Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MicroRNA Sequencing Analysis in Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Depression: Anti-Oxidant and MAOA-Inhibiting Effects of miR-15b-5p and miR-92b-3p through Targeting PTGS1-NF-κB-SP1 Signaling

The aim of this study was to identify novel microRNAs related to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) characterized by intermittent hypoxia with re-oxygenation (IHR) injury. Illumina MiSeq was used to identify OSA-associated microRNAs, which were validated in an independent cohort. The interaction between candidate microRNA and target genes was detected in the human THP-1, HUVEC, and SH-SY5Y cell lines. Next-generation sequencing analysis identified 22 differentially expressed miRs (12 up-regulated and 10 down-regulated) in OSA patients. Enriched predicted target pathways included senescence, adherens junction, and AGE-RAGE/TNF-α/HIF-1α signaling. In the validation cohort, miR-92b-3p and miR-15b-5p gene expressions were decreased in OSA patients, and negatively correlated with an apnea hypopnea index. PTGS1 (COX1) gene expression was increased in OSA patients, especially in those with depression. Transfection with miR-15b-5p/miR-92b-3p mimic in vitro reversed IHR-induced early apoptosis, reactive oxygen species production, MAOA hyperactivity, and up-regulations of their predicted target genes, including PTGS1, ADRB1, GABRB2, GARG1, LEP, TNFSF13B, VEGFA, and CXCL5. The luciferase assay revealed the suppressed PTGS1 expression by miR-92b-3p. Down-regulated miR-15b-5p/miR-92b-3p in OSA patients could contribute to IHR-induced oxidative stress and MAOA hyperactivity through the eicosanoid inflammatory pathway via directly targeting PTGS1-NF-κB-SP1 signaling. Over-expression of the miR-15b-5p/miR-92b-3p may be a new therapeutic strategy for OSA-related depression.
Deciphering the deluge of data

Electronic equipment designers use the part manufacturers' data sheets to help select parts. To do so efficiently and effectively, designers must understand the data sheet and the constraints part manufacturers place on the use of their parts. Although equipment designers are not necessarily bound by those constraints, they must be aware of them in order to avoid misinterpretation. This article provides a primer on the contents of an electronic data sheet, focusing on the environmental and operational constraints as well as electrical parameters in the context of their relationship with specification limits. The purpose is to make the reader aware of the issues that must be considered in using electronic part data sheets.
Evaluation of Type C Fly Ash in Cold In-Place Recycling

The Kansas Department of Transportation has developed an innovative method of rehabilitating low-volume pavements using cold in-place recycling (CIR) and Type C fly ash. Previous field test sections have indicated that fly ash improves constructability and moisture sensitivity. However, the same field test sections have exhibited increased cracking with increased fly ash content and a drop in pavement modulus with time. A laboratory study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of fly ash content on CIR. Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) was mixed with 3, 7, 11, and 15 percent Type C fly ash and the fatigue life, durability, freeze-thaw resistance, and thermal cracking potential of laboratory-compacted samples were evaluated. RAP mixed with asphalt emulsion and asphalt emulsion with hydrated lime were evaluated as well. The results indicated that 7 to 11 percent Type C fly ash provided optimal laboratory freeze-thaw and moisture sensitivity performance. Increasing the fly ash content resulted in a brittle fatigue behavior as well as an increased thermal fracture temperature. AASHTO T283 is recommended for selecting the optimum fly ash content.
A photonic biosensor system on a CMOS chip

Silicon photonic biosensors using SiNx/SiO2 waveguides fabricated in a commercial CMOS process are read out with an integrated polysilicon photodetector array buried under the waveguide. Increased surface refractive index, such as that generated by the specific binding of target molecules, locally decreases evanescent coupling to the detector array resulting in reduced photocurrent from elements under the higher index region. The operating principle of this local evanescent array coupled (LEAC) sensor differs from those of other waveguide sensors and has been explored using numerical simulations. Experimental studies have been performed using adsorbed bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanofilms as well as antigen-antibody pairs.
Analysis of frequency dispersion in amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O thin-film transistors

It is shown in this paper that the finite resistance of the accumulation channel in amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O thin-film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs) is the main cause of the frequency dispersion of the capacitance–voltage curves in these devices. A transmission line model, accounting for the distributed nature of channel resistance, is used to explain this. Multi-frequency analysis techniques for trap density distribution use a lumped series resistance model and attribute dispersion solely to the charging and discharging of trap states. As the resistance–capacitance (RC) time constant values of the IGZO TFTs are in the range of 10–100 µs, a distributed RC network is better suited for the measured frequency range (1 kHz–1 MHz).
The risks associated with using a mobile phone by young drivers

