Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Choice of Baselines in Clinical Trials: A Simulation Study from Statistical Power Perspective

Multiple assessments of an efficacy variable are often conducted prior to the initiation of randomized treatments in clinical trials as baseline information. Two goals are investigated in this article, where the first goal is to investigate the choice of these baselines in the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to increase the statistical power, and the second to investigate the magnitude of power loss when a continuous efficacy variable is dichotomized to categorical variable as commonly reported the biomedical literature. A statistical power analysis is developed with extensive simulations based on data from clinical trials in study participants with end stage renal disease (ESRD). It is found that the baseline choices primarily depend on the correlations among the baselines and the efficacy variable, with substantial gains for correlations greater than 0.6 and negligible for less than 0.2. Continuous efficacy variables always give higher statistical power in the ANCOVA modeling and dichotomizing the efficacy variable generally decreases the statistical power by 25%, which is an important practicum in designing clinical trials for study sample size and realistically budget. These findings can be easily applied in and extended to other clinical trials with similar design.
Spatio-temporal Center-symmetric Local Derivative Patterns for Objects Detection in Video Surveillance

Nowadays, more attention is being focused on background subtraction methods regarding their importance in many computer vision applications. Most of the proposed approaches are classified as pixel-based due to their low complexity and processing speed. Other methods are considered as spatiotemporal-based as they consider the surroundings of each analyzed pixel. In this context, we propose a new texture descriptor that is suitable for this task. We benefit from the advantages of local binary patterns variants to introduce a novel spatiotemporal center-symmetric local derivative patterns (STCS-LDP). Several improvements and restrictions are set in the neighboring pixels comparison level, to make the descriptor less sensitive to noise while maintaining robustness to illumination changes. We also present a simple background subtraction algorithm which is based on our STCS-LDP descriptor. Experiments on multiple video sequences proved that our method is efficient and produces comparable results to the state of the art.
Fuse modeling for reliability study of power electronic circuits

This paper describes a comprehensive modeling approach on reliability of fuses used in power electronic circuits. When fuses are subjected to current pulses, cyclic temperature stress is introduced to the fuse element and will wear out the component. Furthermore, the fuse may be used in a large variation of ambient temperature, e.g. in deserts and the accumulated damage in the fuse elements is gradually increasing due to thermo-mechanical stress that results in resistance increase and further unexpected failures. Consequently, the electrical characteristics of the fuse like I2t, breaking capacity, and rated voltage/current are opposed to shift in time to effect early breaking during the normal operation of the circuit. Therefore, in such cases, a reliable protection required for the other circuit components will not be achieved. The thermo-mechanical models, fatigue analysis and thermo-electrical models of fuses are presented by FEM simulations in order to identify the important factors affecting the performance of fuses at different ambient temperatures and cycling operation.
Evaluation of a new technique for marking anurans

Amphibians can be very difficult to mark because of their extraordinary powers of regeneration. Although many amphibian marking techniques have been developed, few meet the rigorous assumptions of capture-mark-recapture models. Also, excessive toe-clipping may affect frog survivorship adversely. We tested the efficacy of a new hybrid marking technique (VIE-C) that combines Visible Implant Elastomer (VIE) and toe-clipping on four species of treefrogs in West-Central Florida. Of the 840 treefrogs recaptured over a 15-month period, only one mark was unreadable. A significantly higher percentage of VIE marks (80%) than toe-clips (55%) remained viable for the duration of the study. On average, toe-clips remained readable for 100 days, and VIE marks remained readable for 112 days. There were no significant species differences in the length of time that either type of mark lasted. The hybrid VIE-C method represents an improvement over either method used alone, but the VIE mark will be more helpful in correctly reading and clarifying toe-clipping errors than will toe-clips be helpful in reading and clarifying VIE marks.
Up-Regulation of Spinal Muscarinic Receptors and Increased Antinociceptive Effect of Intrathecal Muscarine in Diabetic Rats

