Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dietary Patterns Affect the Gut Microbiome—The Link to Risk of Cardiometabolic Diseases

Abstract Clusters of bacterial species within the gut microenvironment, or gut enterotype, have been correlated with cardiometabolic disease risk. The metabolic products and metabolites that bacteria produce, such as short-chain fatty acids, secondary bile acids, and trimethylamine, may also affect the microbial community and disease risk. Diet has a direct impact on the gut microenvironment by providing substrates to and promoting the colonization of resident bacteria. To date, few dietary patterns have been evaluated for their effect on the gut microbiome, but the Mediterranean diet and Vegetarian diets have shown favorable effects for both the gut microbiome and cardiometabolic disease risk. This review examines the gut microbiome as a mediator between these dietary patterns and cardiometabolic disease risk.
An Open Information Extraction For Question Answering System

An Open Information Extraction (OIE) is a process of extracting meaningful information in a structured format from a set of unstructured or semi-structured data. OIE is used for applications like question answering, bio-text mining, text comprehension, ontology learning and sentence similarity. The main focus of OIE is to extract maximum possible set of verb-based triples. However, it ignores extracting adverbial and adjective clauses that are necessary for efficient semantic applications like question answering and paraphrase identification. Our method deals with the use of OIE techniques for extracting clauses which includes the adverbial and the adjective clauses. We have evaluated our OIE approach to extract answers for the given questions. The answers for the questions are determined based on pattern matching. We have used New York Times data set to evaluated the performance of our question answering system using OIE approach. We have obtained precision, recall and F1-measure as 39.47%, 75% and 51.7% respectively.
Restricted Boltzmann Machine Image Compression

We propose a novel lossy block-based image compression approach. Our approach builds on non-linear autoencoders that can, when properly trained, explore non-linear statistical dependencies in the image blocks for redundancy reduction. In contrast the DCT employed in JPEG is inherently restricted to exploration of linear dependencies using a second-order statistics framework. The coder is based on pre-trained class-specific Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBM). These machines are statistical variants of neural network autoencoders that directly map pixel values in image blocks into coded bits. Decoders can be implemented with low computational complexity in a codebook design. Experimental results show that our RBM-codec outperforms JPEG at high compression rates, both in terms of PSNR, SSIM and subjective results.
A 7.52-dB Noise Figure 128.75–132.25-GHz Super-Regenerative Receiver With 0.615-fW/ $\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$  NEP by Coupled Oscillator Networks for Portable Imaging System in 65-nm CMOS

This paper presents a low noise figure (NF) and high gain super-regenerative receiver (SRR) with coupled networks for portable millimeter-wave (mm-wave) imaging systems. Compared with the previous SRR designs, this paper presents a novel SRR structure comprising of two oscillators coupled by a serial resonator, which consists of the inductors and capacitors. Due to the coupled oscillators, the gain of the SRR is significantly improved and the NF of the SRR structure is reduced by 3 dB simultaneously. These benefits lead to a high-sensitivity SRR at mm-wave frequency. The circuit is realized in 65-nm CMOS process with a core area of 0.06 mm2. Measured results show that the receiver can detect −84-dBm minimum input power with 541-MHz integration bandwidth (BW). It has a noise-equivalent-power of 0.615 fW/(Hz), a NF of 7.52 dB, a BW of 3.5 GHz, and a power consumption of 8.1 mW. With frequency calibration procedure, these performances show the proposed chip meets portable imaging system requirement.
Monolithically Integrated Microwave Frequency Synthesizer on InP Generic Foundry Platform

A photonic integrated circuit for microwave generation is proposed and experimentally validated. On the microchip, two tunable monochromatic lasers spectrally separated by 0–10.7 nm are monolithically integrated with one high-speed photodiode in heterodyne configuration for enabling continuous RF synthesis from 2 to 42 GHz. Under free-running operation, the two lasers with 20–40 MHz optical linewidth produce RF beat note with <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math></inline-formula>90 MHz electrical linewidth at the on-chip photodiode. This is the first demonstration of such a fully integrated microwave photonic generator developed within an open-access generic foundry platform.
Impact of Element Pattern Symmetry on the Effective Degrees of Freedom in Dual-Polarized GNSS Adaptive Antenna Arrays

