Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A single-institution chart review of breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy

ABSt RACt Rationale: Many of the immediate effects of chemotherapy are widely known, but the late effects postchemotherapy have not been extensively described. The purpose of this study was to determine the statistical occurrence of postchemotherapy arthralgia (PCA) in breast cancer patients in a single institution. The study further attempted to determine if certain chemotherapy regimes, comorbidities or menopausal status correlate with PCA symptoms. Methods: This retrospective chart review included all patients from the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre with Stage I, II or III breast cancer who received adjuvant chemotherapy during the 2005 calendar year. Information collected included the incidence of reported PCA and correlating factors. Results: A total of 56 charts were eligible for the study, with 51 satisfying the inclusion criteria. Of the eligible charts, 18 (35.3%) reported PCA and 33 (64.7%) did not report PCA. Of the charts reporting PCA, 5 cases (27.8%) were recorded at ≤ 8 weeks postchemotherapy, and 10 (55.5%) between 8 weeks and 16 weeks, inclusive. The remaining 3 charts (16.7%) reported PCA at ≥ 16 weeks. Within the PCA group, 5 patients (27.8%) were treated with fluorouracil + epirubicin + cyclophosphamide (FEC100) for a total of 6 cycles. Five patients (27.8%) were treated with 3 cycles of FEC100 plus 3 cycles of docetaxel. Four cases (22.2%) received 6 cycles of docetaxel + doxorubicin + cyclophosphamide (TAC) and 3 (16.7%) were given 4 cycles of doxorubicin + cyclophosphamide (AC). The remaining patient (5.5%) was treated with dose-dense epirubicin + cyclophosphamide (EC) for 6 cycles plus 4 cycles of paclitaxel. Of the 18 patients in the PCA group, 10 (55.5%) were premenopausal and 8 (44.5%) were postmenopausal prior to chemotherapy. Of the 10 premenopausal PCA patients, 6 (60%) were reported as having become postmenopausal following chemotherapy. Eleven patients (61.1%) in the PCA group were estrogen and/or progesterone receptor (ER/PR)-positive. Of these positive patients, 7 (63.6%) were treated with tamoxifen and 4 (36.4%) received an aromatase inhibitor (AI). Seven (38.9%) patients in the PCA group were ER/PR-negative. Conclusions: Our findings have highlighted that PCA is a common, unpleasant postchemotherapy event for a large proportion of breast cancer patients. It would be beneficial for physicians to inquire about symptoms of PCA and document the details in the patient chart. Furthermore, prospective studies should include specific questions such as character, onset, severity and treatment to help define the typical pattern of PCA. Such information could be used to diagnose this side effect and potentially help differentiate between PCA and onset of metastatic disease. OriginAl res eArch Canadian clinical investigations
The Humanity of Humanless Systems

This work considers the future of human interaction with progressively more autonomous systems. I argue that the temporal dissonance between the human’s ‘cycle time’ and machine ‘cycle time,’ will become an overwhelming barrier to collaborative interaction. We may slow machines, we may buffer information exchange, we may default to meta-levels of strategic interchange but in the end all transparency of information interchange will dissolve under the driving influence of time. HF/E is thus already fighting rear-guard action. The question remains as to the sustenance of human quality of life in this evolving milieu.
AUV-Based Multi-View Scanning Method for 3-D Reconstruction of Underwater Object Using Forward Scan Sonar

