Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of a predictive model for customer retention in the cancellation of an insurance policy

Insurance companies need to define actions to improve the persistence indicators of customers in subscription services. We want to fully understand the behavior of cancellations in mass sales channels with the retention tasks performed inside the company. As a proposal to increase the retention of customers calling to cancel, a logistic regression model and a decision tree model were used on real data through the CRISP-DM methodology. After comparing the models, the logistic regression model gives better results since its accuracy of prediction is 87.21%; this allows us to propose strategies to increase the customer retention rate.
An Efficient Scheme to Secure Data Provenance in Home Area Networks

The 5G technology has raised new security issues in the new communication paradigm as there are more devices in the network. Internet-of-Things devices, including smart home devices, will be allowed to connect, communicate, and share data faster than ever. In the context of a Home Area Network (HAN) where smart home appliances are monitored and controlled in real-time, the explosive growth of networked devices poses an elevated security threat to data provenance. This paper focuses on data provenance issues in a HAN within a smart metering infrastructure. We propose a comprehensive yet efficient solution to guarantee that the reported energy usage is collected from the real appliance as claimed, at the designated location, and that it reflects the real consumption by the appliance.
Design and evaluation of a last-minute electricity market considering local grid limitations

Schedule deviations have become a major issue in Germany’s power system in recent years. This paper introduces a fast local intraday market design to address this problem. It shows the concept of a market clearing process for the 15- minute frame between the closing time of the intraday market and the time of delivery. This fast local intraday market shall reduce the schedule deviation of renewable energies and increase system stability. It also introduces a concept of considering grid limitations in the market process. Hence the grid sensitivities of the trading partners on the power grid are considered in the matching process. Therefore, a co-simulation which includes renewable energy providers, the system operator, the market component and flexibility providers is implemented. The results of the simulation show the predicted deviations in a 2025 scenario, the potential for flexibility, the reduction of the deviations and the expected costs.
The Effect of Preoperative Carbohydrate Loading on Clinical and Biochemical Outcomes after Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials

Background and aim: Preoperative fasting leads to metabolic stress and causes insulin resistance in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of preoperative oral carbohydrate loading (OCH) on outcome in patients undergoing planned cardiac surgery by systematically reviewing the literature and synthesizing evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: Systematic search of PubMed/MEDLINE/Embase/Cinahl/Web of Science/ClinicalTrials databases was performed to identify relevant RCTs from databased inception until 05/03/2020. We included studies that compared outcome measures between OCH with control (placebo or standard starvation). We conducted a random-effect meta-analysis of clinical and biochemical parameters. Results: Nine studies (N = 9) were included with a total of 507 patients. OCH significantly decreased aortic clamping duration (n = 151, standardized mean difference (SMD) = −0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) = −0.521 to −0.038, p = 0.023 and differences in means (DM) = −6.388, 95%CI = −11.246 to −1.529, p = 0.010). Patients from treatment groups had shorter intensive care unit (ICU) stay (n = 202, SMD = −0.542, 95%CI = −0.789 to −0.295, p < 0.001 and DM = −25.925, 95%CI = −44.568 to −7.283, p = 0.006) and required fewer units of insulin postoperatively (n = 85, SMD = −0.349, 95%CI = −0.653 to −0.044, p = 0.025 and DM = −4.523, 95%CI = −8.417 to −0.630, p = 0.023). The necessity to use inotropic drugs was significantly lower in the OCH group (risk ratio (RR) = 0.795, 95%CI = 0.689 to 0.919, p = 0.002). All other primary outcomes did not reveal a significant effect. Conclusions: Preoperative OCH in patients undergoing cardiac surgery demonstrated a 20% reduction in the use of inotropic drugs, a 50% reduction of the length of ICU stay, a 28% decrease in aortic clamping duration and a 35% decrease of postoperative insulin requirement.
Selenium, antioxidants, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

