Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relating Sensory, Cognitive, and Neural Factors to Older Persons' Perceptions about Happiness: An Exploratory Study

Despite increased rates of disease, disability, and social losses with aging, seniors consistently report higher levels of subjective well-being (SWB), a construct closely related to happiness, than younger adults. In this exploratory study, we utilized an available dataset to investigate how aspects of health commonly deteriorating with age, including sensory (i.e., vision and hearing) and cognitive status, relate to variability in self-described contributors to happiness. Community-dwelling seniors (n = 114) responded to a single-item prompt: “name things that make people happy. ” 1731 responses were categorized into 13 domains of SWB via structured content analysis. Sensory health and cognition were assessed by Snellen visual acuity, pure-tone audiometry, and in-person administration of the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone (BTACT) battery. A subset of eligible participants (n = 57) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess resting state functional connectivity (FC) within a previously described dopaminergic network associated with reward processing. SWB response patterns were relatively stable across gender, sensory status, and cognitive performance with few exceptions. For example, hearing-impaired participants listed fewer determinants of SWB (13.59 vs. 17.16; p < 0.001) and were less likely to name things in the “special events” category. Participants with a higher proportion of responses in the “accomplishments” domain (e.g., winning, getting good grades) demonstrated increased FC between the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, regions implicated in reward and motivated behavior. While the framework for determinants of happiness among seniors was largely stable across the factors assessed here, our findings suggest that subtle changes in this construct may be linked to sensory loss. The possibility that perceptions about determinants of happiness might relate to differences in intrinsic connectivity within reward-related brain networks also warrants further investigation.
In Situ Calibration of Magnetic Coil System Using Ellipticity-Induced Bell-Bloom Magnetometer

The three-axis coil system is most commonly used in magnetic field measurement. The coil constant is an important parameter. We demonstrate a method to measure the coil constant based on the Larmor frequency. An elliptically polarized light is used to simultaneously excite the spin orientation and spin alignment via synchronous optical pumping. And then the coil system can be calibrated by measuring the magnetic resonance frequency of Bell-Bloom magnetometer. The advantage of this method is that the coil constants of all three directions can be obtained without any active adjustments. It is important for some applications, such as measuring the biological magnetic field with the integrated magnetometer. The method for calibration of a three-axis coil system is experimentally exploited. The experimental results show that the calibration accuracy of pT level can be achieved.
Childcare Correlates of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Adiposity in Preschool Children: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the SPLASHY Study

Background The childcare (CC) environment can influence young children's physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and adiposity. The aim of the study was to identify a broad range of CC correlates of PA, SB, and adiposity in a large sample of preschoolers. Methods 476 preschool children (mean age 3.9 yrs; 47% girls) participated in the Swiss Preschoolers' Health Study (SPLASHY). PA and SB were measured by accelerometry. Outcome measures included total PA (TPA), moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA), SB, body mass index (BMI), and skinfold thickness (SF). PA measures consisted of both daily PA during CC attendance days and overall daily PA (CC and non-CC days). Results We identified the following CC correlates for higher TPA and/or higher MVPA or lower SB during CC attendance days: older age, sex (boys), more frequent child-initiated interactions during CC, mixing different ages within a group, and the presence of a written PA policy in the CC (all p ≤ 0.02). The CC correlates for overall TPA and/or MVPA or lower overall SB including both CC and non-CC days were the following: older age, sex (boys), more frequent child-initiated interactions during CC, mixing different ages within a group, less parental PA involvement in the CC, and having a larger surface area in CC (all p ≤ 0.046). Correlates for lower SF were sex (boys) and parental PA involvement in the CC (all p ≤ 0.02), and, for lower BMI, only increased age (p=0.001) was a correlate. Conclusions More frequent child-initiated interactions and mixing different ages in CC, the presence of a written PA policy, and a larger CC surface are correlates of PA and SB during CC attendance days and/or of overall PA. Parental involvement in CC PA projects was a correlate for reduced body fat. These novel factors are mostly modifiable and can be tackled/addressed in future interventions.
Electrical Source Imaging in Rats: Cortical EEG Performance and Limitations