In this study, we propose an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)-based multi-directional scanning method of underwater objects using forward scan sonar (FSS). Recently, a method was developed that can generate a 3-D point cloud of an underwater object using FSS. However, the data comprised sparse and noisy characteristics that made it difficult for 3-D recognition. Another limitation was the absence of back and side surface information of an object. These limitations degraded the results of the 3-D reconstruction. We propose a multi-directional scanning strategy to improve the 3-D point cloud and reconstruction results where the AUV determines the direction of the next scan by analyzing the 3-D data of the object until the scanning is complete. This enables adaptive scanning based on the shape of the target object while reducing the amount of scanning time. Based on the scanning strategy, a polygonal approximation method for real-time 3-D reconstruction is developed to process scanned data groups of the 3-D point cloud. This process can efficiently handle multiple 3-D point cloud data for real-time operation and reduce its uncertainty. To verify the performance of our proposed method, simulations were performed with various objects and conditions. In addition, experiments were conducted in an indoor water tank, and the results were compared with the simulation results. Field experiments were conducted to verify the proposed method for more diverse environments and objects.
LLC Resonant Voltage Multiplier-Based Differential Power Processing Converter Using Voltage Divider with Reduced Voltage Stress for Series-Connected Photovoltaic Panels under Partial Shading

Partial shading on photovoltaic (PV) strings consisting of multiple panels connected in series is known to trigger severe issues, such as reduced energy yield and the occurrence of multiple power point maxima. Various kinds of differential power processing (DPP) converters have been proposed and developed to prevent partial shading issues. Voltage stresses of switches and capacitors in conventional DPP converters, however, are prone to soar with the number of panels connected in series, likely resulting in impaired converter performance and increased circuit volume. This paper proposes a DPP converter using an LLC resonant voltage multiplier (VM) with a voltage divider (VD) to reduce voltage stresses of switches and capacitors. The VD can be arbitrarily extended by adding switches and capacitors, and the voltage stresses can be further reduced by extending the VD. Experimental verification tests for four PV panels connected in series were performed emulating partial shading conditions in a laboratory and outdoor. The results demonstrated the proposed DPP converter successfully precluded the negative impacts of partial shading with mitigating the voltage stress issues.
Design of a Wide-Band Voltage-Controlled Ring Oscillator Implemented in 180 nm CMOS Technology

The design of a wide-band voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) modified as a VCO with programmable tail currents is introduced herein. The VCO is implemented by using CMOS current-mode logic stages, which are based on differential pairs that are connected in a ring topology. SPICE simulation results show that the VCO operates within the frequency ranges of 2.65–5.65 GHz, and when it is modified, the VCO with programmable tail currents operates between 1.38 GHz and 4.72 GHz. The design of the CMOS differential stage is detailed along with the symbolic approximation of its dominant pole, which is varied to increase the frequency response in order to achieve a higher oscillation frequency when implementing the ring oscillator structure. The layout of the VCO is described and pre- and post-layout simulations are provided, which are in good agreement using CMOS technology of 180 nm. Finally, process, voltage and temperature variations are performed to guarantee robustness of the designed CMOS ring oscillator.
Dual-Radio Tomographic Imaging With Shadowing-Measurement Awareness

Radio tomographic imaging (RTI) is a technology to locate the target by using an attenuation image. The attenuation image can be reconstructed from the shadowing received signal strength (RSS) measurements in a wireless network. However, due to multi-path interference and the limited measuring capability in hardware, not all the RSS measurements in a wireless network are informative shadowing measurements. Some measurements may increase or remain unchanged when the target shadows some links in the wireless network, which means that this part of RSS measurements is polluted. If the polluted RSS measurements are used to reconstruct the attenuation image, the image quality and the localization accuracy will deteriorate. To alleviate the effect of polluted RSS measurements, a dual-RTI approach with shadowing-measurement awareness is developed in this article. The proposed dual-RTI consists of two steps: 1) signal reconstruction step in dual space and 2) a backprojection step to obtain the attenuation image. The reconstruction in dual space can select the informative shadowing measurements automatically and allocate superior weights to them. Then, the backprojection step just utilizes the measurement vectors from the shadowing links to obtain the attenuation image. These two steps allow the dual-RTI to achieve better image quality and localization accuracy. Furthermore, the dual-RTI reduces the time consumption of the localization system, which facilitates the practical engineering applications. Finally, experiments from three different scenarios are conducted to validate the advantages of the dual-RTI approach.
Impact of Aging on Mechanical Properties of Thermally Conductive Gap Fillers