Spinally administered muscarinic receptor agonists or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors produce effective pain relief. Intrathecal injection of a small dose of neostigmine produces a profound antiallodynic effect in rats with diabetic neuropathy. However, the mechanisms of increased antinociceptive effect of cholinergic agents on diabetic neuropathic pain are not clear. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that spinal muscarinic receptors are up-regulated in diabetes. The withdrawal threshold of the hindpaw in response to noxious heat and pressure stimuli was determined in streptozotocin-induced diabetic and age-matched normal rats. Muscarine-stimulated guanosine 5′-O-(3-[35S]thio)triphosphate ([35S]GTPγS) binding was used to assess the change of functional muscarinic receptors in the spinal cord in diabetes. The [3H]AF-DX 384 membrane binding was performed to determine the number and affinity of spinal cord M2 muscarinic receptors in normal and diabetic rats. We found that the antinociceptive effect of intrathecal 2 to 12 μg muscarine in diabetic animals was potentiated significantly compared with that in normal animals. The maximal muscarine-stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding was 112.5 ± 8.3% in normal rats and 168.8 ± 12.1% (P < 0.05) in diabetic rats. Although the KD value (2.9 nM) was similar in both groups, the Bmax of [3H]AF-DX 384 membrane binding was significantly higher in diabetic than in normal rats (255.2 ± 5.9 versus 165.9 ± 3.5 fmol/mg protein, P < 0.05). Collectively, these data strongly suggest that the muscarinic receptor is up-regulated in the dorsal spinal cord in diabetic rats. This finding probably accounts for the increased efficacy of the antinociceptive effect of intrathecal muscarinic agonists in diabetic neuropathic pain.
Verrucomicrobia Are Candidates for Polysaccharide-Degrading Bacterioplankton in an Arctic Fjord of Svalbard

ABSTRACT In Arctic marine bacterial communities, members of the phylum Verrucomicrobia are consistently detected, although not typically abundant, in 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and pyrotag surveys of the marine water column and in sediments. In an Arctic fjord (Smeerenburgfjord) of Svalbard, members of the Verrucomicrobia, together with Flavobacteria and smaller proportions of Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria, constituted the most frequently detected bacterioplankton community members in 16S rRNA gene-based clone library analyses of the water column. Parallel measurements in the water column of the activities of six endo-acting polysaccharide hydrolases showed that chondroitin sulfate, laminarin, and xylan hydrolysis accounted for most of the activity. Several Verrucomicrobia water column phylotypes were affiliated with previously sequenced, glycoside hydrolase-rich genomes of individual Verrucomicrobia cells that bound fluorescently labeled laminarin and xylan and therefore constituted candidates for laminarin and xylan hydrolysis. In sediments, the bacterial community was dominated by different lineages of Verrucomicrobia, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria but also included members of multiple phylum-level lineages not observed in the water column. This community hydrolyzed laminarin, xylan, chondroitin sulfate, and three additional polysaccharide substrates at high rates. Comparisons with data from the same fjord in the previous summer showed that the bacterial community in Smeerenburgfjord changed in composition, most conspicuously in the changing detection frequency of Verrucomicrobia in the water column. Nonetheless, in both years the community hydrolyzed the same polysaccharide substrates.
Decomposition of microcystin-LR, microcystin-RR, and microcystin-YR in water samples submitted to in vitro dissolution tests.

The presence of cyanobacterial toxins (microcystins) in waters and food increases the risk of toxicity to animal and human health. These toxins can degrade in the human gastrointestinal tract before they are absorbed. To evaluate this possible degradation, water samples spiked with known concentrations of microcystins MC-LR, MC-RR, and MC-YR, which are the toxins most commonly produced by such toxic cyanobacteria as Microcystis aeruginosa, Oscillatoria spp. , and Nostoc spp. , were submitted to a dissolution test that used gastric and intestinal fluids according to U.S. Pharmacopeia conditions. HPLC with UV detection was used to determine the toxins before and after treatments. This study revealed enzymatic alterations in gastric conditions for all the toxins assayed. MC-RR was the toxin most affected: its range of inactivation was 49-64%. The percentage of degradation for MC-YR and MC-LR was around 30%. However, none was degraded by intestinal digestion.
A high performance dual output dc-dc converter combined the phase shift full bridge and LLC resonant half bridge with the shared lagging leg

