Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Currents Induced on Conducting Rods by Near and Far Zone Sources

Missies in flight are often immersed in an elec­ tromagnetic environment. Whether desirable or not, this EMC situation may cause undue influences on per­ formance of on-board subsystems. To measure these effects, it invariably becomes necessary to experimen­ tally test real-life systems on an antenna range. To cover all threats, large frequency bands as well as high field intensities are needed. Thus the use of near-zone transmitting antennas are often required. The simulation validity of such a test arrangement is a cause for concern, since in flight, the missile experiences plane wave incidence. Are there then significant differences in system response when caused by the near-zone source fields compared to plane wave fields? More importantly, how far away does the source have to be to achieve valid simulation? Since the cost of the test facility depends directly on the power needed, which in turn depend on the separation distance, the answers to these questions are therefore of cri­ tical concern.
[Fluoride intake by children from water and dentifrice].

OBJECTIVE To determine the total fluoride dose to which children were exposed during the critical age of developing dental fluorosis, in an optimally fluoridated region, having diet (liquids and solids) and dentifrice as fluoride sources. METHODS For the pilot study, 39 children (aged 20 to 30 months) were selected from a day care center in Piracicaba, Brazil. They drank and ate food prepared with fluoridated water. To determine the total dose of fluoride exposure, duplicate-plate samples and products from tooth brushing were collected for two consecutive days, in four periods of the year. Fluoride was determined using an ion specific electrode. A 5% level of significance variance analysis (Anova) was carried out. RESULTS Children were exposed to a total fluoride dose of 0.090 mg/day/kg of body weight, of which 45% came from the diet and 55% from dentifrice. CONCLUSIONS Assuming 0.07 mg/kg as a threshold value of fluoride systemic exposure, children were exposed to a risk dose for dental fluorosis. Thus, measures to reduce fluoride intake at the studied age range would be recommended. Reducing the amount of dentifrice used for tooth brushing seems to be the best measure, given the risk/benefits of fluoride use from the public health perspective.
Physical and Psychological Stress and Sleep Efficiency before and after Introducing a New Sleep Surface

Background: It has been long assumed that stress interferes with sleep, but less has been attributed to the converse of poor sleep contributing to stress. Study question: Can an older sleep surface contribute to poor sleep and thus, stress and will a new sleep surface provide better sleep, thus less stress. Methods: Forty-six participants rated physical and psychological signs of stress and sleep efficiency for three weeks while sleeping in their own beds. Following baseline measures participants’ beds were replaced by new, unmarked beds and they again rated their stress and sleep efficiency. Results: Average age of participants’ bed was 11.27 yrs. Physical and psychological signs of stress were reduced significantly (p<0.01) from pre- to post-assessments. Similarly, sleep efficiency improved significantly (p<0.01) between pre- and post-assessments. Conclusions: Replacing an older mattress that may have lost adequate support and comfort may result in a better night’s sleep thereby reducing stress brought on by a lack of sleep. It was suggested that a simple principal step in acquiring better sleep is to consider a new sleep surface rather than to opt for pharmaceuticals to achieve better sleep.
Extreme serum elevations of aspartate aminotransferase.

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency, etiology, and associated mortality of extreme elevations of serum AST. METHODS The medical records were reviewed of all patients with a serum AST over 3000 U/L during 1 full calendar year at a large, tertiary-care hospital. Serum AST, with an upper limit of normal at 35 U/L, is included in the automated, 18-test chemistry profile run on virtually all clinically ill patients admitted to this hospital. RESULTS Of 23,125 admissions, 56 patients had or developed serum AST concentrations greater than 3000 U/L, an occurrence rate of approximately two per 1000 admissions. Either liver or skeletal muscle was the origin of virtually all such AST elevations. Acute hypotension (ischemic or hypoxic hepatitis) accounted for the majority (29/56) of the cases; toxic (seven) or viral (four) hepatitis together accounted for 11/56 cases. Overall mortality, on this admission, was 31/56 (55%). CONCLUSIONS Extreme elevations of AST are most often attributable to hypoxic hepatitis. Patients with extreme AST due to hypoxic hepatitis had a 22/29 (75%) mortality compared with 9/27 (33%) for all other causes combined.
Bio‐inspired design of a magnetically active trilayered scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering

An important topic in cartilage tissue engineering is the development of biomimetic scaffolds which mimic the depth‐dependent material properties of the native tissue. We describe an advanced trilayered nanocomposite hydrogel (ferrogel) with a gradient in compressive modulus from the top to the bottom layers (p < 0.05) of the construct. Further, the scaffold was able to respond to remote external stimulation, exhibiting an elastic, depth‐dependent strain gradient. When bovine chondrocytes were seeded into the ferrogels and cultured for up to 14 days, there was good cell viability and a biochemical gradient was measured with sulphated glycosaminoglycan increasing with depth from the surface. This novel construct provides tremendous scope for tailoring location‐specific cartilage replacement tissue; by varying the density of magnetic nanoparticles, concentration of base hydrogel and number of cells, physiologically relevant depth‐dependent gradients may be attained. © 2015 The Authors Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Understading Black Boxes: Knowledge Induction From Models

Due to regurations and laws prohibiting uses of private data on customers and their transactions in customer data base, most customer data sets are not easily accessable even in the same organizations. A solutio for this reguatory problems can be providing statistical summary of the data or models induced from the dat, instead of providing raw data sets. The models, however, have limited information on the original raw data set. This study explores possible solutions for these problems. The study uses prediction models from data on credit information of customers provided by a local bank in Seoul, S. Korea. This study suggests approaches in figuring what is inside of the non-rules based models such as regression models or neural network models. The study proposes several rule accumulation algorithms such as (RAA) and a GA-based rule refinement algorithm (GA-RRA) as possible solutions for the problems. The experiments show the performance of the random dataset, RAA, elimination of redundant rules (ERR), and GA-RRA.
Prenatal Cocaine Exposure and Child Welfare Outcomes

This study examines the relationship between prenatal cocaine exposure and child welfare outcomes. Seventy-six infants positive for cocaine at birth were matched to 76 negative infants. With prenatal care and maternal use of alcohol and tobacco controlled, cocaine-exposed infants had significant decrements in birth weight, length, head circumference, and depressed 5-min Apgar scores. This confirmed the health risk of prenatal cocaine exposure for the sample. Three-year follow-up data were obtained from the State Central Register and foster care records. Adjusting for prior maternal involvement with child welfare services the study groups did not differ in incidents of child maltreatment or foster care placement. These findings suggest that prenatal cocaine exposure is not a marker for abusive parenting. However, from the perspective of a cumulative risk model, the identification of cocaine-exposed infants at birth can form the starting point for the development of appropriate diagnostic and follow-up services for mother and child.
Asparaginase and MOPP treatment of dogs with lymphoma.

BACKGROUND Dogs with multicentric lymphoma are treated with various cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP)-based chemotherapy protocols with variable success. OBJECTIVES To describe the progression-free survival (PFS) time and overall survival time (OST) of dogs with T-cell lymphoma or hypercalcemic lymphoma treated with L-asparaginase and mechlorethamine, vincristine, prednisone, procarbazine (MOPP). ANIMALS Fifty dogs with T-cell lymphoma, hypercalcemic lymphoma, or both treated at 3 referral veterinary hospitals. METHODS Retrospective study. Case were selected based on histologic or cytologic diagnosis of lymphoma; presence of the T-cell phenotype, presence of hypercalcemia or both; and absence of previous chemotherapy. The T-cell phenotype was determined by flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemistry, or polymerase chain reaction of antigen receptor rearrangement. RESULTS The overall response rate was 98% (78% complete response, 20% partial response). The median PFS for the entire study population was 189 days with 25% PFS at 939 days. The median OST for the entire study population was 270 days with 25% surviving 939 days. Twenty percent of the dogs required hospitalization for treatment related complications. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE L-Asp/MOPP chemotherapy might result in longer PFS and OST for dogs with multicentric T-cell lymphoma, dogs with hypercalcemic lymphoma or both, than achieved with CHOP.
Control of Listeria monocytogenes by bacteriocins and monitoring of bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria by colony hybridization in semi-hard raw milk cheese.

