Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
System of self-gravitating semidegenerate fermions with a cutoff of energy and angular momentum in their distribution function

The gravitational equilibrium of static, spherically symmetric, Newtonian systems consisting of a collisionless semidegenerate Fermi gas is studied. A cutoff in the phase space distribution function of the particles is introduced in order to avoid the problems arising from the infinite radius of semi-degenerate configurations when the usual Fermi-Dirac function is used. Here, the more general case of a cutoff in energy and angular momentum is considered, the latter giving an anisotropy in the velocity space
Impurity Turbulent Transport Studies using Gyro-Fluid Models

Impurity transport is modeled with gyrofluid simulations and theory for C-Mod discharges with internal transport barriers (ITBs) with peaked main-ion profiles that would lead to higher core reactivity in ITER. We collected a small database of relevant C-Mod discharges and calculate and estimate the large number of dimensionless parameters required to obtain the eigenvalues and eigenvectors for each discharge. From the eigenvectors, which give the polarization of the multi-component fluctuations, we construct the main ion and impurity particle fluxes to within a component fluctuation spectrum I(k) function. We use simulations and nonlinear theory to derive formulas for the spectrum. The result is a fast code that gives the particle fluxes as a function of the state of the plasma that could run in realtime on the transport time scale. To determine the separate diffusivities and pinch velocities we plot the particle flux versus the density gradient for each species and extract the slope and the intercept of the resulting function using a straight line fit as shown in Fig.1. Both peaked and hollow impurity profiles are observed in C-Mod and analyzed with theory and simulations. The I-mode with peaked density and temperature profiles is analyzed. We extrapolate the C-Mod parameters for boron to the ITER parameters for beryllium to search for trends of interest for the large tokamak. The results for quasilinear fluxes for a specified plasma discharge with measured boron profile in C-Mod are as shown in Fig. 1 for a typical hollow impurity
Spread option and exchange option with stochastic interest rates

In this work, we consider the issue of pricing exchange options and spread options with stochastic interest rates. We provide the closed form solution for the exchange option price when interest rate is stochastic. Our result holds when interest rate is modeled with a stochastic term structure of general form, which includes Vasicek model, CIR term structure, and other well-known term structure models as special cases. In particular, we have discussed the possibility of using our closed form solution as a control variate in pricing spread options with stochastic interest rate.
Racism and Racial Injustice During COVID-19: Impact on University Student Mental Health

The purpose of the study is to understand how undergraduate, graduate, and professional students were affected by the events of racial injustice and the COVID-19 pandemic. Data gathered from an online campus-wide survey administered during July and August 2020 indicated high levels of stress and rates of depression across all stages of training. A majority of these students also indicated that, while events around racism negatively impacted their mental health, such events did not affect student academic success as COVID-19 did. Although previous studies have demonstrated that student mental health has been negatively affected during COVID-19, this study shows that student mental health is also impacted by events driven by racism and racial injustice concurrent to the pandemic. In light of these findings, it is recommended that institutions adopt an intersectional approach toward addressing such contemporaneous stressors with initiatives that can adapt to multiple events simultaneously.
Longitudinal IgG antibody responses to Plasmodium vivax blood-stage antigens during and after acute vivax malaria in individuals living in the Brazilian Amazon

Background: To make progress towards malaria elimination, a highly effective vaccine targeting Plasmodium vivax is urgently needed. Evaluating the kinetics of natural antibody responses to vaccine candidate antigens after acute vivax malaria can inform the design of serological markers of exposure and vaccines. Methodology/Principal Findings: The responses of IgG antibodies to 9 P. vivax vaccine candidate antigens were evaluated in longitudinal serum samples from Brazilian individuals collected at the time of acute vivax malaria and 30, 60, and 180 days afterwards. Antigen-specific IgG correlations, seroprevalence, and half-lives were determined for each antigen using the longitudinal data. Antibody reactivity against Pv41 and PVX_081550 strongly correlated within each of the four time points. The analysis identified robust responses in terms of magnitude and seroprevalence against Pv41 and PvGAMA at 30 and 60 days. Among the 8 P. vivax antigens demonstrating >50% seropositivity across all individuals, antibodies specific to PVX_081550 had the longest half-life 100 days (95% CI, 83-130 days), followed by PvRBP2b (91 days; 95% CI, 76-110 days) and Pv12 (82 days; 95% CI, 64-110 days). Conclusion/Significance: This study provides an in-depth assessment of the kinetics of antibody responses to key vaccine candidate antigens in Brazilians with acute vivax malaria. Follow-up studies are needed to determine whether the longer-lived antibody responses induced by natural infection are effective in controlling blood-stage infection and mediating clinical protection.
A superconducting 7T multipole wiggler for the BESSY II synchrotron radiation source

