Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weighted estimation of information diffusion probabilities for independent cascade model

In recent years, social networks have become popular among Internet users, and various studies have been performed on analysis of such networks. One of the important issues in analyzing social networks is information diffusion analysis. In this context, users' behavior is assumed to be influenced by other social network users. Several models have been designed to simulate and analyze how information is disseminated in social networks. In this paper, we study the problem of learning the diffusion probabilities for the independent cascade model. We first outline the importance of the subject, and then we propose a method to estimate diffusion probabilities. In this method, we assign a weight to each individual diffusion sample of each link in the network based on its parameters. We propose two weighting schemes to consider the different effects of diffusion samples. Then, we evaluate our method for learning diffusion probabilities with the help of several datasets and present the results. Also, the method presented in this paper is compared with other methods in terms of mean absolute error and training time.
Diet Quality Indices and Leukocyte Telomere Length Among Healthy US Adults: Data From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999–2002

Aging is the biggest risk factor for the development of chronic diseases. Telomere length may represent one important mechanism by which dietary intake influences risk of age-related diseases; however, it is unknown which diet pattern is most strongly related to telomere length. We compared the relationships between 4 evidence-based diet quality indices and leukocyte telomere length in a nationally representative sample of healthy adults, and the extent to which these associations differed between men and women. Data on 4,758 adults aged 20-65 years with no prior diagnosis of major chronic disease were obtained from the 1999-2002 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Diet was assessed using one 24-hour dietary recall. After adjustment for sociodemographic and health characteristics, comparison of the top and bottom quintiles showed that higher Healthy Eating Index 2010 scores (β = 0.065, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.018, 0.112; P-trend = 0.007), Alternate Healthy Eating Index 2010 scores (β = 0.054, 95% CI: 0.010, 0.097; P-trend = 0.007), Mediterranean Diet scores (β = 0.058, 95% CI: 0.017, 0.098; P-trend = 0.008), and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) scores (β = 0.052, 95% CI: 0.014, 0.090; P-trend = 0.007) were each associated with longer telomere length in women. These results may provide insight into the complex associations between optimal nutrition and longevity. Further investigation is needed to understand why associations were not observed in men.
Propagation Modeling for Wireless Communications in the Terahertz Band

Terahertz band (0.1-10 THz) communication is envisioned as a key technology to support ultra-broadband wireless systems for beyond 5G. For realization of efficient wireless communication networks in the THz band, it is imperative to develop channel models that can accurately and efficiently characterize the THz spectrum peculiarities. This article provides an in-depth view of channel modeling in the THz band, based on the deterministic, statistical, and hybrid methods. The state-of-the-art THz channel models in single-antenna and ultra-massive MIMO systems are extensively reviewed, respectively. Furthermore, the open challenges and potential research directions are highlighted regarding THz propagation modeling. Associated with the channel models, key physical parameters of the THz channel and their implications for wireless communication design are analyzed. The provided analysis lays the foundation for reliable and efficient ultra-broadband wireless communications in the THz band.
Power Grid Electromigration Checking Using Physics-Based Models

Due to technology scaling, electromigration (EM) signoff has become increasingly difficult, mainly due to the use of inaccurate methods for EM assessment, such as the empirical Black’s model. In this paper, we present a novel finite-difference-based approach for power grid EM checking using physics-based models, that can account for process, voltage, and temperature variations across the die. Our main contribution is to extend existing physical models for EM in metal branches to track EM degradation in multibranch interconnect trees. The extended model is represented as a homogeneous linear time invariant system. We also detect early failures and account for their impact on grid lifetime. We speed up our implementation by proposing a macromodeling-based filtering scheme and a predictor-based approach. Our results, for a number of IBM power grid benchmarks, confirm that Black’s model is overly inaccurate. The lifetimes found using our physics-based approach are on average $ {2.75\times }$ longer than those based on a (calibrated) Black’s model, as extended to handle mesh power grids. With a maximum runtime of 2.3 h among all the IBM benchmarks, our method appears to be suitable for very large scale integration circuits.
A three-dimensional viscous/potential flow interaction analysis method for multi-element wings

An analysis method and computer program were developed for the calculation of the viscosity dependent aerodynamic characteristics of multi-element, finite wings in incompressible flow. A fully-three dimensional potential flow program is used to determine the inviscid pressure distribution about the configuration. The potential flow program uses surface source and vortex singularities to represent the inviscid flow. The method is capable of analysing configurations having at most one slat, a main element, and two slotted flaps. Configurations are limited to full span slats or flaps. The configuration wake is allowed to relax as a force free wake, although roll up is not allowed at this time. Once the inviscid pressure distribution is calculated, a series of boundary layer computations are made along streamwise strips.
Exercise, Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and Mood Change: A Rationale for the "Runners High"?

