Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tunable Transmission Line With Nanopatterned Thin Films for Smart RF Applications

A concept of tunable transmission line (TL) enabled with nanopatterned ferromagnetic permalloy (Py) and ferroelectric lead zirconium titanate (PZT) thin films is presented. The permittivity (εr) of PZT is electrical tunable with dc voltage, and the permeability (μr) of Py is electrical tunable with dc current, thus simultaneous electric tunable capacitance and inductance capability are provided for the proposed TL. The proposed TL has been fabricated and compared with a regular line without nanofilm patterns. Py is patterned with the dimensions of 10 μm × 150 nm and thickness of 100 nm for high built-in anisotropy field. The ferromagnetic resonant frequency is measured to be 6.3 GHz. Compared with the regular TL, the implemented TL has only generated 0.05 dB additional insertion loss at 4 GHz. The electrical tunability of both the capacitance and the inductance has been demonstrated for the first time. By applying the varied dc current (0-150 mA) and the dc voltage (0-20 V), measured results have shown that the proposed line can provide 90° phase shift from 3.75 to 4 GHz with the fixed characteristic impedance. The continuous tuning of the characteristics impedance from 59 to 61 Ω under suitable bias conditions shows its promise as an impedance matching network. Tunable range of both the phase shifter and the impedance matching network can be further increased with thicker and multilayer films.
MEASUREMENTS OF PM 10 LEVELS IN AN ATHENS SUBURB : CONTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD ACTIVITIES TO PERSONAL EXPOSURE

EXTENDED ABSTRACT The aim of the present work is the systematic monitoring of the basic indoor sources of particulate matter and the qualitative estimation of the personal exposure to PM10 for elderly people living in an Athens suburb. The measurements protocol has been conducted to 8 residential flats and some outdoor hot spots during the summer period of 2011. The data was collected by using a continuous monitoring DustTrak 8520 sampler. After a systematic study of indoor PM10 sources, it is shown that the main contributors to the measured PM10 levels, are the activities of smoking, cooking, and vacuuming, having mean emission rates of 1,5 mg/min,1,35 mg/min and 1,4 mg/min respectively. The impact of these activities to the diurnal variability of the observed PM10 levels is clearly demonstrated. Especially, in case of old people almost permanently staying at home, it is estimated that the mean 24hour personal exposure to PM10 is increasing by 2.6 times when smoking is conducted, 1.8 times when cooking takes place and 3.1 times when both the activities are performed. These results are in exceedance of the 24-hours E.U. limit value by 60%, 10% and 88% respectively. According to a typical time-activity pattern based on the elderly’s diaries (21 hours indoors, 2 hours in a smoking entertainment area and 1 hour outdoor), it was noticed that the time spent out of non-smoking home increases the total personal exposure per 60%. It worths mentioning that the contribution of the entertainment areas to the total 24-hours personal exposure is significant in relation to the corresponding spending time (only two hours). Under these conditions the 24-hours total exposure is marginally meeting the E.U. limit value. On the other hand, when referring to residents of smoking homes, the total personal exposure exceeds the 24-hours E.U. limit value by 84%. The results of the study are in agreement with data from similar works in the literature. During the warm season, when this work was conducted, the critical habits that drastically contribute to the 24-hours total exposure of elderly are smoking, cooking and the general housekeeping activities.
In vitro efficacy of meropenem in combination with colistin , ampicillin-sulbactam against multidrug-resistant blaNDM-1-positive acinetobacter baumannii strains

Multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii strains increase the mortality rate of patient after surgery. Evidences have showed that combined antibiotic treatments have presented more efficient than single antibiotic treatment for the treatment of acinetobacter baumannii strains. The purpose of this study was to analyze in vitro efficacy of synergistic effects of Meropenem (MEP), Colistin (COT), and Ampicillin-sulbactam (AMPS) on multidrugresistant acinetobacter baumannii strains with blaNDM-1. The baumannii strains with blaNDM-1 had high antimicrobial activity (≤32 mg/L). Notable changes were noted in the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) in blaNDM1-positive baumannii strains before and after performing the drug resistant test. We showed that synergistic antibiotic therapy markedly suppressed blaNDM-1 growth. The mRNA detection demonstrated that resistance genes (rmtA, OXA-24, TEM-1, and IMP) were decreased after synergistic antibiotic therapy. Significant increasing was observed in the comparative adeB mRNA levels in blaNDM-1-positive baumannii strains after synergistic antibiotic therapy compared with control (78.66±14.48% vs. 10.08±26.35%; P=0.001). In conclusion, findings in the current study suggest that synergistic effects of MEP, COT, and AMPS are potential therapeutic schedule against multidrugresistant acinetobacter blaNDM-1-positive baumannii strains in vitro.
Mitogen-activated protein kinase activation is not necessary for, but antagonizes, 3T3-L1 adipocytic differentiation

In 3T3-L1 fibroblasts, Ras proteins mediate both insulin-induced differentiation to adipocytes and its activation of cytosolic serine/threonine kinases, including Raf-1 kinase, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and Rsk. Here, we report that insulin- and Ras-induced activation of MAPK is not required for the differentiation process and in fact antagonizes it. The treatment of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes with MEK-specific inhibitor PD98059 blocked insulin- and Ras-induced MAPK activation but had no effect on or slightly enhanced adipocytic differentiation. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), an inhibitor of insulin-stimulated adipogenesis, activated MAPK in 3T3-L1 cells. PD98059 treatment blocked MAPK activation by TNF-alpha and reversed the blockade of adipogenesis mediated by low (1 ng/ml) TNF-alpha concentrations. 3T3-L1 transfectants containing hyperactivated MEK1 or overexpressed MAPK displayed impaired adipocytic differentiation. PD98059 treatment also reversed the blockade of differentiation in MEK1 transfectants. These results indicate that MAPK does not promote but can contribute to inhibition of the process of adipocytic differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells.
Adenosine 3′,5′-Cyclic Monophosphate (cAMP)-Dependent Inhibition of IL-5 from Human T Lymphocytes Is Not Mediated by the cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase A1

