Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictive Value of the Ankle-Brachial Index for All-Cause and Cardio-Cerebrovascular Mortality

The present study explored the relationship between the ankle-brachial index (ABI) (>.9) and all-cause or cardio-cerebrovascular mortality. Participant details were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2004. The association between baseline ABI and the risk of mortality was evaluated by a priori defined quartile categories and on a continuous scale (per .1-unit change) with Cox regression models adjusted for demographic and traditional risk factors. A total of 7087 individuals (age: 59.6 ± 12.8 years) were included; 3612 (51.0%) were male. After an average follow-up of 12.2 years, 1926 deaths occurred. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the lowest ABI quartile (<1.06) was associated with the highest risk of all-cause, cardio-cerebrovascular and cancer mortality (all P < .001). However, after adjusting for potential confounders, ABI ranging between 1.06 and 1.12 was associated with the lowest risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio .88, 95% confidence interval .78–1.00, P < .05) compared with the reference group (<1.06). Besides, splines showed the relationship was nonlinear (P < .05) and the inflection point was 1.11. In conclusion, the level of ABI associated with the lowest risk of all-cause mortality was 1.11, under which a lower ABI was independently associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality.
Identiﬁcation of growth processes involved in QTLs for tomato fruit size and composition

Many quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for quality traits have been located on the tomato genetic map, but introgression of favourable wild alleles into large fruited species is hampered by co-localizations of QTLs with antagonist effects. The aim of this study was to assess the growth processes controlled by the main QTLs for fruit size and composition. Four nearly isogenic lines (NILs) derived from an intraspeciﬁc cross between a tasty cherry tomato (Cervil) and a normal-tasting large fruit tomato (Levovil) were studied. The lines carried one (L2, L4, and L9) or ﬁve (Lx) introgressions from Cervil on chromosomes 1, 2, 4, and 9. QTLs for fruit size could be mainly associated with cell division processes in L2 and L9, whereas cell expansion was rather homogeneous among the genotypes, except Cervil for which the low expansion rate was attributed to low cell plasticity. The link between endoreduplication and fruit size remained unclear, as cell or fruit sizes were positively correlated with the cell DNA content, but not with the endoreduplication factor. QTLs for fruit composition reﬂected differences in water accumulation rather than in sugar accumulation, except in L9 for which the up-regulation of sucrose unloading and hexose transport and/or starch synthesis was suggested. This may explain the increased amount of carbon allocated to cell structures in L9, which could be related to a QTL for fruit texture. In Lx, these effects were attenuated, except on fruit size and cell division. Finally, the region on top of chromosome 9 may control size and composition attributes in tomato, by a combination of QTL effects on cell division, wall import
Dolphin: An Actor-Oriented Database for Reactive Moving Object Data Management

Novel reactive moving object applications require solutions to support object reactive behaviors as a way to query and update dynamic data. While moving object scenarios have long been researched in the context of spatio-temporal data management, reactive behavior is usually left to end-user implementations. However, it is not just a matter of hard-wiring reactive constraints: the required solutions need to satisfy tight low-latency computation requirements and be scalable. This emerging class of applications builds on database technology, but implements substantial data management logic in the application tier. This paper explores a novel approach to enrich a distributed actor-based framework with reactive functionality and complex spatial data management along with concurrency semantics. Our goal is to better meet the needs of reactive moving object applications. Our approach relies on a proposal of the moving actor abstraction, which is a conceptual enhancement of the actor model with reactive sensing, movement, and spatial querying capabilities. This enhancement helps developers of reactive moving object applications avoid the significant burden of implementing application-level schemes to balance performance and consistency. Based on moving actors, we define a reactive moving object data management platform, named Moving Actor-Oriented Databases (M-AODBs) , and build Dolphin – an implementation of M-AODBs. Dolphin embodies a non-intrusive actor-based design layered on top of the Microsoft Orleans distributed virtual actor framework. In a set of experimental evaluations with realistic reactive moving object scenarios, Dolphin exhibits scalability on multi-machines and provides near-real-time reaction latency.
Asymptotic behaviour of a transport equation

We study the asymptotic behaviour of the semigroup of Markov operators generated by the equation ut + bux + cu = a ∫ ax 0 u(t, ax − y)μ(dy). We prove that for a > 1 this semigroup is asymptotically stable. We show that for a ≤ 1 this semigroup, properly normalized, converges to a limit which depends only on a.
151-157 Dagnachew 3-2005.indd

