Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel TaqMan PCR Assay for the Quantification of Paenibacillus larvae Spores in Bee-Related Samples

Simple Summary American foulbrood (AFB) is the most severe bacterial disease of honeybees, caused by Paenibacillus larvae. Larvae become infected by ingesting food contaminated with P. larvae spores, which are extremely resistant and can remain infectious for decades. Burning affected colonies is widely used to prevent further spread of the disease. The presence of P. larvae spores in bee-related samples is associated with an increased risk of developing clinical symptoms, and spore counts can be used for early detection of at-risk colonies, which should then undergo thorough clinical examination. Because quantification of P. larvae spores by plate counting is time-consuming and unreliable, due to poor and inconsistent germination, molecular quantification is more suitable. To overcome the limitations of available quantification methods, we developed a quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay for reliable quantification of P. larvae that also performs well at low spore counts. The assay was validated for honey and hive debris samples but can be extended to other sample types. Spore counts in AFB-positive colonies were significantly higher than those in asymptomatic colonies, both for honey and hive debris samples. By comparing plate and qPCR counts, the germination rate of P. larvae spores was found to be low and inconsistent. Abstract Paenibacillus larvae is the causative agent of American foulbrood (AFB), a devastating disease of honeybees. P. larvae spore counts in bee-related samples correlate with the presence of AFB symptoms and may, therefore, be used to identify at-risk colonies. Here, we constructed a TaqMan-based real-time PCR (qPCR) assay targeting a single-copy chromosomal metalloproteinase gene for reliable quantification of P. larvae. The assay was calibrated using digital PCR (dPCR) to allow absolute quantification of P. larvae spores in honey and hive debris samples. The limits of detection and quantification were 8 and 58 spores/g for honey and 188 and 707 spores/mL for hive debris, respectively. To assess the association between AFB clinical symptoms and spore counts, we quantified spores in honey and hive debris samples originating from honeybee colonies with known severity of clinical symptoms. Spore counts in AFB-positive colonies were significantly higher than those in asymptomatic colonies but did not differ significantly with regard to the severity of clinical symptoms. For honey, the average spore germination rate was 0.52% (range = 0.04–6.05%), indicating poor and inconsistent in vitro germination. The newly developed qPCR assay allows reliable detection and quantification of P. larvae in honey and hive debris samples but can also be extended to other sample types.
Piloting a postgraduate distance learning course in Records Management for practising records managers

This article concerns the preparation and delivery of a part of an existing postgraduate records management course to a sample of records management practitioners at a distance. The project was a pilot study for the subsequent development of a distance learning course in records management in the Department of Information and Library Management at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. The objectives were to investigate the practitioners' learning experience by analysing their thoughts and feelings recorded in a diary, to assess the suitability of existing learning materials and to identify appropriate delivery methods for different types of materials. Models of both learning and writing distance learning materials were adopted from the literature. Paper, audio and electronic materials were developed. The results will be used to make recommendations for developing the entire course.
Railway axle failures and durability validation

In this paper the influence of the approach taken to the design of train axles is considered and the shortcomings of the currently used procedures for fatigue strength validation are discussed. The procedure proposed in existing standards assumes a fatigue endurance limit, that is not realistically applicable to actual service conditions, and they do not take into account the real stresses encountered in actual service. The problems generated by such an approach are discussed using examples of actual failures of passenger train axles in Germany. A practice-related procedure for the service strength validation is proposed. This procedure includes service-related stress spectra and the fatigue strength of axles. To validate an axle design the time-varying stresses in individual critical areas of the axle, represented by their stress spectra, must be taken into account. The allowable stress levels in individual axle areas depend both on the fatigue strength and on the spectrum of operational stresses.
PMO IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCES IN COMPANIES OF MEDELLIN CITY

This article presents the results of a research project regarding the present status and implementation experiences with Project Management Office (PMO) in some organizations in the city of Medellin in order to summarize the lessons that could be later used as a basis from which to propose effective project management methodologies. First, the available literature regarding definitions, models, functions, roles, and maturity levels of PMOs was studied. This information was used to design semi-structured interviews that were completed with the PMO directors of selected organizations in the city of Medellin. Once the interviews were completed, an analysis of the information gathered was made to assess each PMO functions, roles, and models, as well as to classify each PMO on a point scale to determine its level of performance. According to the results, the lessons learned regarding PMO implementation were identified, highlighting conclusions and recommendations on key factors for success.
Research of Application on Robot Vision with SQI Algorithms Based on Retinex