The effect of element pattern symmetry on the performance of dual-polarized global navigation satellite system adaptive antenna arrays is investigated. To this end, using analytical expressions for the far-fields of circular microstrip antennas, the steady-state beamforming performance of a two-element dual-polarized array with three degrees of freedom (DOFs) is studied through many Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that in the presence of randomly polarized interferers, regardless of the element pattern symmetry, the dual-polarized array can use all its DOF effectively to suppress up to three interferers and is as effective as a four-element right-handed circularly polarized (RHCP) array. It is, however, shown that if the interferers are RHCP, the dual-polarized array can use its DOF effectively only when the element patterns are asymmetric (unequal in E- and H-planes) and is ineffective in suppressing more than one interferer when the element patterns are symmetric (equal in E- and H-planes). This limitation is important in practice if the interferers are known to be RHCP and the array ground plane is small, since the patterns of microstrip antennas with small ground planes can become nearly symmetric. This finding is verified with a fabricated prototype of a two-element dual-polarized array with a small ground plane.
Circularly Polarized Crossed Dipole With Magnetoelectric Dipole for Wideband and Broadbeam Applications

A single-feed circularly polarized (CP) crossed dipole loaded with a magnetoelectric (ME) dipole is presented to enhance the bandwidth and beamwidth in this paper. The double-sided orthogonal strip-shaped dipoles are fed by a pair of vacant-quarter printed rings to realize CP radiation. A ME dipole is introduced to generate another resonance so that the CP bandwidth is significantly broadened. The antenna is backed with a corrugated cavity to obtain unidirectional radiation with high front-to-back ratio and a wide 3-dB axial ratio (AR) beamwidth. Simulated results show that the proposed antenna with an overall size of $0.58 \lambda_{0}\times 0.58\lambda_{0}\times 0.15\lambda_{0}$ at 1.45GHz exhibits an impedance bandwidth of 72.1 % for $\vert \mathrm{S}_{11}\vert$ ≤ −10dB from 1.25-2.66GHz, a 3-dB AR bandwidth of 45.3% from 1.45-2.3GHz, an average boresight gain of 8.1dBic and a high radiation efficiency over 94% within passband. Moreover, the 3-dB AR beamwidth is greater than 162°from 1.85-2.25GHz.
Reply to Tsukuura et al: “Novel hands‐free near‐infrared fluorescence navigation and simultaneous combined imaging for the elevation of vascularized lymph node flap”

We would like to thank the editor for the opportunity to reply to this letter. We welcome the comments and suggestions by Tsukuura et al, and we appreciate their interest in our article. As the authors stated in their communication, a near‐infrared fluorescence imaging device has been used to assist operators in a variety of surgical procedures. This technology not only can assist the surgeon during the preoperative plan, but can also be a useful adjunct in facilitating intraoperative dissection and evaluating post‐ operative outcomes. Furthermore, in the last decade, near‐infrared has been used as a device to provide functional imaging of the lymphatic system. Such technology contributed in improving the diagnosis and treatment of the lymphatic disorders and is considered an advantageous research tool to determine the anatomy and physiology of the lymphatic system. The recent increased popularity of this new technology has led to a further development of more up‐to‐date and innovative devices based on the near‐infrared fluorescence imaging technology, produced by a number of commercial companies. The authors described a hands‐free handling camera that allows the surgeon to visualize the lymphatic system on screen while maintaining free hands able to perform the surgery. We are aware of many companies that also offer this technological benefit, and there are several similar devices that are currently available in the market. Nevertheless, we would like to thank the authors for highlighting the usefulness and the advantages of applying innovative equipment, specifically when it comes to complex structures such as the lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes. Although there are many implications that may need to be considered in the application of innovative procedures, such as financial expenditures and conflicts of interest between surgeons and industry, we strongly support the use of surgical innovations and technologies that are able to improve surgical practice and patient’s care.
Emerging evidence for speeded alphabet printing as a measure of processing speed and working memory

Abstract Alphabet Printing (in the forward and backward order) is a brief and highly portable test with promise as a screening measure of processing speed and simple working memory, constructs which are only minimally assessed in many of the most commonly-used cognitive screening instruments. The aim of this project was to examine the construct validity of timed Alphabet Printing in a sample of 254 Veterans with cognitive complaints and a history of possible head injury. Criterion measures included more established tests of processing speed and simple working memory, including the Trail Making Test and the Digit Span subtest from the fourth edition of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales. Alphabet Printing scores moderately correlated with the criterion measures of attention, working memory, and processing speed, and demonstrated acceptable classification accuracy in discriminating between individuals with and without evidence of cognitive impairment on Trails B. These findings provide additional support for the possible utility of including Alphabet Printing during cognitive screenings or as part of a larger neuropsychological test battery.
An ADMM-Based Distributed Algorithm for Economic Dispatch in Islanded Microgrids