Tsetse-transmitted trypanosomosis is a serious constraint to livestock production and agricultural development in Ethiopia. A total of 14.8 million cattle, 6.12 million sheep and goats, 1 million camels and 1.23 million equines are at risk of contracting trypanosomosis (17). Due to the advancement of tsetse flies into formerly free areas, an estimated 220,000 km2 zone is presently affected by tsetse flies (26). These areas are located in the Baro/Akobo, Omo/Ghibe and Abay/Didessa Valleys along the large rivers of the country. They have the most arable soils with a high potential for agricultural development due to high annual rainfall (9). There are five economically important animal trypanosome species in Ethiopia: Trypanosoma congolense, T. vivax, T. brucei brucei, T. evansi (11) and T. equiperdum (6). The most prevalent trypanosome species in tsetse-infested areas of Ethiopia are T. congolense and T. vivax. Rowlands et al. (29) reported a prevalence of 37% for ■ P A TH O LO G IE P A R A SI TA IR E
White noise testing using wavelets

Testing whether a time series is consistent with white noise is an important task within time series analysis and for model fitting and criticism via residual diagnostics. We introduce three fast and efficient white noise tests that assess spectral constancy via the wavelet coefficients of a periodogram. The Haar wavelet white noise test derives the exact distribution of the Haar wavelet coefficients of the asymptotic periodogram under mild conditions. The single‐coefficient white noise test uses a single Haar wavelet coefficient obtaining a test statistic as a linear combination of odd‐indexed autocorrelations. The general wavelet white noise test uses compactly supported Daubechies wavelets, shows that its coefficients are asymptotically normal and derives its theoretical power for an arbitrary spectrum. All our tests are available in the freely available hwwntest package for the R system. We present a comprehensive simulation study that shows the good performance of our new tests against alternatives commonly found in available software and show an example applied to a wind power time series. © 2014 The Authors. Stat published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
On Event-Aware Manufacturing Systems

: Manufacturing systems face different types of events, which may disrupt production and prevent them from reaching the expected production goals. Such events may arise from within production processes (e.g., machine malfunctions), from demand (e.g., urgent orders) or even from supply (e.g., delay in the delivery of critical components). Manufacturing systems need to be able to identify such disruptions in real-time, evaluate their impact to production and react timely to repair the affected processes in an automatic way. This appears plausible by utilizing Industry 4.0 enabling technologies, such as data analytics and cyber-physical systems coupled with modelling, optimisation and simulation. In this regard, we focus our study on event-aware manufacturing systems and address the challenge of designing and implementing them. To do so, we follow a design science approach which enables us to frame the scope of identification and handling of disruptions in two manufacturing case studies, categorise the requirements provided by the corresponding manufacturers, identify the major functionalities to be supported by such a system and designate the technical specification for all its core modules and the system as a whole.
Monitoring of fluconazole and caspofungin activity against in vivo Candida glabrata by bioluminescence imaging.

51 Candida glabrata can attach to various medical implants and forms thick biofilms despite its 52 inability to switch from-yeast-to hyphae. Current in vivo C. glabrata biofilm models only 53 provide limited information about colonization and infection and usually require animal 54 sacrifice. To gain real-time information from individual BALB/c mice we developed a non- 55 invasive imaging technique to visualize C. glabrata biofilms in catheter fragments that were 56 subcutaneously implanted on the back of mice. Bioluminescent C. glabrata reporter strains 57 ( luc OPT 7/2/4 and luc OPT 8/1/4), free of auxotrophic markers, expressing a codon-optimized 58 firefly luciferase were generated. A murine subcutaneous model was used to follow real-time 59 in vivo biofilm formation in the presence and absence of fluconazole and caspofungin. 60 Fungal load in biofilms was quantified by colony forming unit counts and by 61 bioluminescence imaging (BLI). C. glabrata biofilms formed within the first 24 h, as 62 documented by the increased number of device-associated cells and elevated bioluminescent 63 signal compared to adhesion at the time of implant. The in vivo model allowed monitoring of 64 the anti-biofilm activity of caspofungin against C. glabrata biofilms through bioluminescent 65 imaging from day four after initiation of treatment. Contrarily, signals emitted from biofilms 66 implanted in fluconazole-treated mice was similar to the light emitted from control-treated 67 mice. This study gives insights into real-time development of C. glabrata biofilms under in vivo 69 conditions. BLI proved to be a dynamic, non-invasive and sensitive tool to monitor continuous biofilm formation and activity of antifungal agents against C. glabrata biofilms formed on abiotic surfaces in vivo. used continuous detection and quantification
Design and Simulation of Robust Controller for Wind Turbine Using Linear Matrix Inequality

