Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bi-Level Approach to Distribution Network and Renewable Energy Expansion Planning Considering Demand Response

This paper presents a bi-level model for distribution network and renewable energy expansion planning under a demand response (DR) framework. The role of DR has recently attracted an increasing interest in power systems. However, previous models have not been completely adapted in order to treat DR on an equal footing. The target of the distribution network and generation planner, modeled through the upper-level problem, is to minimize generation and network investment cost while meeting the demand. This upper-level problem is constrained by the lower-level problem, stressing the importance of integrating DR to time-varying prices into those investment models. The objective function considered for the lower level is the minimization of overall payment faced by the consumers. Using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker complementarity constraints, the proposed bi-level model is recast as a mixed-integer linear programming problem, which is solvable using efficient off-the-shelf branch-and-cut solvers. Detailed results from an insular case study (La Graciosa, Canary Islands, Spain) are presented.
Analysis of timing constraint on combined SVM-HMM classifier and SVM classifier

In Handwriting Verifier Timing constraint is very crucial part which have used in the SVM Classifier, these have using the more time for the large number of sample and get the less accuracy. When there is used the Combined SVM-HMM so that has taken less time for the analysis the large sample and give better accuracy than SVM. That all time has evaluated with the curvelet transform and make a digital clock pulse in form of 1's and 0's. Which have calculate in the invariant movement with the wavelength from the trained data image and replace them, on the place of selected writing image, than make an metric of binary number and calculate them with the method of invariant curve let, thereafter compare the character on the time of the calculate image binary code and make an metrics on the striate line of SVM-HMM in terms of 1's and 0's.
Image Stained Glass using Voronoi Diagrams

The geometrical concept of the Voronoi diagram was used to create an image filter providing a “stained glass” or mosaic effect on an image. The Voronoi diagram was calculated by exploiting its dual relationship with the Delaunay triangulation, which was in turn calculated using a randomized incremental algorithm and stored in a DCEL. Various methods were tried for selecting the points, including sampling from a distribution built using edge detection. Sampling using edge detection distributions was shown to provide results significantly better than uniform random sampling.
Barriers faced by MSEs: Evidence from Mozambique

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to shed light on the main barriers faced by Mozambican micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and their implications in respect to the support policies available for these enterprises.Design/methodology/approach – A literature review was made on those barriers faced by the MSEs and on the policies and governmental instruments of assistance available for MSEs. Then, a two‐step research was conducted. The first phase consisted of collecting data from 21 MSEs in Mozambique, mainly by means of interviews where the main barriers faced by those interviewed were identified and hence, this led to the second phase, which was interviewing governmental/support entities in order to know what they had done to minimize those barriers which had been identified by the entrepreneurs.Findings – The results show that financial and competitive barriers are the main barriers faced by the analyzed MSEs. These barriers vary according to the field of activity of the enterprises.Originality/v.
Radiation exposure to the personnel in the operating room and in the pathology due to SLN detection with Tc-99m-nanocolloid in breast cancer patients

Summary Aim of this study was to assess the radiation exposure for the personnel in the operating room and in the pathology laboratories caused by radioguided SLN localization in breast cancer. Methods: In 15 patients dose rates were measured at various distances from the breast and tumor specimens during operation and pathological work-up at 3-5 h after peritumoral injection of 30 MBq Tc-99m-nanocolloid. Results: The dose rates were 84.1 ± 46.4 μGy/h at 2.5 cm, 3.57 ± 2.14 μGy/h at 30 cm, 0.87 ± 0.51 μGy/h at 100 cm, and 0.40 ± 0.20 μGy/h at 150 cm in the operating room and 44.4 ± 27.8 μGy/h at 2.5 cm, and 1.66 ± 1.34 μGy/h at 30 cm in the pathology laboratories. From these data the radiation exposure was calculated for 250 operations per year assuming a mean exposure time of 30 min for the surgical team members and of 10 min for the pathology staff. Under these conditions the finger dose is 10.5 mGy for the surgeon, and 5.55 mGy for the pathologist. The wholebody doses are 0.45 mSv, 0.11 mSv, 0.05 mSv, and 0.21 mSv for the surgeon, the operating room nurse, the anesthetist, and the pathologist, respectively. Conclusion: Since the radiation risk to staff members is low, a classification of the personnel in the operating room and in the pathology laboratories as occupational radiation exposed workers is not necessary.
Catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation in congestive heart failure.