The goal of the present work is to estimate electric activity within the brain volume based on measured potentials on the rats brain surface. At first, we calculated and analyzed sensitivity volume profile of cortical electrode pairs to address the cortical electrode positioning. Sensitivity volume profiles change rapidly with decreasing of expected minimal depth of the sources. Moreover, the profiles become unreliable in case of very small expected minimal depths, which is, unfortunately, the case of cortical electroencephalogram (EEG). This result was obtained in both analytical and numerical models. Second, appropriate regularization and normalization routines were implemented for minimum norm estimate and beam-forming methods. Third, the inverse methods were applied to localize simulated brain deep sources based on the twelve electrode cortical EEG system.
Graphene-based electro-optical modulators integrated into polymer waveguide with three dielectric materials proposals

This work presents an analysis of electro-optical modulators integrated into polymer waveguides, which operates over electro-absorption effect through graphene. This study focus in three different dielectric materials for the capacitive structure in the device such as silicon nitride, Si3N4, hafnium oxide, HfO2 and boron nitride, hBN. By varying the thickness of the dielectric material, it was possible to improve the extinction ratio, modulation frequency and reduce the switching voltages requirements. By considering a bottom cladding, it was possible to increase the light interaction with the graphene and obtain higher modulation frequencies. In the case of the device with HfO2, it was possible to obtain the highest extinction rate of 0.117 dB/μm with a dielectric thickness of 50 nm. For the model with the hBN thickness layer of 50 nm, the maximum operation frequency was 35 GHz, considering a device length of 27 μm. The condition with the minimum voltage requirements was obtained with HfO2, which the value switching was between 2.5 and 5 V. Although the results with Si3N4 are not the best, it is a good option when the device project try to match all the design requirements.
Antipodal UWB Vivaldi Antenna with Pseudoelement and Notched Flares for 2.5-57 GHz Applications

Novel methods of improving directivity and decreasing sidelobe radiation via the addition of an elliptical pseudoelement and irregularly-spaced notches in the tapered slot antenna are presented in this paper. This antenna has been shown to be functional over the C, X, Ku, K. , Ka, and portions of the Sand V bands covering 2.5 − 57 (22.8:1 bandwidth) GHz. Minimum and maximum realized gains of 5.2 and 15.2 dBi were achieved at 2.5 and 32 GHz. , respectively. As compared to other Vivaldi antennas reported in the past, the proposed design offers a larger bandwidth while providing 3–4 dBi higher gain in the majority of the band.
Focal Intensity Distribution Manipulation with Huygens Metamirror

Huygens metasurface is new type of two-dimension metasurface composed of crossed electric and magnetic dipoles. Due to the outstanding merits, the proposed reflective Huygens metasurface is designed with 2πreflection phase range on condition that the reflection amplitude keeps above 0.99, and a multi-focus imaging Huygens metamirror is fist proposed. Compared with traditional imaging, Huygens metamirror can tailor the microwave to specified points, no matter the focal location, focal number or even the focal intensity distribution, adding a new degree of freedom to imaging manipulation. Our research offers a new method to the multi-focus imaging at microwave band and the Huygens metamirror offers the potential for applications in antenna and imaging system.
Control of DC-DC Converter for Interfacing Supercapcitors Energy storage to DC Micro Grids

The DC/DC converter control presents non-minimum phase behaviour in boost mode as its control plant has a Right Hand Plane (RHP) zero. The RHP zero restricts the achievement of high dynamic performance and make the control design a challenging task. This paper investigates the use of classic PI controller and Model Predictive Control (MPC) to regulate the converter output voltage to achieve high dynamic performance. The DC/DC converter under study is a non-isolated bidirectional DC/DC converter interfacing supercapacitors energy storage device to a DC Micro Grid(DCMG). The MPC control problem is formulated as a current regulation problem, which enables using a short prediction horizon and hence less computational power. The controllers design are compared and performance are verified using MATLAB software.
Organoruthenium(II) complexes of acetazolamide potently inhibit human carbonic anhydrase isoforms I, II, IX and XII