Troubleshooting and safety monitoring in the underground mine by manual operation often have the existence of security risks, so the trend of replacing manual operation by robots increases. In robot vision navigation, image enhancement in the automatic target recognition is the most critical stage of the pretreatment when extracting the image feature and matching. As the contour enhancement effect of multiscale Retinex algorithm is very good, which plays a key role in the robot visual scene image. When underground mine mobile robot identify path in machine vision navigation, this paper proposes a application of robot vision with SQI algorithms based on Retinex, which aims at its poor real-time performance and serious affecting by light interference.
Detecting Phishing Sites Using URLs Collected from Emails

Phishing is the malicious behavior of stealing personal information from computer users. It is a very popular account-theft-method among cyber criminals. Hence, developing a new approach to solve phishing attacks becomes an important issue. This paper proposes a router-based solution, called Shark, to phishing attacks. The router-based property allows Shark to protect a whole network without the need to install or maintain any software in any internal host. Based on the URLs collected from emails and the properties of the web pages pointed by these URLs, Shark quickly and automatically identifies phishing web pages. Experimental results demonstrate that Shark installed on a Linux edge router can accurately detect and attack phishing sites with low false positives and false negatives. And even though a false positive occurs, erroneous counterattacks do not influence the normal operations of legal web sites.
Edge Preserving Filter to Support PSF Estimation of Scanning Electron Microscope Images

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is an instrument that used to observe the surface of an object at a scale of nanometer. However, image degradations caused by blur and noise may be occurred on SEM observation images. Its problems limit the process of observing and quantification problem for subsequent image analysis and visualization. To mitigate problems on blur, an estimation of point spread function (PSF) for specific SEM experiment become challenging, due to noise on a measured image. In the work, an edge preserving filter based on spatial and frequency domains are used for support PSF estimation. The performance of proposed scheme is evaluated for SEM images that acquired using Hitachi SU3500. An object TEM grid is imaged using SEM parameters, i.e. accelerating voltage 30 kV, spot size 10, 20, 30, and 40 with magnification 350 times. The results shown that proposes scheme can be confirmation that estimation PSF has characteristic increasing a radius in x-y plane as proportional with increasing spot size of electron beam.
A New Approach to Improve the Probability of Detection of Eddy Current Inspection

Eddy current testing is now a widely used Non Destructive Test (NDT) method for determining the size of cracks in metallic structures. The probability of detection (POD) is a key metric in assessing the effectiveness of nondestructive evaluation techniques. The POD analysis using common method is studied and modified. The eddy current sensor effective is discussed to support the proposed method. The new method is shown better result in improve the POD than the common one. The estimates of POD as a function of crack size will be valuable for future model-assisted POD study.
Implementation of the Master-Slave Windings Scheme for the Low Pulse Ratio Operation in Motor Drivers

A master-slave windings scheme is proposed to enhance the motor torque performance under the low pulse ratio inverter operation. The inverter connected with the master windings operates under the low pulse ratio and aims for the major power transmission. To compensate the torque ripple from the master windings, an open-winding inverter with high pulse ratio is connected to the slave windings. According to the theoretical loss comparison under the same torque ripple, the reduction in the switching and conduction loss of the proposed scheme are around 80% and 40%. The detailed control strategy for the cooperation between the master and slave windings is also presented. It is proved that the high performance torque operation in both steady and dynamic states get ensured. The simulation and experimental results are demonstrated for verification.
Doubly Selective Vehicle-to-Vehicle Channel Measurements and Modeling at 5.9 GHz

A method to develop a commercial channel emulator model for a doubly selective vehicle-to-vehicle wireless channel is presented. This channel can apply to vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) and intelligent transportation applications. The model was developed from measurements taken at 5.9 GHz in an expressway environment when the vehicles are traveling in the same direction. The probe waveform is a combination of a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) waveform with an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform with a chirp signal for pulse compression.
New Late Cretaceous to Earliest Paleogene (Campanian–Danian) Dinoflagellate Cysts from the Møre Basin, Offshore Norway

ABSTRACT The Late Cretaceous and Paleogene strata of the Norwegian continental shelf are rich and diverse in dinoflagellate cysts. The assemblages are generally well-preserved, which allows high-resolution biostratigraphic studies and sometimes the identification of new species with chronostratigraphic significance. This paper proposes the formal description of eight new species from the Møre Basin, offshore Norway: Adnatosphaeridium tubulosum, Canningia crassimura, Canningia exilimura, Palaeohystrichophora elongata, Palaeoperidinium minusculatum, Senoniasphaera porosa, Trithyrodinium ioannidesii and Trithyrodinium verrucatum. The key diagnostic and morphological features of each species are discussed and compared with those of other forms outside and within the same genera. The new species presented here have been recognised in a stratigraphic interval ranging from the early Campanian to the early Danian; their occurrence can be used in conjunction with previously published markers to enhance the stratigraphic breakdown of wells across the region and wider offshore Northwest Europe.
Data mining and decision support : integration and collaboration

