Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnitude of Late Quaternary Left-Lateral Displacements Along the North Edge of Tibet

Images taken by the earth observation satellite SPOT of the Quaternary morphology at 18 sites on the 2000-kilometer-long Altyn Tagh fault at the north edge of Tibet demonstrate that it is outstandingly active. Long-term, left-lateral strike-slip offsets of stream channels, alluvial terrace edges, and glacial moraines along the fault cluster between 100 and 400 meters. The high elevation of the sites, mostly above 4000 meters in the periglacial zone, suggests that most offsets resulted from slip on the fault since the beginning of the Holocene. These data imply that slip rates are 2 to 3 centimeters per year along much of the fault length and support the hypothesis that the continuing penetration of India into Asia forces Tibet rapidly toward the east.
Is Acute Static Stretching Able to Reduce the Time to Exhaustion at Power Output Corresponding to Maximal Oxygen Uptake?

Samogin Lopes, FA, Menegon, EM, Franchini, E, Tricoli, V, and de M. Bertuzzi, RC. Is acute static stretching able to reduce the time to exhaustion at power output corresponding to maximal oxygen uptake? J Strength Cond Res 24(6): 1650-1656, 2010-This study analyzed the effect of an acute static stretching bout on the time to exhaustion (Tlim) at power output corresponding to &OV0312;o2max. Eleven physically active male subjects (age 22.3 ± 2.8 years, &OV0312;o2max 2.7 ± 0.5 L·min−1) completed an incremental cycle ergometer test, 2 muscle strength tests, and 2 maximal tests to exhaustion at power output corresponding to &OV0312;o2max with and without a previous static stretching bout. The Tlim was not significantly affected by the static stretching (164 ± 28 vs. 150 ± 26 seconds with and without stretching, respectively, p = 0.09), but the time to reach &OV0312;o2max (118 ± 22 vs. 102 ± 25 seconds), blood-lactate accumulation immediately after exercise (10.7 ± 2.9 vs. 8.0 ± 1.7 mmol·L−1), and oxygen deficit (2.4 ± 0.9 vs. 2.1 ± 0.7 L) were significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.02). Thus, an acute static stretching bout did not reduce Tlim at power output corresponding to &OV0312;o2max possibly by accelerating aerobic metabolism activation at the beginning of exercise. These results suggest that coaches and practitioners involved with aerobic dependent activities may use static stretching as part of their warm-up routines without fear of diminishing high-intensity aerobic exercise performance.
Dwarf Novae in the Shortest Orbital Period Regime: II. WZ Sge Stars as the Missing Population near the Period Minimum

WZ Sge-type dwarf novae are characterized by long recurrence times of outbursts (~10 yr) and short orbital periods (<~ 85 min). A significant part of WZ Sge stars may remain undiscovered because of low outburst activity. Recently, the observed orbital period distribution of cataclysmic variables (CVs) has changed partly because outbursts of new WZ Sge stars have been discovered routinely. Hence, the estimation of the intrinsic population of WZ Sge stars is important for the study of the population and evolution of CVs. In this paper, we present a Bayesian approach to estimate the intrinsic period distribution of dwarf novae from observed samples. In this Bayesian model, we assumed a simple relationship between the recurrence time and the orbital period which is consistent with observations of WZ Sge stars and other dwarf novae. As a result, the minimum orbital period was estimated to be ~70 min. The population of WZ Sge stars exhibited a spike-like feature at the shortest period regime in the orbital period distribution. These features are consistent with the orbital period distribution previously predicted by population synthesis studies. We propose that WZ Sge stars and CVs with a low mass-transfer rate are excellent candidates for the missing population predicted by the evolution theory of CVs.
A novel grid voltage feedforward control strategy for grid-connected inverters in weak grid

The grid-connected inverter with a LCL filter has the ability of attenuating the high-frequency current harmonics. The current distortion caused by harmonics in the grid voltage is difficult to be eliminated. Applying proportion feedforward of the grid voltage can suppress the effect of grid voltage harmonics. However, weak grid is commonly seemed as a voltage source which contains a grid impedance and background harmonics, the closed-loop control and the proportion feedforward control are coupling with each other because of the existence of grid impedance. Proportion feedforward control will introduce a positive feedback loop, which will worsen the quality of the system. In this paper, a novel grid voltage feedforward control strategy was proposed. This novel control strategy is to add a low-pass filter to the grid voltage feedforward channel, which could improve the adaptability to the grid impedance. The correctness of the theoretical analysis and effectiveness of the proposed control strategy are verified by the simulation and experimental results.
Development and application of a model for chitosan hydrolysis by a family 18 chitinase