AbstractA substantial body of research has shown that mobile phone usage could lead to the impairment of driving performance and increase the likelihood of driving accidents. The use of mobile phone while driving is a major problem for inexperienced drivers. The reason for this lies in the fact that they have not developed abilities to process different types of information simultaneously. Mobile phone use may result in reduced attention allocation to the various tasks during driving. The research of young drivers’ habits related to mobile phone usage while driving is presented in this paper. A series of questions were administered, including along with demographic measures, self-reported number of traffic accidents and several kinds of driving behaviour such as alcohol consumption. The results have shown that 68% of young drivers used mobile phone while driving. Additionally, a relationship was found between frequency of mobile phones usage and the number of traffic accidents, consequences of traffic acc.
Lens Stars and Platonic Lenses: Connecting Transformation Optics and Kepler Problem

: Lens stars comprise identical ideal thin lenses arranged in a regular star shape centred on the common principal point. They satisfy the edge-imaging condition of transformation optics (TO) and are thus suitable as building blocks of ideal-lens TO devices [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 37 , 305 (2020)]. Here we show that the ray trajectories in lens stars are piecewise straight approximations of conic sections. We also generalise lens stars to Platonic lenses, highly symmetric combinations of lens stars based on Platonic solids, and find that ray trajectories in Platonic lenses are closed and planar; we design a more general ideal-lens cloak; and we clarify the process of designing ideal-lens TO devices. Throughout, we illustrate our results with ray-tracing simulations. Our results add to the knowledge of TO with ideal lenses.
Single node deep learning frameworks: Comparative study and CPU/GPU performance analysis

Deep learning presents an efficient set of methods that allow learning from massive volumes of data using complex deep neural networks. To facilitate the design and implementation of algorithms, deep learning frameworks provide a high‐level programming interface. Based on these frameworks, new models, and applications are able to make better and better predictions. One type of deep learning application is the Internet of Things that can gather a continuous flow of data, which causes an explosion of the amount of data. Therefore, to handle this data management issue, computation technologies can offer new perspectives to analyze more data with more complex models. In this context, a cluster of computers can operate to quickly deliver a model or to enable the design of a complex neural network spread among computers. An alternative is to distribute a deep learning task with HPC cloud computing resources and to scale cluster in order to quickly and efficiently train a neural network. As a first step to design an infrastructure aware framework which is able to scale the computing nodes, this work aims to review and analyze the state‐of‐the‐art frameworks by collecting device utilization data during the training task. We gather information about the CPU, RAM and the GPU utilization on deep learning algorithms with and without multi‐threading. The behavior of each framework is discussed and analyzed in order to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of the different deep learning frameworks.
Species composition and diversity of freshwater snails and land snails at the swampy areas and streams edges in the urban zone of Douala, Cameroon

Fascioliasis and bilharzia occur in the Littoral region of Cameroon. Recent reports indicate a high prevalence of bilharzia in school-age children in the locality of Njombé-Penja, close to the city of Douala. This infectious disease may spread in the near future to the city of Douala, especially if the localities at risk are visited by infected people, who defecate or urinate in streams or swamps as is the habit of populations in populous zones of the city and where environmental cleanliness is not respected. It is known that several molluscs are intermediate hosts of the infectious agents of this pathology but little is known about the snail’s community structure at the coastal zone of the country. The present study aimed to establish a baseline of information on the distribution of snails in the urban environments of the Douala coastal Littoral-zone, as a first step in evaluating the status and the occurrence level of snails known as intermediate hosts of schistosomiasis and distomatosis agents. Seventy-three sample units where inspected from July to November 2020 in eight quarters of the Douala city, using 49 non-contiguous transects 5x40 m² each along streams and 24 non-contiguous quadrates 10x10 m² each around swamps. A total of 4,068 snail’s shelter belonged to 9 families: 3(33.3%) and 6 (66.7%) families for land and freshwater snails respectively. Specimens belonged to 14 genera [6 (42.9%) and 8 (57.1%) genera for land and freshwater snails respectively], and 30 species [14 (46.7%) and 16 (53.3%) species for land and freshwater snails respectively]. Land snails were most diverse [E(Sn=151) = 14 ± 0 species] than freshwater snails [E(Sn=151) = 11 ± 1 species]. Economically important species were highly represented in land snails (30.3%) and lowly represented in freshwater snails (6.1%). Between land snails Achatina and Archachatina (invasive pests for agriculture) were highly recorded in Bépanda-Sic-Cacao, Makepé-Missoké and PK10-Plateau quarters while between freshwater snails known as obligate intermediate hosts for fascioliasis and bilharzia agents, Lymnaea was recorded in Bépanda-Sic-Cacao, Nkomba and Mbanga-Pongo quarters while Biomphalaria occurred exclusively in PK10-Plateau quarter. The community exhibited low evenness, low species richness, low species diversity and low dominance by a few species. The theoretical lognormal model fitted the species abundance distributions and species exhibited a positive association (Schluter’s ratio VR = 6.69, statistic W = 53.49, df = 8, p<0.001 for land snails; VR = 2.27, W = 18.18, df = 8, p = 0.020 for freshwater snails; VR = 4.17, W = 33.42, p<0.001 for the pooled data). Low dominance by a few species indicated that study sites were slightly influenced by interspecific competition and/or disturbance by human activities.
Experimental and CFD Simulations of Pressure Loss through Perforated Plates

