Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TAS-303, a Novel Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor that Increases Urethral Pressure in Rats, Indicating Its Potential as a Therapeutic Agent for Stress Urinary Incontinence

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is characterized by involuntary leakage associated with exertion, effort, sneezing, coughing, or lifting. Duloxetine, a serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, is approved for the treatment of patients with SUI in some European countries, but not in the United States. There is currently no globally approved pharmacological drug for the treatment of patients with SUI. Therefore, a new pharmacological treatment option is required. TAS-303 [4-piperidinyl 2,2-diphenyl-2-(propoxy-1,1,2,2,3,3,3-day7)acetate hydrochloride] is a novel small-molecule selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that displays significant norepinephrine transporter (NET) inhibitory activity toward the serotonin or dopamine transporters. In this report, we describe the pharmacological properties of TAS-303 and its effects on urethral function, using preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies. Radioligand-binding studies showed that TAS-303 selectively and potently inhibited [3H]norepinephrine binding to the human NET. Oral administration of TAS-303 (3 mg/kg) significantly increased norepinephrine levels in the plasma, whereas it did not significantly affect epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin levels. TAS-303 (0.3, 1, and 3 mg/kg) dose-dependently increased basal urethral pressure in normal rats and leak point pressure in vaginal distention rats, exhibiting a maximal effect comparable to duloxetine. In the forced swimming test, TAS-303 (100 mg/kg) showed no significant effects on immobility time in rats, raising the possibility that this agent would have minimal central nervous system side effects at an effective dose for urethral function. These results demonstrate that TAS-303 has therapeutic potential for the treatment of patients with SUI.
Microstrip Multifunctional Reconfigurable Wideband Filtering Power Divider with Tunable Center Frequency, Bandwidth, and Power Division

In this paper, a microstrip reconfigurable wideband filtering power divider (FPD) with tunable center frequency (CF), bandwidth (BW), and power division is presented. The proposed structure consists of two trimode stub-loaded resonators, a three-line coupled structure loaded two varactor diodes, and two output parallel-coupled lines loaded a lumped capacitor. The CF and BW of wideband filtering response can be tuned by controlling the varactor diodes loaded onto the open end of trimode resonators. Meanwhile, the power division ratio (PDR) is controlled by tuning the coupling strength between the center line and sidelines of three-line coupled structure. Compared with the conventional wideband FPDs, the capacitor loaded onto the parallel-coupled line of two output ports is to enlarge the coupling, which can increase the return loss (RL), and thus relieve the limitation of the line space between two coupled lines. A complete design procedure with analytical design equations for driving parameters of the structure is described. The measured results show that the CF can be tuned from 0.86 to 1.32 GHz with RL better than 16 dB, while the 1-dB BW can be tuned from 180 to 710 MHz. The measured isolation is better than 21 dB from dc to 2.5 GHz. Then, the achieved PDR can be tuned from 1:1 to 3:1. The proposed circuit can be also utilized as a switchless bandstop filter, where the isolation is better than 20 dB from dc to 19 GHz. The proposed tunable wideband FPD exhibits good RL, wide range of frequency and BW control, wide harmonic suppression, high isolation, and multifunctional application.
Highly Miniaturized 120-GHz SIMO and MIMO Radar Sensor With On-Chip Folded Dipole Antennas for Range and Angular Measurements

This paper describes a highly miniaturized two-channel radar sensor with integrated on-chip folded dipole antennas that exhibit high antenna gain and radiation efficiency due to the use of the selective localized backside etching technique. The sensor can be utilized in single-input multiple-output radar system by combining the two transmit channels to increase the effective isotropic radiated power by 6 dB. This results in an improved standard deviation of range measurements by a factor of 2. The transceiver (TRX) is equipped with binary phase shift keying modulators as well as I/Q receivers and can be utilized in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar system using time and delta–sigma modulator-based frequency division multiplexing technique. The angular resolution is improved by a factor of 1.5 by the introduction of an additional virtual array element in the MIMO radar system. The TRX also includes a 30-GHz VCO that is complemented with a prescaler and frequency quadrupler to generate a 120-GHz carrier signal. Radar measurements using the digital-beamforming method with 10-GHz modulation bandwidth were performed to show the applicability of the proposed system.
Impacting diabetes self-management in women with gestational diabetes mellitus using short messaging reminders