BACKGROUND Congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation often coexist, and each adversely affects the other with respect to management and prognosis. We prospectively evaluated the effect of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation on left ventricular function in patients with heart failure. METHODS We studied 58 consecutive patients with congestive heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction of less than 45 percent who were undergoing catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation. We selected as controls 58 patients without congestive heart failure who were undergoing ablation for atrial fibrillation, matched according to age, sex, and classification of atrial fibrillation. We evaluated the patients' left ventricular function and dimensions, symptom score, exercise capacity, and quality of life at baseline and at months 1, 3, 6, and 12. RESULTS After a mean (+/-SD) of 12+/-7 months, 78 percent of the patients with congestive heart failure and 84 percent of the controls remained in sinus rhythm (P=0.34) (69 percent and 71 percent, respectively, were in sinus rhythm without the administration of antiarrhythmic drugs). The patients with congestive heart failure had significant improvement in left ventricular function (increases in the ejection fraction and fractional shortening of 21+/-13 percent and 11+/-7 percent, respectively; P<0.001 for both comparisons), left ventricular dimensions (decreases in the diastolic and systolic diameters of 6+/-6 mm and 8+/-7 mm, respectively; P=0.03 and P<0.001, respectively), exercise capacity, symptoms, and quality of life. The ejection fraction improved significantly not only in patients without concurrent structural heart disease (24+/-10 percent, P<0.001) and those with inadequate rate control before ablation (23+/-10 percent, P<0.001), but also in those with coexisting heart disease (16+/-14 percent, P<0.001) and adequate rate control before ablation (17+/-15 percent, P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Restoration and maintenance of sinus rhythm by catheter ablation without the use of drugs in patients with congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation significantly improve cardiac function, symptoms, exercise capacity, and quality of life.
Towards a Complete Transcriptional Regulatory Code: Improved Motif Discovery Using Informative Priors

Transcriptional regulation is the primary mechanism employed by the cell to ensure coordinated expression of its numerous genes. A key component of this process is the binding of proteins called transcription factors (TFs) to corresponding regulatory sites on the DNA. Understanding where exactly these TFs bind, under what conditions they are active, and which genes they regulate is all part of deciphering the transcriptional regulatory code. An important step towards solving this problem is the identification of DNA binding specificities, represented as motifs, for all TFs. In spite of an explosion of TF binding data from high-throughput technologies, the problem of motif discovery remains unsolved, due to the short length and degeneracy of binding sites. We introduce PRIORITY, a Gibbs sampling-based approach, which incorporates informative positional priors into a probabilistic framework, to find significant motifs from high-throughput TF binding data. We use different data sources to build our positional priors and apply them to yeast ChIP-chip data: (1) TFs can be classified into several structural classes based on their DNA-binding domains. Using a Bayesian learning algorithm, we show that it is possible to predict the class of a TF with remarkable accuracy, using information solely from its DNA binding sites. We further incorporate these results in the form of informative priors into PRIORITY, which learns the structural class of the TF in addition to its motif. (2) In the nucleus, DNA is present in the form of chromatin—wrapped around nucleosomes—with certain regions being more accessible to TFs than others. It has been shown that functional binding sites are generally located in nucleosome-free regions. We use nucleosome occupancy predictions to compute a novel positional prior that biases the search towards the more accessible regions, thereby enriching the motif signal. (3) Functional elements are often conserved across related species. Most conventional methods that exploit this fact use alignments. However, multiple alignments cannot always capture relocation and reversed orientation of binding sites across species. We propose a new alignment-free technique that not only accounts for these transformations, but is much faster than conventional methods. All our priors significantly outperform conventional methods, finding motifs matching literature for 52 TFs. We produce a genome-wide map of TF binding sites in yeast based on these and other novel motif predictions.
Effect of Curcuma zedoaria crude extract against tumor progression and immunomodulation

The aim of the present work was to study the effect of the crude extract of Curcuma zedoaria on peripheral blood cells and tumor progression in C57Bl/6J mice injected with B16F10 murine melanoma cells. The intraperitoneal therapy showed a significant increase in total white and red blood cell counts, a decrease in peritoneal cell number and tumor volume reduction, whereas the oral administration revealed a noteworthy augmentation only in total leukocyte count. These results contribute to evaluate the importance of alternative treatments that employ phytotherapic compounds against tumor progression and its possible immunomodulation.
SIRT1 Deficiency in Microglia Contributes to Cognitive Decline in Aging and Neurodegeneration via Epigenetic Regulation of IL-1β

Aging is the predominant risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases. One key phenotype as the brain ages is an aberrant innate immune response characterized by proinflammation. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying aging-associated proinflammation are poorly defined. Whether chronic inflammation plays a causal role in cognitive decline in aging and neurodegeneration has not been established. Here we report a mechanistic link between chronic inflammation and aging microglia and a causal role of aging microglia in neurodegenerative cognitive deficits. We showed that SIRT1 is reduced with the aging of microglia and that microglial SIRT1 deficiency has a causative role in aging- or tau-mediated memory deficits via IL-1β upregulation in mice. Interestingly, the selective activation of IL-1β transcription by SIRT1 deficiency is likely mediated through hypomethylating the specific CpG sites on IL-1β proximal promoter. In humans, hypomethylation of IL-1β is strongly associated with chronological age and with elevated IL-1β transcription. Our findings reveal a novel epigenetic mechanism in aging microglia that contributes to cognitive deficits in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.
Latitude dependence of zonal plasma drifts obtained from dual‐site airglow observations