Hydrolysis of partially deacetylated chitosans by ChitinaseB (ChiB) from Serratia marcescens results in mixtures of oligosaccharides typically between 2 and 20 sugar residues. The amounts of different oligomer fractions depend on the degree of acetylation of the starting chitosans. We have used experimentally determined distributions of hydrolysis products to develop a model for chitosan hydrolysis by ChiB. Important elements of the model include interaction parameters for acetylated/deacetylated units in each of the six subsites in the active cleft and degree of processivity (multiple attack). The hydrolysis reaction is described as a chemical reaction with an activation barrier that depends on the substrate sequence presented to the enzyme subsites. Using a Monte Carlo approach, the interaction parameters were refined by minimizing the difference between observed and predicted amounts of hydrolysis products obtained upon degradation of chitosan with a degree of acetylation of 65%. The final model can accurately predict complex patterns of oligosaccharides produced in the hydrolysis of chitosans with various degrees of acetylation, as well as patterns observed during reactions with chito‐oligosaccharides. The behavior of a ChiB mutant with a mutation in subsite +2 (Gly188Asp), which reduces the affinity for an acetylated sugar, could be predicted correctly by introducing one single change in the model parameters (the interaction energy for an acetylated unit in the +2 subsite). The proposed model may be used to explore degradation products for different enzyme–substrates combinations and to optimize conditions for preparation of specific oligosaccharides. In addition, the model provides insight into subsite interaction parameters and the degree of processivity, which complements previous experimental studies on the mode of action of ChiB. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 77: 273–285, 2005
Relational Tool Use Learning by a Robot in a Real and Simulated World

A robot’s ability to perform complex manipulation tasks can be aided by being able to learn to use tools. This work aims to develop a complete robot system that can learn to use a simple tool from an observation of another agent employing a similar tool. Once the concept of the tool has been learned, the tool description is stored so that it can be used in future task planning. A relational learning system builds the tool description, which is generalised so that it can be applied under different conditions. Learning and planning are assisted by a physics simulator. Experiments are performed on a Baxter robot.
Novel Insights into Gastric Cancer : Methylation of R-spondins and Regulation of LGR 5 by SP 1

Recently, it was shown that leucine-rich repeat-containing receptor 5 (LGR5)–expressing stem cells are the cellular origin of intestinal-type gastric cancer. The aim of our study was to uncover regulatory mechanisms of LGR5 expression in gastric mucosa and their implications for cancer development. Reporter assays identified an LGR5 promoter fragment, which is highly relevant for active LGR5 expression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation verified that SP1 is bound within this region, and reporter activity increased in SP1 transfected cells. Subsequently, the expression of R-spondins (RSPO1 and RSPO2), ligands of LGR5, was explored in neoplastic and nonneoplastic gastric tissue and gastric cancer cell lines. Using IHC, distinct spatial expression patterns of LGR5, RSPO1, and RSPO2 were found in nonneoplastic stomach mucosa and gastric cancer. RSPO expression was lower in gastric cancer compared with nonneoplastic mucosa on both the transcriptional (P 1⁄4 0.003 for RSPO1 and P 1⁄4 0.000 for RSPO2; n 1⁄4 50) and the translational level. Methylationspecific PCR showed higher methylation levels of RSPO1/2 and reexpression of RSPOs in the gastric cancer cell lines MKN45 and MKN74were induced by demethylating 5-aza-C treatment. Finally, expression patterns of LGR5 and RSPO were similar in gastric cancer. Implications: This report identifies a regulatory mechanism of LGR5 expression in gastric carcinogenesis, with SP1 as an important component of the transcriptional complex and LGR5 activity, which is modulated by its ligands RSPO1 and RSPO2, whose expression is modulated by methylation. Visual Overview: http://mcr.aacrjournals. org/content/early/2017/ 05/01/1541-7786.MCR-16-0472/F1.large. jpg. Mol Cancer Res; 1–10.
Topic Associations in Document Models for Ad Hoc Information Retrieval

The integration of topic models into ad hoc retrieval has been studied by many researchers in the past decade and has achieved improved effectiveness and efficiency under the language modeling framework. However, the relationships between topics (i.e., topic associations) are rarely explored in information retrieval (IR). Topic associations can potentially improve the performance of IR systems. For example, when searching for “viral marketing”, one might also be interested in seeing the results related with “word-of-mouth” or “social media”. We build a topic-cluster-based document model to incorporate topic associations into the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model. To discover the relationships between topics, we propose two clustering approaches based on topic co-occurrence and semantic similarity. To evaluate the performance of our proposed model, we plan to conduct a user study on ISTopic, an intelligent literature search tool for the IS community, and compare it with the query likelihood model and LDA-based model in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, which are frequently adopted in user studies as measures for usability of IR systems. In addition, we plan to evaluate it on several TREC ad hoc test collections using mean average precision as the quantitative measure following the IR literature.
Finite-Element Computation of Sensitivities of Interconnect Parasitic Capacitances to the Process Variation in VLSI