ABSTRACT Background Antioxidants have been promoted for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction and for the prevention of cancer. Our preliminary analysis suggested that only when selenium was present were antioxidant mixtures associated with reduced all-cause mortality. Objective We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to determine the effect of selenium supplementation alone and of antioxidant mixtures with or without selenium on the risk of CVD, cancer, and mortality. Methods We identified studies using the Cochrane Library, Medline, and Embase for potential CVD outcomes, cancer, and all-cause mortality following selenium supplementation alone or after antioxidant supplement mixtures with and without selenium up to June 5, 2020. RCTs of ≥24 wk were included and data were analyzed using random-effects models and classified by the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach. Results The meta-analysis identified 9423 studies, of which 43 were used in the final analysis. Overall, no association of selenium alone or antioxidants was seen with CVD and all-cause mortality. However, a decreased risk with antioxidant mixtures was seen for CVD mortality when selenium was part of the mix (RR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.97; P = 0.02), with no association when selenium was absent. Similarly, when selenium was part of the antioxidant mixture, a decreased risk was seen for all-cause mortality (RR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.82, 0.98; P = 0.02) as opposed to an increased risk when selenium was absent (RR: 1.09; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.13; P = 0.0002). Conclusion The addition of selenium should be considered for supplements containing antioxidant mixtures if they are to be associated with CVD and all-cause mortality risk reduction. This trial was registered at https://www.crd. york.ac. uk/PROSPERO/ as CRD42019138268.
A Self-Compilation Flow Demo on FOS – The FPGA Operating System

With the introduction of Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs equipped with powerful 64-bit ARM CPUs along with a 16nm UltraScale+ FPGA fabric in the same die, we can now build full hardware-software programmable systems and configure the FPGA with accelerators, as needed. Traditionally, accelerators had been developed offline using powerful servers running heavy lifting CAD toolchains. In this demo, we show a self-compilation system supporting a user-friendly Jupyter Notebook GUI and multi-tenancy use of the FPGA for educational purposes. From a user perspective, this system compiles accelerators at run-time directly on the ARM CPU without any involvement of the vendor tools. The final bitstreams then execute on the FPGA fabric using PR.
Thromboelastometry identifies coagulopathy associated with liver failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation caused by yellow fever, guiding specific hemostatic therapy: a case report

This case report a severe case of yellow fever complicated by liver failure and disseminated intravascular coagulation. Thromboelastometry was capable of identifying clotting disorders and guiding hemostatic therapy. We report the case of a 23-year-old male admitted to the Intensive Care Unit with sudden onset of fever, generalized muscle pain associated with liver failure, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. The results of conventional laboratory tests showed thrombocytopenia, whereas thromboelastometry suggested coagulopathy with slight hypofibrinogenemia, clotting factor consumption, and, consequently, an increased risk of bleeding. Unlike conventional laboratory tests, thromboelastometry identified the specific coagulation disorder and thereby guided hemostatic therapy. Both fibrinogen concentrates and vitamin K were administered, and no blood component transfusion was required, even in the presence of thrombocytopenia. Administration of hemostatic drugs, including fibrinogen concentrate and vitamin K, improved thromboelastometric parameters, correcting the complex coagulation disorder. Blood component transfusion was not performed, and there was no bleeding.
Development of a Protein Scaffold for Arginine Sensing Generated through the Dissection of the Arginine-Binding Protein from Thermotoga maritima

Arginine is one of the most important nutrients of living organisms as it plays a major role in important biological pathways. However, the accumulation of arginine as consequence of metabolic defects causes hyperargininemia, an autosomal recessive disorder. Therefore, the efficient detection of the arginine is a field of relevant biomedical/biotechnological interest. Here, we developed protein variants suitable for arginine sensing by mutating and dissecting the multimeric and multidomain structure of Thermotoga maritima arginine-binding protein (TmArgBP). Indeed, previous studies have shown that TmArgBP domain-swapped structure can be manipulated to generate simplified monomeric and single domain scaffolds. On both these stable scaffolds, to measure tryptophan fluorescence variations associated with the arginine binding, a Phe residue of the ligand binding pocket was mutated to Trp. Upon arginine binding, both mutants displayed a clear variation of the Trp fluorescence. Notably, the single domain scaffold variant exhibited a good affinity (~3 µM) for the ligand. Moreover, the arginine binding to this variant could be easily reverted under very mild conditions. Atomic-level data on the recognition process between the scaffold and the arginine were obtained through the determination of the crystal structure of the adduct. Collectively, present data indicate that TmArgBP scaffolds represent promising candidates for developing arginine biosensors.
Design of Advanced Slow Denial of Service Attack Generator

This work investigates the optimization and usability of slow Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in computer networks. This paper focuses on Slowloris, Slow POST, and Slow Read attack. The reader is introduced to the principles and detection issues of these attacks, together with a closer look at the design of an advanced slow DoS attack generator. This paper also presents experimental testing of a proposed generator. The test scenarios are close to real attack cases, including distributed attacks. The proposed generator is applicable for future research or improvement of detection systems and webserver security modules.
Optimal Supply Voltage for PA Output Power Correction under Load Varying Scenarios