BACKGROUND Although exercise has been shown to improve mood and well-being, the precise mechanism remains unknown. Neurosteroids are important neuroactive molecules with demonstrated involvement in several neurophysiological and disease processes. Previous research has noted neurosteroid changes in dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels following exercise. OBJECTIVES To determine whether changes in DHEA levels are associated with mood improvement after exercise and whether there are any differences in the effects on younger and older individuals. METHODS Individuals ≤ 50 years of age or > 65 years of age were recruited for study participation. Before and after 30 minutes of a standardized cycling regimen, each patient provided a blood sample and completed a questionnaire on mood and well-being. RESULTS Findings confirmed a significant increase in DHEA levels post-exercise. A decrease in negative factors (fatigue, tension, depression, anger) and an increase in positive mood factors were noted. No difference in change of measures was noted between younger and older subjects. A positive correlation was noted between mood change and DHEA blood-level changes in older subjects. Among older males, DHEA appeared to be associated with mood change after exercise. CONCLUSIONS While preliminary, findings indicate a possible association between mood improvement following exercise and DHEA blood level changes. Understanding the biological mechanisms of exercise-induced mood changes is critical to utilizing exercise as a treatment for mood disorders.
VI-RPE: Visual-Inertial Relative Pose Estimation for Aerial Vehicles

With a large body of literature dedicated to ego-motion estimation and perception of a robot's workspace, the robotics community has seen some impressive advances in self-localization and mapping, however, we are still far from general applicability of such approaches in real scenarios. Driven by the need for portable and low-cost solutions to relative pose estimation between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in this letter, we propose a new framework to track a master UAV in real-time, carrying a known constellation of LED markers, from a slave UAV without any other pose estimation capability. This setup is especially interesting to aerial manipulation and close-up inspection of structures with low or no texture. Our approach is able to fuse the estimated master's pose with the slave's onboard inertial readings, supporting intermittent communication between the UAVs. Evaluation on both simulation and real indoor and outdoor experiments reveals that the proposed approach achieves unprecedented robustness to noise and occlusion, accuracy, and speed of computation. All the code to reproduce this work is publicly available.
Performance evaluation of series, series-parallel and honey-comb PV array configurations under partial shading conditions

Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems are facing many problems with the partial shading conditions (PSCs) which can impacts the maximum power generation capability. The key objective of this research article is to model and simulate the Series (S), Serial-Parallel (S-P) and Honey-Comb (H-C) PV array configurations to extract the maximum power by mitigating the mismatching power losses; to analyze the output characteristics and to evaluate the performance of PV array configurations under PSCs. The performance evaluation of PV array configurations provides the choice to choose the best PV array configuration to the design of grid connected and stand-alone PV systems. The parameters of the KC200GT PV module are used for modelling and simulation of 5×5 PV array configurations. The MATLAB/Simulink software is used for the simulation.
Customized Local Differential Privacy for Multi-Agent Distributed Optimization

Real-time data-driven optimization and control problems over networks may require sensitive information of participating users to calculate solutions and decision variables, such as in traffic or energy systems. Adversaries with access to coordination signals may potentially decode information on individual users and put user privacy at risk. We develop local differential privacy, which is a strong notion that guarantees user privacy regardless of any auxiliary information an adversary may have, for a larger family of convex distributed optimization problems. The mechanism allows agent to customize their own privacy level based on local needs and parameter sensitivities. We propose a general sampling based approach for determining sensitivity and derive analytical bounds for specific quadratic problems. We analyze inherent trade-offs between privacy and suboptimality and propose allocation schemes to divide the maximum allowable noise, a privacy budget, among all participating agents. Our algorithm is implemented to enable privacy in distributed optimal power flow for electric grids.
Retina Quantitative Analysis of the Ellipsoid Zone Intensity in Phenotypic Variations of Intermediate Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Citation: Gin TJ, Wu Z, Chew SKH, Guymer RH, Luu CD. Quantitative analysis of the ellipsoid zone intensity in phenotypic variations of intermediate age-related macular degeneration. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2017;58:2079–2086. DOI:10.1167/ iovs.16-20105 PURPOSE. Reduction of the ellipsoid zone (EZ) intensity has been reported in eyes with agerelated macular degeneration (AMD). This study determined whether overall EZ intensity, in retinal locations undisturbed by pathologic features, is associated with the presence of clinical features, which are known important phenotypic risk factors for disease progression, large drusen, reticular pseudodrusen (RPD), and pigmentary abnormalities.
Comparing the frequency of polycystic ovary syndrome in women with and without epilepsy

