Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Control Scheme for Combustion Processes Using Reinforcement Learning Based on Neural Networks

We present a new control scheme for an industrial hard-coal combustion process in a power plant based on reinforcement-learning in combination with neural networks. To comply with the great requirements for environmental protection, the plant operator is interested in a minimization of the nitrogen oxides emission and a maximization of the efficiency factor, while other process parameters have to be kept within predefined limits. To cope with both the tremendous action and state space of the power plant, we present a multiagent-reinforcement-system consisting of 4 agents, which are realized by relatively simple neural function approximators. We demonstrate that our multiagent-system was able to significantly reduce the overall air consumption of the real combustion process of the power plant.
Scale Selection in Convolutional Neural Networks with Dimensional Min-pooling and Scaling Filters

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are the most efficient method for image classification and recognition since the year 2012. In the last years they have been applied to more and more complex datasets and continue to hold the records in classification rates for most of them. But in order to perform well on bigger or more complex datasets, CNNs need to have more layers added to them. This makes them more computationally expensive and less biologically plausible. In order to counteract this trend, we propose a new type of convolution layer that makes use of multi-scale convolution filters, which are united with a MinMax function, in order to pass on the results of the most informative filter that is still noise resistant. In order to test this approach, we compare its results to a regular AlexNet implementation, as well as a multi-scale filter approach that uses Max-pooling. Our results show that MinMax can improve the performance of the standard network, even though the final results were not significant with ten iterations, because of overfitting in six of the networks. If we take this overfitting in to consideration and only look at the epochs before it starts, MinMax performed significantly better and improved the network performance by 0.71% on Cifar-10 and 4.9% on Places. This is in line with our expectations that MinMax has a higher impact on complex datasets with a lot of visual information regarding scale differences. These results can be seen as a first step and justify further research into this area, especially to test the impact of this approach when applied to deeper levels of the network.
Stochastic optimization of electric generation and trading-planning in liberalized market

As a result of deregulated markets, the utilities are exposed to different generation planning uncertainties such as energy exchange and gas prises. The generation planning time horizon covers a period of one month to one year. Deterministic techniques are no longer suitable and further more increased the planning risks. To solve this complicated problem the whole system is decomposed into subsystems and the subsystem solutions are coordinated to get the optimal solution of the whole system. This paper proposes a stochastic optimization technique for generation and trading planning to maximize the total utilities income, i.e. the difference between the revenues of energy trades and the costs for generating and purchasing electrical energy considering the different uncertainty sources. Moreover, the risk can be controlled in generation and trading planning using Lagrange-Relaxation Technique.
Does Participatory Planning Foster the Transformation Toward More Adaptive Social-Ecological Systems?

The need for social-ecological systems to become more adaptive is widely acknowledged. Social effects generated by participatory planning have been claimed to contribute to this transformation, but little empirical evidence is available that backs up or opposes this notion. We aimed to offer some insights regarding questions as to which social effects are formed in participatory planning processes and at what costs, and to then discuss their contribution to the transformation toward more adaptive social-ecological systems based on empirical evidence. Consequently, we investigated the social effects of participatory planning processes, including the social learning processes leading to them. We conducted semistructured interviews with members of advisory groups involved in river engineering projects in Switzerland. Our results indicate that participatory planning processes can somewhat contribute to maintaining and spreading knowledge and social capital among individuals in a planning group, and this may help them collectively deal with new and complex challenges. However, it is costly in terms of time and patience to build up ecological knowledge, communicative capacities, and trust, with the latter also eroding over time. Overall, we conclude that the contribution of participatory planning via positive social outcomes to the transformation toward adaptive capacity social-ecological systems is smaller than optimists might hope. However, other forms of planning very likely result in no social effects or even the destruction of social capital. Participatory planning, in contrast, can offer the conditions for relational and cognitive learning contributing to the maintenance of social and political capital. Based on our results, we suggest shifting resources from technical to communicative aspects of planning processes and implementations. We recommend that project leaders provide stakeholders with firsthand information about projects, explain rationales and data behind decisions, and clearly communicate that stakeholders do not have decision making competence to support participants in finding their roles in similar participatory planning settings.
Robust methods for content analysis of auditory scenes