As the VLSI technologies shrink to nanoscale, the process variability has become a critical issue: what we get on silicon is substantially different than what we design. Dealing with the process variation is an important subject in today's integrated circuit (IC) design, modeling, and simulation. Sensitivity analysis turns out to be an efficient tool to address this kind of issue. This paper uses the finite-element method to compute the parasitic capacitances of IC interconnects based the nominal geometry parameters, and the capacitance sensitivities with respect to the geometry parameters susceptible to vary. The goal of sensitivity computation using the finite-element method is to compute the first derivative of unknown vectors with respect to the geometry parameters. In contrast to the traditional differential method, this method reduces the error and the compute time. This paper makes a useful attempt in the aspect of using sensitivities to analyze the certain and the uncertain variation of geometry parameters of IC interconnects.
Dynamics of obesity paradox after stroke, related to time from onset, age, and causes of death

Objective: Paradoxical longevity in obese patients with established disease has been documented in various conditions. We aimed to find whether such a relationship exists in ischemic stroke patients, with stratified analyses according to time of death after stroke, age, and cause of death. Methods: The Korean Stroke Registry (KSR) is a nationwide, multicenter, prospective registry of acute stroke. For 7.5 years, data on 34,132 patients with acute ischemic stroke were collected through KSR, and their mortality information was ascertained through a governmental statistical office. We assessed relative hazard of mortality according to obesity status. Results: Stroke survivors whose body mass index (BMI) values were lower than the chosen reference level of 20–23 had increased risks of long-term mortality (hazard ratio [HR] of 1.36 and 95% confidence interval [CI] of 1.25–1.48 for BMI ≤18.5; HR of 1.14 and 95% CI of 1.03–1.26 for BMI 18.5–20), whereas obese stroke patients had decreased risks of mortality (HR of 0.83 and 95% CI of 0.74–0.92 for BMI 27.5–30; HR of 0.77 and 95% CI of 0.63–0.93 for BMI 30–32.5). Inverse association between obesity status and mortality was not evident until 90 days after stroke but became significant 1 year after onset of stroke. Such an association was more prominent in stroke patients who were less than 65 years old, but it remained constant in all age groups. The paradoxical relationship remained significant, regardless of causes of death. Conclusions: Our results documented obesity paradox in stroke survivors, regardless of age and causes of death, and it became evident a sufficient time after stroke onset.
Réconciliation d'alignements multi-lingues dans BioPortal

De nos jours, les ontologies sont souvent developpees de maniere multilingue. Cependant, pour des raisons historiques, dans le domaine biomedical, de nombreuses ontologies ou terminologies ont ete traduites d'une langue a une autre ou sont maintenues explicitement dans chaque langue. Cela genere deux ontologies potentiellement alignees mais avec leurs propres specificites (format, developpeurs, versions, etc.). Souvent, il n'existe pas de representation formelle des liens de traduction reliant les ontologies traduites aux originales et ils ne sont pas accessibles sous forme de linked data. Cependant, ces liens sont tres importants pour l'interoperabilite et l'integration de donnees biomedicales multilingues. Dans cet article, nous presentons les resultats d'une etude de reconciliation des liens de traduction entre ontologies sous forme d'alignements multilingues. Nous avons reconcilie et represente a l'aide de vocabulaire du web semantique, plus de 228K mappings entre dix ontologies anglaises hebergees sur le NCBO BioPortal et leurs traductions francaises. Ensuite, nous avons stocke a la fois les ontologies et les mappings sur une version francaise de la plate-forme, appelee SIFR BioPortal, pour rendre le tout disponible en RDF (donnees liees). La reconciliation des alignements s'est averee plus complexe que ce qu'on pourrait penser car les traductions ne sont que rarement l'exacte copie des originales comme nous le discutons. Mots-cles : Mappings ou alignements multilingues, reconciliations de mappings, web semantique, donnees liees, alignement d'ontologies, entrepot d'ontologies, ontologies biomedicales, BioPortal, interoperabilite et integration de donnees, diffusion de donnees et de connaissances.
Clinical Role of Direct Renin Inhibition in Hypertension