According to growing importance of environment and depletion of fossil fuels, wind energy is considered as a source of clean and renewable energy and practical alternative for generation of electrical energy in the universe. One of the issues that is outlined within development of wind turbines power generation is cost and its reliability. In this regard, various control systems and methods have been proposed for wind turbines that optimize corresponding cost and efficiency so that Ackerman and pole placement approaches can be cited among these control methods. Due to parameters variations of wind turbines during its operations and also wind speed variation, it seems essential and necessary to design a robust controller for wind turbines. Therefore, robust control technique has been proposed for wind turbines that has attracted the attention of many researchers. Particularly, one of the main challenging problem among available robust controllers is that they cannot response rapidly due to complexity and computational time issues. To solve this problem, linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) have been proposed. In this paper, a robust controller is designed based on linear matrix inequality using modern linearization methods to calculate a sufficient state feedback gain for power generation. The simulation results indicate that nonlinear models accuracy has been preserved during design of robust control based on iterative linear matrix inequality (ILMI) and controller performance is being improved in terms of stabilization and trajectories tracking.
Guidelines for Accounting Melaka Mobile Units Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

Having a clear picture of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission is essential to understand the spatial emission status and make international comparisons. This study gave an overview on how GHG from the mobile units was measured to produce a pioneer report for Melaka. Global Protocols for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission (GPC), harmonized emission analysis tool plus (HEAT+) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventory were utilized to produce the mobile units’ energy profile and carbon emission in Melaka. Data was collected from federal government agencies and private sectors. The results showed that on-road transportations contributed to the largest GHG (99.51%), followed by railway (0.38%) and lastly aviation (0.03%). Melaka has embarked on a path towards green city by the year 2020 and has to reach the target of reducing carbon emissions up to 40% by the year 2020. These findings are important to assist the local government to define mitigation programs and refine policies to enhance liveability in Melaka by having low carbon resident in future.
Overset LES with Application to a Turbulent Channel Flow

In this contribution, we present an application of a novel perturbation approach (denoted as an Overset approach) to a generic turbulent channel flow. The derivation of the governing equations (the Non-Linear Perturbation Equations extended with fluctuating viscous terms) is presented as well as subgrid-scale modeling aspects which results in the Overset LES (OLES) method. The application of the Overset method is illustrated with a generic fully developed turbulent channel flow, the results of which show excellent agreement with reference Direct Numerical Simulation data. The ability of the overset method to correct for an imperfect background flow is furthermore shown.
Analysis of Umberger's theory for subtractive color reproduction

A method, proposed by Umberger, for the identification of additive stimuli representative of the red, green, and blue primaries controlled by dyes obeying Beer's law was examined. The primary stability study suggests that for a set of colors created of various dye concentrations, the pattern of Umberger 's primary distribution is a translation of the original colors on a chromaticity diagram. Results of a theoretical color reproduction study where the colormatching functions of Umberger 's primaries were assumed as the color reproduction system's spectral sensitivities indicate an increase in metric chroma of reproduced colors. Color reproduction errors for a large number of colors were minimized for spectral sensitivities corresponding to Umberger 's primaries controlled by dye concentrations resulting in an 18% transmittance gray colorA technique was proposed for optimizing the system's spectral sensitivities to colors constituting the reproduced scene.
Origin and development of the zebraﬁsh endoderm

In cyclops -mutant embryos that have reduced mesodermal anlage, we demonstrate that by late gastrulation not only mesodermal but also endodermal cells are fewer in number. This suggests that a common pathway initially speciﬁes germ layers together before a progressive sequence of determinative events segregate endoderm and mesoderm into morphologically distinct germ layers.
Turbulence measurements and local transport analysis in dedicated β scan in Tore-Supra L-mode discharges

The ITER H-mode scaling law written in dimensionless form [1] predicts a degradation of the energy confinement with β (the ratio of the kinetic to the magnetic pressure): B0τ E ∝ β . However dedicated experiments on JET [2] and DIII-D [3] have shown a very weak dependence with β while the JT-60U [4] results are closer to the original ITER scaling law. This contradiction remains unexplained. One possible explanation comes from ELMs, which are likely MHD modes and thus depend on β. To clarify this question, a β scaling experiment has been achieved in L-mode plasmas on Tore-Supra. These experiments are not subject to ELMs, as these relaxation oscillations are not present in L-mode plasmas. In addition to global analysis, supported by transport calculations from the integrated modelling CRONOS code [6], turbulence has been studied with reflectometry. Thus, we will present the β dependence through global measurements (with τE) and local analysis (with the heat diffusivity χ and density fluctuations δn/n). We consider here the usual form of the dimensionless scaling analysis, which assumes that normalised transport coefficients only depend on the local dimensionless parameters ρ∗, β and ν∗ [5]. Moreover it is also assumed that the thermal diffusivity can be written as a power law:
Fatty Acids Isolated from Toxoplasma gondii Reduce Glycosylphosphatidylinositol-Induced Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Production through Inhibition of the NF- (cid:2) B Signaling Pathway (cid:1)

