting lignocellulosic materials to ethanol and other bioenergy is an expensive and environmentally unsafe process. Several research works have been conducted to find outsource of low-cost cellulolytic enzymes. Initially, fungal species were considered as sources of cellulolytic enzymes. Later on, several studies showed that bacterial species are a more potent source of cellulose-degrading enzymes. Phytophagous lower invertebrates are a good source of cellulolytic gut bacteria. They utilize a wide variety of plant materials as their food source. In this review, thorough literature studies have been made to explore the invertebrate groups that are novel sources of cellulolytic gut bacteria with high efficacy for enzyme production. This study also encompasses a brief description of cellulose, the activity, and cellulase enzyme application in industrial aspects.
Metabolic Responses of Pacific Crown-of-Thorns Sea Stars (Acanthaster sp.) to Acute Warming

Climate change and population irruptions of crown-of-thorns sea stars (Acanthaster sp.) are two of the most pervasive threats to coral reefs. Yet there has been little consideration regarding the synergies between ocean warming and the coral-feeding sub-adult and adult stages of this asteroid. Here we explored the thermosensitivity of the aforementioned life stages by assessing physiological responses to acute warming. Thermal sensitivity was assessed based on the maximal activity of enzymes involved in aerobic (citrate synthase) and anaerobic (lactate dehydrogenase) metabolic pathways, as well as the standard metabolic rate of sub-adult and adult sea stars. In both life stages, citrate synthase activity declined with increasing temperature from 15 °C to 40 °C, with negligible activity occurring >35 °C. On the other hand, lactate dehydrogenase activity increased with temperature from 20 °C to 45 °C, indicating a greater reliance on anaerobic metabolism in a warmer environment. The standard metabolic rate of sub-adult sea stars increased with temperature throughout the testing range (24 °C to 36 °C). Adult sea stars exhibited evidence of thermal stress, with metabolic depression occurring from 33 °C. Here, we demonstrate that crown-of-thorns sea stars are sensitive to warming but that adults, and especially sub-adults, may have some resilience to short-term marine heatwaves in the near future.
Class-K Function Bounds for Positive Definite Functions on Compact Sets

: This technical note focuses on positive deﬁnite functions deﬁned on compact sets which contain the origin in their interior. It provides a class- K function bounding inequality for the given positive deﬁnite function which is satisﬁed for its entire domain of deﬁnition. An application of the result is also given to analyze the stability of perturbed nonlinear systems whose nominal parts contain an asymptotically stable equilibrium point at the origin.
Evaluation of low to Moderate Arsenic Exposure, Metabolism and Skin Lesions in a Turkish Rural Population

Background: There is no human data regarding exposure, metabolism and potential health effects of arsenic (As) contamination in drinking water in the Central Anatolian region, Turkey. Methods: Residents in the 10 villages with drinking water total As (T-As) level >50 µg/L and 10-50 µg/L were selected as an exposed group (n=420) and, <10 µg/L as a control group (n=185). Time-weighted average-As (TWA-As) intakes were calculated from T-As analysis of drinking water samples (DWS). Other metals in DWS, concentrations of T-As in urine and hair samples, urinary As species (S-As) (As (III), As (V), MMA-V and DMA-V), and some micronutrients in serum samples of residents were analyzed. Primary and secondary methylation indexes (PMI, SMI; respectively) were assessed from S-As concentrations. Skin lesion presence was examined. Results: TWA-As intake was 75.15 ppb in exposed group. Urinary and hair T-As and urinary S-As concentrations were significantly higher in exposed group (p<0.05). PMI and SMI values are revealed that methylation capacities of the residents were efficient and there was no saturation in As metabolism. No significant increase was observed in the frequency of skin lesions (hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation, keratosis) of exposed group (p>0.05). Only frequency of keratosis either at hand or foot was higher in individuals with hair As concentration >1 µg/g (p<0.05). Conclusion: Current study findings of chronic As exposure through drinking water of individuals living in the study area, could contribute to overall health risk assessment of regulatory agencies’ meta-analysis efforts on low-to moderate As exposure (<100 µg/L).
Women Who Take Low-Dose Combined Oral Contraceptives have Greater Triglycerides to High Density Lipoprotein Ratio than Those Who do not Use