Abstract Two acetazolamide (AAZ) complexes with ruthenium(II) η6-p-cymene chloride were synthesised, characterised and tested for their inhibitory effects on several carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) isoforms with pharmacological applications. Against human (h) isoform hCA I, the two complexes showed inhibition constants in the range of 8.5–23.4 nM (AAZ has a KI of 250 nM), against hCA II of 0.48–4.2 nM, whereas against hCA IX of 0.63–3.8 nM and against hCA XII of 0.04–0.52 nM, respectively. These highly effective ruthenium acetazolamide derivatives against the tumour-associated CA isoforms IX and XII warrant further in vivo studies, in hypoxic tumours overexpressing these enzymes.
Functional posterior communicating artery of patients with posterior circulation ischemia using phase contrast magnetic resonance angiography

Posterior communicating artery (PCoA) in patients with posterior circulation ischemia (PCI) was quantitatively studied using phase contrast magnetic resonance angiography (PC-MRA). Fifty-one cases who received PC-MRA were included in the study, and divided into the research and control groups. The mean flow volume, mean flow velocity, minimum flow volume, maximum flow volume, minimum flow velocity and maximum flow velocity of the basal artery (BA), bilateral vertebral arteries, internal carotid arteries and functional posterior communicating artery (F-PCoA) were recorded, the peak heights of flow volume and flow velocity were calculated, and the typing of F-PCoA was analyzed, followed by statistical analysis. Fifty-two F-PCoAs were detected, and the median values of mean flow volume, mean flow velocity, cross-sectional area and lumen diameter were 20.31 ml/min, 4.01 cm/sec, 0.08 cm2 and 0.16 cm, respectively. The blood flow curve of F-PCoA showed the sawtooth-like changes, and there could be either unidirectional blood flow or bidirectional blood flow in one cardiac cycle. F-PCoA was divided into the following 3 types: F-PCoA was consistent with anatomical PCoA (A-PCoA), F-PCoA was inconsistent with A-PCoA, and mixed type. In the presence of F-PCoA, both the diameter and cross-sectional area of BA were small, and the maximum flow velocity and peak height of flow volume were reduced, but there was no necessary correlation with the occurrence of PCI. Both flow volume and flow velocity of BA in the research group were reduced, and the forward posterior shunt flow of F-PCoA was increased. Hemodynamic characteristics of F-PCoA can be analyzed via PC-MRA. The forward posterior shunt flow of F-PCoA can provide references for the clinical auxiliary diagnosis.
Modified Balanced Antipodal Vivaldi antennas with Substrate-Integrated Lenses for 2–18 GHz Application

Conventional balanced antipodal Vivaldi antennas (BAVAs) normally have deep ripple levels in mainlobe region and significant beamwidth variation over upper frequency band, which are drawbacks for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications. This letter describes two types of lenses in front of BAVA to overcome these defects. A gradient-index semi-cylindrical lens and a cylindrical lens are utilized to improve ripples depth of E-plane mainlobe and broaden H-plane beamwidth, respectively. Both these lenses and BAVA are integrated on the same substrate and the desired refractive indexes of lenses are realized by a combination of a set of air-filled holes in the substrate. The detailed analysis, design and discussion for the modified BAVA with lenses (BAVA-L) and conventional BAVA are performed. The results show that BAVA-Ls offer attractive features such as smaller ripple levels in E-plane mainlobe, wider H-plane beamwidth and higher aperture efficiency, while maintaining good bandwidth characteristics over 2-18GHz.
Separating memoranda in depth increases visual working memory performance

