Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virucidal activity in aqueous extracts obtained from Cedrela tubiflora leaves

Crude extracts obtained from leaves of Cedrela tubiflora (CT) (Meliaceae family) show antiviral and virucidal effects against several viruses. Herpes simplex, pseudorabies and vesicular stomatitis viruses were extremely susceptible and a reduction of 3–5 log in infectivity occurred after 15 min of direct incubation with the plant extract. By contrast, poliovirus and the Tacaribe arenavirus are inhibited intracellularly. The inhibitory action is dose dependent and no cytotoxic effects were detected on Vero cells after 2 days of CT treatment.
Modified Corrugation-Based W-Band Waveguide With Selective Notched Operation for Fusion Plasma Diagnostics

Instrumentation used in the diagnostic of signals in fusion experiment needs protection against surges in signal power, which emerges from the electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH). In this article, a design methodology for the development of selective single notch waveguide is presented. The design of the notch filter is a circular corrugated waveguide that has been modeled based on the second-order Bragg-resonance condition. The device operation is between 75 and 105 GHz (i.e., <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$W$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band), and a single stopband frequency is achieved. The magnitude of stopband transmission is further improved by modifying the corrugation geometry, where selected corrugations are combined periodically inside the waveguide. The proposed design allows the propagation of HE<sub>11</sub> mode. Due to the Bragg condition, the LP<sub>12</sub> mode is observed at the frequency of stopband resonance, i.e., 94 GHz. The proposed device was fabricated, and the measured transmission coefficient (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S_{21}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) was observed in coherence with the simulated <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S_{21}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> profile. The notch filter finds an important application in wideband signal diagnostics of electron cyclotron emission (ECE) and reflectometry in the fusion plasma experiments.
4-40 GHz In-Phase/ 180° Out-of-Phase Power Dividers with Enhanced Isolation

This paper demonstrates a single topology to implement ultra-wideband in-phase and 180° out-of-phase power dividers which will be dedicated for ultra-wideband frontends and balanced antenna systems that require a decent amount of isolation between ports. Both power dividers are formed of two couples of microstrip-to-slotline transitions terminated with radial stubs and then cascaded with a multisection Wilkinson power divider. A parametric study of the microstrip-to-slotline transition is performed to identify the main parameters’ influence on its frequency response, followed by a full-wave optimization. Both power dividers are designed on RO4003C substrates and both have the same size of $22 \times 38 mm^{2}$. Simulation results show that the power dividers can operate between 4 and 40 GHz with less than 6 dB insertion loss and with small amplitude and phase imbalances between output ports. And most importantly, both devices have at least 20 dB of isolation between output ports over the entire bandwidth.
Irregular QC-LDPC Codes Generation Based on EMD Maximization Criterion for Protograph

In this paper a new method for irregular QC-LDPC codes generation with desired EMD characteristics is provided. The method allows to control the minimal EMD value for cycles of length of 4, 6, 8 and 10. Better implementations in terms of EMD values and error correction performance of WiFi codes of length 648 were obtained with the proposed method.
In-situ Gyroscope Calibration Based on Accelerometer Data

The paper presents a novel calibration method for gyroscopes and accelerometers. Contrary to existing methods the proposed one does not require a rotating table or other special equipment. To perform the calibration a user needs to make a series of sequential rotations of inertial measurement unit (IMU) separated by standstills. To find the sensor errors the cost function is defined in terms of orientation differences between accelerometer and gyroscope reported orientations. Then this function is minimized with respect to calibration parameters, that include scale factors, axis non-orthogonalities, biases and misalignment between gyroscope and accelerometer triads. The proposed method has been verified through Monte-Carlo simulations using synthesized IMU data. Besides the method was tested on real data from MPU-9250 sensors. In both cases, the method was proved to properly find calibration parameters. The simulations revealed that the differences between true and estimated sensor error parameters were less than 0.1% of their true value. The experiments using real and simulated data showed the significant elimination of orientation error after calibration. Moreover, the contribution of gyroscope scale and non-orthogonality errors to the total orientation error was estimated. The method implementation in Python together with the inertial data simulator and real sensor data are provided publicly**Reproducible research: all files and software for data processing used in experiments and simulations are available under an open-source license at https://github.com/mikoff/imu-calib.
Antenna design for RF Ion Heating of anisotropic magnetized plasma