This paper presents the experimental pressure loss of water flow through perforated plates with geometry similar to the ones of the bottom end piece of a Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) fuel element. Geometric features like the number, pattern and diameter of holes were evaluated as well as different inlet chamfers. The recovering pressure profile downstream of the plates was also measured. The experimental results were compared with numerical modeling performed with the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code CFX 11.0. The analysis of the results shows that the standard k-e turbulence model presents the best compromise between computing time and accuracy for the calculation of the total pressure loss through the perforated plates tested.
Credit Risk Evaluation of Power Market Players with Random Forest

A new method is proposed for credit risk evaluation in a power market. The credit risk evaluation is to measure the bankruptcy risk of the company. The power system liberalization results in new environment that puts emphasis on the profit maximization and the risk minimization. There is a high probability that the electricity transaction causes a risk between companies. So, power market players are concerned with the risk minimization. As a management strategy, a risk index is requested to evaluate the worth of the business partner. This paper proposes a new method for evaluating the credit risk with Random Forest (RF) that makes ensemble learning for the decision tree. RF is one of efficient data mining technique in clustering data and extracting relationship between input and output data. In addition, the method of generating pseudo-measurements is proposed to improve the performance of RF. The proposed method is successfully applied to real financial data of energy utilities in the power market. A comparison is made between the proposed and the conventional methods.
De-Dopplerization of aircraft acoustic signals

A de-Dopplerizat ion scheme is devised and applied to both a tonal noise source, an XV-15 aircraft, and a broadband noise source, an F-18 aircraft. The procedure is developed from the conservation equations of fluid mechanics and is described in the article. The de-Dopplerized time history is constructed by using linear interpolation in the measured time history. This was made possible by knowing the position history of the aircraft provided by radar and/or laser tracking. The XV-15 data established that the scheme can accurately account for Doppler frequency shifts. The F-18 data confirms what has been noted in prediction models and static tests pertaining to broadband shock-associated noise. That is, the peak frequency increases and the peaks broaden toward the jet axis. Another issue addressed in the study is the influence of correcting for spherical spreading and Doppler amplitude on the spectral shape and overall sound pressure levels of the source. Results from this investigation confirm that the dominant noise source in high-speed jets is due to turbulent mixing.
Single organoid RNA-sequencing reveals high organoid-to-organoid variability

Over the last decades, organoids have been established from the majority of tissue resident stem and iPS cells. They hold great promise for our understanding of mammalian organ development, but also for the study of disease or even personalized medicine. In recent years, several reports hinted at intraculture organoid variability, but a systematic analysis of such a heterogeneity has not been performed before. Here, we used RNA-seq of individual organoids to address this question. Importantly, we find that batch-to-batch variation is very low, even when prepared by different researchers. On the other hand, there is organoid-to-organoid variability within a culture. Using differential gene expression, we did not identify specific pathways that drive this variability, pointing towards possible effects of the microenvironment within the culture condition. Taken together, our study provides a framework for organoid researchers to properly consider experimental design.
Homogenization of surface energy and elasticity for highly rough surfaces

Surface energy plays a central role in several phenomena pertaining to nearly all aspects of materials science. This includes phenomena such as self-assembly, catalysis, fracture, void growth, and microstructural evolution among others. In particular, due to the large surface-to-volume ratio, the impact of surface energy on the physical response of nanostructures is nothing short of dramatic. How does the roughness of a surface renormalize the surface energy and associated quantities such as surface stress and surface elasticity? In this work, we attempt to address this question by using a multi-scale asymptotic homogenization approach. In particular, the novelty of our work is that we consider highly rough surfaces, reminiscent of experimental observations, as opposed to gentle roughness that is often treated by using a perturbation approach. We find that softening of a rough surface is significantly underestimated by conventional approaches. In addition, our approach naturally permits the consideration of bending resistance of a surface, consistent with the Steigmann-Ogden theory, in sharp contrast to the surfaces in the Gurtin-Murdoch surface elasticity theory that do not offer flexural resistance.
Establishment of the Wind Speed Model for the Installation Of Wind Turbines in the Algerian Offshore