To generate hard X-ray beams for residual stress analysis and for magnetic scattering using the BESSY II ring, a 7T wiggler with 17 poles is under development. The wiggler is designed for a critical energy of 16.8 keV with a 13 mm vertical free aperture and an inner chamber on a temperature of 20 K. Essential aspects of the conceptual magnet layout are discussed, e.g. coil and yoke geometry, and vacuum chamber design. A prototype structure with 7 poles has already been built to verify the technical layout of the wiggler. First experimental results for the prototype magnet are presented, demonstrating that a maximum field of 7.3 T can be obtained with the present design.
A Fast-Response NMOS-LDO Voltage Regulator without on-chip Compensated Capacitor

A NMOS type low-dropout (NMOS-LDO) voltage regulator with fast transient response is proposed in this paper. The NMOS-LDO is a dual-loop circuit whose inner loop can increase the regulating speed of the output voltage of the proposed LDO, and a NPN is adapted to move the dominate pole from the output point to the inner of the LDO chip without any miller capacitor or other on-chip compensated capacitor. In 0.35$\mu$m CMOS process, the simulation results of the proposed LDO show that the rise time and fall time of LDO are about 2.11$\mu$s and 4.26$\mu$s for 10$\mu$A ~ 10mA step change of load current.
Investigation of Image Processing based Real-time Flood Monitoring

Image processing in various monitoring systems has been known recently. The accuracy of detection and prediction in the image region is one of the critical issues for many applications. Moreover, the processing time is an important factor to make the real-time monitoring system. Image processing techniques have been studied for improving the process of the monitoring system. This approach will be implemented on the real applications in the future. In this paper, the flood monitoring system has been evaluated in terms of the accuracy and processing time based on the image processing with respect to various setting parameters which are affected to performance in each technique. The experimental results show the influence of these parameters on the accuracy and processing time. According to the results, canny edge detection presents the best image processing techniques which has been proposed to implement in the real environmental application.
Food and nutrient intakes and compliance with recommendations in school-aged children in Ireland: findings from the National Children’s Food Survey II (2017–2018) and changes since 2003–2004.

Abstract The childhood years represent a period of increased nutrient requirements during which a balanced diet is important to ensure optimal growth and development. The aim of this study was to examine food and nutrient intakes and compliance with recommendations in school-aged children in Ireland and to examine changes over time. Analyses were based on two National Children’s Food Surveys; NCFS (2003–2004) (n 594) and NCFS II (2017–2018) (n 600) which estimated food and nutrient intakes in nationally representative samples of children (5–12 years) using weighed food records (NCFS: 7-d; NCFS II: 4-d). This study found that nutrient intakes among school-aged children in Ireland are generally in compliance with recommendations; however, this population group have higher intakes of saturated fat, free sugars and salt, and lower intakes of dietary fibre than recommended. Furthermore, significant proportions have inadequate intakes of vitamin D, Ca, Fe and folate. Some of the key dietary changes that have occurred since the NCFS (2003–2004) include decreased intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages, fruit juice, milk and potatoes, and increased intakes of wholemeal/brown bread, high-fibre ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, porridge, pasta and whole fruit. Future strategies to address the nutrient gaps identified among this population group could include the continued promotion of healthy food choices (including education around ‘healthy’ lifestyles and food marketing restrictions), improvements of the food supply through reformulation (fat, sugar, salt, dietary fibre), food fortification for micronutrients of concern (voluntary or mandatory) and/or nutritional supplement recommendations (for nutrients unlikely to be sufficient from food intake alone).
Efficient Group-Sparse Transceiver Design for Multiuser MIMO Relaying in C-RAN

This paper addresses the design of multiuser MIMO amplify-and-forward relaying within a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) from an energy-efficiency perspective. The aim is to jointly select remote radio heads and optimize their transceiver in order to assist the communication between multiple source-destination pairs. We formulate the design problem as an interference leakage minimization subject to per-relay power constraints along with linear signal preserving constraints at the destinations. To obtain an energy efficient relaying solution, the objective function is penalized with a regularization term which promotes group-sparsity among the resultant relaying weights. A low-complexity iterative algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is then proposed to solve the regularized problem. Simulation results demonstrate the explicit benefits of the proposed algorithm, which results in notably lower power consumption and computational complexity than conventional relaying design methods.
A cost-effective tsCUT&Tag method for profiling transcription factor binding landscape.