Power Amplifiers (PAs) are usually designed for fixed load terminations, which implies that their performance can be severely degraded for varying load operation. This paper presents a load dependent supply voltage ($V_{\mathrm{DD}}$) adaptation that can be used to correct PAs' output power in these non-optimal scenarios. The calculated $V_{\mathrm{DD}}$ values are verified in simulation and laboratory measurements for a 3.55 GHz PA based on a Cree CGH40010F Gallium Nitride (GaN) device. To dynamically vary the $V_{\mathrm{DD}}$, a GaN buck converter, based on the commercial EPC 9067 Demo Board, was used. In addition, to preserve the compression level, the excitation amplitude is accordingly adjusted. The measured output power of the PA was corrected from 37.0 dBm to 39.9 dBm - a 2.9 dB improvement for the worst case loads inside a 2.1 Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) circle.
Joint Mode Selection and Power Control for Interference Management in D2D-Enabled Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Interference is one of the most critical issues in the device-to-device (D2D)-enabled heterogeneous cellular networks (HetCNets) due to the coexistence of D2D pairs and various types of cellular user equipments (UEs) that operate in the same spectrum. In this paper, an interference management scheme of joint mode selection and power control is proposed to solve the issue in D2D-enabled HetCNets. In the scheme, we present power control with interference limited area (PC-ILA) in which power control is utilized to adjust the ILA dynamically. Furthermore, according to different ILA, users can select different communication modes to solve the problem of spectrum resource waste caused by a single communication mode. Numerical simulation results are provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme and its superiority over other schemes. Moreover, the proposed mode selection method achieves superior performance compared with existing well-known methods.
Acceleration of Simulation Models Through Automatic Conversion to FPGA Hardware

By running simulation models on FPGAs, their execution speed can be significantly improved, at the cost of increased development effort. This paper describes a project to develop a tool which converts simulation models written in high level languages into fast FPGA hardware. The tool currently converts code written using custom C++ data types into Verilog. A model of a hybrid electric vehicle is used as a case study, and the resulting hardware runs significantly faster than on a general purpose CPU.
The Polar Lipidome of Cultured Emiliania huxleyi: A Source of Bioactive Lipids with Relevance for Biotechnological Applications

Polar lipids from microalgae have aroused greater interest as a natural source of omega-3 (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), an alternative to fish, but also as bioactive compounds with multiple applications. The present study aims to characterize the polar lipid profile of cultured microalga Emiliania huxleyi using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HILIC–MS) and fatty acids (FA) analysis by gas chromatography (GC–MS). The lipidome of E. huxleyi revealed the presence of distinct n-3 PUFA (40% of total FA), namely docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3) and stearidonic acid (18:4n-3), which give this microalga an increased commercial value as a source of n-3 PUFA present in the form of polar lipids. A total of 134 species of polar lipids were identified and some of these species, particularly glycolipids, have already been reported for their bioactive properties. Among betaine lipids, the diacylglyceryl carboxyhydroxymethylcholine (DGCC) class is the least reported in microalgae. For the first time, monomethylphosphatidylethanolamine (MMPE) has been found in the lipidome of E. huxleyi. Overall, this study highlights the potential of E. huxleyi as a sustainable source of high-value polar lipids that can be exploited for different applications, namely human and animal nutrition, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
The Development of a Biomimetic Design Tool for Building Energy Efficiency

The initial aim of the research was to develop a framework that would enable architects to look for thermoregulation methods in nature as inspiration for designing energy efficient buildings. The thermo-bio-architectural framework (ThBA) assumes designers will start with a thermal challenge in a building and then look in a systematic way for how this same issue is solved in nature. The tool is thus a contribution to architectural biomimicry in the field of building energy use. Since the ThBA was created by an architect, it was essential that the biology side of this cross-disciplinary tool was validated by experts in biology. This article describes the focus group that was conducted to assess the quality, inclusiveness, and applicability of the framework and why a focus group was selected over other possible methods such as surveys or interviews. The article first provides a brief explanation of the development of the ThBA. Given the focus here is on its validation, the qualitative data collection procedures and analysis results produced by NVivo 12 plus through thematic coding are described in detail. The results showed the ThBA was effective in bridging the two fields based on the existing thermal challenges in buildings, and was comprehensive in terms of generalising biological thermal adaptation strategies.
Ranking places in attributed temporal urban mobility networks