The ability of Listeria monocytogenes to grow at low temperatures and increase to hazardous levels during storage of dairy products is of great concern to the dairy industry. List. monocytogenes was detected in 3·6% of 774 cows' milk samples from 114 farms in Central Spain (Gaya et al . 1998). Ewes' and goats' milks produced in Spain had contamination levels of 2·2 and 2·6% respectively (Rodriguez et al . 1994; Gaya et al . 1996). List. monocytogenes may survive during the manufacture and ripening of most cheese varieties, with higher risk in soft surface-ripened cheeses owing to the rise in pH during ripening (Maisnier-Patin et al . 1992; Giraffa & Carminati, 1997). The efficacy with which actively growing bacteriocin-producing cultures inhibit List. monocytogenes in some cheese varieties has been demonstrated. Nisin-producing starters inhibited List. monocytogenes V7 in Camembert cheese (Maisnier-Patin et al . 1992) and List. innocua BL86/26 in raw ewes' milk Manchego cheese (Rodriguez et al . 1998). A lacticin 3147-producing starter culture (McAuliffe et al . 1999) reduced List. monocytogenes Scott A levels in cottage cheese. Inoculation of milk with enterocin AS-48-producing Enterococcus faecalis INIA 4 inhibited List. monocytogenes strains Ohio and Scott A during the manufacture and ripening of Manchego cheese (Nunez et al . 1997). Semi-hard cheese varieties from raw or pasteurized cows' milk mixed with different proportions of ewes' and/or goats' milk represent ∼ 50% of Spanish cheese production. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the antilisterial activity of three bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria strains isolated from milk (Rodriguez et al . 2000) during the manufacture and ripening of a semi-hard cheese manufactured from raw milk.
TRENDS IN INFECTIONS IN CHILDREN WITH MALIGNANT DISEASE IN 2000: Comparison of Data of 1980/81

Children with cancer have an overall chance of survival of 70–80%. Despite significant advances in supportive care during the last years, infections remain a major cause of therapy-associated morbidity and death. Between January and December 2000, oncology patients (ONC) treated on a pediatric oncology ward after chemotherapy (n = 109), loco-regional thermochemotherapy (n = 13), or hematopoetic stem cell (HSCT) transplantation (n = 35) suffered a total of 249 febrile infectious complications (HSCT 40/ONC 209). These episodes were analyzed retrospectively and compared with 125 ONC patients with 133 febrile infections in 1980/81. The relative incidence of fever of unknown origin (FUO) decreased from 1980/81 to 2000 (p <.001). The frequency of bloodstream infections (BSI) in febrile episodes was comparable in both periods with 37% (50/135) in 1980 and 29% (72/249) in 2000. In both periods, gram-positive bacteria were the most frequent organisms, whereas gram-negative organisms were detected in approximately 20% of BSI. In 1980/81 microbiologically (MDI) or clinically documented infections (CDI) were not detected, whereas in 2000 27% of all infectious were MDI/CDI. During the last 20 years, improved diagnostic tools have resulted in an increased detection rate of infectious agents causing febrile episodes in pediatric cancer patients. The comparison of the two observation periods did not reveal a change in the microbiologic spectrum. Despite the fact that in 2000 more patients were treated with intensified chemotherapy because of relapse, infection-related mortality was unchanged compared to 1980/81. This observation may indicate a sufficient preemptive antibacterial therapy followed by better diagnostic tools and goal-oriented treatment.
The Role of Cultural Identity Clarity for Self-Concept Clarity, Self-Esteem, and Subjective Well-Being

