Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metabolic responses of South African soldiers during simulated marching with 16 combinations of speed and backpack load.

OBJECTIVES This study assessed the metabolic responses of South African soldiers marching at different speeds and carrying varying loads. The main objective was to establish the physiological cost of a range of speed/load combinations to identify the energy requirements to meet a diversity of march objectives. METHODS Thirty male soldiers marched on a treadmill for 6 minutes with varying combinations of speed and load, established through numerous pilot studies and in consultation with military personnel. The four speeds were 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, and 6.5 km x (-1), combined with the four loads of 20, 35, 50, and 65 kg, totaling 16 combinations. Each participant completed eight of the 16 conditions, during which the participants wore standardized military gear and were attached to a portable ergospirometer (the Metamax, Cortex, Leipzig, Germany) for the duration of the march. RESULTS Based on the responses, five discrete categories of speed/load combinations were identified. These combinations were categorized as nominal (< 40% of maximal oxygen consumption [VO(2max)]), moderate (40-50% of VO(2max)), heavy (50-65% of VO(2max)), very heavy (65-80% of VO(2max)), and excessive (> 80% of VO(2max)), with each categorization incorporating diverse combinations of speed and load. CONCLUSION The findings demonstrate that the interplay between marching speed and backpack load plays a crucial role in ensuring that similar metabolic demands are maintained at a bearable level to meet specific military circumstances, thus reducing the likelihood of injuries and the early onset of fatigue and ensuring that the soldiers are combat ready on arrival at their destination.
Performance analysis of wide area network communications using discrete event simulation tools

Operation of power systems has become more complicated and therefore encounters more challenges. In this regard, Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) as a state-of-the-art technology provides an effective method for large scale power grid monitoring, protection and control. Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) measure power system parameters including frequency, voltage and current phasors with high accuracy and transmit the measured values online to a central location called Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC). Then the collected information can be exploited by smart grid applications. Critical to the operation of such a system is a high speed communication infrastructure. The performance of communications links has direct impact on the ability to meet specific smart grid applications requirements. In this paper we present performance evaluation of the WAMS communications infrastructure with regard to latency and End-to-End (EtE) delay from PMUs to PDC. An actual WAMS as installed on the transmission system of Great Britain (GB) is modelled using both proprietary and open source Discrete Event Simulators (DES), OPNET and OMNeT++. Comparisons will be also drawn between the two simulation environments approaches and the results obtained.
The Crystal Structure of Epistilbite

Summary. The crystal structure ofepistilbite ((Ca2.59Na 1. 0~K0.10) (Ale. 2~Si17.vlO4s) �9 15"74H20; C2/m; a ~ 9"08, b = 17'74, c ~ 10-25 ~; fi- 124'54-}=0'05 ~ was determined by 3-D least-squares methods. The alumino-silicate framework is composed of 4-, 5-, and 8-membered rings of tetrahedra. There are two sets of intersecting channels each defined by 8-membered rings. The (Ca, Na) atoms in the channels are in contact with seven water molecules and two oxygen atoms giving a coordination of nine at a cut-off distance of 2.77/~. The average tetrahedral distance is lower than for anhydrous framework alumino-silicates but consistent with some other zeolite structures. Partial A1-Si ordering exists with one tetrahedron occupied preferentially by aluminum. This tetrahedron contains the two oxygen atoms that are coordinated with the (Ca, Na) atom. HE determination of the crystal structure of epistilbite is part of an effort to classify zeolite minerals by their aluminosilicate frameworks. A second objective is to determine the positions of the exchangeable cations and water molecules that reside in the structural cavities. Epistilbite has been placed in the heulandite group by Deer, Howie, and Zussman (1963). The comprehensive review by Smith (1.963) extended by Fischer and Meier (1965) gives a structural classification and points out structural relationships that might be useful in determining other unknown zeolite frameworks. It was suggested by Smith that the epistilbite structure might be solved by the cross-linking of columns of the mordenite type, which have a 7"5 ~ repeat unit obtained from the vertical height of three linked tetrahedra, one each with the up (U), down (D), and tilted (T) orientation. Meier (1961) noted that the rectosilicates keatite, petalite, scapolite, and mordenite have one axial length of about 7.5 A and each contain 5-membered rings of tetrahedra. On this basis he submitted the hypothesis that 5-membered rings might be found commonly in framework silicates that have this repeat distance. Recently this has been borne out by the structure determinations of
A quantitative analysis of the dendritic organization of pyramidal cells in the rat hippocampus