In this paper, we present and validate a 3D full-wave numerical model for solving the wave propagation in the anisotropic magnetoplasma of Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources, with the aim to analyze and design radiofrequency antennas which could produce Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH). Our tool is based on the coupling between COMSOL FEM solution of Maxwell equations and the MATLAB-computed non-homogeneous plasma dielectric tensor. This approach allows the evaluation of RF absorbed power by the plasma as well as the antenna input impedance which represents a crucial parameter for the design of the feeding and matching circuits usually adopted in ICRH setup. A numerical study has been performed by varying antenna geometry and plasma parameters: results are reported and cross-validated against other models.
Effects of indole-3-carbinol on metabolic parameters and on lipogenesis and lipolysis in adipocytes

Indole-3-carbinol (I3C) was found to have possible anticarcinogenic, antioxidant and anti- atherogenic effects on the organism. So far, its influence on metabolic pathways has been unknown. This work was the first attempt to determine the carbohydrate and lipid metabolism changes in vivo after administration of 150 mg/kg b.wt. /day I3C to male rats. Additionally, the aim of this trial was to evaluate the direct effect of I3C on basal and hormone-induced lipogenesis and lipolysis in isolated rat adipocytes at concentrations 1, 10, 100 μM in vitro. We can corroborate that adipocytes are susceptible to the direct action of I3C. The incubation of adipocytes with I3C at the three above-mentioned concentrations resulted in its influence on restriction of glucose entry into adipocytes in the basal as well as insulin-stimulated conditions. However, it was observed that I3C at these concentrations strongly intensified basic and epinephrine-stimulated lipolysis. I3C also has a significant influence on metabolism in vivo. Its administration to rats caused a significant increase in the content of triglycerides and a decrease in glycogen in the liver. The considerable augmenta - tion of glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol in high-density lipoprotein and insulin with a concomitant decrease in FFA concentrations was noted in the blood serum. I3C did not alter phospholipids, total, free, esterified cholesterol in the serum and the liver cholesterol. The results obtained in vivo and in vitro indicate that the effect of I3C is adverse for the majority of metabolic parameters which were investigated. The most important finding in this study is the effect of I3C on liver steatosis and that the observed lower lipogenesis at higher lipolysis in fat cells may be involved in the mechanism.
Experimental mate replacement does not increase extra–pair paternity in tree swallows

Before the onset of female fertility, we removed 12 early–settling male tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) from their nest–boxes and mates, and allowed replacement males which had been floaters to settle with the original female residents. We predicted that females which had their original mate choice altered (experimentals) would be more likely to obtain extra–pair fertilizations than females which remained paired with their original, early–settling mates (controls). The proportion of females obtaining extra–pair fertilizations, however, did not differ between controls and experimentals, indicating that mating tactics of female tree swallows were unaffected by mate replacement. However, differences between early–settling and replacement males did exist. Replacement males had shorter wing chords than early–settling males, suggesting that they were younger. Moreover, a significantly greater proportion of replacement males than early–settling males were unringed and thus new to the study site. Our results suggest that if females are choosing males for good genes, then early–settling males are not superior in genetic quality to the smaller replacement males which had originally been floaters.
Confidence-Based Large-Scale Dense Multi-View Stereo

