Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SKP-SC-EVs Mitigate Denervated Muscle Atrophy by Inhibiting Oxidative Stress and Inflammation and Improving Microcirculation

Denervated muscle atrophy is a common clinical disease that has no effective treatments. Our previous studies have found that oxidative stress and inflammation play an important role in the process of denervated muscle atrophy. Extracellular vesicles derived from skin precursor-derived Schwann cells (SKP-SC-EVs) contain a large amount of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory factors. This study explored whether SKP-SC-EVs alleviate denervated muscle atrophy by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammation. In vitro studies have found that SKP-SC-EVs can be internalized and caught by myoblasts to promote the proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts. Nutrient deprivation can cause myotube atrophy, accompanied by oxidative stress and inflammation. However, SKP-SC-EVs can inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation caused by nutritional deprivation and subsequently relieve myotube atrophy. Moreover, there is a remarkable dose-effect relationship. In vivo studies have found that SKP-SC-EVs can significantly inhibit a denervation-induced decrease in the wet weight ratio and myofiber cross-sectional area of target muscles. Furthermore, SKP-SC-EVs can dramatically inhibit highly expressed Muscle RING Finger 1 and Muscle Atrophy F-box in target muscles under denervation and reduce the degradation of the myotube heavy chain. SKP-SC-EVs may reduce mitochondrial vacuolar degeneration and autophagy in denervated muscles by inhibiting autophagy-related proteins (i.e., PINK1, BNIP3, LC3B, and ATG7). Moreover, SKP-SC-EVs may improve microvessels and blood perfusion in denervated skeletal muscles by enhancing the proliferation of vascular endothelial cells. SKP-SC-EVs can also significantly inhibit the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in target muscles after denervation, which indicates that SKP-SC-EVs elicit their role by upregulating Nrf2 and downregulating ROS production-related factors (Nox2 and Nox4). In addition, SKP-SC-EVs can significantly reduce the levels of interleukin 1β, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor α in target muscles. To conclude, SKP-SC-EVs may alleviate the decrease of target muscle blood perfusion and passivate the activities of ubiquitin-proteasome and autophagy-lysosome systems by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammatory response, then reduce skeletal muscle atrophy caused by denervation. This study not only enriches the molecular regulation mechanism of denervated muscle atrophy, but also provides a scientific basis for SKP-SC-EVs as a protective drug to prevent and treat muscle atrophy.
OPTIMIZATION OF A DIFFUSER WITH SPLITTER BY NUMERICAL SIMULATION

Three-dimensional, viscous, and compressible flow calculations have been performed in order to improve the performance of a radial compressor diffuser with splitter. All calculations were carried out applying a commercially available finite-volume Navier-Stokes code. Diffuser design procedure, grid generation and boundary conditions are described in detail. For each diffuser type several operating points ranging from the surge limit to choke were considered. Velocity distributions showing regions of separation are discussed for different diffuser geometries. The downstream evolution of the pressure recovery coefficient is given along both diffuser channels. Calculations have been verified by experimental investigations on full scale diffuser prototypes providing pressure values at defined locations.
Process mining applications in the healthcare domain: A comprehensive review

Process mining (PM) is a well‐known research area that includes techniques, methodologies, and tools for analyzing processes in a variety of application domains. In the case of healthcare, processes are characterized by high variability in terms of activities, duration, and involved resources (e.g., physicians, nurses, administrators, machineries, etc.). Besides, the multitude of diseases that the patients housed in healthcare facilities suffer from makes medical contexts highly heterogeneous. As a result, understanding and analyzing healthcare processes are certainly not trivial tasks, and administrators and doctors look for tools and methods that can concretely support them in improving the healthcare services they are involved in. In this context, PM has been increasingly used for a wide range of applications as reported in some recent reviews. However, these reviews mainly focus on discussion on applications related to the clinical pathways, while a systematic review of all possible applications is absent. In this article, we selected 172 papers published in the last 10 years, that present applications of PM in the healthcare domain. The objective of this study is to help and guide researchers interested in the medical field to understand the main PM applications in the healthcare, but also to suggest new ways to develop promising and not yet fully investigated applications. Moreover, our study could be of interest for practitioners who are considering applications of PM, who can identify and choose PM algorithms, techniques, tools, methodologies, and approaches, toward what have been the experiences of success.
“I feel like it’s giving me a lot as a language teacher to be a learner myself”: Factors affecting the implementation of a multilingual pedagogy as reported by teachers of diverse languages