Thermal interface materials (TIMs) are an important component in electronic packaging, and there is a concerted effort to understand their reliability when used under various environmental load conditions. Previous researchers have investigated gap fillers and other types of TIMs to understand their performance degradation under loading conditions such as thermal cycling and thermal aging. Most of the study in the literature focuses on studying the changes in thermal properties, and there is a lack of understanding when it comes to studying the mechanical behavior of TIMs. Degradation of mechanical properties is the cause for the loss in thermal performance and is critical during TIM selection process. Moreover, mechanical properties such as modulus and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) are critical to assess performance of TIMs using finite element analysis (FEA) and potentially save time and money in the evaluation and selection process. Due to the very soft nature of TIMs, sample preparation is a challenging part of material characterization. In this paper, commercially available TIMs are studied using testing methods such as thermomechanical analyzer (TMA), dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA), and Fourier infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). These methods are used to characterize the material properties and study the changes in properties due to aging. In this work, the followings are presented: impact of filler content on the mechanical properties, sample preparation method for curable TIM materials with specified thicknesses, and impact of thermal aging on mechanical properties.
Ultra-fast analog ensemble using kd-tree

Analog ensemble (AnEn) is a popular probabilistic weather forecasting method based on similarity search. In that, forecasters are tasked to search for the top-m nearest neighbors (e.g., in terms of Euclidean distance) to a length-k query, from a set of historical data points in k-dimensional space. This is a straightforward yet time-consuming procedure, and few methods seem to be significantly better than a brute-force computation of all distances. To that end, I recommend using a kd-tree to perform AnEn, which appears to be one of (if not) the fastest approaches.
Voltage-Adjustable Capacitor Isolated Solid-State Transformer

This article proposes a voltage-adjustable capacitor isolated solid-state transformer (ACISST) to link the medium-voltage direct current distribution and low-voltage direct current distribution. Compared with traditional isolated bidirectional dc–dc converter, the proposed ACISST does not contain high-frequency transformer in base modules (BMs). The galvanic isolation between the primary side and the secondary side of the ACISST is realized by the isolation capacitor as quasi-isolation. The elimination of the high-frequency transformer eliminates the core losses of magnetic elements, improves the conversion efficiency to a certain extent, and reduces the weight of the ACISST. The voltage-adjustable unit realizes the secondary voltage regulation of stable control when the primary-side voltage fluctuates in an acceptable range or load power varies. Bidirectional power flowing is one of the features of ACISST, which is based on the bidirectional power flowing characteristic of BM and simplified dual active bridge. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.
Research and development spending and technical efficiency: evidence from biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector

Set within the expenditure context of the global financial crisis (GFC), this paper explores how the research and development (R&D) expenditures of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies affect their technical efficiency levels. A balanced panel of 149 US firms operating in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector (covering the period 2000–2017) was employed. Output-oriented partial frontier measures were used to measure the effect of R&D expenditure on firms’ technical efficiency levels. Findings suggest that company efficiency is an important contributor on the effects of R&D on productivity and efficiency. Result suggests that a relationship between technical efficiency and R&D expenditure exhibits a ‘U’-shape relationship. The estimated efficiency of biotechnology firms is higher compared to pharmaceutical firms driven by their higher R&D expenditure levels. We demonstrate that R&D expenditures are essential for firm efficiency. We posit that a threshold level for achieving optimal efficiency levels exist, which can be used to inform managerial and policy-making decisions at the firm level.
Control of a Bowden-Cable Actuation System With Embedded BoASensor for Soft Wearable Robots