The three dimensional organization of the dendritic trees of pyramidal cells in the rat hippocampus was investigated using intracellular injection of horseradish peroxidase in the in vitro hippocampal slice preparation and computer‐aided reconstruction. The total dendritic length, dendritic length in each of the hippocampal laminae, and the number of dendritic branches were measured in 20 CAl pyramidal cells, 7 neurons in CA2 and 20 CA3 pyramidal cells. The total dendritic length of CA3 pyramidal cells varied in a consistent fashion depending on their position within the field. Cells located close to the dentate gyrus had the smallest dendritic trees which averaged 9,300 μm in total length. Cells in the distal part of CA3 (near CA2) had the largest dendritic trees, averaging 15,800 μm. The CA2 field contained cells which resembled CA3 pyramidal cells in most respects except for the absence of thorny excrescences on their proximal dendrites. There were also smaller pyramidal cells that resembled CAl neurons. CAl pyramidal cells tended to be more homogeneous. Pyramidal neurons throughout the transverse extent of CAl had a total dendritic length on the order of 13,500 μm. The quantitative analysis of the laminar distribution of dendrites demonstrated that the stratum oriens and stratum radiatum contained significant portions of the pyramidal cell dendritic trees. In CA3, for example, 42–51% of the total dendritic length was located in stratum oriens; about 34% of the dendritic tree was located in stratum radiatum. The amount of dendritic length in stratum lacunosum‐moleculare of CA3 varied depending on the location of the cell. Many CA3 cells located within the limbs of the dentate gyrus, for example, had no dendrites extending into stratum lacunosum‐moleculare whereas those located distally in CA3 had about the same percentage of their dendritic tree in stratum lacunosum‐moleculare as in stratum radiatum. In CAl, nearly half of the dendritic length was located in stratum radiatum, 34% was in stratum oriens and 18% was in stratum lacunosum‐moleculare. These studies identified distinctive dendritic branching patterns, in the stratum radiatum and stratum lacunosum moleculare, which clearly distinguished CA3 from CAl neurons. © Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Regularizing Deep Models for Visual Recognition

Image understanding is a shared goal in all computer vision problems. This objective includes decomposing the image into a set of primitive components through which one can perform region segmentation, region labeling, object recognition and finally modeling the interactions between recognized objects. However, due to the large intra-class variations in appearance, shape and structure, extracting image primitives is highly challenging. While images come in the form of intensity matrices, in order to cope with this large variations, a high-level abstraction of images is required. Therefore, the main challenge is to bridge the gap between the low-level pixel representation and the high-level abstract image descriptors. In recent years, we have witnessed a striking popularity of the learned image descriptors using deep networks for visual recognition. The multi-layer architecture of these networks is particularly useful in capturing the hierarchical structure of the image data: simple features are detected at lower layers and fed into higher layers for extracting more complex and abstract representations. Despite the remarkable representational power of deep networks, training these models is computationally expensive. In addition, considering the lack of enough labeled training data in many applications, over-fitting is a serious threat for deep models with large number of free parameters. Also, there are innate issues with the gradient-based optimization procedure used for parameter learning in these models. This research is aimed at addressing the above issues by leveraging domain knowledge. Particularly, we focus on tailoring deep networks for visual recognition through exploiting the characteristics of the image data. These modifications tend to regularize deep models and therefore, improve their generalization performance. We propose novel ways for incorporation of image-specific domain knowledge into deep networks. As part of this thesis, we show how one can significantly decrease the number of free parameters in fully-connected architectures by exploiting the global characteristics of the image data. For convolutional networks, a new multi-neighborhood architecture is introduced which can capture scale-dependent features. In this architecture, the fine-scale image structures (i.e., appearance features) are captured using a small-sized neighborhood while coarse-scale characteristics (i.e., shape features) are detected by considering a wider range area around each pixel. Besides, we propose an effective regularization method for
Prognostic relevance of a histologic classification system applied in bone marrow biopsies from patients with multiple myeloma: A histopathological evaluation of biopsies from 153 untreated patients *

Abstract: A total of 153 diagnostic bone marrow biopsies from patients with advanced stages of multiple myeloma corresponding to stages II and III according to the Durie/Salmon classification were evaluated prior to any treatment in a prospective therapy trial of the German Myeloma Treatment Group. Histologic sections were analyzed according to a pre‐defined system of criteria microscopically by 2 observers, determining three criteria: 1) grading by histopathology, regarding the cytologic differentiation of neoplastic cells and quantifying the percentage of plasmacytic, pleomorphic, and plasmablastic myeloma cells distributed within the sections; 2) the volume of infiltration; and 3) the pattern of neoplastic growth. Furthermore, four other criteria, namely hematopoiesis, fiber increase, osteomalacia, and micro‐osteo‐lesions, were evaluated. A cluster analysis using the three histological criteria revealed three groups of patients with significantly different survival times based on histological criteria only; the three criteria were mentioned above. It is concluded from these results that bone marrow biopsies, when evaluated histologically by grading and staging according to the three criteria, provide most valuable prognostic parameters in myeloma patients.
Role of glutamine and interlinked asparagine metabolism in vessel formation