Drawing on the recent advances in complex network theory, urban mobility flow patterns, typically encoded as origin-destination (OD) matrices, can be represented as weighted directed graphs, with nodes denoting city locations and weighted edges the number of trips between them. Such a graph can further be augmented by node attributes denoting the various socio-economic characteristics at a particular location in the city. In this paper, we study the spatio-temporal characteristics of “hotspots” of different types of socio-economic activities as characterized by recently developed attribute-augmented network centrality measures within the urban OD network. The workflow of the proposed paper comprises the construction of temporal OD networks using two custom data sets on urban mobility in Rome and London, the addition of socio-economic activity attributes to the OD network nodes, the computation of network centrality measures, the identification of “hotspots” and, finally, the visualization and analysis of measures of their spatio-temporal heterogeneity. Our results show structural similarities and distinctions between the spatial patterns of different types of human activity in the two cities. Our approach produces simple indicators thus opening up opportunities for practitioners to develop tools for real-time monitoring and visualization of interactions between mobility and economic activity in cities.
Liver Enzymes and Risk of Stroke: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study

Background and Purpose Liver enzymes (aspartate aminotransferase [AST], alanine aminotransferase [ALT], and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase [GGT]) are glutamate-regulatory enzymes, and higher glutamate levels correlated with worse prognosis of patients with neurotrauma. However, less is known about the association between liver enzymes and incidence of stroke. We evaluated the association between serum levels of AST, ALT, and GGT and incidence of stroke in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study cohort from 1990 to 1992 through December 31, 2016. Methods We included 12,588 ARIC participants without prevalent stroke and with data on liver enzymes ALT, AST, and GGT at baseline. We used multivariable Cox regression models to examine the associations between liver enzymes levels at baseline and stroke risk (overall, ischemic stroke, and intracerebral hemorrhage [ICH]) through December 31, 2016, adjusting for potential confounders. Results During a median follow-up time of 24.2 years, we observed 1,012 incident strokes (922ischemic strokes and 90 ICH). In age, sex, and race-center adjusted models, the hazard ratios (HRs; 95% confidence intervals [CIs]) for the highest compared to lowest GGT quartile were 1.94 (95% CI, 1.64 to 2.30) for all incident stroke and 2.01 (95% CI, 1.68 to 2.41) for ischemic stroke, with the results supporting a dose-response association (P for linear trend <0.001). Levels of AST were associated with increased risk of ICH, but the association was significant only when comparing the third quartile with the lowest quartile (adjusted HR, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.06 to 3.13). Conclusions Elevated levels of GGT (within normal levels), independent of liver disease, are associated with higher risk of incident stroke overall and ischemic stroke, but not ICH.
Scholars as government-appointed research evaluators: Do they create congruence between their professional quality standards and political demands?

All across the globe politically initiated research evaluations are based on “informed peer review” procedures. Scholars are appointed as evaluators and can apply self-defined quality standards in order to overcome shortcomings of standardized measures. Even though there are no binding criteria in these procedures and the quality standards of the scholars' disciplines vary, studies suggest that scholars, in their role as government-appointed research evaluators, assess research uniformly.By drawing on a small-N investigation, this study compares the quality standards scholars apply as government-appointed research evaluators with quality standards they follow as researchers. The study points to a paradox: Criteria scholars refer to while describing the excellence of their own research and criteria they use as evaluators differ and contradict each other. The results are discussed from different angles.
Comparative Evaluation of Biological Activities, Bioautography and Spot Screening of Boiled and Macerated Extracts of Medicinal Plants against Zoonotic Pathogens

Aims: There is an escalating requirement for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of zoonotic diseases. Herbal plants have always been the best source of therapeutic agents. Study Design: Biological activities of medicinal plants. and 29 June, 2015. Methodology: In current research work biological properties of various extracts of medicinal plants i.e. Atropa acuminate, Atropa belladonna and Morus nigra were investigated. Extracts were prepared through both maceration and boiling extraction methods. Antibacterial activity against zoonotic pathogens such as Serratia odorifera , Enterobacter amnigenus , Shigella flexneri, Salmonella Typhimurium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was assessed using agar well diffusion method. DPPH free radical scavenging method was used to measure antioxidant potential. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were estimated. Results: It was found that boiling extracts showed maximum antibacterial activity against all tested pathogens. The results of antioxidant potential revealed the maximum activity in root extracts of A. belladonna and all extracts of M. nigra while A. acuminata showed lowest scavenging activity. Phytochemical analysis indicated the existence of alkaloids, flavonoids, quinones, phenols, tannins, terpenoides, glycosides, steroids and carbohydrates. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) also mentioned the presence of phytochemical constituents. TLC- developed plates have showed the maximum presence of both antioxidant constituents and flavonoids contents in all boiling extracts of Z. armatum . Bio-autobiography by agar overlying assay indicated the significant inhibition of tested pathogens. Conclusion: The current study provides scientific confirmation supporting the therapeutic potency of these medicinal plants for medicinal uses and identifies gaps for future research to facilitate commercial utilization.