Background and purpose: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has been associated with multiple complications, including increase risk of gestational hypertension, cesarean delivery, macrosomia, stillbirth, and preeclampsia. The purpose of this study was to determine the acceptability of text messaging in women with GDM and further refine intervention materials and study procedures (recruitment, enrollment, intervention, retention, and data collection). Methods: Nineteen women diagnosed with GDM completed a baseline demographic questionnaire followed by 4 weeks of daily text messages that included either a direct reminder to test their blood glucose levels and keep up with their treatment plan or an educational message. A postintervention survey was administered to assess the satisfaction with the messaging program. Conclusion: The use of daily text messages in the treatment plan of patients diagnosed with GDM seems to be acceptable shown by an overall satisfaction with the messages and a willingness to use the messages in future pregnancies. Half of the participants also felt that the messages helped them to eat healthier. Implications for practice: This study demonstrated a real opportunity for a low-cost intervention in the management plan of GDM.
Simulation of a flexible arm robot for space station applications

A Flexible Arm Robot (FAR), which could be attached to the Space Station, could be used for reaching many locations in the vicinity of the Space Station without the need for astronauts in space suits to perform extravehicu lar activity. FAR is a tube-shaped robot consisting of many stacked segments which are individually controllable. Each segment has six degrees of freedom. Because this robot has many degrees of freedom, new algorithms were needed to control it. A graphical model and a mathe matical model (direct and inverse kinematics) of FAR have been developed. Based on these two models, a software package for simulating this Flexible Arm Robot on a computer system has been made. FAR and the two models are briefly described in this paper.
CHARACTERIZATION OF TWO LOW-CHARGE VERMICULITES AFTER HYDROCHLORIC ACID TREATMENT

Two natural vermiculites (Ver) with very similar chemical composition but slightly different low charge on the layers were investigated to find an answer the question, how to change their structural and chemical properties after exposure to different concentrations of HCl solutions. Vermiculite from Bulgaria (Ver-B) with the layer charge 0.47 eq/O10(OH)2 and from Brazil (VerSL) with the layer charge 0.36 eq/O10(OH)2 were studied on their particle size fraction less than 40 μm after treatment at different HCl concentrations (0.5 M HCl and 1 M HCl). Both samples represent a mixed-layer structure after incomplete transformation of mica (biotite) to vermiculite. Based on the XRD patterns, Ver-B may be considered as the mixed-layer vermiculite interstratified with small proportion of mica layers and Ver-SL as the mixed-layer micavermiculite. The leaching with 0.5 M HCl increased SA of Ver-B from 29.5 m 2 . g -1 to 261 m 2 . g -1
The S-Finger: A Synergetic Externally Powered Digit With Tactile Sensing and Feedback

Partial hand amputation is by far the most common type of amputation worldwide. Nevertheless, regardless of their potential clinical and socioeconomic impact, battery-powered partial hand prostheses, namely, powered digits, have modestly progressed so far, and very few clinical solutions are available today. Here, we present a mechanical architecture, an alternative to state-of-the-art solutions, which exploits a high efficiency, non-back drivable mechanical transmission based on a face-gear pair and a miniaturized clutch. We took inspiration from the synergetic prehension approach proposed by Childress for whole hand amputation. The finger was equipped with a myoelectric controller and a tactile sensor able to provide users with discrete event sensory feedback. Measured speed (90°/s) and force (6.5 N) of the newly dubbed S-Finger proved comparable with those of clinically available prostheses. The design demonstrated to be compact and rugged enough to undergo a clinical viability test with two partial hand amputees, fitted with custom three-fingered research prostheses using the S-Finger. The subjects successfully completed several dexterity tests and gave relevant feedback for the development of a second-generation device. These results contribute to the increasing research endeavors in the field of partial hand amputation.
Interpolation-based fuzzy logic controller, as a simplified way for constructing the fuzzy rulebase of the path tracking and collision avoidance strategy of an AGV

