Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hydrogen and Methane Production from Biowaste and Sewage Sludge by Two Phases Anaerobic Codigestion

The two phases anaerobic codigestion of biowaste and sewage sludge is the key to implementing the integrated treatment approach of municipal wastewater and organic fraction of municipal solid waste. In addition to increasing the production of biogas, the joint treatment of biowaste and wastewater allows to obtain readily biodegradable carbon source, an additive promoter of the denitrification stages and biological phosphorous removal. In order to develop a two-phase anaerobic codigestion process optimized for hydrogen and methane production, implementable in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), in the present study a pilotscale experimental apparatus was used to verify the feasibility and performance of the process. The addition of small amounts (5 – 10 %) of H2 to rich CH4 biogas improves the quality of gas combustion while reducing CO2 emissions. The experimental test was carried out at pilot scale using two stirred reactors both maintained at thermophilic temperature and semi-continuously fed. Nor chemicals neither recirculation were used to control the pH in first phase. The study lasted 50 days in which there were no evidences of any instability in the process. It was confirmed the possibility to obtain a stable hydrogen production with a specific hydrogen production of 40 L per kgTVS fed and a specific methane production in the second phase of 320 L per kgTVS fed. The biogas produced has a composition characterized by a stable presence of hydrogen over 5 %.
An integrated optical waveguide and charge-coupled-device image array

The device structure and experimental operation of an integrated optical waveguide and charge-coupled device (CCD) detector array are considered. The use of silicon as a substrate allows direct fabrication of the CCD detector array and a thermally oxidized layer of SiO2forms an effective substrate for waveguide deposition. The detector array is composed of a two-phase overlapping-gate CCD with first-level polycrystalline silicon electrodes and second-level aluminum electrodes connected in parallel by means of a series of gates to an array of pbotodiodes. In the photodiode region the SiO2layer is tapered to a termination so that with minimal scatter, light is multiply refracted into the detector region. The center-to-center detector element spacing of the device fabricated and successfully operated is 32 μm. Optimum detector length is considered as a function of waveguide thickness. The integrated waveguide-CCD array is expected to become an integral part of various signal-processing devices.
The Psychophysiology of Sleep in Psychotic Depression: A Longitudinal Study

&NA; The sleep of a 51‐year‐old farmer with a severe psychotic depression was studied by electroencephalograph for 31 of 36 hospital days and for 2 nights 3 weeks after discharge. He was successfully treated with 9 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); abrupt improvement followed the sixth. Before improvement his sleep was grossly abnormal with much wakefulness. REMP and Stage IV sleep were abnormally low. After successful treatment, REMP showed a compensatory increase. Stage IV sleep increased toward normal very slowly. There were changes in appetite, weight, and bowel function, as well as in mood and behavior.
Speaker Recognition: Building the Mixer 4 and 5 Corpora

The original Mixer corpus was designed to satisfy developing commercial and forensic needs. The resulting Mixer corpora, Phases 1 through 5, have evolved to support and increasing variety of research tasks, including multilingual and cross-channel recognition. The Mixer Phases 4 and 5 corpora feature a wider variety of channels and greater variation in the situations under which the speech is recorded. This paper focuses on the plans, progress and results of Mixer 4 and 5.
Regulation of the Manganese Superoxide Dismutase and Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene in Rat Neuronal and Glial Cells

Abstract: Bidirectional communication occurs between neuroendocrine and immune systems through the action of various cytokines. Responses to various inflammatory mediators include increases in intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), notably, superoxide anion (O2−) and nitric oxide (NO•). Neurotoxicity mediated by NO• may result from the reaction of NO• with O2, leading to formation of peroxynitrite (ONOO−). ROS are highly toxic, potentially contributing to extensive neuronal damage. We, therefore, evaluated the effects of a variety of inflammatory mediators on the regulation of mRNA levels for manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in primary cultures of rat neuronal and glial cells. To determine age‐dependent variation of mRNA expression, we used glial cells derived from newborn, 3‐, 21‐, and 95‐day‐old rat brains. Interleukin‐1β, interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ), bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and tumor necrosis factor‐α showed significant induction of MnSOD in both glial and neuronal cells. However, only LPS and IFN‐γ increased iNOS mRNA. These data demonstrate that these two genes are similarly regulated in two cells of the nervous system, further suggesting that the oxidative state of a cell may dictate a neurotoxic or neuroprotective outcome.
Species-speci fi c transpiration responses to intermediate disturbance in a northern hardwood forest