Knowing oneself and experiencing oneself as clearly defined has been linked to positive self-esteem and psychological well-being; however, this association has been tested only at the level of personal identity. The authors propose that a clear cultural identity provides the individual with a clear prototype with which to engage the processes necessary to construct a clear personal identity and, by extension, to achieve self-esteem and well-being. For samples of undergraduate students, Anglophone Quebecers, Francophone Québécois, Chinese North Americans, and Aboriginal Canadians, cultural identity clarity was positively related to self-concept clarity, self-esteem, and markers of subjective well-being. The relationship between cultural identity clarity and both self-esteem and well-being was consistently mediated by self-concept clarity. Interventions designed to clarify cultural identity might have psychological benefits for individuals facing cultural identity challenges.
Gain-adapted hidden Markov models for recognition of clean and noisy speech

In applying hidden Markov modeling for recognition of speech signals, the matching of the energy contour of the signal to the energy contour of the model for that signal is normally achieved by appropriate normalization of each vector of the signal prior to both training and recognition. This approach, however, is not applicable when only noisy signals are available for recognition. A unified approach is developed for gain adaptation in recognition of clean and noisy signals. In this approach, hidden Markov models (HMMs) for gain-normalized clean signals are designed using maximum-likelihood (ML) estimates of the gain contours of the clean training sequences. The models are combined with ML estimates of the gain contours of the clean test signals, obtained from the given clean or noisy signals, in performing recognition using the maximum a posteriori decision rule. The gain-adapted training and recognition algorithms are developed for HMMs with Gaussian subsources using the expectation-minimization (EM) approach. >
Antioxidant, antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory properties of the aqueous and ethanolic leaf extracts of Andrographis paniculata in some laboratory animals

Abstract Background: The study was designed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antioxidant properties of Andrographis paniculata leaf extracts in laboratory animals. Methods: The dried and powdered leaves of the plant were subjected to phytochemical and proximate analyses. Its mineral content was also determined. Acute toxicity experiments were first performed to determine a safe dose level. The plant material was extracted using water and ethanol as solvents. These extracts were then used to test for the anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antioxidant properties of the plant. The anti-inflammatory tests included carrageenan-induced and histamine-induced paw oedema. The analgesic tests conducted were formalin paw lick test and acetic acid writhing test. The antioxidant activities of the extracts of A. paniculata were determined by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), total polyphenol (TP) and 2,2′-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) using ascorbic acid as standard for both DPPH and FRAP, and gallic acid as a standard for both TP and ABTS. Results: The acute toxicity experiment demonstrated that the plant is safe at high doses even at 1600 mg/kg. It was observed that the ethanolic extract of A. paniculata had higher antioxidant activity than the aqueous extract. The experiments using both extracts may suggest that the extracts of A. paniculata leaves possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antioxidant properties, although the ethanolic extract seemed to have higher biological properties than the aqueous extract. Conclusions: The results from this study may have justified the plant’s folkloric use for medicinal purpose.
Design and Performance of a Bidirectional Isolated DC–DC Converter for a Battery Energy Storage System

This paper describes the design and performance of a 6-kW, full-bridge, bidirectional isolated dc-dc converter using a 20-kHz transformer for a 53.2-V, 2-kWh lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery energy storage system. The dc voltage at the high-voltage side is controlled from 305 to 355 V, as the battery voltage at the low-voltage side (LVS) varies from 50 to 59 V. The maximal efficiency of the dc-dc converter is measured to be 96.0% during battery charging, and 96.9% during battery discharging. Moreover, this paper analyzes the effect of unavoidable dc-bias currents on the magnetic-flux saturation of the transformer. Finally, it provides the dc-dc converter loss breakdown with more focus on the LVS converter.
Polarizability of the nitrate anion and its solvation at the air/water interface