[1] All-sky imagers located at Tucuman, Argentina (26.9°S, 65°W, 14.2°S dip latitude), and Arequipa, Peru (16.5°S, 71.5°W, 2.7°S dip latitude), are used to track 630 nm airglow depletion motions in the first use of multisite airglow imagers for studies of low-latitude plasma dynamics. A new image analysis technique yields a consistent determination of nighttime zonal plasma drifts from all-sky images of the depletion motions. The observed eastward plasma drifts are smaller at Arequipa than at Tucuman in the postsunset period. During the postmidnight hours, the opposite pattern occurs. These observations are interpreted using the simple plasma drift model and coupled ionosphere-electric field model of Eccles [1998a, 1998b]. The observed zonal plasma drifts result from low-latitude electrodynamics with a mix of influences from E and F region conductivities and neutral wind shears in altitude and latitude. Analysis of the observations suggests that postsunset zonal drifts near the magnetic equator (Arequipa) are strongly influenced by the E region dynamo, while the F region dynamo is the main cause of zonal drifts observed closer to the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (Tucuman). The observed altitude-latitude behavior of the plasma drifts gives the first two-dimensional evidence for the so-called F region plasma vortex's influence at equatorial and low latitudes obtained using optical imaging techniques. With this framework a synthesis is offered for seemingly inconsistent zonal drift observations in the published literature.
Structural and biochemical advances in mammalian RNAi

RNAi is a collection of processes mediated by small RNAs that silence gene expression in a sequence‐specific manner. Studies of processes as divergent as post‐transcriptional gene silencing, transcriptional silencing through RNA‐directed DNA methylation, or heterochromatin formation, and even RNA‐guided DNA elimination have converged on a core pathway. This review will highlight recent structural and mechanistic studies illustrating siRNA and miRNA processing, RISC formation, the execution of RNAi by RISC, and the regulation of these pathways, with a specific focus on vertebrate systems. J. Cell. Biochem. 99: 1251–1266, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Eye-movement responses to step and pulse-step stimuli.

A spot of light is presented to an observer who tracks its movement visually, doing so as quickly and accurately as possible. The positions of the eye are continuously recorded so that direction and magnitude of eye movements as a function of time can be assessed. Without warning, the target spot steps from its resting position, moving 6° horizontally to one side, followed after a time W by a 12° step in the opposite direction. The result is a pulse-step pattern of target motion with the time interval W msec defining the pulse duration. The directions of the pulse and step are always opposite but otherwise are unpredictable. Trials consisting of pulses followed by steps are intermixed randomly with a larger number of trials consisting of 6° steps alone. The experiments demonstrate that the visual system is sometimes able to cancel an eye-movement response to a pulse, on the basis of information contained in the subsequent step, to which it responds instead. As the step is delayed by progressively longer pulses, the probability increases that a response to the pulse will occur. If a response does occur in the direction of the step, it begins about 325 msec after the beginning of the step. This latency is independent of pulse time W and is about 40 msec longer than the latency of responses to steps presented alone. It is concluded that the visual system utilizes this 40 msec to operate upon a latent response to a pulse, and thereby to cancel its overt manifestation (eye movement) before initiating a response to the second, incompatible stimulus.
Drug cross‐resistance and therapy‐induced resistance in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia by an enhanced method of individualised tumour response testing

Previous results with individualised tumour response testing (ITRT) in vitro in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) have consistently shown good correlation with patient response and survival. We describe here an improved test and report its use with samples from the Leukaemia Research Fund CLL4 randomised clinical trial and previously treated patients. ITRT was performed by the tumour response to anti‐neoplastic compounds (TRAC) assay, a modification of the differential staining cytotoxicity (DiSC) assay. Improvements included drying drugs into wells before assay and using the Octospot system to cytocentrifuge eight spots of cells onto one microscope slide. We successfully tested 765/782 (98%) cellular blood samples received within 48 h of phlebotomy. Cross‐resistance (Pearson’s r > 0·7) in untreated CLL was found between similar drugs. Mitoxantrone (r = 0·31), cyclophosphamide (r = 0·35) and pentostatin (r = 0·29) had low cross‐resistance with fludarabine. Treatment resulted in increased resistance to chlorambucil, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, mitoxantrone, corticosteroids, cladribine and fludarabine (P < 0·01) but not to pentostatin. These results provide further rationale for standard drug combinations such as fludarabine‐mitoxantrone and fludarabine‐mitoxantrone‐cyclophosphamide and suggest possible pentostatin salvage in fludarabine‐resistant patients. ITRT results could assist both in determining the best treatment for individual patients and in the design and rationale of future clinical trials.
Preliminary Version Bi-inductive Structural Semantics ( Extended Abstract )