Treatment strategies to improve blood pressure control, reduce end-organ damage, and improve cardiovascular outcomes are more important today than ever before. Most patients will require combination therapy to achieve target blood pressure; early initiation of combination therapy may help patients achieve blood pressure control more rapidly. Low-dose combinations may be more effective with fewer adverse effects than higher doses of single agents. Dysregulation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) is an important contributor in the pathogenesis of hypertension and its sequelae. Treatment with a direct renin inhibitor blocks the rate-limiting step in the RAAS, resulting in decreased angiotensin I and II production and decreased urinary aldosterone excretion. Like the angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers, treatment with a direct renin inhibitor increases plasma renin concentration, but unlike the other RAAS inhibitors, treatment with a direct renin inhibitor decreases plasma renin activity. This unique combination of effects on the RAAS make a direct renin inhibitor an attractive option to combine with other antihypertensive agents for the management of hypertension and its comorbidities. Clinical studies have shown that combining the direct renin inhibitor, aliskiren, with drugs representing each of the major classes of antihypertensive agents (thiazide diuretics, beta blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, and calcium-channel blockers) reduces blood pressure, improves markers for cardiovascular outcomes, or does both. Results of several ongoing randomized clinical trials should provide additional insights into the potential of therapeutic combinations that include aliskiren to improve cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with hypertension and related comorbidities.
Nonlinear integral-type sliding surface for both matched and unmatched uncertain systems

This paper presents a new nonlinear integral-type sliding surface which incorporates a virtual nonlinear nominal control to achieve the prescribed specifications. First, the plant with matched uncertainties is considered. The resultant closed-loop system during ideal sliding mode behaves exactly like a nominal plant under the nonlinear nominal control, which completely nullifies the matched uncertainties and consequently satisfies the prescribed specifications. Next, the stability analysis of the proposed sliding mode for the systems with unmatched uncertainties is performed to exploit the stability margin. Application examples to realize the eigenvalue assignment and linear quadratic regulator optimal control with respect to the linear part of a nominal plant are studied. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme.
Quaternion-based color image filtering for impulsive noise suppression

It is difficult to precisely detect all impulsive noise in color images due to the nonstationarity caused by edges and fine details. For many pixels, we can not absolutely classify them as noisy or noise-free, but can only describe them using the likelihood that they are corrupted by impulsive noise. Based on this consideration, we present a new filtering solution to removing impulsive noise from color images. The proposed method first utilizes the unit transforms of quaternions to represent the chromaticity difference of two color pixels, and then divides the image into noise-free and possible noisy pixels. Finally it performs adaptive weighted vector median filtering operations on only the possible noisy pixels to suppress noise. The new weighting mechanism is based on a joint spatial/quaternion-chromaticity criterion, which ensures that pixels with different contamination likelihoods have different contributions to the filter's output. The extensive simulation results indicate that the proposed method significantly outperforms some other well-known multichannel filtering techniques.
Online Prediction of Battery Discharge and Estimation of Parasitic Loads for an Electric Aircraft

Predicting whether or not vehicle batteries contain sufficient charge to support operations over the remainder of a given flight plan is critical for electric aircraft. This paper describes an approach for identifying upper and lower uncertainty bounds on predictions that aircraft batteries will continue to meet output power and voltage requirements over the remainder of a flight plan. Battery discharge prediction is considered here in terms of the following components; (i) online battery state of charge estimation; (ii) prediction of future battery power demand as a function of an aircraft flight plan; (iii) online estimation of additional parasitic battery loads; and finally, (iv) estimation of flight plan safety. Substantial uncertainty is considered to be an irremovable part of the battery discharge prediction problem. However, highconfidence estimates of flight plan safety or lack of safety are shown to be generated from even highly uncertain prognostic predictions.
Design of a multimode MIMO antenna using characteristic modes

In this communication, the design procedure of a multimode Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna is presented. The antenna consists of a metallic ring antenna operating with different orthogonal modes, whose performance in a MIMO system is similar to traditional antenna arrays. Thus, a compact MIMO antenna is obtained, which is very suitable for mobile terminals. A modal analysis of the antenna is carried out first by means of the Theory of Characteristic Modes, in order to identify the different radiating modes of the antenna. Then a set of feeding configurations is proposed so as to excite these modes. As the modes must operate in the same frequency band, a loading technique is used in the antenna in order to shift the resonance frequency of the modes to the proper band.
High performance surface acoustic resonators in 1–3 GHz range using ScAlN/6H-SiC structure

This paper describes application of Sc-doped AlN (ScAlN) to wideband surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices in 1–3 GHz range. First, it is shown theoretically that large SAW velocity and electromechanical coupling factor are simultaneously achievable when the ScAlN is combined with a base substrate with extremely high acoustic wave velocities such as diamond and SiC. Next, SAW delay lines are fabricated on the ScAlN/6H-SiC structure, and it is shown that SAW properties are simulated well theoretically. Finally, one-port SAW resonators are fabricated on the structure, and it is shown how high performances are achievable in 1–3 GHz range by use of the structure.