The application of interpolation-based approximate fuzzy reasoning methods in direct fuzzy logic control systems gives a simplified way for constructing the fuzzy rule base. The rule base of a fuzzy interpolation-based controller is not necessarily complete; it could just contain the most significant fuzzy rules without risking the chance of having no conclusion for some of the observations. In this paper, we introduce an approximate fuzzy reasoning method based on K-H interpolation in the vague environment of a fuzzy rule base which could be implemented to be simple enough for practical direct fuzzy logic control applications. For demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed approximate fuzzy reasoning method in direct fuzzy control, as a simulated complex practical application, a steering and collision avoidance strategy of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) is also introduced.
Real-time estimation of dynamic lever arm effect of transfer alignment for wing's elastic deformation

When the carrier does angular motion, the different installation position between master strapdown inertial navigation system (M-SINS) and the wing-mounted slave strapdown inertial navigation system (S-SINS) will lead to lever arm effect, which seriously affects the accuracy of transfer alignment of S-SINS. In practical flight, wing's elastic deformation will change the length of lever arm and lead to dynamic lever arm effect. This paper presents a real-time dynamic lever arm estimation method. The proposed method estimates the length of the dynamic lever arm in real time by adding the length into state variables of transfer alignment. Firstly, the relationships of the length of lever arm with lever-arm velocity error and lever-arm acceleration error are established, and both of them are added into the error equations of S-SINS system as parameters to establish the complete error equations of S-SINS system with lever arm effect error. Then, the filter model of S-SINS system is designed. On the one hand, the state matrix is derived according to the error equations of S-SINS, which contains the length of lever arm as state variable. On the other hand, the measurement equation is inferred from the relation between the output of M-SINS and S-SINS with velocity plus angular velocity matching method. Finally, the length of dynamic lever arm is estimated by unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) as one of state variables. The estimated length of dynamic lever arm can be used to calculate lever-arm velocity error and lever-arm acceleration error. To validate the proposed method, a simulation experiment is conducted in MATLAB. The simulation experiment uses second-order Markov process to simulate the elastic deformation of wing. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method is able to estimate the change of the dynamic lever arm caused by the elastic deformation of wing in real-time, and achieves the high accuracy estimation of misalignment angle after compensating the lever arm effect error.
Citrulline Improves Early Post-Ischemic Recovery or Rat Hearts In Vitro by Shifting Arginine Metabolism From Polyamine to Nitric Oxide Formation

Background: Reperfusion or reopening of occluded vessels is the gold standard to terminate ischemia. However, early functional recovery after reperfusion is often low requiring inotropic intervention. Although catecholamines increase inotropy and chronotropy, they are not the best choice because they increase myocardial oxygen and substrate demand. As nitric oxide (NO) contributes to cardiac function, we tested the hypothesis that addition of citrulline during the onset of reperfusion improves post-ischemic recovery because citrulline can reenter arginine consumption of NO synthases (NOS) but not of arginases. Methods: Hearts from adult rats were used in this study, exposed to 45-minute global ischemia and subsequently reperfused for 180 minutes. Citrulline (100 µM) or arginine (100 µM) was added with reperfusion and remained in the perfusion buffer for 180 minutes. Nω-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME) was used to antagonize NOS activity. Results: Citrulline increased load-free cell shortening of isolated adult rat cardiomyocytes and improved left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) under normoxic conditions, indicating that citrulline can affect heart function. Ischemia/reperfusion caused a constitutive loss of function during 3 hours of reperfusion, whereas citrulline, but not arginine, improved the functional recovery during reperfusion. This effect was attenuated by co-administration of l-NAME. Although citrulline increased the formation of nitrite, l-NAME attenuated this effect indicating again a positive effect of citrulline on NO formation. Citrulline, but not arginine, increased the expression of arginase-1 (protein and mRNA) but l-NAME attenuated this effect again. Collectively, citrulline improved the post-ischemic recovery in an NO-dependent way. Conclusions: Citrulline, known to block arginase and to support NO formation, improves the early functional recovery of post-ischemic hearts and may be an alternative to catecholamines to improve early post-ischemic recovery.
Anyorbit: orbital navigation in virtual environments with eye-tracking

