Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
T hesis for the degree of L icentiate of E ngineering HBV frequency multiplier 2 D arrays and application

The utilisation of the THz spectrum ( 0.3-3 THz ) is hampered by technological difficulties to generate power at these frequencies. Applications within diverse fields such as radio astronomy, security imaging, life sciences, high data rate communications and production monitoring could benefit significantly from compact, high power THz signal sources operating at room temperature. This thesis reports on the design and fabrication aspects of varactor diode based 2D array frequency multipliers. Both free space operating and waveguide enclosed Heterostructure Barrier Varactors (HBVs) arrays are discussed in detail. The goal of this work has been to design, fabricate and characterise high power varactor 2D array frequency multipliers, enabling increased power handling capabilities and output power of future THz frequency multipliers. This approach is expected to offer excellent frequency and power scalability for THz signal sources. An altogether waveguide integrated 249 GHz HBV 2D array frequency tripler is presented together with measurement data. With an output power of 18 mW at 248 GHz and a conversion efficiency of 2 %, this is the highest frequency of operation and output power reported to date for waveguide enclosed 2D array frequency multipliers. A 346 GHz imaging system is also presented as an application example for powerful THz signal sources. The system uses an imaging algorithm based on the Born approximation and produces images with a voxel size of 0.1 × 0.1 mm (approximately 1/10 of the free space wavelength).
An overlooked tear film sign of dry eye.

To the Editor: In their comprehensive, Delphi approach to develop treatment recommendations for dry eye disease, Behrens et al list clinical signs to be considered in severity assessment (their Table 4). In the column headed ‘‘Tear Film,’’ ‘‘debris’’ is listed as 1 sign. For ~4 decades, I have used a feature of ‘‘debris’’ in the pre-corneal tear film to help me gauge the severity of aqueous-deficient dry eye. When one observes the precorneal tear film of a normal eye by using high power during slit-lamp examination, a few small particles are seen to move rapidly and randomly, exhibiting Brownian movement. As precorneal aqueous diminishes, the movement of these particles slows. Their numbers also increase. The decreased rapidity of particle movement can be related to the severity of the dry eye. With a severe aqueous tear deficiency, the particles are seen to move en masse with each lid blink. This sign has added value when it is observed in the untouched eye, before dry eye testing that may increase tear flow. My review of the literature does not reveal mention of this sign before I proposed its use in my 1985 review. I apologize if I have overlooked a previous report.
Advanced radar modes for airborne surveillance radars

The pod integrated variant of the airborne SmartRadar by AIRBUS Defence & Space, mounted under the wing of a Learjet 35 aircraft, is used as a testbed to develop advanced radar modes. The SmartRadar comprises a multi-phase-centre active electronically steered array (AESA) antenna, a flexible, wide-bandwidth radar core, and an on-board processing unit. During the last years, established modes like synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and ground moving target indication (GMTI) have been supplemented by newly developed maritime modes, e.g. maritime moving target indication (MMTI) and Open Sea modes. This paper gives an overview of the advanced radar modes and presents results from our 2014 flight campaigns.
Power supply ESS: A case study evaluating IPC 9592A recommendations

In 2010, IPC released 9592A, “Performance Parameters for Power Conversion Devices”. The standard includes descriptions of Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) and Highly Accelerated Stress Audits (HASA) for PCD (Power Conversion Device) ESS, and describes them as more effective than Burn-In. A case study comparing the effectiveness of Burn In with Highly Accelerated Stress Audits (HASA) has demonstrated the greater effectiveness of HASA. Implemented at a high volume PCD manufacturer for a one year period, the study determined that HASA, run after a tradition Burn-In process, caught failures that the Burn-In process was unable to discover. Failure rates of PCDs in Burn-In were 0.002% of the units, whereas failures in HASA were 1.25% of the units tested. Further, field warranty failures for units run through HA SA were non-existent whereas warranty failure rates of PCDs run only through Burn-In were 0.15%, a material economic difference in such high volume PCDs. The paper concludes that the IPC 9592A recommendations for using HASS and HASA in PCD manufacturing are well-founded, and that they are demonstrably superior to Burn-In for reducing field failure rates.
Rice Production Systems and Avian Influenza: Interactions between Mixed-Farming Systems, Poultry and Wild Birds