Albeit remarkable progress has been made to improve the accuracy and completeness of multi-view stereo (MVS), existing methods still suffer from either sparse reconstructions of low-textured surfaces or heavy computational burden. In this paper, we propose a Confidence-based Large-scale Dense Multi-view Stereo (CLD-MVS) method for high resolution imagery. Firstly, we formulate MVS as a multi-view depth estimation problem, and employ a normal-aware efficient PatchMatch stereo to estimate the initial depth and normal map for each reference view. A self-supervised deep learning method is then developed to predict the spatial confidence for multi-view depth maps, which is combined with cross-view consistency to generate the ground control points. Subsequently, a confidence-driven and boundary-aware interpolation scheme using static and dynamic guidance is adopted to synthesize dense depth and normal maps. Finally, a refinement procedure which leverages synthesized depth and normal as prior is conducted to estimate cross-view consistent surface. Experiments show that the proposed CLD-MVS method achieves high geometric completeness while preserving fine-scale details. In particular, it has ranked No. 1 on the ETH3D high-resolution MVS benchmark in terms of $F_{1}$ -score.
LAKS-NVT: Provably Secure and Lightweight Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Without Verification Table in Medical Internet of Things

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are important concepts for the Internet of Things (IoT). They have been applied to various healthcare services to ensure that users can access convenient medical services by exchanging physiological data between user and medical server. User physiological data is collected by sensor nodes and sent to medical service providers, doctors, etc. using public channels. However, these channels are vulnerable to various potential attacks, and hence, it is essential to design provably secure and lightweight mutual authentication (MA) schemes for medical IoT to protect user privacy and achieve secure communication. A lightweight mutual authentication and key agreement (MAKA) scheme was designed in 2019 to guarantee user privacy, but we found that the scheme does not withstand impersonation, stolen senor node and leaking verification table attacks, and it does not also ensure anonymity, untraceability and secure mutual authentication. This paper proposes a provably secure and lightweight MAKA scheme for medical IoT, called LAKS Non-verification table (NVT), that does not require a server verification table. We assess LAKS-NVT’s security against various potential attacks and demonstrate that it achieves secure MA between sensor node and server using Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic. We employ the well-known Real-Or-Random which is random oracle model to prove that LAKS-NVT provides a session key security. In addition, the formal security verification using the widely-accepted Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) software tool has been performed and the results show that LAKS-NVT is also secure. We compare LAKS-NVT’s performance against contemporary authentication schemes, and verify that it achieves better security and comparable efficiency. The practical perspective of LAKS-NVT is also carried out via the Network Simulator 2 (NS2) simulation study.
Important open-ocean areas for northern Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) — as estimated using a simple ambient-temperature approach

Tracking salmon migratory behaviour in the open ocean has been a challenge to researchers. As the marine phase essentially determines the size and survival of individuals and populations, it is arguably the most influential life cycle period for salmon population dynamics. Thus, methods providing an understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of salmon marine migratory behaviour could improve the species' management and conservation. A model was developed that correlated temperature data from archival tags with sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) to identify the probable marine feeding areas of a northeastern Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) population over 3 years. The marine distribution of the tagged population extended from the Greenland Sea, north to Svalbard, and into the eastern Barents Sea. Higher probability occupancy zones overlapped with the polar front area from September to April during all 3 years. While the migratory behaviour appeared similar between years and seasons, the fish were distri.
Circularly and Linearly Polarized MIMO Antenna System with Pattern and Polarization Diversity

In this paper, an endfire circularly polarized and a broadside linearly polarized MIMO antenna system with pattern and polarization diversity is proposed. This MIMO antenna system consists of two endfire circularly polarized antenna, and a CPW fed linearly polarized antenna. The endfire circular polarization is generated by using two orthogonal elements as a magnetic dipole and electric dipole having 900 phase shift. The broadside linear polarization is generated by CPW fed monopole antenna. The circularly polarized antenna and linearly polarized antenna give simulated return loss bandwidth as 1.1 % and 18 % respectively. The axial ratio bandwidth of the CP antenna is 4.8 %. The proposed structure is fabricated, and its antenna parameters are measured, which are well-matched with the simulated one. Along with basic antenna parameters, to characterize the MIMO antenna system, some additional pa-rameters are also analyzed. The envelope correlation coefficient, mean effective gain, total active reflection coefficient, and channel capacity loss are within the desired range. The overall dimension of this proposed antenna is 1. 2λ0 × 0. 55λ0 × 0. 018λ0, where λ0 is free-space wavelength corresponding to 3.5 GHz.
Network Service Reconfiguration in Hybrid Optical/Electrical Datacenter Networks

