Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Motor cortical inhibitory deficits in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder–A systematic review and meta-analysis of transcranial magnetic stimulation literature

Introduction Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly prevalent chronic disorder, often refractory to treatment. While remaining elusive, a full understanding of the pathophysiology of OCD is crucial to optimize treatment. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive technique that, paired with other neurophysiological techniques, such as electromyography, allows for in vivo assessment of human corticospinal neurophysiology. It has been used in clinical populations, including comparisons of patients with OCD and control volunteers. Results are often contradictory, and it is unclear if such measures change after treatment. Here we summarize research comparing corticospinal excitability between patients with OCD and control volunteers, and explore the effects of treatment with repetitive TMS (rTMS) on these excitability measures. Methods We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies comparing various motor cortical excitability measures in patients with OCD and control volunteers. Whenever possible, we meta-analyzed motor cortical excitability changes after rTMS treatment. Results From 1,282 articles, 17 reporting motor cortex excitability measures were included in quantitative analyses. Meta-analysis regarding cortical silent period shows inhibitory deficits in patients with OCD, when compared to control volunteers. We found no statistically significant differences in the remaining meta-analyses, and no evidence, in patients with OCD, of pre- to post-rTMS changes in resting motor threshold, the only excitability measure for which longitudinal data were reported. Discussion Our work suggests an inhibitory deficit of motor cortex excitability in patients with OCD when compared to control volunteers. Cortical silent period is believed to reflect activity of GABAB receptors, which is in line with neuroimaging research, showing GABAergic deficits in patients with OCD. Regardless of its effect on OCD symptoms, rTMS apparently does not modify Resting Motor Threshold, possibly because this measure reflects glutamatergic synaptic transmission, while rTMS is believed to mainly influence GABAergic function. Our meta-analyses are limited by the small number of studies included, and their methodological heterogeneity. Nonetheless, cortical silent period is a reliable and easily implementable measurement to assess neurophysiology in humans, in vivo. The present review illustrates the importance of pursuing the study of OCD pathophysiology using cortical silent period and other easily accessible, non-invasive measures of cortical excitability. Systematic review registration [https://www.crd. york.ac. uk/prospero/display_record. php? ID=CRD42020201764], identifier [CRD42020201764].
Windows NT Workstation, the VMEbus, and real-time control

Flotation processes are important in the mining industries and because of their multivariable nature, require a more advanced approach for the control systems. The level control used in the flotation process is not a trivial problem and needs to be addressed so as to optimize the entire multivariable system. Windows NT/sup TM/ Workstation is becoming a more prevalent choice of a robust operating system, providing features such as multitasking, a graphical user interface (GUI), and hardware portability. This operating system was evaluated as a platform for the realization of a real-time control system. The personal computer (PC), though popular, is not suitable for use as industrial specification equipment; an industrial hardware solution must be sought. Over the last decade, the VMEbus has emerged as an industrial standard. These computer systems are designed to withstand harsh industrial environments, providing robust, stable solutions for control problems. The system assessed in this article is a VME computer based on the Intel processor, manufactured by OR Industrial Computers running the Windows NT Workstation operating system. This article demonstrates the successful application of the Windows NT VMEbus computer system to a practical control application. The generalized predictive control (GPC) scheme, which has proven popular in industry, is applied to a multivariable laboratory flotation plant.
A Twenty-First Century Molar Mass for Dry Air

The audience for this paper includes researchers, educators, and engineers in the fields of air conditioning, atmospheric physics, meteorology, psychrometrics, standards, and thermodynamics. This paper provides a brief history of the molar mass of dry air, Mda, followed by the composition of Earth's atmosphere for the year 2008 and the calculation of Mda. A single equation is given to calculate Mda based on the actual abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is currently increasing at an annual rate of 1.9 ìmol·mol−1. This causes an increase in the value of Mda at a rate of 0.0001 kg·kmol−1 (lb·lbmol−1) for every 8.33 ìmol·mol−1 increase in the abundance of CO2. It is practical for many calculations to use the average projected Mda value over a period of a half-century, during which time the value of Mda will increase by approximately 0.0010 kg·kmol−1 (lb·lbmol−1). For most psychrometric calculations, the authors recommend an Mda value of 28.966 kg·kmol−1 (lb·lbmol−1), which is projected for the year 2036. This value will be correct when rounded to three decimal places through 2058 if CO2 increases at its current rate.
Performance of a Wireless Sensor Network MAC Protocol with a Variable Sleep Interval