Abstract. Wild waterfowl are the reservoir for avian influenza viruses (AIVs), a family of RNA viruses that may cause mild sickness in waterbirds. Emergence of H5N1, a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) strain, causing severe disease and mortality in wild birds, poultry and humans, had raised concerns about the role of wild birds in possible transmission of the disease. In this review, the link between rice production systems, poultry production systems, and wild bird ecology is examined to assess the extent to which these interactions could contribute towards the persistence and evolution of HPAI H5N1. The rice (Oryza sativa) and poultry production systems in Asia described, and then migration and movements of wild birds discussed. Mixed farming systems in Asia and wild bird movement and migration patterns create opportunities for the persistence of low pathogenic AIVs in these systems. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of long-term persistence of HPAI viruses (including the H5N1 subtype) in the wild. There are still significant gaps in the understanding of how AIVs circulate in rice systems. A better understanding of persistence of AIVs in rice farms, particularly of poultry origins, is essential in limiting exchange of AIVs between mixed-farming systems, poultry and wild birds.
Tracing Communications and Computational Workload in LJS (Lennard-Jones with Spatial Decomposition)

LJS (Lennard-Jones with Spatial decomposition) is a molecular dynamics application developed by Steve Plimpton at Sandia National Laboratories [1]. It performs thermodynamic simulations of a system containing fixed large number (millions) of atoms or molecules confined within a regular, three-dimensional domain. Since the simulations model interactions on atomic scale, the computations carried out in a single timestep (iteration) correspond to femtoseconds of the real time. Hence, a meaningful simulation of the evolution of the system's state typically requires a large number (thousands and more) of timesteps. The particles in LJS are represented as material points subjected to forces resulting from interactions with other particles. While the general case involves N-body solvers, LJS implements only pair-wise material point interactions using derivative of Lennard-Jones potential energy for each particle pair to evaluate the acting forces. The velocities and positions of particles are updated by integrating Newton's equations (classical molecular dynamics). The interaction range depends on the modeled problem type; LJS focuses on short-range forces, implementing a cutoff distance rc outside which the interactions are ignored. The computational complexity of O(N2), characteristic for systems with long-range interactions, is therefore substantially alleviated. LJS deploys spatial decomposition of the domain volume to distribute the computations across the available processors on a parallel computer. The decomposition process uniformly divides parallelepiped containing all particles into volumes equal in size and as close in shape to a cube as possible, assigning each of such formed cells to a CPU. The correctness of computations requires the positions of some particles (depending on the value of rc) residing in the neighboring cells to be known to the local process. This information is exchanged in every timestep via explicit communication with the neighbor nodes in all three dimensions (for details see [2]). LJS also takes the advantage of the third Newton's law to calculate the force only once per particle pair; if the involved particles belong to cells located on different processors, the results are forwarded to the other node in a "reverse communication" phase. Besides communications occurring in every iteration, additional messages are sent once every preset number of timesteps. Their purpose is to adjust cell assignments of particles due to their movement. To minimize the overhead of the construction of particle neighbor lists, LJS replaces rc with extended cutoff radius rs (rs > rc), which accounts for possible particle movement before any list updates need to be carried out. Due to a relatively small impact of that phase on the overall behavior of the application, we ignored it in our analysis.
Place Mapping and the Role of Spatial Scale in Understanding Landowner Views of Fire and Fuels Management

Place mapping is emerging as a way to understand the spatial components of people's relationships with particular locations and how these relate to support for management proposals. But despite the spatial focus of place mapping, scale is rarely explicitly examined in such exercises. This is particularly problematic since scalar definitions and configurations have implications for research results. In this study, we examine the relationship between place meanings and views on fire and fuels management through in-depth interviews and computer-based mapping with forest landowners. While landowners readily described and mapped special places, these places did not influence views on fire and fuels management, views that were situated almost entirely at larger scales and explained by broader worldviews and political ideologies. Because research results may be an artifact of measurement, place-mapping efforts need to carefully consider scale to ensure that public views are appropriately characterized for decision makers.
Microbial Diversity within Early-Stage Cultured Panulirus ornatus Phyllosomas

ABSTRACT A thorough understanding of the microorganisms and pathogens associated with the larval stage of the tropical ornate rock lobster, Panulirus ornatus, is required to overcome disease outbreaks that currently block aquaculture attempts. This study used microscopy in addition to culture and molecularly based microbiological techniques to characterize the bacterial community associated with cultured, developmental stage PI to PII P. ornatus phyllosomas. Scanning electron microscopy demonstrated colonization of phyllosomas by filamentous, rod-shaped, and coccus-shaped bacteria. A clone library constructed from dead phyllosomas sampled from the larval rearing tank on day 10 was dominated by Thiothrix-affiliated sequences (56% of clones). A comparable library from live phyllosomas also contained Thiothrix-affiliated sequences, though these only represented 19% of clones within the library. Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) confirmed identification of the filamentous bacteria as Thiothrix sp. , being present on dead phyllosomas. FISH also identified Leucothrix sp. and Vibrio sp. , as well as a range of other rod- and coccus-shaped bacteria, colonizing both live and dead phyllosomas. The development of the microbial community associated with phyllosomas was monitored through a standard larval rearing run using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Vibrio sp. -affiliated bands dominated the profiles of live animals through the rearing period and dead phyllosomas sampled on selected days. The population of Vibrio sp. associated with phyllosomas was monitored with culture-based analysis on selective media and demonstrated to increase significantly on day 7, coinciding with the beginning of the larval molt. An isolated Vibrio harveyi strain demonstrated an identical 16S rRNA sequence with retrieved DGGE and clone library sequences. Colonization of phyllosomas with filamentous bacterial species potentially hinders the ability of the animals to molt and, combined with the added stress of the molt process, likely results in reduced immune function, allowing opportunistic pathogenic Vibrio sp. to cause larval mortalities.
Effects of Ethnicity and Age or Menopause on the Remodeling and Turnover of Iliac Bone: Implications for Mechanisms of Bone Loss

