Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tocilizumab Trough Levels Variability in Kidney-Transplant Candidates Undergoing Desensitization

The presence of anti-HLA antibodies is an increasing challenge in kidney transplantation. Tocilizumab (TCZ), a monoclonal antibody targeting the interleukin-6 receptor (IL-6R), has been proposed to complement conventional desensitization therapy. We aimed to describe TCZ plasma trough concentrations and their variability and to investigate the link between TCZ concentration and the evolution of anti-HLA antibodies. Sensitized kidney-transplant candidates treated monthly with TCZ (8 mg/kg) for desensitization were retrospectively included. TCZ concentrations were determined by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Seventy-four TCZ concentrations from 10 patients were analyzed. The TCZ trough concentration ranged from <1.0 to 52.5 mg·L−1, with a median of 25.6 mg·L−1 [25th–75th percentiles: 13.2–35.3 mg·L−1). The inter- and intra-individual coefficients of variation were 55.0% and 33.0%, respectively. The TCZ trough concentration was not related to IL-6 (rho = −0.46, p = 0.792), soluble IL-6R (rho = −0.81, p = 0.65) concentrations or reduction of anti-HLA antibodies (mixed-effects model adjusting, effect of TCZ trough concentration: rho = −0.004, p = 0.26). The individual median TCZ concentration tended to be associated with the number of antibodies, with an initial MFI > 3000 that dropped to <3000 after TCZ treatment (rho = 0.397, p = 0.083). TCZ trough concentrations in kidney-transplant candidates treated for desensitization were highly variable. Further studies on larger cohorts are needed to study the possible link between TCZ concentrations and the reduction of anti-HLA antibodies.
Surface reflectance simulations of fresh and aged snow with light absorbing impurities

Monitoring the spatial and temporal changes of seasonal snow cover helps to predict and mitigate floods, avalanches, frost damage, among other hazards. It can also help estimating the supply for human consumption of fresh water, irrigation and hydropower stations, and may contribute to the improvement of weather forecasts and the understanding of the climate system. However, global warming and the effect of Light Absorbing Impurities (LAIs) are affecting the spatial and temporal variability of snowpacks and its complex processes and environmental interactions. This study is a first approach for assessing the impact of LAIs in the Argentinean snowpacks albedo through radiative transfer models. The results suggest that determining the state of the snowpack before estimating the presence, concentration and type of impurity is essential due to the fact that the albedo simulations vary significantly according to the snow grain size. Additionally, change percentage from unpolluted fresh and aged snow was calculated for snowpacks with high concentrations of black carbon, dust and ash considering the impurity values found in South America. Finally, the albedo results obtained with the SNICAR model were compared with the Landsat-8 relative spectral response in order to assess the capabilities of the sensor to estimate the presence of LAIs, which showed similar results than the ones obtained with SNICAR.
Evaluation of potential molecular interaction between quorum sensing receptor, LuxP and grouper fatty acids: in-silico screening and simulation

Pathologically relevant behaviors of Vibrio, such as the expression of virulence factors, biofilm production, and swarming motility, have been shown to be controlled by quorum sensing. The autoinducer-2 quorum sensing receptor protein LuxP is one of the target proteins for drug development to suppress the virulence of Vibrio. Here, we reported the potential molecular interaction of fatty acids identified in vibriosis-resistant grouper with LuxP. Fatty acid, 4-oxodocosahexaenoic acid (4R8) showed significant binding affinity toward LuxP (−6.0 kcal/mol) based on molecular docking analysis. The dynamic behavior of the protein–ligand complex was illustrated by molecular dynamic simulations. The fluctuation of the protein backbone, the stability of ligand binding, and hydrogen bond interactions were assessed, suggesting 4R8 possesses potential interaction with LuxP, which was supported by the low binding free energy (−29.144 kJ/mol) calculated using the molecular mechanics Poisson–Boltzmann surface area.
A Short-Range FMCW Radar-based Approach for Multi-Target Human-Vehicle Detection

In the present paper, a new microwave-radar-based technique for short-range detection and classification of multiple human and vehicle targets crossing a monitored area is proposed. This approach, which can find applications in both security and infrastructure surveillance, relies upon the processing of the scattered-field data acquired by low-cost off-the-shelf components, i.e., a 24 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave radar module and a Raspberry Pi mini-PC. The developed method is based on an ad-hoc processing chain to accomplish the automatic target recognition task, which consists of blocks performing clutter and leakage removal with an IIR filter, clustering with a DBSCAN approach, tracking using a Benedict-Bordner α-β filter, features extraction, and finally classification of targets by means of a k-Nearest Neighbor algorithm. The approach is validated in real experimental scenarios, showing its capabilities in correctly detecting multiple targets belonging to different classes (i.e., pedestrians, cars, motorcycles, and trucks).
A Study on Just-in-Time Implementation in Portugal: Some Empirical Evidence