In this paper, based on an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), a novel distributed algorithm is proposed to address the economic dispatch problem (EDP) in islanded microgrids. Unlike most of the existing studies that investigate the EDP with quadratic cost functions, the algorithm proposed in this paper is able to solve the EDP with general convex cost functions. Moreover, by using the center-free algorithm and the projection method, the traditional centralized ADMM is extended to the distributed implementation framework, and a fully distributed solution to the EDP is obtained. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm can deal with both equality and inequality constraints in the EDP, and the supply–demand balance can be guaranteed at any time provided that the sum of initial power outputs is equal to the total demand. The convergence property of the proposed algorithm is strictly proved. Finally, some examples are provided to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Relationship between wheelchair skills scores and peak aerobic exercise capacity of manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury: a cross-sectional study

Abstract Purpose: Although both wheelchair skills and fitness are important and probably inter-related, the extent and nature of the relationship between them are not well understood. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that there are significant relationships between wheelchair skills scores and the peak exercise capacity of community-dwelling manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Materials and methods: We studied 26 participants, recording Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire scores and peak power output from graded aerobic wheelchair exercise testing on a motorized treadmill. Results: The median Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire capacity, confidence, and performance scores were 83.3%, 81.5%, and 76.7% and the median peak power output was 58.2 W. On regression analysis, there were significant relationships between the total Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire capacity, confidence, and performance scores and peak power output (R2 0.270–0.709, odds ratios 1.043–1.150, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Significant relationships exist between the wheelchair skills capacity, confidence, and performance scores and the peak exercise capacity of community-dwelling manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. These findings suggest that both wheelchair skills training and exercise training may be useful during the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury. Implications for rehabilitation Moderate positive relationships exist between wheelchair skills capacity and the peak exercise capacity of community-dwelling manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Moderate positive relationships exist between wheelchair skills confidence and the peak exercise capacity of community-dwelling manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. Although further research is needed, these findings suggest that clinicians should address both wheelchair skills training and exercise training during the rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injury and not assume that either alone is sufficient.
Family carers’ experiences of participating in a weight management programme for overweight children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities as per pdf: An exploratory study as per pdf

AIM To gain insight into the experiences of family carers participating in a weight management programme via mHealth tools for overweight children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities. BACKGROUND Many weight reduction programs fail to show positive and sustainable impacts due to not involving parents, who are usually unavailable to attend school-based health programs. The mHealth interactive interventions were carried out in September 2015-August 2016, engaging carers to monitor and sustain their children's healthy lifestyle behaviours at home being one way to achieve this. DESIGN Qualitative research design to conduct focus group discussion with family carers involved in a school-based weight management programme via the mHealth interventions. METHODS An exploratory study was used to examine family carers' views of participating in a weight management programme. Focus group interviews examined the in-depth experiences of 20 family carers in providing social support and monitoring lifestyle behaviours via the mHealth interactive interventions. RESULTS Twenty family carers were recruited and four themes emerged: (a) improving family carer-child interactions and communications; (b) gaining useful and practical health information from experts; (c) supporting each other via an mHealth platform; and (d) appreciating the collaborative effort between school personnel and family carers. Family carers stressed the usefulness of the mHealth interactive interventions in monitoring and sustaining the children's healthy lifestyle behaviours at home. CONCLUSION The mHealth interactive interventions for increasing family carers' involvement and monitoring were well received. The findings provide new insights into using mHealth interventions in future weight management programmes involving parental participation in the home environment.
Study and application on thermal EOP (Electro Optical Probing) / EOFM (Electro Optical Frequency Mapping) technique

EOP (Electro Optical Probing) / EOFM (Electro Optical Frequency Mapping) is a dynamic optical probing technique widely used in IC level defect localization from backside. In this paper, a new method of EOP / EOFM application was discussed to enhance the amplitude and intensity of the EO data and image. One thermal EOP / EOFM experiment was performed to study the characteristic of thermal EO technique. And one real case was analyzed by the thermal EO technique.
Architecture for Predicting Live Video Transcoding Performance on Docker Containers

Video can be streamed live with different applications (e.g. YouTube Live, Periscope). Typically, the video content is adapted for end users based on receiving client's capabilities, and network bandwidth. The adaptation is realized with different video representations, which are created by transcoding the original video content. When video is streamed live, transcoding has to be completed within real time constraints, which is a computationally demanding process. Particularly, live transcoding should be enabled efficiently by a content distributor to minimize resource provisioning costs. The contribution of this paper is an architecture for predicting live video transcoding performance on a Docker-based platform. Particularly, cloud resource management for live video transcoding has been focused on. A model was trained based on measurements in different transcoding configurations. Offline evaluation results indicate that live transcoding speed or CPU usage can be predicted with 3-8 % accuracy. When video is transcoded on virtual machines based on predictions in a prototype system (live), live transcoding speed prediction accuracy is within a similar range as the offline performance, but worse for CPU usage prediction (5-15%). In most cases the specified range for transcoding speed and CPU usage can be achieved at least with a precision of 76%.
Pentavariate  $V_{\mathrm{min}}$  Analysis of a Subthreshold 10T SRAM Bit Cell With Variation Tolerant Write and Divided Bit-Line Read