Visual working memory is the mechanism supporting the continued maintenance of information after sensory inputs are removed. Although the capacity of visual working memory is limited, memoranda that are spaced farther apart on a 2-D display are easier to remember, potentially because neural representations are more distinct within retinotopically organized areas of visual cortex during memory encoding, maintenance, or retrieval. The impact on memory of spatial separability in depth is less clear, even though depth information is essential to guiding interactions with objects in the environment. On one account, separating memoranda in depth may facilitate performance if interference between items is reduced. However, depth information must be inferred indirectly from the 2-D retinal image, and less is known about how visual cortex represents depth. Thus, an alternative possibility is that separation in depth does not attenuate between-items interference; it may even impair performance, as attention must be distributed across a larger volume of 3-D space. We tested these alternatives using a stereo display while participants remembered the colors of stimuli presented either near or far in the 2-D plane or in depth. Increasing separation in-plane and in depth both enhanced performance. Furthermore, participants who were better able to utilize stereo depth cues showed larger benefits when memoranda were separated in depth, particularly for large memory arrays. The observation that spatial separation in the inferred 3-D structure of the environment improves memory performance, as is the case in 2-D environments, suggests that separating memoranda in depth might reduce neural competition by utilizing cortically separable resources.
A New Decoupling Method for Massive MIMO Antennas

A novel method for reducing mutual coupling in massive MIMO antennas is proposed. The decoupling is achieved by embedding two couples of metal meander line strips vertically and horizontally between two antenna elements, providing additional coupling paths to reduce the coupling between two input ports. The decoupling method is validated by simulating a 3 × 3 and a 4 × 4 dual-polarized antenna arrays. It is shown that the isolation is improved by 10 dB between the input ports of two adjacent antenna elements with the same polarization while there is little change for radiation patterns and the isolation between the input ports for two orthogonal polarizations.
A Heuristic Approach for Efficient Load Balancing in Cloud Using Weight Based Algorithm

Cloud computing is a large pool of system in which private or public networks are interconnected in order to provide the scalable infrastructure to application, data and file storage. It is considered as the computer archetype in which large amount of information is stored. It helps in the significant reduction of the cost of computation, application hosting, content storage and delivery. In order to experience direct cost benefits, cloud computing is considered as a practical approach and it can possibly transform a data center from a capital-intensive set up to a variable priced environment. It provides the feasibility to its customers that they can access their information from anywhere they want. Therefore, cloud overcomes the limitation of the location constraint. As compared to traditional concepts, cloud computing coveys the concept of the grid computing, distributed computing, utility computing or autonomic computing. When any virtual machine gets overloaded, fault may occur in the cloud environment. With the help of ACO algorithm, technique of adaptive task scheduling is proposed. Using this method, it becomes easy to transfer the task to the most reliable virtual machine. On the basis of calculated weight at virtual machine, the reliability of the virtual machine is calculated. The proposed and existing algorithms have been implemented in CloudSim. On the basis of the simulation results, it is concluded that the proposed method shows the reduction in the execution time as compared to existing technique.
A Survey on Intelligent Traffic Lights

Transportation of people and goods has a huge impact on the economy of countries. The exponential grows of vehicles in the cities brings traffic congestion consequences like pollution, high combustible consumption and lowers the quality of life of the citizens. The development of Intelligent Transportation Systems is a key component of Smart Cities; Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques used to build Intelligent Traffic Light Controllers (ITLC). This paper presents a survey of current technologies being use in the development of ITLC; many of them are experimental and tested in simulators, which show that implanting ITLC systems in real scenarios is difficult and expensive. The main objective of this survey is to find related work and algorithms to control traffic in real-time scenarios with AI. Artificial Vision rises as a promising technology for building reliable Intelligent Traffic Lights (ITL) as the technology evolves the error rate is decreasing, and more applications appear such as vehicle counting and classification, identifying vehicle’s moving patterns and giving priority for emergency vehicles. Furthermore, ITL implementation discussed, and the algorithms and different solutions compared.
Diminished circulating retinol and elevated α-TOH/retinol ratio predict an increased risk of cognitive decline in aging Chinese adults, especially in subjects with ApoE2 or ApoE4 genotype