IL-5 is implicated in the pathogenesis of asthma and is predominantly released from T lymphocytes of the Th2 phenotype. In anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28-stimulated PBMC, albuterol, isoproterenol, rolipram, PGE2, forskolin, cholera toxin, and the cAMP analog, 8-bromoadenosine cAMP (8-Br-cAMP) all inhibited the release of IL-5 and lymphocyte proliferation. Although all of the above compounds share the ability to increase intracellular cAMP levels and activate protein kinase (PK) A, the PKA inhibitor H-89 failed to ablate the inhibition of IL-5 production mediated by 8-Br-cAMP, rolipram, forskolin, or PGE2. Similarly, H-89 had no effect on the cAMP-mediated inhibition of lymphocyte proliferation. Significantly, these observations occurred at a concentration of H-89 (3 μM) that inhibited both PKA activity and CREB phosphorylation in intact cells. Additional studies showed that the PKA inhibitors H-8, 8-(4-chlorophenylthio) adenosine-3′,5′-cyclic monophosphorothioate Rp isomer, and a myristolated PKA inhibitor peptide also failed to block the 8-Br-cAMP-mediated inhibition of IL-5 release from PBMC. Likewise, a role for PKG was considered unlikely because both activators and inhibitors of this enzyme had no effect on IL-5 release. Western blotting identified Rap1, a downstream target of the cAMP-binding proteins, exchange protein directly activated by cAMP/cAMP-guanine nucleotide exchange factors 1 and 2, in PBMC. However, Rap1 activation assays revealed that this pathway is also unlikely to be involved in the cAMP-mediated inhibition of IL-5. Taken together, these results indicate that cAMP-elevating agents inhibit IL-5 release from PBMC by a novel cAMP-dependent mechanism that does not involve the activation of PKA.
Vitamin D and skin repair: a prospective, double-blind and placebo controlled study in the healing of leg ulcers.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the relation between vitamin D insufficiency and wound healing in patients with venous ulcers; to correlate vitamin D insufficiency with characteristics of the ulcer (size and pain) and to evaluate if reposition of vitamin D in these subjects expedites ulcer healing. METHODS We selected 26 patients with leg ulcers, and 26 control patients without ulcers, matched for gender, age, systemic arterial hypertension and tobacco use. The venous ulcer group was divided in two subgroups: one that received placebo (nine patients) and other receiving vitamin D, 50.000 IU per week over two months (13 patients). Blood was collected for 25 OH vitamin D dosage before and after the medication. In the ulcer group, we obtained data concerning demographics, leg ulcer size, as well as pain severity, measured by an analogical visual scale. Data was grouped in contingency and frequency tables, the tests of Fisher and chi-squared being used for nominal variables and Mann-Whitney for numerical variables. The adopted significance was of 5%. RESULTS We found vitamin D insufficiency in the great majority of the patients. The median level in the ulcer group was 17.05 ng/dl and 22.75 ng/dl in the group without ulcer (p=0,0182) No relation was found between the ulcer size without treatment and the level of vitamin D. After treatment, the average size of the ulcer changed from 25 cm² to 18 cm² in the patients that took vitamin D and from 27 cm² to 24,5 cm² in the placebo group (p=0,7051 and p=0,7877, respectively). Considering the variability of the size of the ulcer in the treatment group versus placebo group, the average size was equal to -0,75 cm² in the first group and +4cm² in the second (p=0,0676) CONCLUSION Patients with leg ulcers have more vitamin D deficiency. No difference in the ulcer characteristics was noted between those with and without vitamin D deficiency. There was a trend toward a better healing in those with vitamin D reposition.
PERFORMANCE AND VERIFICATION OF A DOWNSCALING APPROACH FOR METEOROLOGY AND LAND USE , USING A MESOSCALE MODEL IN A COMPLEX TERRAIN INDUSTRIAL AREA IN GREECE

EXTENDED ABSTRACT Meteorological and air quality forecasting models are important tools in several applications, such as, prediction of air pollution levels, air quality management, environmental impact assessments, decision support systems in cases of pollution episodes and/or accidents in industrial or other facilities. Meteorological input data and land use changes are key factors as input for these models, which affect their results and consequently the field of their applicability. In this work, the examination of a models behavior is attempted, running under different configuration circumstances in a complex terrain area. For this purpose, The Air Pollution Model (TAPM), which is a mesoscale, nestable, prognostic meteorological and air pollution model was used, configured and ran for Western Macedonia, a heavy industrialized complex terrain area in NW Greece. In this occasion, three different runs were applied, for a two years period (2010-2011). First, default configuration of the model, second with data assimilation in winds and finally with changes in land use. The area that was covered from those runs is approximately 810x810 km spacing for the outer grid, focusing inside the region of interest with spacing 45x45 km. The results from the simulations’ performance show that default configuration defers from the one with land use changes but not significantly, while a perfect agreement between the predicted and the measurement values in the configuration with data assimilation is occurred.
Multi-Objective Optimization with Estimation of Distribution Algorithm in a Noisy Environment

Many real-world optimization problems are subjected to uncertainties that may be characterized by the presence of noise in the objective functions. The estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA), which models the global distribution of the population for searching tasks, is one of the evolutionary computation techniques that deals with noisy information. This paper studies the potential of EDAs; particularly an EDA based on restricted Boltzmann machines that handles multi-objective optimization problems in a noisy environment. Noise is introduced to the objective functions in the form of a Gaussian distribution. In order to reduce the detrimental effect of noise, a likelihood correction feature is proposed to tune the marginal probability distribution of each decision variable. The EDA is subsequently hybridized with a particle swarm optimization algorithm in a discrete domain to improve its search ability. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is examined via eight benchmark instances with different characteristics and shapes of the Pareto optimal front. The scalability, hybridization, and computational time are rigorously studied. Comparative studies show that the proposed approach outperforms other state of the art algorithms.
BUILDING A LARGE-SCALE JAPANESE SYNTACTICALLY ANNOTATED CORPUS FOR DERIVING A CFG