Subthreshold and near-threshold operations are viable approaches towards reducing both static and dynamic power in Static Random Access Memory (SRAM). However, supply scaling in SRAM cells is severely limited by process variations. Additionally, cell performance is greatly affected by local mismatch in subthreshold region, thereby prohibiting low voltage operation. In order to mitigate these issues, we present a ten-transistor (10T) SRAM cell with capability of performing a variation tolerant write operation in deep subthreshold region without the implementation of additional peripheral circuitry or assist technique. The unique topology of the proposed cell also aids in reducing the bit line offset voltage, thereby improving read access performance. In addition to read and write performance, the hold stability has also been improved, resulting in significant V<sub>min</sub> gains. The V<sub>min</sub> of all cells has been evaluated at the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$6\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula> failure point (P<sub>Fail</sub> = 10<sup>−9</sup>) using a comprehensive pentavariate probability anaylsis, considering both static and dynamic measures. At respective V<sub>min</sub>, the proposed 10T cell consumes up to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$39\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$6.6\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> lower hold power than the conventional 6T and 8T cells, making it a viable candidate for portable electronics or low power sensors.
Control of Tethered Drones with state and input Constraints - a Unified Model Approach

This paper focuses on the control design problem of a tethered drone. The suggested concept has the potential to solve some basic difficulties related to the use of small drones, such as their short flight duration, limited lifting ability and the need of precise indoor position sensing. Here, the end of the tether is connected to the drone, while the other side is wrapped on a spool driven by a DC motor, fixed on the ground. Under the assumption that the tether is kept taut at all time, a full autonomous flight can be achieved indoors, where the tether functions as a position sensor. The tether is pulled from its two sides, by the ground motor and the drone. Critical constraints, driven from this configuration, demand positive tether tension and limited flight space. Hence, a unified model is developed for the combined ground-aerial system, and a model predictive control approach is taken, to allow for optimal control under state and input constraints. Simulations results show the performance of the design for both set-point and trajectory tracking cases.
PrivateZone: Providing a Private Execution Environment Using ARM TrustZone

ARM TrustZone is widely used to provide a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) for mobile devices. However, the use of TrustZone is limited because TrustZone resources are only available for some pre-authorized applications. In other words, only alliances of the TrustZone OS vendors and device manufacturers can use TrustZone to secure their services. To help overcome this problem, we designed the PrivateZone framework to enable individual developers to utilize TrustZone resources. Using PrivateZone, developers can run Security Critical Logics (SCL) in a Private Execution Environment (PrEE). The advantage of PrivateZone is its leveraging of TrustZone resources without undermining the security of existing services in the TEE. To guarantee this, PrivateZone creates a PrEE using a memory region that is isolated from both the Rich Execution Environment (REE) and TEE. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of PrivateZone. The prototype of PrivateZone was implemented on an Arndale board with a Cortex-A15 dual-core processor. We built PrivateZone by exploring both security and virtualization extensions of the ARM architecture. To illustrate the usage and the efficacy of PrivateZone, we developed an Android application based on PrivateZone framework, and evaluated the performance overhead imposed on the OS in the REE and SCLs in the PrEE.
Distributed Proximal Gradient Algorithm for Partially Asynchronous Computer Clusters

With ever growing data volume and model size, an error-tolerant, communication efficient, yet versatile distributed algorithm has become vital for the success of many large-scale machine learning applications. In this work we propose m-PAPG, an implementation of the flexible proximal gradient algorithm in model parallel systems equipped with the partially asynchronous communication protocol. The worker machines communicate asynchronously with a controlled staleness bound s and operate at different frequencies. We characterize various convergence properties of m-PAPG: 1) Under a general non-smooth and nonconvex setting, we prove that every limit point of the sequence generated by m-PAPG is a critical point of the objective function; 2) Under an error bound condition of convex objective functions, we prove that the optimality gap decays linearly for every s steps; 3) Under the Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz inequality and a sufficient decrease assumption, we prove that the sequences generated by m-PAPG converge to the same critical point, provided that a proximal Lipschitz condition is satisfied.
Robust Formation Control for a Team of Satellites*

This paper addresses the robust formation controller design problem for a team of satellites. The dynamics of each satellite involves nonlinearity and coupling, parametric uncertainties, and external disturbances. A distributed controller is proposed, which includes a position controller to form the desired formation trajectories and patterns, and an attitude controller to align the satellite attitudes. Numerical simulation studies are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed formation control scheme.