Control of a Bowden-cable transmission requires dealing with varying frictional nonlinearity of the cable, which varies as the bend angle of the cable changes and degrades the performance of the output tension control if not compensated for. This article proposes a novel method of compensating for the changing nonlinearity of the Bowden cable. The method enables controlling the tension of a Bowden cable without directly measuring the output tension. The output tension differs from the input tension because of friction along the cable, which changes with the cable's bend angle. The bend angle can be estimated by using a Bowden-cable Angle (BoA) Sensor and the input tension of the actuation wire to compensate for the friction change. Friction compensation allows for feedforward control of the output tension of the Bowden-cable transmission despite the varying shape of the cable. The results show that the control error of the output tension decrease from 5.21 to 0.50 N when the bend angle of the Bowden cable change from 0° to 400°. The proposed control method can be fully embedded into a Bowden-cable system without redesigning the original device, minimizing the complexity and size of the actuation system. A Bowden-cable implementing the proposed control method is demonstrated with a soft wearable robotic hand.
Very Low Crosstalk Measurement of Substrate Integrated Coaxial Line (SICL)

When designing a microwave circuit involving substrate integrated coaxial lines (SICLs), it is important to know what real crosstalk between SICLs is. A measured crosstalk will be a good reference value in a practical design. In addition, it is also needed to compare and check the crosstalk from the simulation and calculation formula with measured results. However, it is very difficult to measure the crosstalk between SICLs because it is theoretically very low. In this study, for the first time, the crosstalk characteristics of a SICL are evaluated through experimental design and measurements. By adjusting the layout of the structures and implementing controlled experiments, interference caused by the presence of leaks and radiation at the interface and structural transitions is effectively suppressed. The experimental results show that for two parallel SICLs with a length of 30 mm and an interval of 5 mm, the isolation is greater than 80 dB for the measured frequency range of 1–8 GHz, significantly better than the results of the grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW).
Energy Optimal Control of Motor Drive System for Extending Ranges of Electric Vehicles

The short driving range per charge of electric vehicle is a critical shortcoming hindering its popularization and application. This article proposes an in-vehicle energy optimal control (EOC) to improve the efficiency of the motor drive system. This article first builds a vehicle's longitudinal dynamics model and a motor drive system's efficiency model. Then, a Lagrange–Euler-based optimal control theory is formulated with detailed proof. Based on the vehicle dynamics model, a cost function is constructed by considering the energy consumption and speed demand. Combining the cost function and the Lagrange–Euler-based optimal control theory, an in-vehicle EOC is proposed. The idea of the in-vehicle EOC is mainly to make the motor drive system operate in the high efficiency region as much as possible, which results in longer driving ranges. The in-vehicle EOC is validated on a co-simulation platform and the results show it outperforms the model predictive control method.
A Survey of Methods and Strategies for High-Precision Robotic Grasping and Assembly Tasks—Some New Trends

Grasping and assembly are essential tasks in high-precision robotic manipulation for industrial manufacturing as well as for home service applications. Many efforts have been devoted to this area in an attempt to meet the increasing precision requirement of the task. However, it remains a problematic objective to fulfill high precision, high reliability, high speed, and high flexibility all at once during one robotic manipulation task. To find answers to the above-mentioned problem, this article tries to categorize, review, and compare the recent works focusing on robotic grasping and assembly tasks to reveal some potential trends in this research area. The approaches will be divided into five groups based on the difference in the utilization of sensing or constraints. For each part, robotic grasping and assembly will be treated as practical cases to illustrate the concrete work in that area. This article could give the readers some knowledge on the current developments in robotic manipulation, and provide new thoughts on future direction in this area—inspiring new designs, structures, and systems to meet new requirements in applications in industrial manufacturing and home service.
A Switchless SiGe BiCMOS Bidirectional Amplifier for Wideband Radar Applications