A new dual output dc-dc converter is proposed in this paper. The first output works as a conventional full bridge converter; by connecting a LLC resonant tank to the lagging leg, a half bridge resonant converter is structured, and the second output is obtained. The first output is regulated by the phase shift and the second output by the switching frequency. Both of the outputs are fully regulated and independent. The narrow frequency variation of the LLC part makes the magnetic components easy to optimize. The ZVS of the leading leg is easy to achieve by the phase shift operation, the ZVS range of the lagging leg is extended down to empty load by the shared structure. Moreover, compared to the conventional full bridge phase shift converter, the shared lagging leg offers a loose dead-time limitation. Therefore the proposed converter is low cost, high reliability, high efficiency and high performance. A 300V input, 36V/10A, 24V/10A outputs prototype is build to verify the design.
Reliability of orthostatic responses in healthy men aged between 65 and 75 years

The purpose of this study was to investigate the short‐, medium‐ and long‐term reproducibility of cardiovascular responses during 90° head‐up tilt (HUT) in healthy older men. Twenty‐eight healthy male subjects aged 69 (95% confidence intervals, 68–70) years participated in the study. Eight subjects underwent duplicate 90° HUT tests on consecutive days, while 20 subjects underwent four 90° HUT tests performed at baseline, and after 1 week, 1 month and 1 year. Following a 20‐min supine resting period, each subject was rapidly tilted to the upright vertical position (90° HUT) and remained in that position for 15 min. Beat‐by‐beat recordings of mean (MAP), systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) pressures were made via Finapres, while heart rate (HR) was monitored continuously from an electrocardiogram. No significant test–retest differences (P > 0.05) were observed for the changes in HR, MAP, SBP or DBP during 90° HUT. These measurements demonstrated high reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient, r= 0.91–0.99, P < 0.05). The supine resting and tilted HR, MAP, SBP and DBP over the 1‐week, 1‐month and 1‐year period were not significantly different (P > 0.05) from baseline, and demonstrated high reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient, r= 0.82–0.98, P < 0.05). The results of this study demonstrate that in healthy older men, cardiovascular responses during orthostasis are highly reproducible, and this reproducibility is maintained over a 12‐month period. These findings demonstrate that the 90° HUT test offers a reproducible method of monitoring longitudinal orthostatic responses in healthy older men.
Toward Stance Classification Based on Claim Microstructures

Claims are the building blocks of arguments and the reasons underpinning opinions, thus analyzing claims is important for both argumentation mining and opinion mining. We propose a framework for representing claims as microstructures, which express the beliefs, judgments, and policies about the relations between domain-specific concepts. In a proof-of-concept study, we manually build microstructures for over 800 claims extracted from an online debate. We test the so-obtained microstructures on the task of claim stance classification, achieving considerable improvements over text-based baselines.
Keratocyte loss after corneal deepithelialization in primates and rabbits.

PURPOSE To evaluate the response of stromal keratocytes to central corneal deepithelialization. METHODS Rabbits and monkeys underwent unilateral mechanical deepithelialization with a blunt instrument and were killed at intervals ranging from 15 minutes to 24 hours after surgery. Two rabbits underwent unilateral deepithelialization under a fluid bath containing corneal preservation medium. Two rabbits were treated unilaterally with corneal preservation medium topically applied every 15 minutes for 16 hours after epithelial removal. Four rabbits underwent linear keratotomy immediately after deepithelialization of the cornea or on normal unoperated corneas and were killed 1 day (two animals) and 14 days (two animals) after surgery. RESULTS Deepithelialization resulted in severe ultrastructural changes in keratocytes within 30 minutes after surgery. After 24 hours, the number of keratocytes in the anterior stroma underneath the deepithelialized area had decreased significantly in rabbits (P = .0001) and in monkeys (P = .0007) compared with controls. The wound healing was altered and delayed when the epithelium was not present after keratotomy. The use of storage media during and after deepithelialization minimized the early keratocyte changes and appeared to stimulate reepithelialization. CONCLUSIONS Removal of corneal epithelium causes loss of superficial stromal keratocytes in rabbits and monkeys. Keratocyte death may results from osmotic changes that alter the corneal wound healing response.
The Effect of SO2/HCl Ratio on Superheater High Temperature Corrosion