To boost the foreign language learning process, language teachers need to know how to implement a multilingual pedagogy, that is, they should be able to draw on their and their students’ knowledge of other languages during lessons. This qualitative study explored the extent to which 21 foreign language teachers in Norwegian and Russian upper-secondary schools were willing and able to implement multilingual teaching practices and the factors that they thought affected this implementation. The findings revealed three main factors, namely, their language knowledge, their positioning as language learners, and the level of support they received, which the participants reported as strongly influencing the extent to which they were able and willing to draw on their and their students’ multilingualism as a pedagogical resource. The findings also indicated that participants did not implement multilingual teaching practices differently based on the languages they taught, although there were differences between the participants from Norway and Russia concerning the teaching of English. The study has important implications for research on language teaching and learning in multilingual environments, educational institutions, and teacher development programs.
Discrete gate sizing and threshold voltage assignment to optimize power under performance constraints

Discrete Gate Sizing and Threshold Voltage Assignment to Optimize Power under Performance Constraints Jagmohan Singh, M.S.E. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: David Z. Pan In today’s world, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to design high performance integrated circuits (ICs) and have them run at as low power as possible. Gate sizing and threshold voltage (Vt) assignment optimizations are one of the major contributors to such trade-offs for power and performance of ICs. In fact, the ever increasing design sizes and more aggressive timing requirements make gate sizing and Vt assignment one of the most important CAD problems in physical synthesis. A promising gate sizing optimization algorithm has to satisfy requirements like being scalable to tackle very large design sizes, being able to optimally utilize a large (but finite) number of possible gate configurations available in standard cell library based on different gate sizes and/or threshold voltages
Identifying FAAH Inhibitors as New Therapeutic Options for the Treatment of Chronic Pain through Drug Repurposing

Chronic pain determines a substantial burden on individuals, employers, healthcare systems, and society. Most of the affected patients report dissatisfaction with currently available treatments. There are only a few and poor therapeutic options—some therapeutic agents are an outgrowth of drugs targeting acute pain, while others have several serious side effects. One of the primary degradative enzymes for endocannabinoids, fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) attracted attention as a significant molecular target for developing new therapies for neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases, including chronic pain. Using chemical graph mining, quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) modeling, and molecular docking techniques we developed a multi-step screening protocol to identify repurposable drugs as FAAH inhibitors. After screening the DrugBank database using our protocol, 273 structures were selected, with five already approved drugs, montelukast, repaglinide, revefenacin, raloxifene, and buclizine emerging as the most promising repurposable agents for treating chronic pain. Molecular docking studies indicated that the selected compounds interact with the enzyme mostly non-covalently (except for revefenacin) through shape complementarity to the large substrate-binding pocket in the active site. A molecular dynamics simulation was employed for montelukast and revealed stable interactions with the enzyme. The biological activity of the selected compounds should be further confirmed by employing in vitro and in vivo studies.
Watt-Level Ka-Band Integrated Doherty Power Amplifiers: Technologies and Power Combination Strategies Invited Paper

This paper discusses some of the design choices underlying the development of watt-level integrated Doherty power amplifiers in the K and Ka band, focusing on compound semiconductor technologies. The key aspect of on-chip power combination is discussed, presenting and comparing some of the possible alternatives. Then, the impact on the achievable bandwidth and performance of different parameters is quantified, adopting an approximate analysis, which focuses on the Doherty output combiner and allows estimating the non-linear performance of the amplifier thanks to some simplifying assumptions, without requiring a full, non-linear model of the active devices. Two sample GaAs and GaN technologies are compared first, considering parameters that are representative of the currently available commercial processes, and then several power combination strategies are analyzed, adopting the GaN technology, which is currently the only one that allows achieving the power levels required by the applications directly on chip. Finally, some hints as to the impact of the output parasitic effects of the transistors on the presented analysis are given.
The use of time intervals between consecutive discharges to characterize PD-sources

Pulse sequence analysis is a powerful tool to characterize defects that generate partial discharges. Usually, frequency distributions or scatter plots of sequence correlated parameters such as e.g. the external voltage differences /spl Delta/U between consecutive discharge events are used for diagnosis. In some cases, the analysis of the times of occurrence and especially the sequence of time-intervals /spl Delta/t between consecutive discharge pulses may even be more efficient to characterize a defect or to differentiate between different defects. In the case of only a few discharge events per cycle of the applied voltage, the parameter /spl Delta/U is very efficient and allows to distinguish clearly whether the partial discharge signals are generated by only one or more local defects, information that is very helpful for a reliable diagnosis. Even with only one type of defect, a small change in the height of the measuring voltage may significantly influence the discharge phenomenon, resp. the measured date set. The analysis of the frequency distributions of the time differences /spl Delta/t of consecutive discharge events and the elimination of 'multiple discharge pulses' together with the use of the parameter /spl Delta/U//spl Delta/t reveal very useful additional information.
An Efficient and Compact Monopole Antenna Backed With Square Loop EBG Structure for Medical Wireless Body Area Network Applications