Gaze-based interactions promise to be fast, intuitive and effective in controlling virtual and augmented environments. Yet, there is still a lack of usable 3D navigation and observation techniques. In this work: 1) We introduce a highly advantageous orbital navigation technique, AnyOrbit, providing an intuitive and hands-free method of observation in virtual environments that uses eye-tracking to control the orbital center of movement; 2) The versatility of the technique is demonstrated with several control schemes and use-cases in virtual/augmented reality head-mounted-display and desktop setups, including observation of 3D astronomical data and spectator sports.
A programmable analog calculation unit for vector computations

In this paper, a programmable analog calculation unit is designed for computing arbitrary functions of highly dimensional vectors in real-time. The support vector regression algorithm with Gaussian kernels is employed to approximately retrieve vector calculations. Through the proposed efficient scheme of regression, the number of support vectors is greatly reduced. A compact analog circuit is implemented to generate dynamically tunable Gaussian kernel functions of vectors. By integrating the kernel generation circuits in fully parallel, arbitrary vector functions are retrieved without any clock-cycle latency. The proof-of-concept processor is designed in a standard 0.18 um CMOS technology for vector calculations with the maximum dimensions of nine, which is implemented by only 9460 transistors. From the circuit simulation results, the proposed calculation unit successfully retrieves all the example functions in real-time with the maximum inaccuracy of 2.92%, 4.2%, and 10.85% for one, two, and nine dimensional regressions, respectively.
Low Precision Deep Learning Training on Mobile Heterogeneous Platform

Recent advances in System-on-Chip architectures have made the use of deep learning suitable for a number of applications on mobile devices. Unfortunately, due to the computational cost of neural network training, it is often limited to inference task, e.g., prediction, on mobile devices. In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework that enables both deep learning training and inference tasks on mobile devices. While being able to accommodate with the heterogeneity of computing devices technology on mobile devices, it also uses OpenCL to efficiently leverage modern SoC capabilities, e.g., multi-core CPU, integrated GPU and shared memory architecture, and accelerate deep learning computation. In addition, our system encodes the arithmetic operations of deep networks down to 8-bit fixed-point on mobile devices. As a proof of concept, we trained three well-known neural networks on mobile devices and exhibited a significant performance gain, energy consumption reduction, and memory saving.
Statistical Comparison of DT-MRI Interpolation Methods Using Cardiac DT-MRI Data

J. Gahm, N. Wisniewski, W. S. Klug, A. Garfinkel, and D. B. Ennis Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, Department of Physiological Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Biomedical Engineering Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Battery-aware Design Exploration of Scheduling Policies for Multi-sensor Devices