The anisotropic molecular polarizability of the nitrate anion and its decomposition into atomic contributions is studied using ab initio quantum chemistry and the Atoms in Molecules theory. Aqueous solvation of NO3− in interfacial environments is investigated by a Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics simulation of a cluster, and classical molecular dynamics of an extended slab system with bulk interfaces using a polarizable force field based on the Atoms in Molecules analysis. Both in aqueous clusters and in systems with extended interfaces the nitrate anion clearly prefers interfacial over bulk solvation. This is primarily due to its large value of molecular polarizability, the gas phase value of which is reduced by only 5–10% in the aqueous environment. For polarizable force field simulations of ionic solvation, we recommend to cast the NO3− polarizability into three equal contributions of roughly 1.3 A3 placed on the oxygen atoms of the anion.
3D printing for sizing left atrial appendage closure device: head-to-head comparison with computed tomography and transoesophageal echocardiography.

AIMS Device sizing for LAA closure using transoesophageal echocardiography (TEE) can be challenging due to complex LAA anatomy. We investigated whether the use of 3D-printed left atrial appendage (LAA) models based on preprocedural computed tomography (CT) permits accurate device sizing. METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty-two (22) patients (73±8 years, 55% male) with atrial fibrillation requiring anticoagulation at high bleeding risk underwent LAA closure (WATCHMAN device). Preprocedurally, LAA was sized by TEE and third-generation dual-source CT. Based on CT, 3D printing models of LAA anatomy were created for simulation of device implantation. Device compression was assessed in a CT scan of the 3D model with the implanted device. Implantation was successful in all patients. Mean LAA ostium diameter based on TEE was 22±4 mm and based on CT 25±3 mm (p=0.014). Predicted device size based on simulated implantation in the 3D model was equal to the device finally implanted in 21/22 patients (95%). TEE would have undersized the device in 10/22 patients (45%). Device compression determined in the 3D-CT model corresponded closely with compression upon implantation (16±3% vs. 18±5%, r=0.622, p=0.003). CONCLUSIONS Patient-specific CT-based 3D printing models may assist device selection and prediction of device compression in the context of interventional LAA closure.
Automatic melody extraction algorithm using a convolutional neural network

In this study, we propose an automatic melody extraction algorithm using deep learning. In this algorithm, feature images, generated using the energy of frequency band, are extracted from polyphonic audio files and a deep learning technique, a convolutional neural network (CNN), is applied on the feature images. In the training data, a short frame of polyphonic music is labeled as a musical note and a classifier based on CNN is learned in order to determine a pitch value of a short frame of audio signal. We want to build a novel structure of melody extraction, thus the proposed algorithm has a simple structure and instead of using various signal processing techniques for melody extraction, we use only a CNN to find a melody from a polyphonic audio. Despite of simple structure, the promising results are obtained in the experiments. Compared with state-of-the-art algorithms, the proposed algorithm did not give the best result, but comparable results were obtained and we believe they could be improved with the appropriate training data. In this paper, melody extraction and the proposed algorithm are introduced first, and the proposed algorithm is then further explained in detail. Finally, we present our experiment and the comparison of results follows.
Microsatellite-dense genetic map: towards genome coverage in a tropical maize (Zea mays L.) population

Dense molecular genetic maps are used for an efficient quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and in the marker-assisted selection programs. A dense genetic map was generated with 139 microsatellite markers using 256 F2 plants generated by the crossing of two tropical maize inbred lines (L-02-03D and L-20-01F). This map presented 1,858.61 cM in length, where 10 linkage groups were found spanned, with an average interval of 13.47 cM between adjacent markers. Seventy seven percent of the maize genetic mapping bins were covered, which means an increase of 14% coverage in relation to the previous tropical maize maps. The results provide a more detailed and informative genetic map in a tropical maize population representing the first step to make possible the studies of genetic architecture to identify and map QTL and estimate their effects on the variation of quantitative traits, thus allowing the manipulation and use in tropical maize breeding programs.