Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sulfonated Amphiphilic Poly(α)glutamate Amine—A Potential siRNA Nanocarrier for the Treatment of Both Chemo-Sensitive and Chemo-Resistant Glioblastoma Tumors

Development of chemo-resistance is a major challenge in glioblastoma (GB) treatment. This phenomenon is often driven by increased activation of genes associated with DNA repair, such as the alkyl-removing enzyme O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) in combination with overexpression of canonical genes related to cell proliferation and tumor progression, such as Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1). Hereby, we attempt to sensitize resistant GB cells using our established amphiphilic poly(α)glutamate (APA): small interfering RNA (siRNA) polyplexes, targeting Plk1. Furthermore, we improved brain-targeting by decorating our nanocarrier with sulfonate groups. Our sulfonated nanocarrier showed superior selectivity towards P-selectin (SELP), a transmembrane glycoprotein overexpressed in GB and angiogenic brain endothelial cells. Self-assembled polyplexes of sulfonated APA and siPlk1 internalized into GB cells and into our unique 3-dimensional (3D) GB spheroids inducing specific gene silencing. Moreover, our RNAi nanotherapy efficiently reduced the cell viability of both chemo-sensitive and chemo-resistant GB cells. Our developed sulfonated amphiphilic poly(α)glutamate nanocarrier has the potential to target siRNA to GB brain tumors. Our findings may strengthen the therapeutic applications of siRNA for chemo-resistant GB tumors, or as a combination therapy for chemo-sensitive GB tumors.
Design of Wide band Microstrip Helical Antenna for Space Applications

A b s t r a c t This paper proposes a wideband microstrip helical antenna for space applications. The frequency band considered is 8-12 GHz. The return loss, far field radiation and peak gain characteristics of this antenna are presented. The numerical analysis and optimization are performed with the HFSS (commercial software), which is based on the finite element method.
Abstract thinking facilitates aggregation of information.

Many situations in life (such as considering which stock to invest in, or which people to befriend) require averaging across series of values. Here, we examined predictions derived from construal level theory, and tested whether abstract compared with concrete thinking facilitates the process of aggregating values into a unified summary representation. In four experiments, participants were induced to think more abstractly (vs. concretely) and performed different variations of an averaging task with numerical values (Experiments 1-2 and 4), and emotional faces (Experiment 3). We found that the induction of abstract, compared with concrete thinking, improved aggregation accuracy (Experiments 1-3), but did not improve memory for specific items (Experiment 4). In particular, in concrete thinking, averaging was characterized by increased regression toward the mean and lower signal-to-noise ratio, compared with abstract thinking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
A Food Frequency Questionnaire for Hemodialysis Patients in Bangladesh (BDHD-FFQ): Development and Validation

Diet is a recognized risk factor and cornerstone for chronic kidney disease (CKD) management; however, a tool to assess dietary intake among Bangladeshi dialysis patients is scarce. This study aims to validate a prototype Bangladeshi Hemodialysis Food Frequency Questionnaire (BDHD-FFQ) against 3-day dietary recall (3DDR) and corresponding serum biomarkers. Nutrients of interest were energy, macronutrients, potassium, phosphate, iron, sodium and calcium. The BDHD-FFQ, comprising 132 food items, was developed from 606 24-h recalls and had undergone face and content validation. Comprehensive facets of relative validity were ascertained using six statistical tests (correlation coefficient, percent difference, paired t-test, cross-quartiles classification, weighted kappa, and Bland-Altman analysis). Overall, the BDHD-FFQ showed acceptable to good correlations (p < 0.05) with 3DDR for the concerned nutrients in unadjusted and energy-adjusted models, but this correlation was diminished when adjusted for other covariates (age, gender, and BMI). Phosphate and potassium intake, estimated by the BDHD-FFQ, also correlated well with the corresponding serum biomarkers (p < 0.01) when compared to 3DDR (p > 0.05). Cross-quartile classification indicated that <10% of patients were incorrectly classified. Weighted kappa statistics showed agreement with all but iron. Bland-Altman analysis showed positive mean differences were observed for all nutrients when compared to 3DDR, whilst energy, carbohydrates, fat, iron, sodium, and potassium had percentage data points within the limit of agreement (mean ± 1.96 SD), above 95%. In summary, the BDHD-FFQ demonstrated an acceptable relative validity for most of the nutrients as four out of the six statistical tests fulfilled the cut-off standard in assessing dietary intake of CKD patients in Bangladesh.
Safety Assessment of Vitamin D and Its Photo-Isomers in UV-Irradiated Baker’s Yeast