The objective of this paper is to find how far the Just-in-Time system is being implemented by Portuguese manufacturing firms, as well as assessing its perception and its potential benefits by managers. First, several studies about the implementation of the Just-in-Time system in various countries over the past 25 years are reviewed, and then the descriptive survey research is reported. Data were collected from a mail questionnaire sent to a few hundred firms in Portugal. The findings show that the surveyed firms view the Just-in-Time system as a way to reduce inventories, to increase quality, and to eliminate waste. Despite this good perception, less than 6% of the surveyed firms have the necessary conditions to successfully implement a Just-in-Time system. A significant practical implication of this study is that Portuguese firms should use Just-in-Time as a philosophy rather than as a solution for operations-related problems. Another contribution is to point out the most common difficulties for its implementation, so that Portuguese firms that want to do it can be prepared to overcome those difficulties.
A sense and restore technique for multilevel DRAM

A technique for storing and retrieving 2 b of data encoded as 4 voltage levels in a single DRAM memory cell is described. The 4 data levels and sense amplifier reference levels are created through simple charge redistribution techniques on local bitlines. Memory cells, sense amplifiers, and wordline drivers identical to standard DRAM are employed. A SPICE simulation using a representative 16 M DRAM process model shows correct sense and restore operation, with accurate generation of reference levels. The capacity of DRAM chips can be doubled with the addition of multilevel support circuitry that occupies less than 20% of die area.
Constitutive model development for flows of granular materials

Granular flows are ubiquitous in both natural and industrial processes. When composed of dry, noncohesive particles, they manifest three different flow regimes — commonly referred to as the quasistatic, inertial, and intermediate regimes — each of which exhibits its own dependences on solids volume fraction, shear rate, and particle-level properties. The differences in these regimes can be attributed to microscale phenomena, with quasistatic flows being dominated by enduring, frictional contacts between grains, inertial flows by grain collisions, and intermediate flows by a combination of the two. Existing constitutive models for the solids-phase stress tend to focus on one or two regimes at a time, with a limited degree of success; the same is true of models for wall-boundary conditions for granular flows. Moreover, these models tend not to be based on detailed particle-level flow data, either from experiment or simulation. Clearly, a comprehensive modeling framework is lacking. The work in this thesis aims to address these issues by proposing continuum models constructed on the basis of discrete element method (DEM) simulations of granular shear flows. Specifically, we propose (a) a constitutive stress model that bridges the three dense flow regimes, (b) an modified kinetic-theory model that covers both the dense and dilute ends of the inertial regime, and (c) a boundary-condition model for dense, wall-bounded flows. These models facilitate the modeling of a wide range of flow systems of practical interest and provide ideas for further model development and refinement.
Ethnic Identity and Collective Self-Esteem Mediate the Effect of Anxiety and Depression on Quality of Life in a Migrant Population

Migration processes can often trigger negative interactions with the context, generating problems in both the physical and mental health of migrants, which have an impact on both their well-being and their quality of life. In this framework, the research aimed to assess the mediating effect of ethnic identity and collective self-esteem on the inverse relationship between mental health problems and quality of life. Data were collected from 908 first-generation Colombian migrants living in Chile, of whom 50.2% were women and with an average age of 35 years. They were assessed with The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoL)-Bref, Smith’s ethnic identity questionnaire, Basabe’s collective self-esteem, and Beck’s Anxiety and Depression questionnaires. The results provide evidence that both collective self-esteem and ethnic identity exert a partial mediation effect on the relationship between anxiety and depression on quality of life. The study provides evidence of the protective role that the maintenance and reinforcement of ethnic identity and collective self-esteem can have, with a view to strengthening the planning of interventions both in the field of prevention of mental health problems and in the improvement of quality of life based on evidence.
Real-time Kalman filter implementation for active feedforward control of time-varying broadband noise and vibrations

Tracking behavior and the rate of convergence are critical properties in active noise control applications with time-varying disturbance spectra. As compared to the standard filtered-reference Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm, improved convergence can be obtained with schemes based on preconditioning, affine projections, Recursive Least Squares (RLS), and other methods. The RLS method potentially leads to very fast convergence but straightforward implementations may suffer from round-off errors and suboptimal tracking behavior. In this paper a Kalman filter approach is used which, as compared to RLS, includes a covariance weighting for model output errors in order to improve tracking behavior and robustness. An orthogonal transformation scheme was used to reduce the influence for round-off errors of the Kalman recursions. In this paper an extension is given for multiple input multiple output systems, and results of a real-time implementation are presented. Conclusions are given regarding the suitability for real-time implementation of previous formulations. Different parameterizations of the secondary path model between the active control source and the error sensor are compared. Real-time results demonstrate the rapid convergence for reduction of noise in a duct, as well as numerical stability during extended operation intervals.
Analysis of Translation Methods of Figurative Language in Short Story