Knowledge of the transcription factor binding landscape (TFBL) is necessary to analyze gene regulatory networks for important agronomic traits. However, a low-cost and high-throughput in vivo chromatin profiling method is still lacking in plants. Here, we developed a transient and simplified CUT&Tag (tsCUT&Tag) that combines transient expression of transcription factor proteins in protoplasts with a simplified CUT&Tag without nucleus extraction. Our tsCUT&Tag method provided higher data quality and signal resolution with lower sequencing depth compared to traditional ChIP-seq. Furthermore, we developed a strategy combining tsCUT&Tag with machine learning, which has great potential for profiling the TFBL across plant development. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Establishment and Characterization of Carboplatin-Resistant Retinoblastoma Cell Lines

Carboplatin-based chemotherapy is the primary treatment option for the management of retinoblastoma, an intraocular malignant tumor observed in children. The aim of the present study was to establish carboplatin-resistant retinoblastoma cell lines to facilitate future research into the treatment of chemoresistant retinoblastoma. In total, two retinoblastoma cell lines, Y79 and SNUOT-Rb1, were treated with increasing concentrations of carboplatin to develop the carboplatin-resistant retinoblastoma cell lines (termed Y79/CBP and SNUOT-Rb1/CBP, respectively). To verify resistance to carboplatin, the degree of DNA fragmentation and the expression level of cleaved caspase-3 were evaluated in the cells, following carboplatin treatment. In addition, the newly developed carboplatin-resistant retinoblastoma cells formed in vivo intraocular tumors more effectively than their parental cells, even after the intravitreal injection of carboplatin. Interestingly, the proportion of cells in the G0/G1 phase was higher in Y79/CBP and SNUOT-Rb1/CBP cells than in their respective parental cells. In line with these data, the expression levels of cyclin D1 and cyclin D3 were decreased, whereas p18 and p27 expression was increased in the carboplatin-resistant cells. In addition, the expression levels of genes associated with multidrug resistance were increased. Thus, these carboplatin-resistant cell lines may serve as a useful tool in the study of chemoresistance in retinoblastoma and for the development potential therapeutics.
Thrust and torque production of a squid-inspired swimmer with a bent nozzle for thrust vectoring

A three-dimensional pulsed-jet propulsion model consisting of a flexible body and a steerable bent nozzle in tethered mode is presented and studied numerically. By prescribing the body deformation and nozzle angle, we examine the flow evolution and propulsive/turning performance via thrust vectoring. Our results show that the vortex ring is no longer axis-symmetric when the jet is ejected at an angle with the incoming flow. A torque peak is observed during jetting, which is mainly sourced from the suction force (negative pressure) at the lower part of the internal nozzle surface when the flow is directed downward through an acute angle. After this crest, the torque is dominated by the positive pressure at the upper part of the internal nozzle surface, especially at a relatively low jet-based Reynolds number (O(102)). The torque production increases with a larger nozzle bent angle as expected. Meanwhile, the thrust production remains almost unchanged, showing little trade-off between thrust and torque production which demonstrates the advantage of thrust vectoring via a bent nozzle. By decoupling the thrust at the internal and outer surfaces considering special characteristics of force generation by pulsed-jet propulsion, we find that variations in Reynolds number mostly affect the viscous friction at the outer surfaces. The influence of the maximum stroke ratio is also studied. Results show that both the time-averaged thrust and the torque decrease at a larger stroke ratio.
Cardioprotective factors against myocardial infarction selected in vivo from an AAV secretome library