Introduction: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders; the impact of epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs influences the function of hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis and dysfunction of the endocrine system and reproductive hormones in women with epilepsy. This study was carried out with an aim of determining and comparing the frequency and intensity of the complications of the hirsutism in women with and without epilepsy in Tehran in 2016–2017. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional-comparative study which was carried out on 338 women of 18–35-year-old women with and without epilepsy who were selected by continuous sampling method. Data were collected and analyzed by Chi-square statistical test. The quantity of P was considered to be 0.05 as the level of significance. Results: The results of this study indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups with and without epilepsy in terms of the frequency of some of the clinical symptoms of the PCOS and affected by it. The results of this study showed that a higher percentage of women with epilepsy were affected PCOS. In the group of epileptic patients, some of the clinical symptoms of PCOS such as hirsutism, acanthosis nigricans, disordered menstruation, and amenorrhea were higher which as a result led to an increase in the frequency of PCOS. Conclusion: As a result, epilepsy can lead to an increase in the frequency of PCOS and some other clinical symptoms.
Target Localization for a Distributed SIMO Sonar With an Isogradient Sound Speed Profile

A distributed single-input multiple-output (SIMO) sonar system makes use of a sound source and a distributed star receiver network to localize targets. Compared with the terrestrial target localization, there are more challenges for underwater target localization. The underwater sound speed varies with depth, temperature, and salinity. As a result, the propagation path of the acoustic signal is not a straight line. It makes existing straight-line based distance measurements less accurate. Furthermore, time synchronization, which is closely related to time-based localization, has to be carried out because of the absence of GPS and clock differences of underwater devices. In this paper, we take the sound speed variation and time synchronization into account and propose two underwater target localization algorithms, namely, the space-alternating generalized expectation maximization-based underwater target localization (SAGE-UTL) and the nonlinear weighted least squares based underwater target localization (NWLS-UTL), for the distributed SIMO sonar system. The SAGE-UTL algorithm is designed for the situation, where the central receiver of the star receiver network needs to remain silent for its own safety. On the other hand, the NWLS-UTL algorithm is designed for the other situation, where the silence of the central receiver is not required. We assume that all the receivers are not synchronized, and the speed variation can be approximately modeled by a depth-dependent sound speed profile. Our proposed algorithms can jointly achieve target localization and time synchronization. We evaluate the SAGE-UTL and the NWLS-UTL algorithms with several numerical simulations. The results show good performance of our proposed algorithms compared with the Cramér–Rao bound and the tailored benchmark algorithms, such as the approximate nonlinear least squares algorithm and the approximate space-alternating generalized expectation maximization based underwater target localization algorithm.
Review and comparison Of DC-DC converters for maximum power point tracking system in standalone photovoltaic (PV) module

Solar (photovoltaic) module has low efficiency depending on solar irradiance and temperature of photovoltaic module. Therefore a technique is required to optimize power of photovoltaic (PV) module, which is usually called maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique. Among All MPPT strategies, perturb and observe (P&O) is a technique that is often used because simplicity and ease of implementation. DC-DC converter is needed to serve purpose of MPPT technique. This paper presents some of DC-DC converters such as buck, boost, buck boost, cuk and sepic converter to get maximum power point (MPP) of standalone PV module. Variation of solar irradiance is presented to evaluate output value of dc-dc converters. Some of comparison such as difference with optimum value, ripple and power output of each DC-DC converters has been recorded. Performance and characteristics of each dc-dc converter is studied, evaluated, and compared through simulation. PSim software has been used for simulating this system.
TALE factors use two distinct functional modes to control an essential zebrafish gene expression program

TALE factors are broadly expressed embryonically and known to function in complexes with transcription factors (TFs) like Hox proteins at gastrula/segmentation stages, but it is unclear if such generally expressed factors act by the same mechanism throughout embryogenesis. We identify a TALE-dependent gene regulatory network (GRN) required for anterior development and detect TALE occupancy associated with this GRN throughout embryogenesis. At blastula stages, we uncover a novel functional mode for TALE factors, where they occupy genomic DECA motifs with nearby NF-Y sites. We demonstrate that TALE and NF-Y form complexes and regulate chromatin state at genes of this GRN. At segmentation stages, GRN-associated TALE occupancy expands to include HEXA motifs near PBX:HOX sites. Hence, TALE factors control a key GRN, but utilize distinct DNA motifs and protein partners at different stages – a strategy that may also explain their oncogenic potential and may be employed by other broadly expressed TFs.
Analysis of the Impact of the Receiver I/Q Imbalance on the Achievable Rate of SC-FDE Systems