A MAC protocol specifies how nodes in a sensor network access a shared communication channel. Medium access control protocols for wireless sensor networks are almost always designed to be energy efficient. Desired properties of such MAC protocol are: it should be distributed and contention-free. This study addresses low power MAC protocols utilize energy in efficient manner in wireless sensor networks. We are interested in the trade- off between power consumption and transmission delay, focusing on low traffic in EM-MAC. In EM-MAC, a significant proportion of the nodes may have to stay awake much longer than envisaged. We describe RRMAC protocol (Receiver-Reservation MAC protocol), a new protocol for the Collision avoidance and energy loss due to retransmissions and increase the life span of a wireless sensor networks. This study concludes with the result of simulation studies which indicate that the use of the proposed RRMAC protocol is expected to increase the life time of wireless sensor networks significantly.
Hybrid model for Authorized De-duplication in Cloud

Cloud computing provides a more cost effective environment to outsource storage computation. Many enterprises need to store and operate huge amount of data. One serious problem of today’s cloud storage service is the management of everincreasing volume of data. To make data management elastic in cloud computing de-duplication system is used. Data deduplication is a compression technique that improves storage efficiency by eliminating redundant data. In this approach we have proposed a de-duplication technique which is different from traditional de-duplication system. In this system users with differential privileges are also consider in duplicate check which was not possible in previous de-duplication system. Again in this approach we also focus on the confidentiality of sensitive data in support of de-duplication. We are proposing a Hybrid cloud approach. In Hybrid cloud approach two cloud are maintained, public cloud and a private cloud. A private cloud is working as an interface between user and public cloud. Private cloud provides a set of private key to the user. We also presented several new deduplication constructions supporting authorized duplicate check in hybrid cloud architecture.
Resistance scaling up to 1 M/spl Omega/ at PTB with a cryogenic current comparator

A cryogenic current comparator (CCC) of the Delahaye-type is used to scale the unit of resistance between 1 /spl Omega/ and 1 M/spl Omega/ in terms of R/sub K-90/. Measurements are demonstrated to check the accuracy and reproducibility of the system. Especially for the values above 10 k/spl Omega/ the uncertainty of the maintained standards could be reduced by more than one order of magnitude compared to conventional scaling methods. <<ETX>>
An advanced physics-based sub-circuit model of a punch-trough insulated gate bipolar transistor

An advanced sub-circuit model of the punch-trough insulated gate bipolar transistor (PT IGBT) based on the physics of internal device operation has been described in this article. The one-dimensional physical model of low-gain wide-base BJT is employed based on the equivalent non-linear lossy transmission line, whereas a SPICE Level 3 model is used for the diffused MOST part. The influence of voltage dependent drain-to-gate overlapping capacitance and the conductivity modulated base (drain) ohmic resistance are modelled separately. The main advantages of novel PT IGBT model are a small set of model parameters, an easy implementation in SPICE simulator and the high accuracy confirmed by comparing the simulation results with the electrical measurements of test power circuit.
Multiple object recognition and scene interpretation for autonomous road vehicle guidance

The seeing car VaMoRs-P is the next step of development in computer vision for autonomous road vehicle guidance at the 'Universitat der Bundeswehr Munich' (UBM). As one of the key functions, the module 'obstacle detection and tracking (ODT)' has been developed since 1991; with several thousand kilometers of autonomous test driving a state of high reliability has been reached. For vehicles in the vehicle's own lane the well known extraction of the left and right object boundaries using fast contour analysis is performed. Additionally, a new approach for recognition of vehicles in the neighboring lanes and those approaching from the rear is being developed. The lower object boundary detection using a knowledge based edge chaining algorithm and a special edge detector is presented. VaMoRs-P is equipped with four miniature CCD-cameras with different focal lengths mounted on two platforms viewing to the front and rear of the own car. For obstacle detection a range of 6 up to 120 meters distance in the own and the neighboring left and right lane is achieved. For collision avoidance and autonomous overtaking of slower driving road users a minimum number of 4 or 5 objects must be tracked in parallel. For this task ODT comprises about 15 transputers for image processing and state estimation.
Oral Tongue Cancers: Pooled Analysis from the INHANCE Association of Marijuana Smoking with Oropharyngeal and Updated version

Background: The incidence of oropharyngeal and oral tongue cancers has increased over the last 20 years which parallels increased use of marijuana among individuals born after 1950. Methods:Apooled analysiswas conducted comprising individual-level data fromnine case–control studies from the United States and Latin America in the INHANCE consortium. Self-reported information on marijuana smoking, demographic, and behavioral factors was obtained from 1,921 oropharyngeal cases, 356 oral tongue cases, and 7,639 controls. Results: Compared with never marijuana smokers, ever marijuana smokers had an elevated risk of oropharyngeal [adjusted OR (aOR), 1.24; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.06–1.47] and a reduced risk of oral tongue cancer (aOR, 0.47; 95%CI, 0.29, 0.75). The risk of oropharyngeal cancer remained elevated among never tobacco and alcohol users. The risk of oral tongue cancer was reduced among never users of tobacco and alcohol. Sensitivity analysis adjusting for potential confounding by HPV exposure attenuated the association ofmarijuana usewith oropharyngeal cancer (aOR, 0.99; 95%CI, 0.71–1.25), but had no effect on the oral tongue
Development of High Throughput Screening to Discover SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors with NanoBit Complementation