We propose a simple order-theoretic generalization of set-theoretic inductive de nitions. This generalization covers inductive, co-inductive and bi-inductive de nitions and is preserved by abstraction. This allows the structural operational semantics to describe simultaneously the nite/terminating and in nite/diverging behaviors of programs. This is illustrated on the structural bi nitary small/big-step trace/relational/operational semantics of the call-by-value λ-calculus.
Neuromuscular Development in the Absence of Programmed Cell Death: Phenotypic Alteration of Motoneurons and Muscle

The widespread, massive loss of developing neurons in the central and peripheral nervous system of birds and mammals is generally considered to be an evolutionary adaptation. However, until recently, models for testing both the immediate and long-term consequences of preventing this normal cell loss have not been available. We have taken advantage of several methods for preventing neuronal death in vivo to ask whether rescued neurons [e.g., motoneurons (MNs)] differentiate normally and become functionally incorporated into the nervous system. Although many aspects of MN differentiation occurred normally after the prevention of cell death (including the expression of several motoneuron-specific markers, axon projections into the ventral root and peripheral nerves, ultrastructure, dendritic arborization, and afferent axosomatic synapses), other features of the neuromuscular system (MNs and muscle) were abnormal. The cell bodies and axons of MNs were smaller than normal, many MN axons failed to become myelinated or to form functional synaptic contacts with target muscles, and a subpopulation of rescued cells were transformed from α- to γ-like MNs. Additionally, after the rescue of MNs in myogenin glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (MyoGDNF) transgenic mice, myofiber differentiation of extrafusal skeletal muscle was transformed and muscle physiology and motor behaviors were abnormal. In contrast, extrafusal myofiber phenotype, muscle physiology, and (except for muscle strength tests) motor behaviors were all normal after the rescue of MNs by genetic deletion of the proapoptotic gene Bax. However, there was an increase in intrafusal muscle fibers (spindles) in Bax knock-out versus both wild-type and MyoGDNF mice. Together, these data indicate that after the prevention of MN death, the neuromuscular system becomes transformed in novel ways to compensate for the presence of the thousands of excess cells.
The psychological and neurochemical mechanisms of drug memory reconsolidation: implications for the treatment of addiction

Memory reconsolidation is the process by which memories, destabilised at retrieval, require restabilisation to persist in the brain. It has been demonstrated that even old, well‐established memories require reconsolidation following retrieval; therefore, memory reconsolidation could potentially be exploited to disrupt, or even erase, aberrant memories that underlie psychiatric disorders, thereby providing a novel therapeutic target. Drug addiction is one such disorder; it is both chronic and relapsing, and one prominent risk factor for a relapse episode is the presentation of environmental cues that have previously been associated with drugs of abuse. This ‘cue‐induced relapse’ can be accounted for in psychological terms by reinforcing memories of the pavlovian association between the cue and the drug, which can thus influence behaviour through at least three psychologically and neurobiologically dissociable mechanisms: conditioned reinforcement, conditioned approach and conditioned motivation. As each of these psychological processes could contribute to the resumption of drug‐seeking following abstinence, it is important to develop treatments that can reduce drug‐seeking re‐established via influences on each or all of these pavlovian processes, in order to minimise the risk of a subsequent relapse. Investigation of the memory reconsolidation mechanisms of the memories underlying conditioned reinforcement, conditioned approach and conditioned motivation indicate that they depend upon different neurochemical systems, including the glutamatergic and adrenergic systems within limbic corticostriatal circuitry. We also discuss here the subsequent translation to the clinic of this preclinical work.
Miniaturized dual-band ring coupler with arbitrary power divisions using composite right/left-handed transmission lines

In this paper, a ring coupler that allows for arbitrary power divisions in dual bands by use of the composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission structures is proposed. The presented 180° coupler is composed of four 50-Ω CRLH branch lines and its power division ratio at either frequency is a function of electrical lengths of the constituent transmission lines. Thus, large power divisions can be simply carried out by properly designing electrical lengths of the integral lines instead of applying high-impedance transmission lines, which is impractical as the division ratios increase. For demonstration purpose, two examples were experimentally developed to realize the division ratios of 9/3 dB and 6/6 dB at 0.9/1.8 GHz. Compared to the compact 0.9-GHz coupler based on similar design concept in the literature, the fabricated couplers show further size reduction up to 21%.