The increasing progress of audio analysis methods opens possibilities for more new applications. At the same time, recent improvements in these methods bring the established approaches constantly closer to their performance limits, which are de fined by disturbing factors such as overlapping speech or noise and reverberation. This thesis presents progress in new possibilities and addressing disturbing factors, first, by proposing ideas for a system for the classi fication of acoustic scenes and a method for acoustic gait-based person identi fication. Both of them are two relatively new audio recognition tasks. Furthermore, improvements for two established methods (speaker diarization and robust speech recognition) are presented. To improve speaker diarization, di fferent approaches to detect overlapping speech are proposed. To increase the robustness of a speech recognition system against noise and reverberation, an approach using memory-enhanced acoustic modelling is employed. Together, the proposed modules represent a complete system for auditory scene analysis. Starting from a coarse classifi cation of the scene as a whole, persons can be identi fied using their step sounds or voice, followed by a transcription of the spoken contents. Experimental evaluations using publicly available databases or within public research challenges demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods.
Correlates of HIV infection among young adult short-term injection drug users

ObjectivesTo identify risks associated with HIV infection among young adult short-term injection drug users. MethodsCurrent injection drug users, between 18 and 29 years of age, were recruited through street outreach to participate in a cross-sectional survey of HIV prevalence by circumstances of drug injection initiation, HIV-related risk behaviors, and a follow-up to estimate HIV incidence. ResultsAt enrollment, 33 (14.4%) of 229 participants were HIV-seropositive. Significant bivariate associations with HIV at the time injection drug use was initiated included age less than or equal to 18 years, having receptive anal sex with the person who assisted with initiation, and having two or more `trainers' before being able to self-inject. Injecting risks positively associated with HIV included cocaine or speedball (heroin and cocaine together) injection versus heroin or amphetamine injection, injecting five or more times per day, daily crack smoking, backloading, sharing needles at peak drug use, and not using a new needle for every injection. Sexual practices associated with HIV included reporting > 100 lifetime sex partners, a history of sexual assault, being gay or bisexual, and trading sex for money or drugs after starting to inject. In a multivariate model, trading anal sex for money or drugs after initiating injection drug use [odds ratio (OR), 14.2; 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.2–62.3], cocaine/speedball injection (OR, 10.3; 95% CI, 2.2–47.9), daily crack smoking (OR, 4.2; 95% CI, 1.7–10.5), and having two or more trainers (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.1–5.9) were independently associated with HIV. During 12 months of follow-up, four persons seroconverted for HIV (annual incidence: 2.6%; 95% CI, 1.1–5.9%) ConclusionsAmong short-term injectors, both sexual and injecting practices were important predictors of HIV infection, indicating that a proportion of HIV infections among young injection drug users can be attributed to sexual transmission. The incidence rate for HIV infection suggests that immediate steps should be taken to prevent new infections among young injection drug users.
Correlations between autonomic dysfunction and circadian changes and arrhythmia prevalence in women with fibromyalgia syndrome.