of High Throughput Screening to Discover SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors with NanoBit ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 has become a serious global public health problem and there is lack of effective drugs to fight it. Main protease (M pro ) of SARS-CoV-2 is an important antiviral drug target. We aim to establish a high-throughput screening (HTS) assay to identify inhibitors of SARS- CoV-2 M pro . A M pro NanoBiT assay for HTS was developed by using NanoBiT complementary strategy. M pro peptide substrate was flanked by subunits of Nano luciferase (NanoLuc), SmBiT and LgBiT respectively at the amino and carboxyl termini to obtain the structure M pro cleavage site-NanoBiT. M pro cleavage site-NanoBiT showed strong NanoLuc activity, which was modulated with M pro peptide digestion, indicating the inhibitory effect of compounds on M pro could be read out with NanoLuc activity. We optimized the experiment conditions including the quantity of M pro and M pro cleavage site-NanoBiT, DMSO tolerance, enzyme digestion time, and plate readout time after adding NanoLuc substrate. We further evaluated with two M pro reference inhibitors, GC376 and M pro inhibitor 11a, and found the assay was suitable for HTS of M pro inhibitors. The miniaturized 384-well plate format assay was further used to screen 6,400 compounds from FDA-approved Drug Library and Natural Bioactive Compound Library. Control experiments showed a significant separation of relative activity of the negative and positive controls leading to an acceptable HTS Z’ value of 0.67, indicating satisfactory assay performance. Our results demonstrated that our established M pro NanoBiT assay by inserting protease substrate peptides between SmBiT and LgBiT of NanoBiT could be applied for discovery of inhibitors of different proteases.
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEY ON EFFECT OF EMF EMITTED BY PHOTOCOPY MACHINES GENERALLY USED IN DHAKA CITY BANGLADESH

Significant concerns has been raised about possible health effects from exposure to radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields specially after the rapid introduction of modern amnesties specially the mobile telecommunication systems. The biological effects of low level EMF and a possible potential relation various diseases specially blood cancer causation are controversial. There are many epidemiological studies of the possible adverse health effects associated with environmental exposure to extremely low frequency (0-300 Hz) non-ionizing radiation such as that emitted by power cables and electrical substations linking such exposure to leukemia, brain cancer, male breast cancer, skin cancer and eye melanoma. Far less attention has been paid to health hazards from environmental exposure to radiation in RF range (100 kHz-300GHz) at field strengths much below to these required to produce thermal effects. Laboratory studies in this area have also been confusing and conflicting. While some animal studies suggest that RF fields accelerate the development of cancers, other studies found no carcinogenic effect. Obviously, there is an urgent need for extensive, well conducted epidemiological and laboratory studies. Photocopy machines are being used all over the world as it has made the life easy for academic, office, business. Hundreds of photocopy machines are also being used in Bangladesh. EMF is also emitted by photocopy machines. There has been no such study performed in Bangladesh. The data were collected from various places in Dhaka city, Bangladesh: Banani Super Market, Mohakhali, Farmgate Green Road, Nilkhet and Uttara. Both Electric and Magnetic fields were measured for photocopy machines. Both epidemiological survey and EMF measurements were done for these locations. These results showed that in many cases the magnetic field radiated from the different sources are greater than the threshold limit and photocopier operators suffered from various types of ailments like indigestion, vomit, insomnia, pain in hands and legs, stomach ache, mental depression, skin disease, cataract, sexual problems, hairs turning white etc. due to prolonged exposure to EMF. In many of the photocopier shops the operators were working in congested space with lots of machineries around. There are many devices and power lines around them, having a congested environment and low circulation of air. Also smoking contributed to their overall health problems.
Experimentation and evaluation of routing metrics for multi-hop ad-hoc wireless networks on an indoor wireless testbed