This research was conducted to find out the translation methods applied by the translator in translating figurative language in O. Henry’s short stories. This descriptive analysis research took the data from nine short stories as the research documents. There were 19 data taken from those nine short stories. The data were collected by analysis of document. Based on the research findings, from nine short stories, seven simile, three metaphor, three hyperbole were literal translation, two simile were semantic translation, two hyperbole were communicative translation, one hyperbole was idiomatic translation, and one simile was translated free translation. In conclusion, the findings of the study indicated that the result of literal translation was significantly higher than others translation methods. The result is expected to be helpful to improve students’ and readers references of translation method.
Mechatronics design of a robotic systems

The same coordination aspects are the key-points of the last proposed method about comunication: now, the robotic device have to cooperate in order to manage the object in the desired way with a good sensitivity and this can be done exploiting the torque end force sensor of the new system. A general introduction underlining the need to make a robot autonomous or at least able to operate in unstructured scenarios to cope with human end other robotic device. Project of ultralight robot arm for aerial manipulation whit simulations and experiments. Proposed robot manipulator framework in order to exploit the interaction robot-robot, redundancy management for dexterity scopes. Simulations are presented to validate the proposed hardware. And exploit the problematic of the comunication and control of the multiple platform. Simulations are presented to validate the proposed approach.
Value of American Higher Education: Non-Parametric Analysis of a LinkedIn Survey

The costs of a higher education are preclusive for many Americans. This is true despite the trend over the years for legal policy to encourage greater access for underrepresented demographics. This paper reports on the free-education trend via inquiry of a variety of professionals, students, and aca-demics via LinkedIn (n = 621). After conducting a series of Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests on the survey data, the results indicated that higher education holds definite perceptual value, while also suggesting concerns in terms of cost. The true cost of some higher education versus its practical, financial, future-value remains an issue to be balanced by society. This debate will also need to implicate access to education by poor and minority demographics. There is a definable need for further studies comparing policy options; whether they are derived from social media or a conference room is less important than if we fail to have these discourses at all.
Analysis of the short-term DC-current gain variation during high current density-low temperature stress of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors

Improving the reliability of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's) is one of the major issues in order to exploit their performance in future microwave systems at higher power and current densities. In this work, we show the following: (1) under very high current density (Jc>3/spl times/10/sup 4/ A/cm/sup 2/) the DC-current gain (B) of HBT's exhibits principally two effects: an increase (burn-in) or a decrease (degradation). Burn-in and degradation are initiated by different junction temperatures. No remarkable change of B is observed if Jc is lower than 2/spl times/10/sup 4/ A/cm/sup 2/. (2) Linear dependences on the collector current density and activation energies of about 0.4 eV are extracted both for burn-in and degradation. (3) By comparing devices fabricated on epitaxial layers with different DC-current gains a correlation between the value of B and the observed phenomena (i.e., burn in and degradation) is found. (4) Consequently, we discuss the roles of the extrinsic base surface, base-emitter junction, and material quality. Based on the measured data, we propose a hydrogen-related mechanism, which allows us to explain the observed degradation mode.
Effects of controlled burn rice husk ash on geotechnical properties of the soil

Pozzolanic reactions of RHA entirely depends on controlled burning condition. The current study illustrates the effects of controlled burn rice husk ash (RHA) on the geotechnical properties of A-2-4 type soil. The compactibility, bearing capacity, compressive strength, and shear strength were investigated as the important geotechnical properties on soil with 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% of RHA admixtures. Considering the 7-day moist curing, standard Proctor compaction tests, California Bearing Ratio (CBR) tests, Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) tests, Consolidated-Drained (CD) Triaxial Compression tests, and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) tests were conducted on soil-RHA combinations. The test results showed that the optimum moisture content increased, but MDD reduced with the increment of RHA content. Soil with 5% RHA showed the increase of CBR (39.5%), UCS (6.0%), modulus of deformation (56.3%), cohesion (11.8%), and angle of internal friction (6.3%) compared to control specimen which indicated that the application of burnt RHA at a controlled temperature significantly enhanced the geotechnical properties of soil. SEM image on soil with 5% RHA also observed the best microstructural development.
Gender and Urban Informal Sector Employment: An Analysis from Southern Punjab, Pakistan