High temperature superheater corrosion is a major operating problem in waste-to-energy plants since it is responsible for plant shutdowns and low energy recovery. This has been largely attributed to the chloride content in municipal solid wastes and the subsequent reactions that occur with generated chlorine gas. While several methods have been developed to reduce corrosion, one which has received more interest is increasing the concentration of sulfur dioxide, SO2, in the boiler. The addition of SO2 to WTE post combustion gas streams has been shown at times to have a favorable impact on corrosion and is said to be an effective method of suppressing dioxin formation by reacting with molecular chlorine, Cl2.The following paper is part of an ongoing work to understand the effect of the SO2/HCl ratio on the corrosion of alloys exposed to superheater temperatures and flue gas compositions. A commercial low carbon steel alloy, SA178A, was exposed under various flue gas compositions at 500°C, while varying the SO2/HCl ratio as well as the water concentration. For tests operated at 5% H2O, corrosion was reduced by more than 40% as the SO2/HCl ratio was increased from 1/8 to 5/8. These results were obtained in the absence of chloride salts, suggesting that SO2 can decrease chlorine corrosion by interacting with HCl. Tests conducted at 15% H2O however demonstrated a constant corrosion rate, with magnitudes comparable to 5% H2O at 1/8 SO2/HCl. Further work is needed to relate the SO2/HCl relationship to water and to elucidate the mechanism associated with mitigating corrosion. © 2012 ASME
Inhibition of intrahepatic metastasis of human hepatocellular carcinoma by Rho‐associated protein kinase inhibitor Y‐27632

Intrahepatic metastasis is one of the most important prognostic factors for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Cell motility mediated by Rho‐ and p160 Rho‐associated coiledcoil forming protein kinase (p160ROCK) signaling pathways has recently been shown to play a critical role in intrahepatic metastasis in human HCC. Furthermore, the stable introduction of dominant‐negative p160ROCK into Li7 cells resulted in a reduced metastatic rate in mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). To investigate whether the specific p160ROCK inhibitor, Y‐27632, could also inhibit intrahepatic metastasis, the effect of Y‐27632 on the cell motility and intrahepatic metastasis of Li7 was investigated. Y‐27632 markedly blocked actin reorganization and motility of Li7 cells mediated by lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). Y‐27632 was administered continuously into the peritoneal cavity using a micro‐osmotic pump, together with orthotopic implantation of Li7 cells into the liver of SCID mice. Phosphate‐buffered saline (PBS) alone was administered as the control. The incidence of mice with metastatic nodules decreased in the Y‐27632‐treated group. The primary tumor volume at the site of injection was smaller in the Y‐27632‐treated group compared with the control group, but the difference was not statistically significant. Histologically, control tumors showed infiltrative growth into the sinusoidal area at the tumor boundary, whereas Y‐27632‐treated tumors showed expansive growth and low invasiveness. These findings confirm the importance of the Rho/p160ROCK signaling pathway in intrahepatic metastasis of human HCC, and indicate that Y‐27632 may be useful for the prevention of intrahepatic metastasis of human HCC.
The socio-demographics of texting: An analysis of traffic data

Who texts, and with whom do they text? This article examines the use of texting using metered traffic data from a large dataset (nearly 400 million anonymous text messages). We ask: 1) How much do different age groups use mobile phone based texting (SMS)? 2) How wide is the circle of texting partners for different age groups? 3) To what degree are texting relationships characterized by age and gender homophily? We find that texting is hugely popular among teens compared to other age groups. Further, the number of persons with whom people text is quite small. About half of all text messages go to only five other persons. Finally, we find that there is pronounced homophily in terms of age and gender in texting relationships. These findings support previous claims that texting is an important element of teen culture and is an element in the construction of a bounded solidarity.
Average-Current-Based Conduction Losses Model of Switched Capacitor Converters