The use of contraceptive methods for family planning has grown over the years among women of reproductive age (15-49 years old). In an exploratory analysis by using the United Nations Population Division database, the prevalence of contraceptive strategies worldwide increased from 55 percent up to 63 percent between 1990 and 2010 [1]. Among the reversible methods, oral contraceptives are presented as the most commonly used strategy for family planning. In Brazil, it is estimated that 27% of women including all social classes use some type of oral Abstract
Compressive Sensing Operator Design and Optimization for Wideband 3-D Millimeter-Wave Imaging

This article proposes a design optimization method of fast compressive sensing (CS) operators for wideband three-dimensional (3-D) millimeter-wave (mmW) imaging systems. The proposed method consists of two parts: 1) a near-orthogonal 3-D mmW imaging operator design for avoiding large precomputed arrays and 2) a random antenna pattern design (compressive binary sampling matrix) for sparse sampling. The 3-D mmW imaging operator takes the nonlinear wavenumber relationship into account and uses a combination of truncation repair and sampling density compensation to eliminate the reconstruction error caused by truncating <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$z$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and the nonuniform <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k_{z}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> sampling. The compressive binary sampling matrix minimizes grating lobes and suppresses residual grating lobes while maintaining the mainlobe width, by maximizing PeakSLL and maxPSF in the respective frequency range and 2-D measurement aperture. A <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${Ka}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band (35–45 GHz) experiment utilizes the measurements of a very low sampling rate of 6.25% of fully sampled data to recover a high-resolution image. The result shows that the proposed CS operator reduces the maximum reconstruction error and the mean square error (MSE) between the recovered images from undersampled measurement and from the fully sampled data to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^{-15}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed decomposition method enables the soft thresholding in the CS iterative algorithms and simplifies the CS implementation in terms of antenna-array patterns, memory usage, and parallel computing. If the imaging system is implemented by a spatial antenna array, then the 6.25% sampling rate means that the number of antennas is reduced to 25% of the full-sampling system, thus reducing the cost. If the imaging system is implemented by raster scanning, then the CS implementation will reduce the number of spatial points to 25%, thus reducing the scan time. The number of frequency points is also reduced to 25%, which reduces the memory usage.
Efficiency Improved Multi-Source Inverter for Hybrid Energy Storage Systems in Electric Vehicle Application

Multisource inverters (MSIs) as a new approach for the integration of the energy and the power sources in electric vehicle applications have gained considerable attraction. Such structures offer the active control of the dc sources without using any dc/dc converters or magnetic elements, which reduces the weight, and the volume of the power electronics interface between the sources and the load. Moreover, high power density and improved efficiency due to the elimination of the magnetics are the other significant features of an MSI. This article proposes a novel three-phase MSI for integration and active control of a high-voltage dc source and a low-voltage dc source. The proposed MSI structure employs a smaller number of semiconductor devices at the current path in various operating modes in comparison to the previously published counterparts, which results in an improved efficiency operation. Performance of the proposed MSI using a modified space vector modulation technique for all possible operating modes is verified through simulations and experiments on a laboratory prototype
Preoperative lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio improves the prediction of survival outcomes after radical cystectomy for bladder cancer

Purpose To determine the prognostic significance of preoperative lymphocyte-to-monocyte (LMR) in bladder cancer (BCa) patients undergoing radical cystectomy (RC), and to validate the prognostic benefit provided by LMR compared to the models relying on the clinicopathological factors alone. Materials and Methods Retrospective analysis of the 342 BCa patients undergoing RC at our institution from 2004 to 2017 was performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of the LMR. Overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) was assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox regression models identified risk factors for survival outcomes. Two nomograms were developed based on the basal models to predict the OS and CSS at 1, 3 and 5 years after RC. The accuracy of the nomograms was assessed with receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves and concordance-index. Decision curve analyses (DCA) were performed to identify the net benefit by the nomograms. Results Excellent long-term survival outcomes of patients were associated with higher LMR level patients. The median survival time for higher LMR level patients was 98.8 months in OS and over 120 months in CSS. In Cox regression multivariate analysis, preoperative LMR, as a continuous variable, is an independent survival outcome predictor ( p <0.001). The addition of LMR to standard model significantly improved its discrimination for prediction of OS by 5.8% and CSS by 5.4% (both p <0.001). Moreover, as shown in DCA, the use of the nomogram including LMR would incur a net benefit over the base models for predicting OS and CSS at 1, 3 and 5 years. Conclusions Elevated preoperative LMR among BCa patients undergoing RC is independently associated with significantly better OS and CSS. Moreover, the increase in predictive accuracy after the inclusion of LMR in multiparametric prediction tools is significant. Therefore, LMR may be useful in preoperative patient risk stratification to help patient counseling and clinical decision making.
Efficient Inter-Cloud Authentication and Micropayment Protocol for IoT Edge Computing