Vitamin D deficiency due to, e.g., nutritional and life style reasons is a health concern that is gaining increasing attention over the last two decades. Vitamin D3, the most common isoform of vitamin D, is only available in food derived from animal sources. However, mushrooms and yeast are rich in ergosterol. This compound can be converted into vitamin D2 by UV-light, and therefore act as a precursor for vitamin D. Vitamin D2 from UV-irradiated mushrooms has become an alternative source of vitamin D, especially for persons pursuing a vegan diet. UV-irradiated baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) for the production of fortified yeast-leavened bread and baked goods was approved as a Novel Food Ingredient in the European Union, according to Regulation (EC) No. 258/97. The Scientific Opinion provided by the European Food Safety Authority Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition, and Allergies has assessed this Novel Food Ingredient as safe under the intended nutritional use. However, recent findings on the formation of side products during UV-irradiation, e.g., the photoproducts tachysterol and lumisterol which are compounds with no adequate risk assessment performed, have only been marginally considered for this EFSA opinion. Furthermore, proceedings in analytics can provide additional insights, which might open up new perspectives, also regarding the bioavailability and potential health benefits of vitamin D-fortified mushrooms and yeast. Therefore, this review is intended to give an overview on the current status of UV irradiation in mushrooms and yeast in general and provide a detailed assessment on the potential health effects of UV-irradiated baker’s yeast.
Development of a Platform for Securing Interoperability between Components in a Carbon-Free Island Microgrid Energy Management System

The rigidity of information technology (IT) has been hindering the development of various businesses regarding energy management systems (EMSs) of power networks, although this area has become more diversified, resulting in changes of elements in the systems due to the introduction of renewable energy (RE) and the new energy industry. In order to effectively accommodate these changes, EMSs should be developed in a structure with a standard-based interface, which can secure interoperability between components in the EMS. In previous studies, the common information model (CIM) proposed by IEC TC57 has been utilized for developing EMSs of power networks, but there are gaps between the existing CIM and an information model for the EMSs of carbon-free island microgrids (MGs), which are a newly introduced form of power network covering multiple islands for reducing carbon emissions. This paper proposes a CIM-based software platform for a carbon-free island MG-EMS to efficiently operate the power network and secure interoperability between components in the MG-EMS. Concerning service restoration of the power network, use cases and business objects representing information exchanged between the components in the EMS are derived, and the existing CIM is extended based on the results of the gap analysis in order to provide necessary information on the MG-EMS. The validity of the proposed platform is verified by exchanging payloads between components in the MG-EMS based on the profile extracted from the extended CIM. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed platform regarding data size and speed of data exchange is presented. Based on the case study results, it is concluded that the proposed platform based on the extended CIM can exchange data between the components in the MG-EMS, achieving reasonable data size and speed of data exchange with the help of the interoperability between components in the carbon-free island MG-EMS.
ROLLING ELEMENT BEARING FAULT DIAGNOSIS BASED ON GENETIC ALGORITHMS

The rolling element bearing is a key part in many mechanical facilities and the diagnosis of its faults is very important in the field of machinery health monitoring. Currently the resonant demodulation technique (envelope analysis) has been widely exploited in practice. However, much practical diagnostic equipment for carrying out the analysis gives little flexibility to change the analysis parameters for different working conditions, such as variation in rotating speed, and different fault types. Because the signals from a flawed bearing have features of non-stationarity, wide frequency range and weak strength, it can be very difficult to obtain the best analysis parameters for diagnosis. However, the kurtosis of the vibration signals of a bearing is different from normal to bad condition, and is robust in varying conditions. Secondly, as genetic algorithms have a strong ability for optimization, the authors present a model and algorithm to design the parameters for optimal resonance demodulation using kurtosis as a criterion. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated by experiment and give better results than the classical method of arbitrarily choosing a resonance to demodulate. The method gives more flexibility in choosing optimal parameters than another optimization procedure based on the fast kurtogram.
A novel control method of three-phase single-switch boost power factor corrector under variable switching frequency

A novel control method of a three-phase single-switch boost power factor corrector is presented. Using this method, the system is operated under variable switching frequency without any current measurement. The input current is operated in quasi-critical discontinuous mode, which has low harmonic content. Simulation and experimental results verifying the theoretical predictions are also presented.
Measurement of Physical Properties of Lubricants Under High Pressure by Brillouin Scattering in a Diamond Anvil Cell