The hybrid optical/electrical datacenter networks (HOE-DCNs), which use both electrical Ethernet switches and optical cross-connects (OXCs) to interconnect top-of-rack (ToR) switches, have been considered as a scalable solution for the ever-increasing datacenter traffic. Meanwhile, the network services in an HOE-DCN generate various virtual network (VNT) requests, and their dynamic nature can degrade the optimality of their virtual network embedding (VNE) schemes as time goes on. Therefore, this paper studies how to realize cost-effective VNT reconfiguration (VNT-Recfg) in an HOE-DCN, such that its IT resource utilization can be balanced well. The problem has its unique difficulty because the topology of the substrate network (i.e., the HOE-DCN) can change in the VNT-Recfg due to the "1-to-1" connectivity of an OXC. We design the procedure of our VNT-Recfg to include two major algorithms, i.e., a selection algorithm to choose virtual machines (VMs) to migrate, and a reconfiguration algorithm to determine the reconfiguration schemes of VMs, virtual links (VLs), and the OXC. The selection algorithm is developed to maintain the IT balance degree, while the reconfiguration algorithm consists of two steps, 1) getting the VM migration schemes to re-balance the IT resource usage, and 2) calculating the reconfiguration schemes of related VLs and the OXC. For the first step, we formulate a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and design a time-efficient heuristic. We solve the second step with a novel algorithm that leverages both dynamic programming and a lightweight ILP.
Asymptotic Expansion of the Reciprocity Integral in a Bidirectional Ray-Tracing Approach

Bidirectional ray-tracing launches rays from both the transmitter and the receiver sites, where the transfer function between the antennas can be computed by evaluating a reciprocity interaction integral. In this work, an asymptotic expansion approach for the evaluation of this interaction integral is introduced and discussed. By using an oscillatory integral representation and high-frequency assumptions, it is shown that the stationary phase approximation yields a simple algebraic expression for the result of the integral. Thus, the evaluation of the reciprocity integral becomes much more straightforward without any significant decline in terms of accuracy. The strong dependency between computation time and operating frequency is mostly avoided, in contrast to the traditional integration approaches. As a result, substantial speed-up factors can be achieved. Numerical results demonstrate the merits of this approach.
Outspacing Phased Arrays for mm-wave 5G Base Stations

Emerging applications such as next generation wireless communications at mm-waves require active array antenna systems for meeting the high performance demands. This calls for new power-efficient and linear phased-array concepts. The combination of in-space outphasing of constant-envelope phase-modulated signals and a beamforming array is a promising architecture. In this paper, the influence of the outphasing configuration on the array factor and Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is investigated. A prototype at 2.4 GHz was realized and characterized which shows good agreement with the theory. The outspacing array achieves an Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) of 5% without calibration.
Genetic Data Analysis II. Methods for Discrete Population Genentic Data