Endothelial cell (EC) metabolism is emerging as a regulator of angiogenesis, but the precise role of glutamine metabolism in ECs is unknown. Here, we show that depriving ECs of glutamine or inhibiting glutaminase 1 (GLS1) caused vessel sprouting defects due to impaired proliferation and migration, and reduced pathological ocular angiogenesis. Inhibition of glutamine metabolism in ECs did not cause energy distress, but impaired tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle anaplerosis, macromolecule production, and redox homeostasis. Only the combination of TCA cycle replenishment plus asparagine supplementation restored the metabolic aberrations and proliferation defect caused by glutamine deprivation. Mechanistically, glutamine provided nitrogen for asparagine synthesis to sustain cellular homeostasis. While ECs can take up asparagine, silencing asparagine synthetase (ASNS, which converts glutamine‐derived nitrogen and aspartate to asparagine) impaired EC sprouting even in the presence of glutamine and asparagine. Asparagine further proved crucial in glutamine‐deprived ECs to restore protein synthesis, suppress ER stress, and reactivate mTOR signaling. These findings reveal a novel link between endothelial glutamine and asparagine metabolism in vessel sprouting.
THE OLD ENVIRONMENT OF THE FAINT CALCIUM-RICH SUPERNOVA SN 2005cz

The supernova SN 2005cz has recently attracted some attention due to the fact that it was spectroscopically similar to type Ib supernovae (SNe Ib), a class that is presumed to result from the core collapse of massive stars, yet it occurred in an elliptical galaxy, where one expects very few massive stars to exist. Two explanations for this remarkable event were put forward. Perets et al. associate SN 2005cz with the class of Ca-rich, faint SNe Ib, which likely result from old double-white-dwarf systems with an He-rich secondary. On the other hand, Kawabata et al. suggest that SN 2005cz is indeed a core-collapse event (in a binary system), albeit of a star at the lower end of the mass range, 10–12 M☉. The existence of this star in its elliptical host is explained as resulting from low-level star formation (SF) activity in that galaxy. Here we present extensive observations of the location of SN 2005cz, sensitive to a variety of SF tracers, including optical spectroscopy, Hα emission, UV emission, and Hubble Space Telescope photometry. We show that NGC 4589, the host galaxy of SN 2005cz, does not show any signatures of a young stellar population or recent SF activity either close to or far from the location of SN 2005cz.
Nested error correcting code based highly reliable data reading for UHF RFID

In the current UHF RFID standards, the data transfer on reverse link, from tag to reader, is unreliable in nature since there is only error detection code (CRC) used. With the continuous improvement of sensitivity for tag chip, the unreliable reverse link may become the bottleneck for the whole system. In this paper, a nested error correcting code (ECC) based data transfer method is proposed to enhance the reliability of reverse link while maintaining the acceptable read efficiency. The information bits are encoded in the nested way to get the redundant bits for each layer. The reader writes the original information bits and all redundant bits into the tag. During the reading process, the reader gets the redundant bits at different layer in an incremental manner. The purpose is to correct the errors by requiring as less redundant bits as possible. According to the numerical results, the reliability in terms of residual error probability is improved significantly compared to the normal scheme with only CRC check. However, the efficiency in terms of average time to get information bits is much better than the single code protection scheme. Therefore, the proposed scheme can get a good tradeoff between reliability and efficiency. On the other hand, the proposed scheme can be implemented in software, requiring no modifications on the reader hardware and tag.
Artificial neural networks in time domain electromagnetics

The application of artificial neural networks (ANN) is considered to the problems of electromagnetics in time domain. Amplitudes of electromagnetic field in definite points of observation in different moments of time are proposed for using as initial values for an input layer of neural network. As examples the different structures of ANN were applied to solve the problem of determination of layered medium parameters by reflected transient field analysis. The incident field is plane wave with Gaussian time dependence. The stability of the determination of medium geometrical and electrical characteristics is studied for the case of presence of experimental errors, outer interferences, and instabilities of medium parameters.
Distant Speaker Recognition Based on the Automatic Selection of Reverberant Environments Using GMMs

Channel distortion for a distant environment may drastically degrade the performance of speaker recognition because the training and test conditions differ significantly. In this paper, we propose robust distant speaker recognition that is based on the automatic selection of reverberant environments using Gaussian mixture models. Three methods involving (I) optimum channel determination, (II) joint optimum speaker and channel determination, or (III) optimum channel determination at the utterance level are proposed. Real-world speech data and simulated reverberant speech data are used to evaluate our proposed methods. The third proposed method achieves a relative error reduction of 69.6% over (baseline) speaker recognition using a reverberant environment-independent method, and it has performance equivalent to that of a
Mutagenic testing of workers exposed to toluene-diisocyanates during plastics production process.