Brillouin scattering spectra and their transverse mode were measured for paraffinic and naphtenic synthetic lubricants, employing a high-pressure diamond anvil cell (DAC). Sound velocity, density, refractive index, and shear modulus under high pressure were obtained. The density obtained from the thermodynamic relation was compared with that from Lorentz-Lorenz's formula. The densities were also compared with Dowson's density-pressure equation of lubricants. The sound velocity in the transverse mode and shear modulus were obtained for 5P4E up to 2.7 GPa. A slope change in the pressure-sound velocity diagram was confirmed at about 0.3 GPa, which may be associated with cristallization of 5P4E, observed through a diamond optical window in the DAC
Investor’s sentiment and non-life insurance demand during economic impairment: a big dataset analysis

This paper examines the impact of investor’s sentiment on non-life insurance demand during economic impairment period. We used initial dataset of thirty-three (33) OECD countries over the period from 2007 to 2016 and employ biascorrected bootstrapping technique to create a big dataset with 10,220 observations. We argue that big dataset derived from bias-corrected bootstrapping technique will generate unbiased and efficient regression estimates. Our results showed that during economic impairment period risk-averse individuals will buy insurance policies to safeguard their wealth resulting in an increase in the demand for non-life insurance. Our findings are robust to different estimation techniques and also control for the potential endogeneities.
Automatic Recognition Analysis of Fabric Structure Based on GLCM and BP Neural Network

At present, the work to analyze fabric structure still depends on artificial visual measurement, which is easily influenced by personal sight, mood, mental state as well as light condition. With the development of image processing technology and artificial intelligence, automatic analysis on fabric structure as a replacement of manual labor is of great possibility. In this study, features of fabric-image have been extracted by GLCM (Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix). These features were analyzed by employing a three layer BP neural network. Three kinds of fabric structures such as plain, twill and satin was verified and the accurate recognition rate is very high to 93.45%.
A Closed-Form Analytical Solution to the Complete Three-Dimensional Unsteady Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations

The three main approaches in fluid dynamics are actual experiments, numerical simulations, and theoretical solutions. Numerical simulations and theoretical solutions are based on the continuity equation and Navier-Stokes equations (NSE) that govern experimental observations of fluid dynamics.Theoretical solutions can offer huge advantages over numerical solutions and experiments in the understanding of fluid flows and design. These advantages are in terms of cost and time consumption. However, theoretical solutions have been limited by the prized NSE problem that seeks a physically consistent solution than what classical potential theory (CPT) offers. Therefore, the current author refined CPT. He introduced refined potential theory (RPT) that provides a viscous potential/stream function as a physically consistent solution to the NSE problem. This function captures observable unsteady flow features including separation, wake, vortex shedding, compressibility, turbulence, and Reynolds-number-dependence. It appropriately combines the properties of a three-dimensional potential function that satisfy the inertia terms of NSE and the features of a stream function that satisfy the continuity equation, the viscous vorticity equation, and the viscous terms of NSE. RPT has been verified and validated against experimental and numerical results of incompressible unsteady sub-critical Reynolds number flows on stationary finite circular cylinder, sphere, and spheroid.
A video‐based human fall detection system for smart homes

Abstract In recent years, the global population has begun to age rapidly. Automatic fall detection for senior citizens has become an important issue for smart homes. This paper presents a novel video‐based human fall detection system that can detect a human fall in real‐time with a high detection rate. This fall detection system is based on an ingenious combination of skeleton features and human shape variations, which can efficiently distinguish “fall‐down incidents” from “fall‐like” ones. The experimental results indicate that the proposed human fall detection system can achieve a high detection rate and low false alarm rate.
Interest in Material Cycle Closure? Exploring Evolution of Industry's Responses to High-grade Recycling from an Industrial Ecology Perspective

Many anthropogenically-produced or beneficiated materials contained in “end-of-life” products retain a great proportion of the invested manufacturing work when discarded. Very few such materials are reconstituted and applied in new products at the same material inherent quality level as in their first lifetime – a process known as “closed-loop recycling”. In general, industrial society maintains an extract, expend, expel modus operandi despite demonstrated “loop closure” feasibility for a significant number of materials. This thesis builds from a foundation in Industrial Ecology, a field prescribing to an ecological metaphor for how paradigmatic change might take place towards closure of material-energy cycles. It utilises three detailed case studies of loop closure work to develop a conceptual framework describing behaviour of industrial actors when faced with the opportunity, or need, to innovate for material cycle closure. This work helps answer questions about why work towards closure for “promising” material cycles may not be progressing, where key barriers lie, and how measures might be implemented to encourage the evolution of industrial conduct towards more widespread closed-loop recycling.
Recent Trends in Stability Testing of Pharmaceutical Products: A Review.