Lifetime maximization is a key challenge in battery-powered multi-sensor devices. Battery-aware power management strategies combine task scheduling with dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), accounting for the fact that the power drawn by the device is different from that provided by the battery due to its many non-idealities. However, state-of-the-art techniques in this field do not take into account several important aspects, such as the impact of sensing tasks on the overall power demand, the (operating point dependent) losses due to multiple DC-DC conversions, and the dynamic modifications in battery efficiency caused by different distributions of the currents in the temporal and in the frequency domains. In this work, we propose a novel approach to identify optimal power management solutions, that addresses all these limitations. Specifically, using advanced battery and DC-DC converter models, we propose methods to explore the scheduling space both statically (at design time) and dynamically (at runtime), accounting not only for computation tasks, but also for communication and sensing. With this method, we show that the battery lifetime can be increased by as much as 23.36% if an optimal power management strategy is adopted.
A Finite-Element-Based Contact Resistance Model for Rough Surfaces: Applied to a Bilayered Au/MWCNT Composite

A gold-coated multiwalled carbon nanotube composite (Au/MWCNT) is used as an electric contact material for low-current (<100 mA) switching. It is shown that the surface of the composite presents a much higher roughness when compared to pure gold-coated surface. In previous studies, data from nanoindentation tests have been used to construct a finite-element (FE) contact model where the Au/MWCNT composite is modeled as a bilayered structure. In this paper, the FE model is adapted to the modified nanoindenation tests with a 1-mm-radius gold-coated stainless steel ball and to enable to predict the contact resistance. Measured rough surface data are used in the modeling. From the simulated contact area, the contact resistance is calculated using established theory. The influence of contact position on the contact resistance is investigated, and an average predicted contact resistance values are shown to be good approximation to measured data.
Genetic Population Structure of Sika Deer, Cervus nippon, Derived from Multiple Origins, Around Toyama Prefecture of Japan

Recently, expansion of the number and distribution of sika deer, Cervus nippon, in the Japanese Archipelago has resulted in the disturbance of indigenous gene pools and ecosystems. There are also concerns that the artificial introduction of sika deer to certain areas may aggravate this situation. In order to contribute to the conservation of ecosystems, I examined the current state of genetic disturbance and dispersal routes in the sika deer populations around Toyama Prefecture, one of the main areas of expanding sika deer distribution. Of 12 haplotypes detected by mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequence analysis, 10 were found to belong to a previously detected sika deer group in northern Japan, although the remaining two haplotypes corresponded to the southern Japanese sika deer group. The latter two haplotypes were detected at especially high frequencies in the southern area of Toyama Prefecture, suggesting that these haplotypes may derive from artificially introduced individuals. Occurrence patterns of indigenous haplotypes around Toyama Prefecture revealed immigration into Toyama Prefecture through different routes, mainly in the east and south-west. The genetic results presented here may have application in predicting future dispersal routes, as well as aid in the establishment of effective measures for management of sika deer.
The urokinase plasminogen activator system components are regulated by vascular endothelial growth factor D in bovine oviduct

Summary The mammalian oviduct plays a pivotal role in the success of early reproductive events. The urokinase plasminogen activator system (uPAS) is present in the bovine oviduct and is involved in extracellular matrix remodelling through plasmin generation. This system can be regulated by several members of the vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) and their receptors. In this study, the VEGF-D effect on the regulation of uPAS was evaluated. First, RT-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses were used to evidence the expression of VEGF-D and its receptors in oviductal epithelial cells (BOEC). VEGF-D, VEGFR2 and VEGFR3 transcripts were found in ex vivo and in vitro BOEC, while only VEGFR2 mRNA was present after in vitro conditions. VEGF-D showed a regulatory effect on uPAS gene expression in a dose-dependent manner, inducing an increase in the expression of both uPA and its receptor (uPAR) at 24 h post-induction and decreases in the expression of its inhibitor (PAI-1). In addition, the regulation of cell migration induced by VEGF-D and uPA in BOEC monolayer cultures was analyzed. The wound areas of monolayer cultures incubated with VEGF-D 10 ng/ml or uPA 10 nM were modified and significant differences were found at 24 h for both stimulations. These results indicated that uPAS and VEGF-D systems can modify the arrangement of the bovine oviductal epithelium and contribute to the correct maintenance of the oviductal microenvironment.