Glycosylphosphatidylinositols (GPIs) are involved in the pathogenicity of protozoan parasites and are known to induce inﬂammatory cytokines. However, we have previously shown that the family of six GPIs of Toxoplasma gondii extracted together from tachyzoites could not induce tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF- (cid:1) ) secretion by macrophages, whereas GPIs individually separated from this extract by thin-layer chromatogra- phy (TLC) were able to stimulate the cells. In the present study we show that the TLC step makes it possible to eliminate inhibitors extracted together with the T. gondii GPIs. Among the non-GPI molecules we have isolated fatty acids able to inhibit the secretion of TNF- (cid:1) induced by the T. gondii GPIs. Myristic and palmitic acids reduce the production of TNF- (cid:1) through the inhibition of tyrosine phosphorylation of cytoplasmic proteins and the inhibition of NF- (cid:2) B activation in a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-independent pathway and after a rapid entry into the cytoplasm of macrophages. GPIs are considered toxins inducing irreversible damage in the host, and fatty acids produced in parallel by the parasite could reduce the immune response, thus favoring the persistence of parasite infection. trophoretically transferred to nitrocellulose membrane (GE Healthcare, Piscat- away, NJ), and incubated with 2 (cid:4) g of horseradish peroxidase-conjugated mouse
Hemin Reconstitutes Proton Extrusion in an H (cid:1) -ATPase-Negative Mutant of Lactococcus lactis

H -ATPase is considered essential for growth of Lactococcus lactis. However, media containing hemin restored the aerobic growth of an H (cid:1) -ATPase-negative mutant, suggesting that hemin complements proton extrusion. We show that inverted membrane vesicles prepared from hemin-grown L. lactis cells are capable of coupling NADH oxidation to proton translocation. The (F 1 F 0 ) H (cid:1) -ATPase complex plays an important role in the free energy transduction of living cells. In organisms such as Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis, which contain respiratory chains, the primary role of the enzyme is to synthesize ATP. This process is driven by the proton gradient resulting from respiration when these organisms are supplied with an electron acceptor (3). In organisms that lack a respiratory chain or in the absence of electron acceptors, the enzyme generates a transmembrane proton gradient, and this process is driven by ATP hydrolysis. The anaerobic bacterium Lactococcus lactis also possess an F 1 F 0 -ATPase complex. The enzyme is here involved in the extrusion of protons, driven by ATP hydrolysis, in order to generate the necessary driving force for solute transport and to
Copper Acetate-Facilitated Transfer-Free Growth of High-Quality Graphene Advancing Hydrovoltaic Electricity Generators

: Direct synthesis of high-quality graphene on dielectric substrates without a transfer process is of vital importance to aim at a variety of applications. Current strategies for boosting high-quality graphene growth, such as remote metal catalyzation otherwise are limited by poor performance with respect to the release of metal catalysts and hence suffer from the problem of metal residues. Herein, we report an effective approach that utilizes a metal-containing species, copper acetate, to continuously supply copper clusters in a gaseous form to aid transfer-free growth of graphene over a wafer scale. The thus-derived graphene films were found to show reduced multilayer density and improved electrical performance and exhibited a carrier mobility of 8500 cm 2 V −1 s −1 . Furthermore, droplet-based hydrovoltaic electricity generator devices based on directly grown graphene were found to exhibit robust voltage output and long cyclic stability, in stark contrast to their counterpart based on transferred graphene, demonstrating its potential for emerging energy harvesting applications. The work presented here offers a promising solution to organize the metal catalytic booster toward the transfer-free synthesis of high-quality graphene and enable smart energy generation.
Mesoscale Simulations of a Florida Sea Breeze Using the PLACE Land Surface Model Coupled to a 1.5-Order Turbulence Parameterization

A sophisticated land-surface model, PLACE, the Parameterization for Land Atmospheric Convective Exchange, has been coupled to a 1.5-order turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) turbulence sub-model. Both have been incorporated into the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU/NCAR) mesoscale model MM5. Such model improvements should have their greatest effect in conditions where surface contrasts dominate over dynamic processes, such as the simulation of warm-season, convective events. A validation study used the newly coupled model, MM5 TKE-PLACE, to simulate the evolution of Florida sea-breeze moist convection during the Convection and Precipitation Electrification Experiment (CaPE). Overall, eight simulations tested the sensitivity of the MM5 model to combinations of the new and default model physics, and initialization of soil moisture and temperature. The TKE-PLACE model produced more realistic surface sensible heat flux, lower biases for surface variables, more realistic rainfall, and cloud cover than the default model. Of the 8 simulations with different factors (i.e., model physics or initialization), TKE-PLACE compared very well when each simulation was ranked in terms of biases of the surface variables and rainfall, and percent and root mean square of cloud cover. A factor separation analysis showed that a successful simulation required the inclusion of a multi-layered, land surface soil vegetation model, realistic initial soil moisture, and higher order closure of the planetary boundary layer (PBL). These were needed to realistically model the effect of individual, joint, and synergistic contributions from the land surface and PBL on the CAPE sea-breeze, Lake Okeechobee lake breeze, and moist convection.