Therapies for patients with myocardial infarction and heart failure are urgently needed, in light of the breadth of these conditions and lack of curative treatments. To systematically identify previously unidentified cardioactive biologicals in an unbiased manner in vivo, we developed cardiac FunSel, a method for the systematic, functional selection of effective factors using a library of 1198 barcoded adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors encoding for the mouse secretome. By pooled vector injection into the heart, this library was screened to functionally select for factors that confer cardioprotection against myocardial infarction. After two rounds of iterative selection in mice, cardiac FunSel identified three proteins [chordin-like 1 (Chrdl1), family with sequence similarity 3 member C (Fam3c), and Fam3b] that preserve cardiomyocyte viability, sustain cardiac function, and prevent pathological remodeling. In particular, Chrdl1 exerted its protective activity by binding and inhibiting extracellular bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4), which resulted in protection against cardiomyocyte death and induction of autophagy in cardiomyocytes after myocardial infarction. Chrdl1 also inhibited fibrosis and maladaptive cardiac remodeling by binding transforming growth factor–β (TGF-β) and preventing cardiac fibroblast differentiation into myofibroblasts. Production of secreted and circulating Chrdl1, Fam3c, and Fam3b from the liver also protected the heart from myocardial infarction, thus supporting the use of the three proteins as recombinant factors. Together, these findings disclose a powerful method for the in vivo, unbiased selection of tissue-protective factors and describe potential cardiac therapeutics. Description In vivo functional selection in mice identifies chordin-like 1, Fam3c, and Fam3b as cardiac protective factors after myocardial infarction. Selecting protectors Preventing cardiomyocyte death helps preserve cardiac function after myocardial infarction (MI). Here, Ruozi et al. developed cardiac FunSel, an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector–based screen, to identify cardioprotective proteins in mice. Injecting pooled AAV9 barcoded vectors into the hearts of mice revealed several previously unidentified secreted factors associated with cardiomyocyte survival after MI. Secretion of three select proteins (chordin-like 1 and family with sequence similarity 3 members B and C) using liver-specific AAVs in mice limited maladaptive cardiac remodeling and preserved cardiac function after MI by promoting autophagy and cell survival and inhibiting fibrosis. This in vivo screening method could help identify cardioprotective therapeutic targets.
Model reduction techniques for probabilistic verification of Markov chains

Probabilistic model checking is a quantitative verification technique that aims to verify the correctness of probabilistic systems. Nevertheless, it suffers from the so-called state space explosion problem. In this thesis, we propose two new model reduction techniques to improve the efficiency and scalability of verifying probabilistic systems, focusing on discrete-time Markov chains (DTMCs). In particular, our emphasis is on verifying quantitative properties that bound the time or cost of an execution. We also focus on methods that avoid the explicit construction of the full state space. We first present a finite-horizon variant of probabilistic bisimulation for DTMCs, which preserves a bounded fragment of PCTL. We also propose another model reduction technique that reduces what we call linear inductive DTMCs, a class of models whose state space grows linearly with respect to a parameter. All the techniques presented in this thesis were developed in the PRISM model checker. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our work by applying it to a selection of existing benchmark probabilistic models, showing that both of our two new approaches can provide significant reductions in model size and in some cases outperform the existing implementations of probabilistic verification in PRISM.
Impact Vertices-Aware Diffusion Walk Algorithm for Efficient Subgraph Pattern Matching in Massive Graphs

Subgraph pattern matching is a basic building block for many applications. Where to commence the pattern matching task and how to proceed are fundamental issues in massive graphs. In this paper, we propose the most impact vertices in view of a query graph and diffusion walk on data graph. We present a novel impact vertices-aware diffusion walk algorithm, a distributed algorithm named DiffWalk, for subgraph pattern matching. Our algorithm employs the most impact vertices from a query graph to locate the initial search position and then proceeds to traverse a large-scale data graph by diffusion walk. We give theoretical analyses based on probability inference and spectral graph, which prove that graph pattern matching beginning at the most impact vertices could prevent comparison overhead by low-probability events first, also prove that diffusion walk could traverse graph efficiently. We have performed a range of experiments that demonstrate our algorithm efficiency both in running time and communication size.
A version of Szemerédi's regularity lemma for multicolored graphs and directed graphs that is suitable for induced graphs

In this manuscript we develop a version of Szemer\'edi's regularity lemma that is suitable for analyzing multicolorings of complete graphs and directed graphs. In this, we follow the proof of Alon, Fischer, Krivelevich and M. Szegedy [Combinatorica, 20(4) (2000), 451--476] who prove a similar result for graphs. The purpose is to extend classical results on dense hereditary properties, such as the speed of the property or edit distance, to the above-mentioned combinatorial objects.
Shaping a Soft Future: Patterning Liquid Metals

This review highlights the unique techniques for patterning liquid metals containing gallium (e.g., eutectic gallium indium, EGaIn). These techniques are enabled by two unique attributes of these liquids relative to solid metals: 1) The fluidity of the metal allows it to be injected, sprayed, and generally dispensed. 2) The solid native oxide shell allows the metal to adhere to surfaces and be shaped in ways that would normally be prohibited due to surface tension. The ability to shape liquid metals into non‐spherical structures such as wires, antennas, and electrodes can enable fluidic metallic conductors for stretchable electronics, soft robotics, e‐skins, and wearables. The key properties of these metals with a focus on methods to pattern liquid metals into soft or stretchable devices are summari.