‘‘Gentlemen don’t need mistletoe’’ said the Christmas whiskey billboard I saw recently in Florida, a garish reminder of how much mistletoe lore is embedded in western society. Mistletoe The Genus Viscum, one in the series of medicinal and aromatic plants for industry and academic researchers, centers on the mistletoe in this advertisement, the common European mistletoe,Viscum album. There are helpful discussions on African, Asian, and Argentine mistletoes and their uses but the corpus of the book deals with V. album. Viscum album, considered sacred by the Druids, is no doubt the most widely used parasitic angiosperm for various health concoctions. As a result, much has been learned about its biochemistry and pharmaceutical potential. A great deal of the work on the culture and utilization ofV. album has been done by investigators at Institute Hiscia Center for Cancer Research in Switzerland where votaries of Rudolf Steiner’s distinct form of homeopathy have used mistletoe extracts (‘‘Iscador’’) for many years in cancer treatment. Mistletoe collected from less common hosts are considered to have greater efficacy in preparation of Iscador. As a result, there is a helpful chapter on culturing V. album which is not as difficult as might be imagined for an obligate parasite. Most of the chapters deal with the medicinal aspects of mistletoe including toxicology, clinical aspects, chemistry, and biochemistry emphasizing the lectins which are one of the more desirable compounds produced by the parasite. I found the treatment by Bu ̈ssing (Biological and pharmacological properties of Viscum album L.) helpful because it reviews the link between folk and modern medicine. However, several relevant papers were omitted which are included in a recent excellent review of mistletoes (Watson 2001). Like many books with a diversity of authors, the quality of chapters varies. Obviously produced as a reference volume, Mistletoe lacks an extensive index. Especially aggravating is the lack of an author’s index, limiting the value of the book for anyone looking for specific papers. These days, $70 for a hardbound monograph is reasonable. Color images are well-produced but some of the black and white figures are blurry in my copy. This volume will be of value to ethnobotanists, anyone interested in alternative medicines, and students of mistletoes and parasitic plants. LITERATURE CITED
A Millimeter-Wave Low-Profile and Metal-Only Transmitarray Antennas at 28 GHz

A novel high-gain and low-profile transmitarray antenna, operating at 28 GHz, is presented in this paper. A four-layer metal-only element is used to achieve a full transmission phase range of 360° for a transmission magnitude equal to or better than −1.2 dB. A transmitarray with a main beam at the broadside direction is simulated via CST software. The simulation results show that the designed antenna with an aperture size of 95.25 cm2 at 28 GHz, has 26 dBi maximum gain. In addition, the proposed transmitarray antenna achieves a 17.3% 1-dB gain bandwidth and 38.2% efficiency.
Effects of chitosan on ruminal fermentation, nutrient digestibility, and milk yield and composition of dairy cows

Our objective was to evaluate the effects of providing increasing levels of chitosan on nutrient digestibility, ruminal fermentation, blood parameters, nitrogen utilisation, microbial protein synthesis, and milk yield and composition of lactating dairy cows. Eight rumen-fistulated Holstein cows [average days in lactation = 215 ± 60.9; and average bodyweight (BW) = 641 ± 41.1 kg] were assigned into a replicated 4 × 4 Latin square design, with 21-day evaluation periods. Cows were assigned to be provided with four levels of chitosan, placed into the rumen through the fistula, as follows: (1) Control: with no provision of chitosan; (2) 75 mg/kg BW; (3) 150 mg/kg BW; and (4) 225 mg/kg BW. Chitosan had no effect on dry matter intake (P > 0.73); however, chitosan increased (P = 0.05) crude protein digestibility. Propionate concentration was increased (P = 0.02), and butyrate, isobutyrate, isovalerate and acetate : propionate ratio were decreased (P ≤ 0.04) by chitosan. Chitosan had no effect (P > 0.25) on acetate, pH and NH3 ruminal concentration. Glucose, urea, and hepatic enzyme concentrations in the blood were similar (P > 0.30) among treatments. Nitrogen balance was not affected, but chitosan increased milk nitrogen (P = 0.02). Microbial protein synthesis was not affected by chitosan (P > 0.44). Chitosan increased (P = 0.02) milk yield, fat-corrected milk, protein and lactose production. Chitosan changes ruminal fermentation and improves milk yield of lactating dairy cows; therefore, we conclude that chitosan can be used as a rumen modulator instead of ionophores in diets for dairy cows.