A syntactically annotated corpus is a type of language resources, which can be used in many different ways. One possible use of the corpus is deriving a context-free grammar (CFG), and there have been quite a few studies concerning this type of grammar derivation. However, a CFG derived from a syntactically annotated corpus often has a shortcoming: it creates a great number of parse results (ambiguity) during syntactic parsing. We have been building a Japanese syntactically annotated corpus in order to derive a grammar with less ambiguity during syntactic parsing. In this paper, we introduce our policy for building the corpus and an experimental evaluation of the derived CFG.
Massive MIMO for Ray-Based Channels

Favorable propagation (FP) and channel hardening are desired properties in massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems, where nearly optimal performance is achieved with linear processing techniques, such as maximalratio combining. To date, these properties have primarily been analyzed for classical statistical channel models, or ray-based models with very specific angular parameters and distributions. This paper presents a thorough mathematical analysis of the asymptotic system for ray-based channels with arbitrary ray distributions and a uniform linear array at the base station. In addition to FP and channel hardening, we analyze the large system potential (LSP) which measures the asymptotic ratio of the power in the desired channel to the total interference power when both the antenna and user numbers grow. LSP is said to hold when this ratio converges to a positive constant. The results demonstrate that while FP is guaranteed in ray-based channels, channel hardening may or may not occur depending on the nature of the model. Furthermore, we demonstrate that LSP will not normally hold as the interference power grows logarithmically relative to the power in the desired channel. Nevertheless, we identify some fundamental and attractive properties of massive MIMO in this limiting regime.
Overview of circuit topologies for inductive pulsed power supplies

The pulsed power supply (PPS) is one important component in the electromagnetic launch system. The inductive PPSs have attracted researchers’ attentions with the major advantages of high energy storage density (over the capacitive PPSs) as well as simple structure and easy control (over the rotating mechanical PPSs). As for the inductive PPSs, the circuit topology of the basic module will directly determine the comprehensive performance of the whole system. From the perspectives of working principles, strengths, weaknesses, and comprehensive performance, this paper presents a historical and technical review of the major circuit topologies for the inductive PPSs.
A Study of Total-Variation Based Noise-Reduction Algorithms For Low-Dose Cone-Beam Computed Tomography

In low-dose cone-beam computed tomography, the reconstructed image is contaminated with excessive quantum noise. In this work, we examined the performance of two popular noisereduction algorithms—total-variation based on the split Bregman (TVSB) and total-variation based on Nesterov’s method (TVN)—on noisy imaging data from a computer-simulated Shepp–Logan phantom, a physical CATPHAN phantom and head-and-neck patient. Up to 15% Gaussian noise was added to the Shepp–Logan phantom. The CATPHAN phantom was scanned by a Varian OBI system with scanning parameters 100 kVp, 4 ms, and 20 mA. Images from the head-and-neck patient were generated by the same scanner, but with a 20-ms pulse time. The 4-ms low-dose image of the head-and-neck patient was simulated by adding Poisson noise to the 20-ms image. The performance of these two algorithms was quantitatively compared by computing the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and the total computational time. For CATPHAN, PSNR improved by 2.3 dB and 3.1 dB with respect to the low-dose noisy image for the TVSB and TVN based methods, respectively. The maximum enhancement ratio of CNR for CATPHAN was 4.6 and 4.8 for TVSB and TVN respectively. For data for head-and-neck patient, the PSNR improvement was 2.7 dB and 3.4 dB for TVSB and TVN respectively. Convergence speed for the TVSB-based method was comparatively slower than TVN method. We conclude that TVN algorithm has more desirable properties than TVSB for image denoising.
ANDROID MALWARE CLASSIFICATION BASE ON APPLICATION CATEGORY USING STATIC CODE ANALYSIS