OBJECTIVE It is known that increased sympathetic activity and decreased parasympathetic activity are present in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). This study aims to investigate the correlations of autonomic dysfunction and differences in autonomic circadian activity with arrhythmia prevalence in women with FMS. METHODS Fifty female patients with FMS and 30 healthy female controls were included in this cross-sectional, case-controlled study. A 12-lead electrocardiogram and 24-hour Holter monitoring were performed in all patients to evaluate arrhythmias and autonomic function tests. Heart rate variability (HRV) parameters were utilized to detect autonomic dysfunction in patients with FMS. HRV measurements were performed in total 24-hour, day time (06:00-22:59), night time (23:00-05:59) periods and during autonomic tests (stand - supine, inspiration-expiration and Valsalva tests) using 24-hour Holter monitoring recordings. Student t-test , Mann-Whitney U and Pearson Chi-square tests were used for comparisons of the data between groups. The correlation of data was tested by using Spearman correlation analysis. RESULTS The mean ages of the patient and control groups were 38+/- 7.4 and 36+/- 8.1 years, respectively. In HRV measurements, high frequency (HF) power, was significantly decreased in the patient group as compared with control group (167.4 msec2 (107.0- 312.0) vs.314. 5 msec2 (124.0- 905.0), p=0.017). The low frequency/HF ratio (LF/HF) values for total 24 hours (2.22+/- 0.18 vs. 1.22+/- 0.12, <0.001) and in the night time period (2.78+/- 1.97 vs.1.15+/- 0.77, <0.001) were found to be significantly higher in the patient group than in control one. The ratio of LF/HFDay / LF/HFNight was markedly higher in the control group (2.67 (1.22- 5.65) vs. 1.45 (0.83- 2.05), p=0.004). The prevalence (p=0.028) and total number (127.1+/- 21.4 vs. 187.3+/- 62.3, p=0.019) of supraventricular extrasystoles in 24-hour period was higher in the patient group. CONCLUSION The sympathetic activity was significantly increased and parasympathetic activity significantly decreased in FMS patients. Additionally, significant autonomic circadian activity changes were also detected in these patients. These autonomic changes might be linked to increased arrhythmia prevalence.
Weight reduction for primary prevention of stroke in adults with overweight or obesity.

BACKGROUND Obesity is seen as a worldwide chronic disease with high prevalence that has been associated with increased morbidity from many conditions including stroke, which is the third leading cause of death in developed countries and a leading cause of severe long-term disability. The causal association between overweight or obesity and stroke is unclear and there is no definite study clarifying the role of obesity treatment in the prevention of a first stroke (primary prevention). Given the prevalence of stroke and the enormous health and economic cost of the disease, it is important to establish the possible impact of weight reduction per se on stroke incidence. OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of weight reduction in people with overweight or obesity on stroke incidence. SEARCH STRATEGY MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, LILACS, databases of ongoing trials and reference lists were used to identify relevant trials. The last search was conducted in April 2006. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised controlled trials comparing any intervention for weight reduction (single or combined) with placebo or no intervention in overweight or obese people. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS No trials were found in the literature for inclusion in this review. MAIN RESULTS There are currently no results to be reported. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Obesity seems to be associated with an increased risk of stroke and it has been suggested that weight loss may lead to a reduction of stroke occurrence. However, this hypothesis is not based on strong scientific evidence resulting from randomised controlled clinical trials. This systematic review identified the urgent need for well-designed, adequately-powered, multi centre randomised controlled trials assessing the effects of weight reduction in persons with overweight or obesity on stroke occurrence.
Effective delivery of chemotherapeutic nanoparticles by depleting host Kupffer cells

Although chemotherapeutic nanoparticles would confer various advantages, the majority of administrated nanoparticles are known to be spoiled by the reticuloendothelial system (RES). Intending to more effectively deliver therapeutic nanoparticles to target regions in vivo, host RES, especially Kupffer cells in the liver, have been depleted ahead of drug administration. To demonstrate this hypothesis, clodronate liposomes were preinjected into BALB/c nude mice for depletion of Kupffer cells 2 days before, and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (Doxil) at the doses of 1.25, 2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg was administered. As a result, doxorubicin accumulation in the liver was decreased from 36 to 26% injected dose/organ by the Kupffer cells depletion, and consequently, the plasma concentration of doxorubicin was significantly enhanced threefold (from 11 to 33 μg/mL) on day 1 at 1.25 mg/kg‐dose group. Doxorubicin accumulation in the tumor was increased from 0.78 to 3.0 μg/g‐tissue on day 3, and tumor growth inhibition by Doxil was significantly boosted (tumor volumes from 751 to 482 mm3 on day 24) by the Kupffer cells depletion. In conclusion, Kupffer cells depletion by clodronate liposomes enhanced the plasma concentration and antitumor effects of Doxil, and would be widely applicable for various clinical cancer chemotherapies using nanoparticles.
Retinoic Acid Availability Drives the Asynchronous Initiation of Spermatogonial Differentiation in the Mouse1