Intermediate disturbances shape forest structure and composition, which may in turn alter carbon, nitrogen, and water cycling. We used a large-scale experiment in a forest in northern lower Michigan where we prescribed an intermediate disturbance by stem girdling all canopy-dominant early successional trees to simulate an accelerated age-related senescence associated with natural succession. Using 3 years of eddy covariance and sap flux measurements in the disturbed area and an adjacent control plot, we analyzed disturbance-induced changes to plot level and species-specific transpiration and stomatal conductance. We found transpiration to be ~15% lower in disturbed plots than in unmanipulated control plots. However, species-specific responses to changes in microclimate varied. While red oak and white pine showed increases in stomatal conductance during postdisturbance (62.5 and 132.2%, respectively), red maple reduced stomatal conductance by 36.8%. We used the hysteresis between sap flux and vapor pressure deficit to quantify diurnal hydraulic stress incurred by each species in both plots. Red oak, a ring porous anisohydric species, demonstrated the largest mean relative hysteresis, while red maple, bigtooth aspen, and paper birch, all diffuse porous species, had the lowest relative hysteresis. We employed the Penman-Monteith model for LE to demonstrate that these species-specific responses to disturbance are not well captured using current modeling strategies and that accounting for changes to leaf area index and plot microclimate are insufficient to fully describe the effects of disturbance on transpiration.
Wine microbiome: A dynamic world of microbial interactions

ABSTRACT Most fermented products are generated by a mixture of microbes. These microbial consortia perform various biological activities responsible for the nutritional, hygienic, and aromatic qualities of the product. Wine is no exception. Substantial yeast and bacterial biodiversity is observed on grapes, and in both must and wine. The diverse microorganisms present interact throughout the winemaking process. The interactions modulate the hygienic and sensorial properties of the wine. Many studies have been conducted to elucidate the nature of these interactions, with the aim of establishing better control of the two fermentations occurring during wine processing. However, wine is a very complex medium making such studies difficult. In this review, we present the current state of research on microbial interactions in wines. We consider the different kinds of interactions between different microorganisms together with the consequences of these interactions. We underline the major challenges to obtaining a better understanding of how microbes interact. Finally, strategies and methodologies that may help unravel microbe interactions in wine are suggested.
Inspection of Miniaturised Interconnections in IC Packages with Nanofocus ® X-Ray Tubes and NanoCT

Nanofocus® tube technology and high resolution CT are the future inspection tools for IC packages. The elementary principles and techniques of latest 2D and 3D nanofocus® techniques are briefly outlined and typical results of highest resolution failure analysis including bond wire defects, copper bond wire inspection, Flip Chip solder interconnection and microvia inspection are presented.
An incremental genetic algorithm for real-time optimisation

The genetic algorithm, operated in batch mode, evaluates the whole population in some environment and generates a new population through selection, crossover, and mutation. In a real-time learning situation, where the population can be evaluated only sequentially, much of the computation and all of the learning is thus concentrated into one time interval between the evaluation of the last member of the old population and the generation of the first member of the new. The author describes how the genetic algorithm can be operated in interactive mode, generating only one new member of the population and deleting only one old one at a time, thus equalizing the amount of computation and learning at each time interval. He then compares the performance of the two modes of operating the algorithm and of a rule-based system for optimizing combustion on ten simulations of multiple burner installations, giving a statistical analysis of the results obtained. <<ETX>>
Bazedoxifene when paired with conjugated estrogens is a new paradigm for treatment of postmenopausal women