This paper analyzes the achievable rate of the single-carrier system with a frequency-domain equalizer (SC-FDE) under the receiver in-phase/quadrature phase (I/Q) imbalance in the radio frequency front-end. We consider linear schemes based on the minimum mean square error (MMSE), zero-forcing equalization, and a matched filter. We derive the achievable rate of the SC-FDE system hit by the I/Q imbalance for the mentioned scenarios. We show that depending on the value of I/Q imbalance parameters, the achievable rate of the system approaches a saturation level. To examine the validity of our analysis, we compare it with the simulation results and exhibit their consistency. We also consider nonlinear schemes such as an iterative block decision feedback equalizer (IB-DFE), which is an iterative scheme. We obtain the mutual information achieved by the IB-DFE in the high-signal-to-noise-ratio regime and after enough number of iterations.
Peripartum cardiomyopathy: challenges and solutions

php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms (https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php). Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology 2017:8 31–40 Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology Dovepress
Improving width-based planning with compact policies

Optimal action selection in decision problems characterized by sparse, delayed rewards is still an open challenge. For these problems, current deep reinforcement learning methods require enormous amounts of data to learn controllers that reach human-level performance. In this work, we propose a method that interleaves planning and learning to address this issue. The planning step hinges on the Iterated-Width (IW) planner, a state of the art planner that makes explicit use of the state representation to perform structured exploration. IW is able to scale up to problems independently of the size of the state space. From the state-actions visited by IW, the learning step estimates a compact policy, which in turn is used to guide the planning step. The type of exploration used by our method is radically different than the standard random exploration used in RL. We evaluate our method in simple problems where we show it to have superior performance than the state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms A2C and Alpha Zero. Finally, we present preliminary results in a subset of the Atari games suite.
Structural insights and characterization of human Npas4 protein

Npas4 is an activity dependent transcription factor which is responsible for gearing the expression of target genes involved in neuro-transmission. Despite the importance of Npas4 in many neuronal diseases, the tertiary structure of Npas4 protein along with its physico-chemical properties is limited. In the current study, first we perfomed the phylogenetic analysis of Npas4 and determined the content of hydrophobic, flexible and order-disorder promoting amino acids. The protein binding regions, post-translational modifications and crystallization propensity of Npas4 were predicted through different in-silico methods. The three dimensional model of Npas4 was predicted through LOMET, SPARSKS-X, I-Tasser, RaptorX, MUSTER and Pyhre and the best model was selected on the basis of Ramachandran plot, PROSA, and Qmean scores. The best model was then subjected to further refinement though MODREFINER. Finally the interacting partners of Npas4 were identified through STRING database. The phylogenetic analysis showed the human Npas4 gene to be closely related to other primates such as chimpanzees, monkey, gibbon. The physiochemical properties of Npas4 showed that it is an intrinsically disordered protein with N-terminal ordered region. The post-translational modification analyses indicated absence of acetylation and mannosylation sites. Three potential phosphorylation sites (S108, T130 and T136) were found in PAS A domain whilst a single phosphorylation site (S273) was present in PAS B domain. The predicted tertiary structure of Npas4 showed that bHLH domain and PAS domain possess tertiary structures while the rest of the protein exhibited disorder property. Protein-protein interaction analysis revealed NPas4 interaction with various proteins which are mainly involved in nuclear trafficking of proteins to cytoplasm, activity regulated gene transcription and neurodevelopmental disorders. Moreover the analysis also highlighted the direct relation to proteins involved in promoting neuronal survival, plasticity and cAMP responsive element binding protein proteins. The current study helps in understanding the physicochemical properties and reveals the neuro-modulatory role of Npas4 in crucial pathways involved in neuronal survival and neural signalling hemostasis.
A new and simple SRF based power angle control for UPQCdg to integrate solar PV into grid

In this paper, a new Power Angle Control (PAC) method for Unified Power Quality Conditioner with Distributed Generation (UPQCdg) is proposed for effective grid integration of solar PV. In UPQCdg shunt Active Power Filter (APF) feeds power from solar PV to load, apart from supplying reactive power demand, leading to increased rating of shunt APF. PAC method aims at effective utilization of series and shunt APFs of UPQCdg to reduce their ratings. In this work a new power angle estimation method based on instantaneous power calculation is proposed. Proposed estimation technique is simple, robust and utilizes already available measurements of UPQCdg. Performance of proposed system is tested in the presence of non-linear and reactive loads with detailed model of solar PV generation system. Dynamic performance of system is studied during grid disturbances such as voltage sag and swell, solar irradiation variation, and change in load. MATLAB/Simulink based simulations validate effectiveness of proposed method.