Throughout the reproductive lifespan of most male mammals, sperm production is constant because of the regulated differentiation of spermatogonia. Retinoic acid (RA) and a downstream target, Stra8, are required for complete spermatogenesis. To examine the role of RA in initiating spermatogonial differentiation, a transgenic mouse model expressing beta-galactosidase under the control of an RA response element was used. Cells in the neonatal testis undergoing active RA signaling were visualized by beta-galactosidase activity, the relationship between RA and differentiation determined, and the role of RA-degrading enzymes in regulating RA demonstrated. Beta-galactosidase activity was found to be predominantly associated with differentiating, premeiotic germ cells and to be distributed nonuniformly throughout the seminiferous tubules. Additionally, beta-galactosidase activity in premeiotic germ cells colocalized with STRA8 protein and was induced in germ cells with exogenous RA treatment. The RA-degrading enzyme, CYP26B1, was found to have germ cell localization and nonuniform distribution between tubules via immunohistochemistry. Treatment with a CYP26 enzyme inhibitor resulted in an increased number of germ cells with both beta-galactosidase activity and STRA8 protein and an increase in the expression of genes associated with differentiation and reduced expression of a gene associated with undifferentiated germ cells. These results show the action of RA in a subset of spermatogonia leads to nonuniform initiation of differentiation throughout the neonatal testis, potentially mediated through the action of CYP26 enzymes. Thus, the presence of RA is a likely driving factor in the initiation of spermatogonial differentiation and may result in asynchronous spermatogenesis.
Effect of Paclitaxel along with Di allyl sulfide on Nucleic acid and polyamines changes in 7, 12 Di methyl benz(a) anthracene induced skin cancer wistar rats

Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes in the levels of nucleic acid and polyamines and efficacy of combination of paclitaxel along with Di allyl sulfide against skin cancer in experimental animals. Skin cancer is the most common form of human cancer. It is estimated that over 1 million new cases occur annually. The annual rates of all forms of skin cancer are increasing each year, representing a growing public concern. The most common warning sign of skin cancer is a change in the appearance of the skin, such as a new growth or a sore that will not heal. Skin cancer is caused by chemical carcinogens and Papilloma virus infection. Design/Methods: Skin cancer was induced in rats by 7, 12 Di methyl benz(a) anthracene (DMBA) at the dosage of 5 µg dissolved in 100µl acetone and administered into experimental animals for 28 weeks. In this study, we demonstrated that combination of paclitaxel and Di allyl sulfide revert the changes in the rats from lethal dose of DMBA within 30 days. Results: The levels of Nucleic acid and polyamines in skin and liver were found to be increased in the cancer bearing animals when compared with control animals. Treatment of Paclitaxel along with Di allyl sulfide to cancer induced animals showed significant decrease in the levels of Nucleic acid when compared with cancer induced animals. Conclusions: The treatment with combination of paclitaxel and Di allyl sulfide effectively reduced nucleic acid and polyamines levels. So, from the obtained results it is concluded that paclitaxel and Di allyl sulfide is capable of restoring the skin architecture.
Transcriptome analysis during ripening of table grape berry cv. Thompson Seedless