This brief presents a switchless bidirectional amplifier (BDA) with 7-to-30 GHz of bandwidth (BW) and 11.2 dB of peak gain. Common impedance matching networks (IMN) are utilized for both directions, to form a low power and compact amplification stage. It achieves +0.58 dB/BW of a gain slope, which reaches its peak value at 21 GHz. Its output-referred 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) and group delay (GD) are measured as −2.5 dBm and 41 psec. while having ± 1.5 dB and ± 9.1 psec. variation over the defined BW. Moreover, the BDA dissipates 14 mW of power in 0.42 mm2 of area (including pads). The measurement results demonstrate that the BDA is compatible with the wideband transceiver systems. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the presented design has the best operating bandwidth with a positively sloped gain without sacrificing from the area, power consumption and other remaining RF features such as noise figure (NF).
ECG And Medical Diagnosis Based Recognition & Prediction Of Cardiac Disease Using Deep Learning

: In the present age, the most common reason of death is heart disease. Any ailment in heart and blood vessels is known as Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD). There are numerous factors responsible to CVD. The premature revealing and prediction of existence of CVD is required for medical treatments. There are numerous ways to identify and predict CVD. With the advancement in machine learning, Deep learning can be as tool to predict CVD. The paper presents several methodologies for recognition and prediction of CVD using deep learning. A broad spectrum of research on prediction of CVD using artificial neural network is presented in this paper. Medical diagnosis and ECG investigation using deep learning for CVD recognition and prediction is presented in this paper. The result shows that better sensitivity, accuracy and specificity can be obtained using deep learning.
Relevancia de proyectos demostrativos de bajo impacto ambiental y gran eficiencia energética

This work presents three demonstration projects, which respond to different environmental conditions, scales and functional requirements in Argentina: the Interpretation Centre of the Ecological Reserve, commissioned by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, a single family house in Bariloche and the Biosphere Station Yaboti, centre for biodiversity studies in the Misiones Forest for the UNDP, United Nations Development Programme. The three projects were undertaken by the Research Centre Habitat and Energy, of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires, within the framework of the Technical Assistance Programme for Bioclimatic Architecture. These examples demonstrate the feasibility of projects with low environmental impact, high energy efficiency, and comfort conditions achieved by natural means, by implementing bioclimatic strategies and integrating solar systems in architecture, and devising a programme to monitor and audit energy performance, thermal characteristics and user satisfaction.
Frequency reconfigurable dual-band MIMO antenna using pentagon slot resonator with improved bandwidth

In this paper, multiple-input–multiple output (MIMO) antenna with dual-band frequency reconfiguration is presented. The proposed antenna consists of two symmetrical pentagon radiating elements. These radiating elements support bands of 1.5 GHz (GPS) and 2.4 GHz (Wi-Fi) frequency. The two PIN diodes are appropriately located on slot line in order to control the current flowing through the radiator. All simulated results are compared and confirmed with measured results. The antenna has VSWR ⩽1.8 and isolation of −28 dB. The advantage of this antenna is that bandwidth is increased by switching of PIN diode in the range from 80 MHz up to maximum 300 MHz. These characteristics demonstrate that proposed antenna is an attractive solution for a multimode application such as GPS, Wi-Fi routers, vehicular communication, etc. where wideband is required.
Geometry-aware manipulability learning, tracking, and transfer

Body posture influences human and robot performance in manipulation tasks, as appropriate poses facilitate motion or the exertion of force along different axes. In robotics, manipulability ellipsoids arise as a powerful descriptor to analyze, control, and design the robot dexterity as a function of the articulatory joint configuration. This descriptor can be designed according to different task requirements, such as tracking a desired position or applying a specific force. In this context, this article presents a novel manipulability transfer framework, a method that allows robots to learn and reproduce manipulability ellipsoids from expert demonstrations. The proposed learning scheme is built on a tensor-based formulation of a Gaussian mixture model that takes into account that manipulability ellipsoids lie on the manifold of symmetric positive-definite matrices. Learning is coupled with a geometry-aware tracking controller allowing robots to follow a desired profile of manipulability ellipsoids. Extensive evaluations in simulation with redundant manipulators, a robotic hand and humanoids agents, as well as an experiment with two real dual-arm systems validate the feasibility of the approach.