The main goal of this semester thesis is to evaluate the performance of routing metrics on an indoor wireless test-bed. At the first part of the thesis we built a stationary wireless test-bed (TikNet) of 20 commodity PCs distributed on the G-floor of the ETZ building at the ETH. The Tik-Net test-bed is a platform for wireless experimentation with real-world hardware that improves the understanding of wireless networks while circumventing conventional assumptions and possible misconceptions made by simulation tools with actual real-world recorded behavior. Wireless testbed conclusions about higher layer mechanisms (like routing or transport mechanisms) imply also a concrete understanding of the wireless behavior. In this context we tried to identify and quantify through link level measurements the intensity of wireless link level phenomena, like the link asymmetry and the validity of “neighbor” abstraction. Our extended study shows that link asymmetries exist at the TikNet test-bed, whereas the “neighbor” abstraction could be roughly a valid assumption. The performance evaluation of routing metrics on the test-bed complements the thesis. For the routing metric evaluation, we used the minimum hop-count metric and the ETX routing metric proposed by MIT. It turns out that ETX provides better connectivity but is only slightly better than minimum hop-count in terms of mean throughput for the specific experimental scenarios. We also proceeded to evaluate ETX in terms of mobility and prediction accuracy. This evaluation along with the wireless characterization of the testbed could provide a basis for understanding how routing metrics affect the performance of the routing protocols in practice and thus could lead to the design of new routing metrics that would make the mesh networking paradigm a viable realizable solution.
Performance Evaluation of Construction Project Using Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods

In developing countries, where resources are limited, it is important to develop and study all available alternatives effectively and efficiently to improve project performance and in decision making. Performance evaluation techniques can help to find ways to improve solutions to the problems by providing a measured balance in cost, schedule, and quality via the performance evaluation of alternatives. This requires a motivated team of multi-disciplined professionals in cooperation with well-established project stakeholders who are stimulated and guided by the appropriate methods.Many quantitative methods have been developed to facilitate making rational decision making involving multi criteria. Most methods either ignore or barely include non-quantifiable factors. Analytical Hierarchy Process and Multi Attribute Utility Theory methods allow the inclusion of non-quantifiable parameters such as environmental, social and political criteria beside quantifiable cost-effective technical and economic factors. In this study, an attempt is made to evaluate different criteria and alternatives that are required for the enhancement of highway project performance. A highway project of Kandi - Shadnagar highway, in Andhra Pradesh, India is taken as case study. In this study two main processes have been followed. The first process is to identify the relevant highway performance criteria. Various criteria's are collected from respondents of construction projects by carrying questionnaire survey. The respondents will mark each criterion on a scale of 0-5 depending on his experience and priority. The second process is to determine value improvement and utility by applying Analytical Hierarchy Process, Multi Attribute Utility Theory and comparison between two methods have been done to evaluate the best alternative for enhancement of highway project performance.
A three-phase current-source type PWM rectifier with feed-forward compensation of input displacement factor

Three-phase current-source type PWM rectifiers are often used as the front-end power converter unit in utility-interfaced systems. Due to the input filter (needed for current harmonic suppression), the input displacement factor is less than unity. It varies with the rectifier operating point and may result in unacceptable low values. In this paper, a new control method is proposed to achieve unity displacement factor independent of the load conditions. The proposed method controls the phase shift of the input currents in a feedforward fashion. The modulating signals are phase shifted according to the rectifier operating point to always result in near unity input displacement factor. The compensation scheme makes use of a DC current loop and the standard DC voltage regulation loop to produce the modulating signals with the required phase shift. As a result, the control circuitry does not require additional sensors. The PWM pattern is generated online, which results in fast response to transients. The rectifier is analyzed and design equations are derived. A design example is given and theoretical considerations are verified through simulation and by experimental results obtained on a 1 kVA laboratory prototype. <<ETX>>
Algorithm for monitoring the plankton population dynamics based on satellite sensing data

The scientific work describes the algorithms for processing the multispectral water coastal imagery from satellite sensing data with the aim of identifying the phytoplankton population of a spotted structure: determining the contour, distributing color gradation and as a result - determining the concentration of phytoplankton distribution inside the zones and mass centers. Such characteristics let determine the speed of changing contours spots and their concentration, the mass center shift as a consequence of the water masses movement and the processes of phytoplankton growing and dying. All these may be done on the base of the processed image series of the same water area over different time (different dates). The combination of LBP and neural network methods are observed as algorithms for image processing and the results of computer experiments are presented.
Parallel algorithms for solving diffusion-convection problems on a multiprocessor computer system using hybrid MPI / OpenMP technology

The paper deals with the mathematical models, algorithms and software for mathematical modeling of coastal systems’ water pollution spreading dynamics under various unfavorable phenomena of natural and artificial genesis, developed for high-performance cluster systems. Methods for partitioning the computational domain for solving diffusion-convection problems have been developed, which allow for efficient parallelization of a computationally complex modeling problem, taking into account the architecture of the multiprocessor system used. The developed mathematical models are based on high-precision models of hydrophysics and hydrobiology and take into account the peculiarities of water systems in the south of the Rostov region, as well as factors of hydrobiological dynamics such as microturbulent diffusion and advective transport in various directions, mechanisms of primary and secondary pollution of coastal systems, taking into account currents. The paper presents algorithms for solving a simulated problem based on MPI parallelization technology, as well as based on mixed MPI + OpenMP technology. Numerical experiments have been carried out and the two technologies efficiency comparison has been made in the conditions of computing cluster used.