The great shipment of Android mobile devices throughout the world has surged the application development. Indirectly, this scenario had invited the malware creator to be in-line with the technology evolution. One of the threats is the leakage of privacy data and it is a serious subject. To overcome this, the Android application usually being examine through static or dynamic analysis. In static analysis approach, researcher commonly considered combination static features to identify the benign and malicious application. This paper presents a proof of concept on classifying Android benign and malicious apps by its application category. At the same time, this paper proposes a new framework for malicious detection focusing on the leakage of user privacy using minimum number of the request permissions and API calls features. Several machine learning classifiers with several training and testing percentage applied in this study to compare the accuracy. The result show that, applications in same category reported more accurate performance in identify malicious apps compared to non-category based. By applying features ranking and information gain features selection, Random forest classifier with 10 folds cross validation for both “Book and Reference” and “Personalization” category achieved higher true positive rate also lower false positive rate.
Wind Speed Forecasting using MRA based Adaptive Wavelet Neural Network

This paper addresses the problem of predicting hourly wind speed using Adaptive Wavelet Neural Networks (AWNN). It employs wavelets as its activation function in the hidden layer. Due to time-frequency localiztion property and adapting the wavelet shape according to training data set instead of adapting the parameters of the fixed shape basis function, WNNs have better generalization properties in contrast to the classical Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN). The wavelet based multiresolution analysis (MRA) is applied on wind series to decompose in to smooth and detail signals for better wind characterization and reliable forecasting. The transformed data of historical wind series were trained and tested over various periods of time using AWNNs. The forecasting results are better when compared with AWNN as a forecasitng model alone, FFNN with Back Propagation (BP) training algorithm as a forecasting model, and MRA based FFNN as a forecasting model.
EFL literature approaches in Dutch secondary education

There is an increasing awareness that the inclusion of literature in foreign language (FL) curricula can be beneficial to language learners. Especially, the move towards integrated language and literature curricula is gaining ground. In this study we investigated the way English as a foreign language (EFL) is approached in Dutch secondary education at pre-university level. Using a survey study (N = 106 EFL teachers), we investigated (1) how EFL teachers approach literature at pre-university level in Dutch secondary education and also (2) which factors are related to the reported occurrence of four FL literary teaching approaches. Confirmatory factor analysis shows that the four identified approaches represent one underlying construct, which underlines our understanding of a Comprehensive Approach to FL literature teaching. Results indicate that the variation between the ways FL teachers approach literature is enormous. Correlation analyses and t-tests informed us that curricular factors are significantly related to the way literature is approached. The fact that teacher demographics are generally not significantly related to the way FL literature is approached could be ascribed to curricular heritage or the way FL literature curricula are designed. The study concludes by suggesting several directions for future research. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 1 May 2015 Accepted 16 December 2015
A Systematic Mapping Study of Cross-Platform Mobile Apps

Cross-platform frameworks for mobile Application (app) development allow developers to deploy solutions on a range of platforms such as iOS and Android. With the increased use of such frameworks, it is of utmost importance to understand the contributions and challenges in this emergent field. Although there have been many studies in this area of research, there is a lack of a coherent view. To address this issue, we have conducted a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) to categorize the available studies in the area of cross-platform mobile app development. More specifically, we aim to understand the accomplishments, contribution facets and the challenges presented in this field. Thirty (30) studies are mapped to a classification scheme. Different research gaps are identified: more research needs to be conducted using more complex and real-world apps; the point of how cross-platform apps are identified and distinguished from the native is still not clarified; and we argue that there should be more research contribution in the particular area of testing and maintenance.