Importance of the field: The concept of the tissue selective estrogen complex (TSEC) combining a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) with one or more estrogens, aims to provide comparable efficacy to combination estrogen and progestin therapy for symptomatic menopausal women with a uterus without the need for a progestin. Areas covered in this review: Published multi-center randomized blinded clinical trials with bazedoxifene alone and paired in combination with conjugated estrogens show an effect in hot flashes, vaginal atrophy, quality of life measures, sleep, bone density, and breast and uterine safety. What the reader will gain: A new concept for menopausal women, bazedoxifene with conjugated estrogens (BZA-CE) TSEC, appears to provide the selective benefits of a SERM with additional benefits of estrogen without the need for a progestin. Preclinical studies with bazedoxifene alone showed that it was antagonistic in the uterine and breast tissue while an agonist in the bone. Phase II and III clinical studies of BZA-CE reveal relief from hot flashes and vaginal atrophic changes, and improvement in bone density, quality of life and sleep without breast or uterine stimulation. Take home message: Bazedoxifene paired with conjugated estrogens in postmenopausal women relieves vasomotor symptoms and vulvovaginal atrophic changes with prevention of bone loss. Adverse events include a twofold increase risk of venous thrombosis. No evidence of stimulation of the breast, uterus or ovary was seen.
Angiotensin II Induces Migration and Pyk2/Paxillin Phosphorylation of Human Monocytes

Angiotensin (Ang) II has been shown to enhance the development of atherosclerotic lesions. Migration of monocytes is an early critical step in the atherosclerotic process. To elucidate mechanisms by which Ang II promotes atherogenesis, we investigated its effects on human monocyte migration. Ang II induced migration of human peripheral blood monocytes (HPBM) and human THP-1 monocytes at concentrations between 0.01 and 1 &mgr;mol/L, with a 3.6±0.6-fold induction in HPBM and a 4.8±0.9-fold induction in THP-1 cells at 1 &mgr;mol/L Ang II (both P <0.01 versus unstimulated cells). Addition of the Ang II receptor type 1 (AT1-R) antagonist losartan (1 to 100 &mgr;mol/L) suppressed Ang II–induced migration of HPBM and THP-1 monocytes in a dose-dependent manner, demonstrating an AT1-R–mediated mechanism. Ang II–directed migration was also blocked by the Src kinase inhibitor PP2 (10 &mgr;mol/L), by the extracellular-regulated protein kinase (ERK 1/2) inhibitor PD98059 (30 &mgr;mol/L), and by the p38-MAPK inhibitor SB203580 (10 &mgr;mol/L), indicating that Src, ERK 1/2, and p38 are all involved in Ang II–induced migration of HPBM and human THP-1 monocytes. The proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2) and paxillin are 2 cytoskeleton-associated proteins involved in cell movement, phosphorylated by Ang II in other cell types, and abundantly expressed in monocytes. Ang II (1 &mgr;mol/L) induced Pyk2 and paxillin phosphorylation in human THP-1 monocytes, peaking after 10 minutes for Pyk2 with a 6.7±0.9-fold induction and after 2 minutes for paxillin with a 3.2±0.4-fold induction. Ang II–induced phosphorylation of both proteins was suppressed by losartan and the Src inhibitor PP2, whereas no effect was observed with PD98059 and SB203580. This study demonstrates a novel proatherogenic action of Ang II on human monocytes by stimulating their migration, through an AT1-R–dependent process, involving signaling through Src, ERK 1/2, and p38. Furthermore, the promigratory actions of Ang II in human monocytes are associated with the phosphorylation of 2 cytoskeleton-associated proteins, Pyk2 and paxillin.
Global rates of convergence in log-concave density estimation