A generic modeling methodology that analyzes the losses in switched capacitor converters (SCC) operating in open loop was developed and verified by simulation and experiments. The proposed analytical approach is unified, covering both hard- and soft-SCC topologies that include active switches and/or diodes. An important feature of the proposed model is that it expresses the losses as a function of the average currents passing through each flying capacitor during each switching phase. Since these currents are linearly proportional to the output current, the model is also applicable to SCC with multiple capacitors if it can be assumed that each of the subcircuits of the modeled SCC can be described or approximated by a first-order system. The proposed model can be used to assess the effect of the operational conditions of the SCC, such as switching frequency and duty cycle, on the expected losses. As such, the model can help in the optimization of SCC systems and their control to achieve high efficiency and the desired regulations.
ELATS: Energy and locality aware aggregation tree for skip graph

As a distributed hash table (DHT), Skip Graph acts as the underlying routing infrastructure of peer-to-peer (P2P) storage systems, distributed online social networks, search engines, and other DHT-based applications. For many P2P applications, data aggregation is vital, however, it is a missing feature of Skip Graph. The traditional aggregation algorithms cost noticeable message overhead which degrades the energy efficiency while increasing the response time. Likewise, the aggregation trees proposed for other DHTs are either inapplicable to the Skip Graph or apply some sort of randomness in their construction. Randomized features of an aggregation tree result in higher aggregation latency as well as enforcing unbalanced load on nodes which negatively affect the energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose ELATS which is the first energy and locality aware aggregation tree for Skip Graph. We define the energy awareness as minimizing the average energy cost of an aggregation tree, and the locality awareness as minimizing the latency on the path between the root and leaves of the aggregation tree. Performance analysis results show that ELATS algorithm provides both energy and locality awareness, and improves the aggregation latency with the gain of about 8% in comparison to the best existing solutions for DHTs which are either locality aware or energy aware.
Development and analysis of a mobility-aware resource allocation algorithm based on min-max optimization for OFDMA femtocell networks

XV CHAPTER ONE . 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 BACKGROUND . 1 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT. 2 1.3 JUSTIFICATION . 2 1.4 OBJECTIVES . 3 1.4. 1 Main Objective . 3 1.4. 2 Specific Objectives . 3 1.5 THESIS LAYOUT . 3 CHAPTER TWO . 5 2.0 CELLULAR NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES . 5 2.1 HISTORY OF CELLULAR NETWORKS . 5 2.2 GLOBAL TRENDS IN DATA TRAFFIC . 6 2.3 OVERVIEW ON LTE NETWORKS . 9 2.3. 1 LTE Frame Structures . 12 2.3. 2 Relationship between Bandwidth and Resource Block . 14
A VLSI Constant Geometry Architecture for the Fast Hartley and Fourier Transforms

An application-specific architecture for the parallel calculation of the decimation in time and radix 2 fast Hartley (FHT) and Fourier (FFT) transforms is presented. A real sequence with N=2/sup n/ data items is considered as input. The system calculates the FHT and the FFT in n and n+1 stages. respectively. The modular and regular parallel architecture is based on a constant geometry algorithm using butterflies of four data items and the perfect unshuffle permutation. With this permutation, the mapping of the algorithm in VLSI technology is simplified and the communications among processors are minimized. Organization of the processor memory based on first-in, first-out (FIFO) queues facilitates a systolic data flow and permits the implementation in a direct way of the complex data movements and address sequences of the transforms. This is accomplished by means of simple multiplexing operations, using hardwired control. The total calculation time is (Nlog/sub 2/N)/4Q cycles for the FHT and N(1+log/sub 2/N)/4Q cycles for the FFT, where Q is the number of processors (Q= 2/sup q/, Q >