In this paper, a compact, low‐profile, and simple monopole antenna is presented that is operated at the frequency of 2.4 GHz in industrial scientific medical band. The monopole antenna is based on the simple rectangular microstrip patch with a rotated T‐shaped slot. Furthermore, a 2 × 2 electromagnetic band‐gap (EBG) array is used in this design to act as an isolator between the antenna and the human body, which additionally increases the performance of the proposed antenna. The final design has an overall size of only 0. 9λg × 0. 9λg × 0. 034λg (60 × 60 × 2.3 mm3) where λg is the guided‐wavelength with respect to RO4003 substrate at the resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz. This can make the structure a good candidate for wireless body area network applications. A prototype of the designed EBG‐based antenna is fabricated over a widely available RO4003 substrate. The measurement results show a gain of 6.52 dBi, a front to back ratio of 12.12 dB, and a total efficiency of 79.87% around the resonant frequency. Furthermore, numerical studies are conducted to evaluate the specific absorption rate (SAR) of the proposed design, which shows by introducing the EBG structure, more than 96% reduction in SAR level is obtained. All simulations are carried out by CST microwave studio software.
Development of a multi-objective scheduling system for offshore projects based on hybrid non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm

In order to enhance the efficiency of offshore companies, a multi-objective scheduling system based on hybrid non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm was proposed. An optimized model for multi-objective and multi-execution mode was constructed under the condition of taking time, cost, and resource into account, and then the mathematical model for the same was established. Moreover, the key techniques of the proposed system were elaborated, and the flowchart was designed. Aiming at the weaknesses of non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm which is short for non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II in the facet of local search and computational efficiency, Pareto-dominated simulated annealing algorithm was applied in search global solution. Finally, by simulation examples and industrial application, the robustness and outperformance of the improved algorithm were verified.
Psychological Perceptual Analysis Based on Dance Therapy Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Dance is an embodied activity when applied therapeutically, and it can have numerous specific and unspecific health assistances. Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is a psychotherapeutic process used for the individual’s emotional, cognitive, and physical integration. To automatically synthesize dance movements according to the music, it needs to solve some computational challenges. This paper proposes the Artificial Intelligence assisted Dance Movement Therapy (AIDMT) to predict an individual’s psychological condition. The complete aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of recreational/general dance and dance movement therapy (DMT) on well-being, anxiety, and depression by a convolution neural network (CNN). The research results support the potential usefulness of DMT as a multi-faceted intervention for enhancing different facets of functioning in adolescence with diminishing cognitive abilities. The absence of advantageous effects for our long-term DMT and exercise intervention effects discover the requirement to preserve persistent activity levels with sufficient duration and intensity. Conclusion — The experimental result suggests that AIDMT achieves the highest classification accuracy of 98.03%.
Single-phase matrix converter

A topology of a single-phase AC/AC direct power converter is presented. The circuit, composed from four ideal power switches, is used as a frequency step-up converter. The equations of the proposed converter are developed, its switching angle pattern is calculated and the dynamic behaviour of the system is simulated. Using a power MOSFET and four Schottky diodes, the basic power switch is assembled and a power converter fed from 50 V (RMS), 50 Hz, supplying a passive R, L load operated at 100 Hz, was constructed. Satisfactory agreement between simulated and laboratory results was observed.
Principles Of Fair And Efficient Taxation In The Context Of Digitalization

In the present article, we consider the problems of the theory of optimal taxation in the digital transformation of modern society, as well as the ways to solve them. The analysis is conducted both through the prism of socio- economic notions of justice and in the context of the biopolitical principle (social trophism). At the beginning of the article, the main aspects and vectors of development of the tax system in the era of digital transformation are disclosed. Further we propose an algorithm for assessing the optimality of a particular tax system and its individual components - individual tax schedule s for different types of tax. Optimality in this paper refers to the ability of the tax to simultaneously meet the requirements of the currently dominant socio-economic concepts of equity, and to take into account the interests of the state - the desire to maximize tax revenues. As an example, th ere is an algorithm of forming the fundamental prerequisites for selecting the type of income tax schedule as the main source of replenishment of the state budget of the Russian Federation. Finally, it is concluded that a progressive income scale can be used as a tool to manage the reproduction of the labor force, and, as a consequence, the formation of the forage base (in terms of biopolitics) for future periods.
Identification of Virulence Associated Region during Highly Pathogenic Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus during Attenuation In Vitro: Complex Question with Different Strain Backgrounds

Highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus PRRSV (HP-PRRSV) was one of the most devastating diseases of the pig industry, among various strategies, vaccination was one of the most useful tools for PRRS control. Attenuated live vaccine was used worldwide, however, the genetic basis of HP-PRRSV virulence change during attenuation remain to be determined. Here, to identify virulence associated regions of HP-PRRSV during attenuation in vitro, six full-length infectious cDNA clones with interchanges of 5′UTR + ORF1a, ORF1b, and ORF2-7 + 3′UTR regions between HP-PRRSV strain HuN4-F5 and its attenuated vaccine strain HuN4-F112 were generated, and chimeric viruses were rescued. Piglets were inoculated with chimeric viruses and their parental viruses, and rectal temperature were recorded daily, and serum were collected for future experiments. Our results showed that ORF1a played an important role on virus replication, cytokine response and lung damage, the exchange of ORF1b and ORF2-7 in different backbone led to different exhibition on virus replication in vivo/vitro and cytokine response. Among 9 PRRSV attenuated series, consistent amino acid changes during PRRSV attenuation were found in NSP4, NSP9, GP2, E, GP3 and GP4. Our study provides a fundamental data for the investigation of PRRSV attenuation, the different results of the virulence change among different studies indicated that different mechanisms might be used during PRRSV virulence enhancement in vivo and attenuation in vitro.
Impact of Intrahousehold Interactions on Individual Daily Activity-Travel Patterns

Existing approaches to modeling daily activity-travel patterns (DAPs) are mostly person based. However, intrahousehold interactions have a strong effect on the formation of the daily activity agenda of each household member. An approach is adopted that is based on the sequential modeling of the choices reflected in the DAPs of all household members, in a predetermined order of processing by person type, with explicit linkages between the choices made by different members of the household. The statistical analysis of intrahousehold interactions is described, as well as the application experience with this modeling approach in the framework of the new tour-based regional travel demand model recently developed for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. Linkages across different household members that reflect the sharing of the same activities or the making of joint travel proved to be extremely strong statistically.
Energy Efficient, Highly Precise Cascade Dryness Control for Fibrous Tape by Induction-Based Surface Heating of a Rotating Steel Cylinder with Moving Inductors

Drying various materials constitutes an essential component of several industrial processes, e.g., paper production. Typically, rotating cylinders heated internally by water steam are used for drying tape-shaped material in paper-making machines. Such an approach remains very energy-consuming, while the whole process is expensive and in conflict with the global policy of reducing energy consumption in heavy industry. One promising alternative method of drying fibrous tapes is the induction heating of drying cylinders. In this paper, we propose a drying system based on a set of inductors (electromagnetic field sources) that generate energy in the mantle of the cylinder and dry the running tape. By enabling the movement of the inductors, the system provides a high level of flexibility in terms of reacting to the varying humidity of the tape. Additionally, imaging the temperature field on the cylinder surface provides a supplementary source of information, enabling the temperature profile to be controlled. Two types of humidity control systems, a one-loop feedback control and a cascade control, were designed and analyzed. Simulation analysis and experimental verification performed using a semi-industrial setup proves that using the proposed cascade control ensures more than 30% faster response of the whole dryness control system.
The Tricept robot: dynamics and impedance control

The Tricept is a novel industrial robot characterized by a hybrid kinematic design featuring a three-degrees-of-freedom (3-DOF) structure of parallel type and a 3-DOF spherical wrist. In this work the authors focus on the derivation of a dynamic model to be used for both simulation and control purposes. Two different approaches are discussed and compared in terms of inverse dynamics computation. Then, a model-based control is derived aimed at enforcing a 6-DOF impedance behavior at the end effector to manage interaction with the environment. Simulation results are presented to evaluate the accuracy of an approximate dynamic model computation as well as to test the effectiveness of the proposed impedance control strategy.
Broad-band matched-field source localization in the east China Sea

An incoherent broad-band frequency (100-200 Hz) domain Bartlett processor is applied to the wide-band source (WBS) signals for source localization. The coupled normal mode-parabolic equation theory based on the WKBZ approximation is used to calculate the replica fields in the sloping bottom environment. The experimental analysis shows that the accuracy of the source localization is largely improved with the consideration of the slope of bottom. The range estimates of the majority of signals by localized by matched-field processing in the range from 30.0 to 50.0 km are consistent with the global positioning system measured ranges.
Two-dimensional calculation of winding losses in transformers

In this report, the two-dimensional calculation of the winding losses occurring in magnetic devices like chokes and transformers used in switch mode power supplies is presented. Based on the field distribution in the winding area including the fringing fields of the arbitrarily positioned air gaps, the skin and proximity losses in each turn are analytically calculated.