The estimation of a log-concave density on $\mathbb{R}^d$ represents a central problem in the area of nonparametric inference under shape constraints. In this paper, we study the performance of log-concave density estimators with respect to global loss functions, and adopt a minimax approach. We first show that no statistical procedure based on a sample of size $n$ can estimate a log-concave density with respect to the squared Hellinger loss function with supremum risk smaller than order $n^{-4/5}$, when $d=1$, and order $n^{-2/(d+1)}$ when $d \geq 2$. In particular, this reveals a sense in which, when $d \geq 3$, log-concave density estimation is fundamentally more challenging than the estimation of a density with two bounded derivatives (a problem to which it has been compared). Second, we show that for $d \leq 3$, the Hellinger $\epsilon$-bracketing entropy of a class of log-concave densities with small mean and covariance matrix close to the identity grows like $\max\{\epsilon^{-d/2},\epsilon^{-(d-1)}\}$ (up to a logarithmic factor when $d=2$). This enables us to prove that when $d \leq 3$ the log-concave maximum likelihood estimator achieves the minimax optimal rate (up to logarithmic factors when $d = 2,3$) with respect to squared Hellinger loss.
Security Challenges for Hardware Designers of Mobile Systems

Mobile devices have been pervading many aspects of our lives, including applications that are critical and deal with sensitive data. Together with existing features, designers are required to add cryptographic primitives capable of guaranteeing privacy of the users and security of the operations. However, for pervasive mobile devices, the simple addition of cryptographic capabilities is not sufficient.In this paper, we discuss, from the hardware prospective,three main security challenges faced by designers while designing mobile devices: physical attacks, hardware Trojans, and software malware. For the first ones, we report mitigation techniques which can be already applied during the hardware design flow. For the last one, which is mainly related to software, we discuss its potential hardware implications.
Finite word-length effects of an unified systolic array for 2-D DCT/IDCT

This paper presents a fixed-point error analysis for the unified systolic array implementation of 2-dimensional (2-D) discrete cosine transform (DCT) and 2-D inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT). Closed form expressions for the mean and variance of fixed-point rounding-errors and truncation-errors are derived. Simulation results are provided to verify the analysis. Simulations designed to find the minimum word-length which satisfies IEEE requirements for the implementation of an 8/spl times/8 IDCT are also performed. Simulation results show that the proposed systolic array is more robust for the fixed-point error than other existing implementations for DCT/IDCT.
Risk for periodontal disease in patients with longstanding rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To quantify periodontal disease in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and controls, and to correlate the degree of destruction from periodontal disease and from RA. METHODS Fifty RA patients were matched for age, sex, smoking status, and oral hygiene with 101 controls. Correlations between indices of chronic destruction in periodontal disease (gingival attachment loss) and in RA (Larsen radiographic score) were determined. RESULTS Patients with longstanding active RA (mean +/- SD 13 +/- 8 years) who were receiving treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (n = 46), corticosteroids (n = 38), or nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (n = 43) had a higher rate of gingival bleeding (increased by 50%), greater probing depth (increased by 26%), greater attachment loss (increased by 173%), and higher number of missing teeth (increased by 29%) compared with controls. No correlation was found between the Larsen radiographic score and gingival attachment. CONCLUSION Patients with longstanding active RA have a substantially increased frequency of periodontal disease, including loss of teeth, compared with controls. Antiinflammatory treatment interferes with periodontal disease and might have masked a possible correlation between the indices of chronic destruction in RA and periodontal disease.
On Random Walk Based Weighted Graph Sampling

SUMMARY Graph sampling is an e ﬀ ective method to sample a representative subgraph from a large-scale network. Recently, researches have proven that several classical sampling methods are able to produce graph samples but do not well match the distribution of the graph properties in the original graph. On the other hand, the validation of these sampling methods and the scale of a good graph sample have not been examined on weighted graphs. In this paper, we propose the weighted graph sampling problem. We consider the proper size of a good graph sample, propose novel meth-ods to verify the e ﬀ ectiveness of sampling and test several algorithms on real datasets. Most notably, we get new practical results, shedding a new insight on weighted graph sampling. We ﬁnd weighted random walk performs best compared with other algorithms and a graph sample of 20% is enough for weighted graph sampling.
Numerical Optimal Control of a Spherical Parallel Manipulator Based on Unique Kinematic Solutions