BACKGROUND Toluene diisocyanates (TDIs) are important industrial intermediates used in conjunction with polyester polyols as coreactants in the manufacture of polyurethane foam blocks, paints, etc. It is listed as a potential carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) and International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and is known to induce chromosomal aberrations. METHODS The study involved 26 people, exposed to TDI during the production of plastics. The corresponding control group was comprised of 21 people coming from the same geographic area, who were never exposed to isocyanates. RESULTS The concentration of TDI ranged between 0.007 mg/m3 and 0.016 mg/m3, which amounts to 0.10-0.23 MDK (extreme value of a single substance) 0.007 mg/m3. Structural chromosome aberrations (SCA) were evaluated in 200 lymphocytes of peripheral blood. The average value was 2.6. Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) was established in 50 cells, the average being 8.127. Micronucleus (MN) was established in 500 CB, with an average of 12.07. The averages of the control group were 1.89 (SCA), 5.52 (SCE), and 4.38 (MN). The difference between the groups is of statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS The ascertained results accentuate mutagenic activity of isocyanates or their metabolic products.
Generic self-learning decision support system for large-scale disasters

Large-scale disasters, particularly failures of critical infrastructures, are exceptional situations which cannot be solved with standard countermeasures. The crises are complex and the decision makers face acute time pressure to respond to the disaster. IT based decision support systems provide potential solutions and assist the decision making process. Many decision support systems in emergency response and management concentrate on one kind of disaster. Moreover, complex structures are modeled and recommendations are made rule-based. This work in progress paper describes the first steps towards the development of a generic and self-learning decision support system. The methodology used is case-based reasoning. The paper concludes with a sample emergency decision process.
The cryoprotective effect of Ficoll on the rabbit spermatozoa quality

Summary The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the addition of Ficoll 70 into the cryopreservation medium containing sucrose and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) on rabbit spermatozoa characteristics following freezing/thawing. This large molecular weight polymer elevates the viscosity of medium and, therefore, could better protect spermatozoa during the freezing process. Only ejaculates of good initial motility (>80%) were used in the experiments. Heterospermic pools were diluted in a freezing medium composed of commercial diluent, 16% dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) and 2% sucrose (control) or in the same medium enriched with 4% Ficoll 70 (Ficoll) and frozen in liquid nitrogen vapours for 10 min before being plunged in liquid nitrogen. The quality of fresh and frozen/thawed spermatozoa samples was evaluated in vitro using the Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA) system, fluorescent probes (peanut agglutinin (PNA)-Alexa Fluor®; annexin V-FLOUS) and by electron microscopy. Better cryoprotective effect was observed when Ficoll 70 was added, compared with the semen cryopreserved with sucrose and DMSO only. The higher values (P < 0.05) of motile and progressively moving spermatozoa immediately after thawing and at 30 min following incubation at 37°C were obtained in the Ficoll group. Moreover, the higher number (P < 0.05) of acrosome intact sperm was found in the Ficoll compared with the control group. Furthermore, no significant differences in kindling rates and number of pups born between frozen/thawed and fresh semen group were found. In conclusion, our study showed that the addition of Ficoll 70 might improve several characteristics of rabbit spermatozoa measured in vitro following freezing/thawing.
DNA Barcoding for Fractured Reservoir Analysis – An Initial Investigation

Tracer testing in fractured reservoirs has long been limited by the availability of unique and unambiguous tracers. In this study, we introduce the concept of using thermophilic microorganisms and DNA barcoding techniques for fractured reservoir characterization. On the one hand, thermophilic microorganisms have the potential of thriving in the extreme environment of geothermal and oil reservoirs. On the other hand, even if the microbes lose the basic functions of life after passing through the subsurface, their genetic information may still be retrieved and identified using modern sequencing technologies. In addition, because microorganisms are able to replicate themselves given appropriate nutrients and growing conditions, they are also a cost-effective solution for potential up-scaled field tracer testing applications. Heating experiments were conducted to examine the possibility of short-fragment identification of archaeal genomic DNA after prolonged heat treatment. The results show that it is feasible to still identify a short region of genomic DNA even after prolonged heat treatment, and a short region within a long genomic DNA appears to be more robust than a similar-length shortstranded DNA. We therefore conclude that the concept of using thermophilic microorganisms combined with DNA barcoding techniques to perform unambiguous reservoir tracer analysis shows good promise. To avoid confusion with the indigenous microbes in a reservoir, either exogenous microbes or engineered microbes containing artificial barcodes may be used.