As the electrical power supplied reaches the 5100 MW level exceeding the production capacity of 200 MW, Algeria is therefore, facing electric power problems. For this, it is necessary to turn to other forms of renewable energy available in large quantities in this country like wind, its only indirect form of solar energy. To use the wind as an energy source, the wind potential must be known. Industrialized countries have maps and wind atlases. This is not the case for development paths countries. In view of the solar energy potential, geothermal and wind existing in Algeria, their use for economic development in some regions appear favorable. By its agricultural vocation, and in view of potential wind energy determined by the preliminary study, the wind turbines installation in the open sea in coastal regions seems appropriate. The choice of a wind turbine passes inevitably by wind characterization of the implantation site, from which the attention that must necessarily be made to estimate the local potential energy. The objective of this work is the establishment of the Algerian coastal regions wind atlas. A statistical study of wind measurements based on the Weibull distribution allows the determination of the annual average wind speed; all these studies were conducted from wind measurements at heights varying from 2 m to 10 m, for extrapolation using empirical formulas to deduce the wind on a measurement level to another. This allowed the establishment of the wind map of the regions studied in a variety of altitude. The results showed that the sites of Annaba and Bejaia are the windiest of the study region.
A new approach to model nonquasi-static (NQS) effects for MOSFETs. Part II: Small-signal analysis

We present a new approach to model nonquasi-static (NQS) effects in a MOSFET in a small-signal situation. The model derived here is based on the large-signal NQS model previously proposed. The derivation of the small-signal model is presented. The small-signal parameters obtained with this model prove to be accurate up to very high frequencies. An excellent match between the new model and device simulation results has been observed even when the frequency is many times larger than the cutoff frequency.
Generating a pure circularly polarised axial beam from a pattern reconfigurable square loop antenna

A pattern reconfigurable square loop antenna (SLA) is capable of generating tilted and doughnut beam patterns. In this study, it is demonstrated that the same antenna can be used to generate a circularly polarised axial beam if all four feeds are excited simultaneously with equal amplitude and a sequential phasing of 90°. Thus, the same square loop is capable of generating three distinct unit patterns by changing its feed excitation mechanism. This phenomenon makes the SLA an exceptional candidate for integration in the unit pattern reconfigurable antenna array. The study presents a complete design of SLA in conjunction with the feeding network and validates the computed and experimental results for a test band from 4.3 to 5 GHz. The antenna provides an axial beam of a maximum directivity of 7.4 dBi over the test band and yields near to ideal circular polarisation at broadsight. Using current distributions an explanation for the mechanism of generation of circularly polarised axial beam is also presented.
Millimeter and submillimeter-wave quasi-optical oscillator with multi-elements

A multi-element oscillator with a quasi-optical resonator is reported. The resonator consists of a Fabry-Perot cavity with a grooved mirror. It has capability for power-combining of solid-state sources in the millimeter-wave region, X-band models consisting of Gunn diodes or GaAs MESFETs are demonstrated. Power-combining and frequency-locking of 18 diodes and six FETs have been successfully observed. A 50-GHz-band Gunn diode oscillator using the resonator is also reported. >
PETROPHYTIC VEGETATION OF THE DONETS RIDGE

Unique plant habitats are described for the petrophytic communities of the Donets ridge. A scientific basis for the conservation of zonal steppe vegetation and its petrophytic variants is proposed using a number of the characteristic petrophytic communities of Donets ridge as examples. Several criteria of conservation importance are proposed to evaluate the reasons for including the natural territories in the list of protected objects. Recommendations for improving the protection of the steppe petrophyte vegetation of the Donetsk ridge are given. Proposals for creating an ecological network within the studied area have been formulated.
Combined turbo equalisation and block turbo coded modulation

The combination of equalisation and turbo decoded M-QAM is studied. In a system of block turbo coding based on iterative decoding of a product code, equalisation is incorporated in the decoding iteration loop. Most research in this area has considered the trellis equaliser. When using a high throughput modulation trellis equalisation is impossible. The incorporation of a decision feedback equaliser (DFE) in the iterative decoding is studied, and simulation results show the gain achieved by incorporation of the DFE in the iteration loop.