1. Data Mining. - 2. Text and Web Mining. - 3. Decision Support. - 4. Integration of Data Mining and Decision Support. - 5 Collaboration in a Data Mining Virtual Organization. - 6. Data Mining Processes and Collaboration Principles. - 7. Decision Support for Data Mining: An Introduction to Roc Analysis and Its Applications. - 8. Data Mining for Decision Support: Supportingmarketing Decisions Through Subgroup Discovery. - 9. Preprocessing for Data Mining and Decision Support. - 10 Data Mining and Decision Support Integration Through the Predictive Model Markup Language Standard and Visualization. - 11 Analysis of Slovenian Media Space. - 12 On the Road to Knowledge: Mining 21 Years of UK Traffic Accident Reports. - 13 Analysis of a Database of Research Projects Using Text Mining and Link Analysis. - 14 Web Site Access Analysis for a National Statistical Agency. - 15 Five Decision Support Applications. - 16. Large and Tall Buildings: A Case Study in the Application of Decision Support and Data Mining. - 17 A Combined Data Mining and Decision Support Approach to Educational Planning. - 18 Collaborative Data Mining with Ramsys and Sumatra TT: prediction of Resources for a Health Farm. - 19 Collaborative Decision Making: An Environmental Case Study. - 20 Lessons Learned From Data Mining, Decision Support and Collaboration. - 21. Internet Support to Collaboration: A KnowledgeManagement and Organizational Memory View. - 22. Mind the Gap: Academia-Business Partnership Models and E-Collaboration Lessons Learned.
Estimating Local Inequality from Nighttime Lights

: Economic inequality at the local level has been shown to be an important predictor of people’s political perceptions and preferences. However, research on these questions is hampered by the fact that local inequality is difﬁcult to measure and systematic data collections are rare, in particular in countries of the Global South. We propose a new measure of local inequality derived from nighttime light (NTL) emissions data. Our measure corresponds to the local inequality in per capita nighttime light emissions, using VIIRS -derived nighttime light emissions data and spatial population data from WorldPop . We validate our estimates using local inequality estimates from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for a sample of African countries. Our results show that nightlight-based inequality estimates correspond well to those derived from survey data, and that the relationship is not due to structural factors such as differences between urban and rural regions. We also present predictive results, where we approximate the (survey-based) level of local inequality with our nighttime light indicator. This illustrates how our approach can be used for new cases where no other data are available.
High expression of Ran binding protein 1 predicts poor outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma patients: a Cancer Genome Atlas database analysis.

Background Ran-specific binding protein 1 (RANBP1) is involved in the regulation of the cell cycle, while its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unknown. Therefore, we aimed to demonstrate the association of RANBP1 with clinicopathologic features and potential biological functions in HCC based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data. Methods We assessed RANBP1 expression and its correlation with clinicopathologic features and evaluated the prognostic value of RANBP1 with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and the MethSurv database. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were conducted to elucidate the factors responsible for prognosis. The identification of a co-expression network and the analysis of related biological events with RANBP1 in HCC were assessed using LinkedOmics. Moreover, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was employed to annotate the biological function of RANBP1. We also explored the correlation between RANBP1 and tumor immune infiltrates using a single sample GSEA (ssGSEA). Results The expression of RANBP1 was found significantly elevated in HCC and linked to advanced T stage and histopathological grade. Up-regulated RANBP1 expression was linked to poor prognosis. High DNA methylation levels of RANBP1 were significantly linked to very poor overall survival (OS). Co-expression network analysis revealed that RANBP1 was involved in ribosome, spliceosome, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) replication, ribonucleic acid (RNA) transport, and cell cycle. GSEA showed enrichment of G2M-checkpoint, Wingless and Int-1 (Wnt) cell signaling, and DNA repair in the RANBP1 high-expression phenotype. By using ssGSEA analysis, the increased RANBP1 expression was positively linked to the immune infiltration level of T helper cell type-1 (Th1) and negatively linked to the immune infiltration levels of T helper cell type-17 (Th17). Conclusions Findings suggest that RANBP1 may play a pivotal role in HCC prognosis and can potentially serve as a candidate biosignature and as a therapeutic target for HCC.
Application of sequential feeding to wide bandwidth, circularly polarised microstrip patch arrays

Sequential rotated feeding of circularly polarised microstrip arrays gives substantial improvements in performance and is an important new technique finding application in several current systems. Here, the application to microstrip arrays is examined. A detailed analysis of patch arrays with corporate feed networks incorporating non isolating splitters is described. Computed results for input VSWR and axial ratio for various array configurations show that, for best performance, the isolated patch VSWR and ellipticity on resonance should be optimised and that maximum bandwidth is obtained for clusters of three circularly polarised patches. Gain loss is found to be a significant bandwidth constraint resulting in an overall bandwidth not substantially wider than that of linearly polarised patches. It is concluded, however, that sequential rotation will allow use of lower Q patches leading to good array ellipticity and match over wider bandwidths than currently possible. < >
Assessment of Machine Learning Algorithms for Land Cover Classification Using Remotely Sensed Data