Ripening is one of the key processes associated with the development of major organoleptic characteristics of the fruit. This process has been extensively characterized in climacteric fruit, in contrast with non-climacteric fruit such as grape, where the process is less understood. With the aim of studying changes in gene expression during ripening of non-climacteric fruit, an Illumina based RNA-Seq transcriptome analysis was performed on four developmental stages, between veraison and harvest, on table grapes berries cv Thompson Seedless. Functional analysis showed a transcriptional increase in genes related with degradation processes of chlorophyll, lipids, macromolecules recycling and nucleosomes organization; accompanied by a decrease in genes related with chloroplasts integrity and amino acid synthesis pathways. It was possible to identify several processes described during leaf senescence, particularly close to harvest. Before this point, the results suggest a high transcriptional activity associated with the regulation of gene expression, cytoskeletal organization and cell wall metabolism, which can be related to growth of berries and firmness loss characteristic to this stage of development. This high metabolic activity could be associated with an increase in the transcription of genes related with glycolysis and respiration, unexpected for a non-climacteric fruit ripening.
GIANT SUBMUCOSAL GASTRIC LIPOMA - CASE REPORT

origin, but in rare cases could originate in the subserosa. We report the case of a 72 year-old male who presented dyspeptic syndrome and superior gastro-intestinal bleeding (melena). The upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed a large, almost stenotic, submucosal oval-shaped mass, with a diameter of 10 cm located in the gastric antrum, with an area of ulcerated gastric mucosa. The abdominal computer tomography revealed a homogeneous well-defined mass with negative densitometry values that corresponded to the fatty tissue. The tumor was enucleated through antrotomy, with an uneventful postoperative course. CONCLUSION: Although rare, the gastric lipoma can be a cause of gastrointestinal bleeding, mimicking a malignant tumor.
Regulatory region of the metA gene of Escherichia coli K-12

Transcription of the metA gene of Escherichia coli K-12 is from a promoter which is under methionine control and is located next to a region which has an extensive sequence homology with the operator regions of the metBL and metF genes. However, in the metA gene there is a second transcription start point which is located 74 base pairs upstream and which is independent of the intracellular methionine concentration.
Metabolic uncoupling of Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1, under the influence of excess substrate and 3, 3′, 4′, 5‐tetrachlorosalicylanilide (TCS)

The dissociation between catabolism and anabolism is generally termed as metabolic uncoupling. Experimentally, metabolic uncoupling is characterized by a reduction in the observed biomass yield. This condition can be brought about by: (a) excess‐substrate (as measured by S0/X0), and (b) addition of chemical uncouplers such as 3, 3′, 4′, 5‐Tetrachlorosalicylanilide (TCS). An empirical model is proposed to quantify the uncoupling effects of both excess‐substrate and uncoupler addition on the microbial cultures. Metabolic uncoupling of Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1, under the influence of excess pyruvate and TCS, has been modeled using the proposed expression. The degree of uncoupling was measured as a fractional reduction in theoretical maximum observed yield. Excess‐substrate was observed to successively reduce biomass yield as substrate concentration was increased. In the presence of TCS, conflicting trends were obtained for number yield and protein yield. This could, in part, be attributed to the observed increase in cellular protein content upon addition of TCS. Excess‐substrate conditions dominated uncoupling, as compared to uncoupler addition. However, these two approaches were found to have additive effects and could, in conjunction, be employed to control biomass growth during microbial processes such as subsurface bioremediation and activated sludge treatment. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2008;99: 1352–1360. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Colonial Institutions, Trade Shocks, and the Diffusion of Elementary Education in Brazil, 1889-1930

In this paper, we examine the role of trade shocks in promoting the diffusion of elementary education in subnational units in Brazil during a period (1889-1930) in which they had relative financial autonomy to collect export taxes and spend on public goods. The argument is that trade shocks affect asymetrically the tax revenues of state governments and, thus, their expenditures on elementary education per capita according to what crop mix they had. We then show that states with more egalitarian and democratic institutions use positive trade shocks to invest in education, while the opposite takes place in states with less democratic institutions (e.g., in states that had more slaves). We also show using OLS and instrumental variables that positive trade shocks increased expenditures on education per capita and led to higher literacy rates and to more schools per children. The resulting distribution of human capital across states persists until today.