We measured histologic indices of bone remodeling and turnover separately on the cancellous, endocortical, and intracortical subdivisions of the endosteal envelope, and on the combined total surface, in transiliac bone biopsies obtained after double tetracycline labeling in 142 healthy women, aged 20–74 years, 34 black and 108 white, 61 premenopausal and 81 postmenopausal. The data were analyzed by two‐way analysis of variance of the four groups defined by age/menopause and ethnicity and by linear regression of the major variables on age. None of the interaction terms was significant and none of the regression slopes on age differed between blacks and whites, indicating that, as for the previously reported structural indices, the effects of ethnicity and of age/menopause are independent. Accordingly, the data were also analyzed separately for the effect of ethnicity (pre‐ and postmenopausal combined) and age/menopause (blacks and whites combined). The analyses led to the following conclusions. (1) The geometric mean bone formation rate on the combined total surface was 25% lower in blacks than in whites; other histologic differences between ethnic groups were inconsistent between surfaces. (2) Serum osteocalcin (OC) but not bone‐specific alkaline phosphatase (BSAP) was lower by about 15% in blacks than in whites. (3) The lower bone turnover in blacks is most likely in the directed rather than in the stochastic component because of a higher bone mass and consequent reduced susceptibility to fatigue damage. (4) All Class 1 bone formation variables and the three resorption indices were significantly higher in the postmenopausal compared with the premenopausal subjects, reflecting a 33% increase in activation frequency. (5) BSAP, but not OC, was increased relatively more (66%) than the bone formation rate (BFR). Consequently, BSAP is more sensitive to the effects of menopause than OC, but OC is more sensitive to the effects of ethnicity than BSAP. (6) There were highly significant differences between the three subdivisions of the endosteal envelope for every non–cell‐related variable. All Class 1 formation variables were highest on the endocortical surface, but the magnitude and pattern of the differences otherwise was inconsistent between variables. The contributions of the different subdivisions to the total bone formation rate were cancellous 54%, endocortical 13%, and intracortical 33%. (7) The previously reported changes in bone surface location, together with the presently reported changes in activation frequency and wall thickness indicated that there was no significant effect of age/menopause on erosion depth on the cancellous and intracortical surfaces but a large increase in erosion depth on the endocortical surface. (8) The increase in bone turnover that results from hormonal changes is most likely in the stochastic rather than in the directed component because it serves no purpose but has harmful effects on skeletal integrity.
Brain Tumor Imaging with Transcranial Sonography: State of the Art and Review of the Literature

Transcranial sonography (TCS) is a widely used non-invasive bedside method to evaluate the brain, its vessels, perfusion and pathologies. Transcranial brain tumor sonography emerged in the early nineties and while B-mode imaging and Color-Doppler have acquired widespread use, especially for intraoperative imaging, other ultrasound modalities such as Perfusion Imaging are applied more in the research field. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the different ultrasound modalities and their respective application in sonographic brain tumor imaging.
The Design, Use, and Results of Transcutaneous Carbon Dioxide Analysis: Current and Future Directions

Transcutaneous carbon dioxide (CO2) analysis was introduced in the early 1980s using locally heated electrochemical sensors that were applied to the skin surface. This methodology provides a continuous noninvasive estimation of the arterial CO2 value and can be used for assessing adequacy of ventilation. The technique is now established and used routinely in clinical practice. Transcutaneous partial pressure of CO2 (tcPco2) sensors are available as a single Pco2 sensor, as a combined Pco2/Po2 sensor, and more recently, as a combined Pco2/Spo2 sensor. CO2 is still measured potentiometrically by determining the pH of an electrolyte layer. The methodology has been continuously developed during the last 20 yr, making the tcPco2 systems easier and more reliable for use in clinical practice: smaller sensor size (diameter 15 mm, height 8 mm), less frequent sensor re-membraning (every 2 wk) and calibration (twice a day), sensor ready to use when connected to the monitor, lower sensor temperature (42°C or less), shorter arterialization time (3 min), and increased measurement reliability through protection of the membrane. The present tcPco2 sensors still need to be regularly re-membraned and calibrated. One way to overcome these procedures is to use optical-only detection means. Two techniques have been developed using optical absorption in the near-infrared light, in the evanescent wave of a waveguide integrated in the sensor surface, or in a micro-optics sampling cell. Preliminary in vitro and in vivo CO2 measurements have been performed. The sensor is not affected by drift over several days, and its response time is <1 min.
Culture-Independent Species Typing of Neotropical Leishmania for Clinical Validation of a PCR-Based Assay Targeting Heat Shock Protein 70 Genes