This paper presents a framework for generating optimal motor trajectories for a spherical parallel manipulator (SPM) with revolute joints, actuated by servomotors with default internal position control settings. The proposed framework consists of three phases. First, an approach to obtain unique forward kinematics is introduced, in order to relate the angular positions of the servomotors to the orientation of the SPM top mobile platform. Then, a configuration space for the SPM is defined by using numerical procedures, in order to guarantee the absence of singularities and of collisions between links during the motion of the manipulator. Finally, reference trajectories of the servomotors are defined via convex optimization. These trajectories determine an optimal evolution of the SPM motion based on the configuration space and original servomotor dynamics. The proposed strategy is experimentally demonstrated on a prototype of Agile Wrist SPM with three servomotors.
Small Sample Scene Categorization from Perceptual Relations Ilan Kadar and

This paper addresses the problem of scene categorization while arguing that better and more accurate results can be obtained by endowing the computational process with perceptual relations between scene categories. We first describe a psychophysical paradigm that probes human scene categorization, extracts perceptual relations between scene categories, and suggests that these perceptual relations do not always conform the semantic structure between categories. We then incorporate the obtained perceptual findings into a computational classification scheme, which takes inter-class relationships into account to obtain better scene categorization regardless of the particular descriptors with which scenes are represented. We present such improved classification results using several popular descriptors, we discuss why the contribution of inter-class perceptual relations is particularly pronounced for under-sampled training sets, and we argue that this mechanism may explain the ability of the human visual system to perform well under similar conditions. Finally, we introduce an online experimental system for obtaining perceptual relations for large collections of scene categories.
An improved algorithm for maximum flow problem

This article covers a problem that often arises in real life situations-the maximum flow problem. Ford-Fulkerson algorithm is very old, but very simple. The stochastic characteristic to choose the augmenting path may lead to too much iterative times. We present an improved algorithm in flow network area. Numerical experiments prove that the new algorithm is more effectiveness than the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm in some cases.
An indexing weight for voice-to-text search

The TF–IDF (term frequency–inverse document frequency) weight is a well-known indexing weight in information retrieval and text mining. However, it is not suitable for the increasingly popular voice-to-text search, as it does not take into account the impact of voice in the search process. We propose a method for calculating a new indexing weight, which is used as guidance for selection of suitable queries for voice-to-text search. In designing the new weight, we combine prominence factors from both the text and acoustic domains. Experimental results show significant improvement in the average search success rate with the new indexing weight.
The use of rites of passage in strengthening the psychosocial wellbeing of orphaned children in Botswana

Children who have been bereaved in the context of AIDS may experience many challenges to their psychosocial wellbeing. Programmes to help orphaned children are usually anchored in child rights. As the individual focus of rights-based approaches is inept in African collectivist culture, NGOs tend to make use of group approaches in psychosocial support programmes. One orphan-strengthening programme in Botswana, called the Ark for Children, uses rites of passage and rites of affirmation as part of a therapeutic retreat. This study explored how rites of passage and rites of affirmation contribute to psychosocial strengthening of orphaned children in Botswana. Ten orphaned children were involved in five rounds of data collection during a 16-day therapeutic retreat; and eight social workers answered questions on the effectiveness of the therapy. A supplementary document analysis was also completed, which included retreat reports since 2001 and correspondence from community-based support workers and graduates of the programme. Participants reported that the rites used during the retreat helped them to commit to therapeutic transformation. During a retreat, all the participants witness and support each individual going through each rite — a process reported to foster and strengthen group formation. It was documented that the symbols used as part of the themed rites of affirmation are used by participants for years afterwards as reminders of their transformation and commitment to the group. We conclude that rites of passage can provide a powerful tool to help children commit to therapeutic transformation, build the supportive group, and enable the community to recognise and affirm that the children return as changed individuals and members of the group.