The purpose of this study was to apply the random forest (RF), XGBoost, and LightGBM machine learning (ML) algorithms to land cover classification, and to present the model tuning process for each algorithm. Sentinel-2 satellite images were used for land cover classification, and the land cover map provided by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea was used as label data. Each ML algorithm was applied using the constructed dataset. In addition, each ML algorithm was optimized by three methods (grid search, random search, and Bayesian optimization). The grid search took the longest time to optimize the hyperparameters because it required the highest number of search iterations, but the accuracy was highest. The random search was the fastest method of optimizing the hyperparameters. The accuracy of XGBoost was the highest for each ML algorithm. The prediction of XGBoost was the most consistent with the land cover map provided by the Ministry of Environment. However, the LightGBM algorithm has a major advantage in terms of the algorithm optimization and application time. Therefore, our study is meaningful in that we obtained a higher accuracy and shorter time for each ML algorithm.
Design methodology of microstrip lines using dimensional analysis

Dimensional analysis has been used to develop a new methodology in microwave integrated circuit design using microstrip lines. The analysis reveals a complete set of dimensionless products for the microstrip line. The dependencies between these products are established using the Pi theorem. Using commercial simulation tools and numerical fitting techniques, design formulas can be established. These design formulas calculate the desired microwave parameters, such as characteristic impedance, effective dielectric constants, and their frequency dependencies.
Chemosensory Evaluation of Training and Oxidative Stress in Long Distance Runners

Athletic performance is improved by increasing training loads but it is difficult to determine an athlete’s response to a training load and the amount of stress incurred. This makes athletes susceptible to overtraining, leading to decreased performance levels, due to physical exhaustion and oxidative stress. Past studies have observed a myriad of biomarkers without conclusively identifying a clinically specific marker for overtraining due to oxidative stress. These methods require invasive testing and lengthy result times, making real-time adjustments of training programs to prevent overtraining difficult. The use of an electronic nose (enose) as a non-invasive evaluation tool will provide immediate feedback on training stress, allowing for real-time training adjustments for performance optimization. Two long distance runners (one male and one female) completed a pilot study. Both performed a short run and the female performed a long run. Blood samples were collected from each athlete before and after each run and analyzed for catalase and GPx activity. Breath samples were also collected before and after each run and analyzed by an enose. Multivariate analyses of combined blood data yielded better results than individual analyses. Although data was limited for this pilot study, canonical discriminant analyses (CDA) showed separation between before and after run and between short and long run breath samples. Cross validations also found up to a 77.8 percent prediction accuracy for the enose. Results indicate an enose is feasible for detecting changes in the breath occurring after physically demanding exercise perhaps due to oxidative stress incurred during the exercise.
Spatial Characterization of the Dynamic Response of Frequencies Utilizing Structural Partition Procedure for Large-Scale Power System

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present an algorithm for analysing the actual spatial characterization of the dynamic responses of frequencies for large-scale power system. Based on the distribution feature of disturbance power, the measure of interaction (MI) is employed to analyse and quantify the strength of connection among the busses and generation units. The MI takes into account the interconnection constraints among network structure and parameters. In particular, only the network parameters are used in the proposed structural partition procedure. Case Studies carried out on the IEEE 68-bus system are presented to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the technique developed. Investigations show that the spatial characterization of the dynamic responses of frequencies can be accurately obtained with the procedure, independent of fault location and the size of disturbance, since the proposed technique is based on the structural feature of the system.
Design and Testing of a Motion Controlled Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe (GEMS) for Rehabilitation

viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Project Motivation 1 1.2 Design Goals 3 1.3 Section Overview 7 Chapter 2: Background 9 2.1 Human Walking Gait 9 2.2 Gait Rehabilitation 16 2.3 GEMS and Context Awareness 21 2.4 Previous GEMS Model 22 Chapter 3: Design and Assembly 27 3.1 Wheel Shape 28 3.2 Gear Train and Magnetic Particle Brake 34 3.2.1 Magnetic Particle Brake 36 3.2.2 Gear Train 38 3.3 Wheel Reset Mechanism 41 3.4 Electronics 47 3.4. 1 Microcontroller 48 3.4. 2 Accelerometer 50 3.4. 3 Potentiometer 52 3.4. 4 Battery Pack 54 3.5 GEMS Frame 56 3.6 Shoe Straps 57 3.7 Opposite Leg Support Platform 58 3.8 CAD Model Verification 59 Chapter 4: Results 61 Chapter 5: Future Work 67