Objective: The current study evaluated the relationship between circulating fat soluble vitamin status and cognition in aging Chinese population. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 1754 community residents aged 55-80 years aiming to evaluate the relationship between circulating α-tocopherol and retinol status and cognition. The effect of ApoE genetic polymorphism on the relationship between vitamins and cognition was also explored. Results: Our results indicated that serum retinol status positively correlated with cognitive performance; while, serum α-tocopherol (α-TOH)/retinol ratio negatively correlated with cognitive performance. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subject demonstrated higher serum α-TOH status (P < 0.05), α-TOH/retinol ratio (P < 0.01) and lower retinol status (P < 0.01) than normal subjects. Subjects with ApoE4 genotype have lower serum retinol level (P < 0.05) and higher α-TOH/retinol ratio (P < 0.01) than subjects with ApoE3 genotype. MCI-ApoE4 carriers demonstrated the worst cognitive performance (P < 0.05) and exhibited higher serum TC, α-TOH and α-TOH/retinol ratio levels (P < 0.05), and lower LDL-C, retinol and lipid-adjusted retinol status (P < 0.05). MCI-ApoE2 subjects showed higher serum TC, HDL-C content and α-TOH/retinol ratio (P < 0.05); and lower serum retinol and lipid-adjusted retinol status (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Lower circulating retinol and higher α-TOH/retinol ratio potentially predicts an increased risk for the development of cognitive decline in aging Chinese adults. ApoE2 or E4 carriers with higher circulating α-TOH/retinol ratio infer poor cognitive performance and an increased risk of developing MCI.
On the use of high-order MIMO for crosstalk mitigation in multi-core fiber based SDM systems

We review our latest contributions towards the development of long-distance transmission systems using homogeneous single-mode multi-core fibers supported by high-order MIMO for crosstalk mitigation. These include the use of high-order MIMO to mitigate the crosstalk impact assisted by inter-core skew compensation to manage the temporal extent of the system impulse response.
Nearest Level Control for a three-phase to single-phase Modular Multilevel Converter for Solid State Transformers

The three-phase to medium frequency single-phase direct conversion with the Modular Multilevel Converter for Solid State Transformers involves control and modulation challenges due to the switching devices limitations. The use of Nearest Level Control (NLC) as a modulation technique to properly synthesize medium frequency voltages at the output is proposed on this paper, paying special attention to the arm inductors effect at medium frequency operation. Using NLC results in low distortion medium voltage and medium frequency single-phase output, achieving good controllability and reaffirming the suitability of the converter for its application in Solid State Transformers.
An Experimental Pilot Study of Cranberry Crop Yield Estimation Using Near-Field Microwave Sensing

We present a pilot investigation of near-field microwave sensing for cranberry crop yield estimation using an open-ended rectangular waveguide suspended above the cranberry canopy surface. We compare the performance of two estimation techniques applied to 1.0-1.3 GHz reflection coefficient data measured at 20 unique test sites in a bed in central Wisconsin. The maximum cranberry yield at these test sites was 900 cubic centimeters (cc) per square-foot surface area. A linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with principal component analysis (PCA) and error-correcting-output codes applied to the measured microwave data was able to correctly estimate the volume within 125 cc (roughly 50–60 berries) of the true canopy berry volumes in 71% of the test cases.
W-band High-Performance Cavity-backed Slot Antenna Array with Inverted Microstrip Gap Waveguide

This paper presents the design of a W-band 1⨯4 slot antenna array fed by the inverted microstrip gap waveguide (IMGW)with wide impedance bandwidth and high gain performance. The proposed cavity-backed slot antenna array is composed of an IMGW feeding network, radiation slots, and cavity back-shorts on the metal ground. Firstly, a novel antenna unit with wide band and good radiation pattern performance is designed. The radiation cavity is realized by moving periodic pins around the extended IMGW, and a stepped IMGW transmission line is used for the cavity excitation. Then, a 1⨯4 linear array is designed with a four-way IMWG feeding network to verify the performance of the antenna. The simulated results indicate that the impedance bandwidth of the proposed back-short slot antenna is 20.6% ranging from 87–107 GHz frequency range. The maximum realized gain of the antenna array is 13.1 dBi over the frequency range.