The decision to work in the labor market commonly depends on a decision by the participants between two options: to work or not to work. However, the priorities are different. Some females prefer to involve themselves in some economic activities (paid work) at home and some market activities. This research investigates the factors that motivate males and females to engage in informal employment. The data has been used collected from a household survey. This survey is made from three divisions of Southern Punjab, where the majority of the population resides. The survey is premeditated to gather some information of the households regarding demographic, social, and economic factors. The present study investigates the factors of employment by using the logit model. Findings show that low educated, married and aged people are working in the informal sector. Formally trained workers and workers of highly educated parents are switching to the formal sector. Those having assets are working in the informal sector. Those female participants having adults are participating in the informal sector. Based on study results, it is suggested that government must provide more employment opportunities in urban areas of Southern Punjab.
Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Rice Density Prescription Map at Ripening Stage Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Remotely Sensed Images

In this paper, UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle, DJI Phantom4RTK) and YOLOv4 (You Only Look Once) target detection deep neural network methods were employed to collected mature rice images and detect rice ears to produce a rice density prescription map. The YOLOv4 model was used for rice ear quick detection of rice images captured by a UAV. The Kriging interpolation algorithm was used in ArcGIS to make rice density prescription maps. Mature rice images collected by a UAV were marked manually and used to build the training and testing datasets. The resolution of the images was 300 × 300 pixels. The batch size was 2, and the initial learning rate was 0.01, and the mean average precision (mAP) of the best trained model was 98.84%. Exceptionally, the network ability to detect rice in different health states was also studied with a mAP of 95.42% in the no infection rice images set, 98.84% in the mild infection rice images set, 94.35% in the moderate infection rice images set, and 93.36% in the severe infection rice images set. According to the severity of rice sheath blight, which can cause rice leaves to wither and turn yellow, the blighted grain percentage increased and the thousand-grain weight decreased, the rice images were divided into these four infection levels. The ability of the network model (R2 = 0.844) was compared with traditional image processing segmentation methods (R2 = 0.396) based on color and morphology features and machine learning image segmentation method (Support Vector Machine, SVM R2 = 0.0817, and K-means R2 = 0.1949) for rice ear counting. The results highlight that the CNN has excellent robustness, and can generate a wide range of rice density prescription maps.
On the stability of a quadratic functional equation over non-Archimedean spaces

Let G be an abelian group and suppose that X is a non-Archimedean Banach space. We study Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability for the functional equation of quadratic type f(x+y+z)+ f(x)+f(y)+f(z)=f(x+y)+f(y+z)+ f(z+x) where f : G ? X is a map.
Robust Barron-Loss Tucker Tensor Decomposition

Tucker decomposition is a standard method for the analysis of high-order tensor data. Standard Tucker decomposition generalizes singular-value decomposition and is formulated as minimization of the L2-norm of the low-rank approximation error. Due to the quadratic emphasis on peripheral data, the L2-norm based formulation of Tucker has been shown to be sensitive against corruptions. L1-norm-based variants (L1-Tucker) are proposed as robust Tucker decomposition methods, and are formulated as subspace estimators by absolute-projection maximization, and have proven effective in outlier resistant subspace computation. However, Tucker decomposition for robust low-rank tensor approximation is not defined/optimized in the literature. In this work, we propose a new formulation for low-rank tensor approximation, with tunable outlier-robustness, and present a unified algorithmic solution framework. This formulation relies on a new generalized robust loss function (Barron loss), which encompasses several well-known loss-functions with variable outlier-resistance. The robustness of the proposed framework is corroborated by the presented numerical studies on synthetic and real data.
Cytokines Studied in Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) in Response to Important Diseases

Cytokines belong to the most widely studied group of intracellular molecules involved in the function of the immune system. Their secretion is induced by various infectious stimuli. Cytokine release by host cells has been extensively used as a powerful tool for studying immune reactions in the early stages of viral and bacterial infections. Recently, research attention has shifted to the investigation of cytokine responses using mRNA expression, an essential mechanism related to pathogenic and nonpathogenic-immune stimulants in fish. This review represents the current knowledge of cytokine responses to infectious diseases in the common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.). Given the paucity of literature on cytokine responses to many infections in carp, only select viral diseases, such as koi herpesvirus disease (KHVD), spring viremia of carp (SVC), and carp edema virus disease (CEVD), are discussed. Aeromonas hydrophila is one of the most studied bacterial pathogens associated with cytokine responses in common carp. Therefore, the cytokine-based immunoreactivity raised by this specific bacterial pathogen is also highlighted in this review.