In this paper, we present a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {S}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>ymmetric <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {K}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>ey <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {I}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>nter-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {C}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>loud <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>uthentication and redeemable micropayment <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {P}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>rotocol (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {SKICAP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) for IoT-Edge computing applications. The proposed protocol takes into account the mobile and limited resource nature of IoT devices by enabling them to register with their home cloud admin for computation offloading service provided by foreign Edge-Cloud instances. More precisely, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {SKICAP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ensures that mobile IoT devices can be authenticated and serviced by edge nodes outside of their home cloud coverage, while guaranteeing the associated charge redemption. Additionally, since our protocol considers the mobile and anywhere deployable requirements of IoT devices, we utilize physical unclonable function and cryptographic hash function to make it privacy-preserving and resilient to hardware compromise. Under the assumption of an indistinguishably secure physical unclonable function, we provide a formal security analysis of our protocol. Finally, we report <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {SKICAP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> performance on an ARM Cortex-A72 processor, and compare it with other closely related protocols.
Variability of Weddell Sea ionospheric anomaly as deduced from observations at the Akademik Vernadsky station

Ionospheric Weddell Sea anomaly is an inversion of diurnal variation of the electron density in the ionosphere over Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea, and neighbor territories observed during Antarctic summer. This paper aims at analyzing the reaction of the ionosphere during the Weddell Sea anomaly to changes in solar and geomagnetic activity as deduced from the data of vertical sounding of the ionosphere conducted at the Akademik Vernadsky station. The aim is achieved by comparing the monthly median values of the critical frequencies of the ionosphere (foF2) during Weddell Sea anomaly for the years of high and low solar activity; as well as by comparison of median December height-time diagrams (HT-diagrams) of foF2 calculated separately for the time intervals characterized by low or high levels of F10.7 and K indices for the period from 2007 till 2016. It was experimentally demonstrated that the Weddell Sea anomaly depends on the levels of solar ultraviolet flux and local K indices. The biggest nighttime maximum of ionization corresponds to low K indices and high values of F10.7. The most accurate inversion of diurnal variation of electron density in the F region is observed under the low values of K index and low F10.7 flux. The growth of geomagnetic activity decreases the nighttime ionization under both low and high levels of F10.7 fluxes and leads to a blur of the night maximum. Visible virtual heights of maximums increase together with F10.7 independently of the K index level. Blurring of the night maximum can be explained by destruction of the field of thermospheric winds supporting the nighttime anomaly, and/or by increasing role of plasma drifts in comparison with wind impact. The growth of visible virtual height of the nighttime maximum with increasing solar F10.7 flux could be explained by the gain of equatorward thermospheric wind with increasing solar ultraviolet flux that leads to growth of plasma upwelling effect. The Doppler frequency shift of the signals reflected from the ionosphere during nighttime in presence of the Weddell Sea anomaly is close to zero which could be explained by a stable F2 layer formed as a result of dynamic equilibrium between photochemical processes and upward plasma transport.
Seeing through Words: Hypotyposis and its Functions

This essay aims to analyse the rhetorical device of hypotyposis, which is held in great consideration both by ancient rhetoricians (Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian) and by modern critics (Dumarsais, Barthes and Eco) for its capacity to portray visual experiences through the use of words, so as to make them as perceptible as if they were present before the reader? s eyes. The essay compares hypotyposis with other similar rhetorical strategies, such as description (an important moment in which the narratio is suspended and the author describes a place or character), evidentia, and especially ekphrasis - which comes from ekphrazo, meaning ? describe, represent? , it is used with reference to the description of artworks - which all exercise a significant persuasive function, for they make arguments more tangible and convincing.
A data model for linking testbed and field test data

With the help of data-driven methods such as machine learning, the development of the current product generation can be supported and improved through the early use of data from previous products and product generations. For example, machine learning can be used to predict later product behaviour in field tests from testbed data. This can significantly shorten the development time and save expensive field tests. To implement this data provision for the development processes, uniform data models enable the use of data-driven methods and are of central importance. This paper presents a data model using the example of a testbed for electric vehicle transmissions. Here, potentials for a later data-driven prediction of the product behaviour in the field test for the optimisation of the existing development are shown