ABSTRACT PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of heat shock protein 70 genes discriminates most neotropical Leishmania species, as well as Trypanosoma cruzi. The assay, combined with capillary electrophoresis in a microchip device, may be applied directly on clinical samples with a high sensitivity, hence supporting clinical and epidemiological monitoring of leishmaniasis.
Sequencing of hsp65 Gene for Identification of Mycobacterium Species Isolated from Environmental and Clinical Sources in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the biodiversity of 28 clinical and 24 environmental Mycobacterium isolates from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by using hsp65 sequences, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of the genetic diversity and usefulness of this marker. An extensive phylogenetic analysis was performed. The nucleotide diversity was similar between clinical (0.06508) and environmental (0.06221) isolates.
Effect of GM-CSF on immune, inflammatory, and clinical responses to ragweed in a novel mouse model of mucosal sensitization.

BACKGROUND Conventional models of allergic airway inflammation involve intraperitoneal administration of ovalbumin in conjunction with a chemical adjuvant (generally aluminum hydroxide) to generate allergic airways inflammation. Here we have investigated the effect of respiratory mucosal exposure to a ragweed extract in the absence of chemical adjuvant on the generation of allergic responses. OBJECTIVES We sought to develop a mouse model of ragweed-induced allergic airway inflammation through mucosal sensitization and to investigate the role of GM-CSF in this process. METHODS Ragweed was delivered intranasally to an airway microenvironment enriched with GM-CSF, which was achieved by means of either multiple coadministrations of recombinant GM-CSF or a single delivery of an adenoviral vector carrying the GM-CSF transgene. RESULTS Administration of a purified ragweed extract leads to T(H)2 sensitization (and not inhalation tolerance) accompanied by mild airway inflammation, modest clinical symptoms, and moderate production of T(H)2 cytokines by splenocytes on ragweed restimulation. The administration of anti-GM-CSF antibodies in conjunction with ragweed diminished T(H)2-associated cytokine production. These responses were amplified by enriching the airway microenvironment with GM-CSF. Under these conditions, all T(H)2-associated immune-inflammatory responses, as well as the clinical responses, were considerably enhanced. To investigate the mechanism underlying these effects, we examined lung mononuclear cells by means of flow cytometry and detected a substantial expansion of antigen-presenting cells, particularly dendritic cells, as well as a substantially increased activation of these antigen-presenting cells, as demonstrated by the expression of B7 molecules, particularly B7.2. CONCLUSION GM-CSF plays an important role in the generation of allergic immune-inflammatory responses to ragweed.
Modularity of stress response evolution

Responses to extracellular stress directly confer survival fitness by means of complex regulatory networks. Despite their complexity, the networks must be evolvable because of changing ecological and environmental pressures. Although the regulatory networks underlying stress responses are characterized extensively, their mechanism of evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we examine the evolution of three candidate stress response networks (chemotaxis, competence for DNA uptake, and endospore formation) by analyzing their phylogenetic distribution across several hundred diverse bacterial and archaeal lineages. We report that genes in the chemotaxis and sporulation networks group into well defined evolutionary modules with distinct functions, phenotypes, and substitution rates as compared with control sets of randomly chosen genes. The evolutionary modules vary in both number and cohesiveness among the three pathways. Chemotaxis has five coherent modules whose distribution among species shows a clear pattern of interdependence and rewiring. Sporulation, by contrast, is nearly monolithic and seems to be inherited vertically, with three weak modules constituting early and late stages of the pathway. Competence does not seem to exhibit well defined modules either at or below the pathway level. Many of the detected modules are better understood in engineering terms than in protein functional terms, as we demonstrate using a control-based ontology that classifies gene function according to roles such as “sensor,” “regulator,” and “actuator. ” Moreover, we show that combinations of the modules predict phenotype, yet surprisingly do not necessarily correlate with phylogenetic inheritance. The architectures of these three pathways are therefore emblematic of different modes and constraints on evolution.