A stability study is a routine procedure which ensures the maintenance of pharmaceutical product safety quality and efficacy throughout the shelf life. Stability studies at a developmental stage provides a data base that may be of value in selection adequate formulation to determine shelf life, container closure system and storage conditions for development of new product. In a stability study, the effects of variation in temperature, time, humidity, light intensity and partial vapor pressure on the pharmaceutical product are investigated. These pharmaceutical products are followed by the guidelines issued by International Conference on Harmonization (ICH), World Health Organization (WHO) or other agencies. This review presents the importance of stability testing for any pharmaceutical product. An important point in conducting stability studies are storage conditions which are derived from real climatic conditions. As stability study is tool in cGMP, indirectly to attribute quality product which will increase reputability of company in global market. In this review work we traced the point on recent trends in stability study, recent guidelines, climatic zones, sampling time and plan, estimation of self life, and some stability specifications for pharmaceutical products mentioned.
Development of Hardware for the Architecture of A Remote Vital Sign Monitor

Abstract A Remote Vital Sign Monitor is an in-home healthcare system designed to wirelessly monitor core-body temperature. The Remote Vital Sign Monitor provides accuracy and features which are comparable to hospital equipment while minimizing cost with ease-of-use. It has two parts, a bandage and a monitor. The bandage and the monitor both use the Chipcon2430(CC2430) which contains an integrated 2.4GHz Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum radio. The CC2430 allows Remote Vital Sign Monitor to operate at over a 100-foot indoor radius. A simple user interface allows the user to set an upper temperature and a lower temperature that is monitored with respect to the core-body temperature. If the core-body temperature exceeds the one of two defined temperatures, the alarm will sound. The alarm is powered by a low-voltage audio amplifier circuit which is connected to a speaker. In order to accurately calculate the core-body temperature, the Remote Vital Sign Monitor must utilize an accurate temperature sensing device. The thermistor selected from GE Sensing satisfies the need for a sensitive and accurate temperature reading. The LCD monitor has a screen size that measures 64.5mm long by 16.4mm wide and also contains back light, and this should allow the user to clearly view the monitor from at least 3 feet away in both light and dark situations. 요 약
On small-signal amplification of a TM circular cylindrical wave-guide mode in a gyro-TWT

A self-consistent kinetic-theory based method of analysing the small-signal amplification of a transverse magnetic (TM) mode of a circular cylindrical waveguide linearly interacting with an annular beam of gyrating electrons in a gyro-travelling wave tube (TWT) configuration is presented. When the cyclotron-resonance condition is enforced over the entire frequency range by allowing the gyro-radius and the relativistic factor to be frequency-dependent for a constant value of the axial electron speed chosen to coincide with the reciprocal of the TM-mode phase speed at a particular frequency, the initial growth rate of the interacting TM wave is seen to exhibits a shallow minimum close to, but shifted to the right of, that frequency. The growth-rate curve, however, exhibits two maxima on either side of the minimum, a sharp but large maximum to the left and a broad but a smaller maximum to the right. A gyro-TWT designed by choosing the amplifier parameters (none of them varying any longer with frequency) in such a way as to place the broad maximum of the growth-rate curve at the design frequency is shown to be capable of operation over a wide band of frequencies around the design frequency coupled with a decent value of small-signal gain and negligible frequency distortion.
Neutrophil-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Activate Platelets after Pneumolysin Exposure

Pneumolysin (PLY) is a pore-forming toxin of Streptococcus pneumoniae that contributes substantially to the inflammatory processes underlying pneumococcal pneumonia and lung injury. Host responses against S. pneumoniae are regulated in part by neutrophils and platelets, both individually and in cooperative interaction. Previous studies have shown that PLY can target both neutrophils and platelets, however, the mechanisms by which PLY directly affects these cells and alters their interactions are not completely understood. In this study, we characterize the effects of PLY on neutrophils and platelets and explore the mechanisms by which PLY may induce neutrophil–platelet interactions. In vitro studies demonstrated that PLY causes the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and the release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from both human and murine neutrophils. In vivo, neutrophil EV (nEV) levels were increased in mice infected with S. pneumoniae. In platelets, treatment with PLY induced the cell surface expression of P-selectin (CD62P) and binding to annexin V and caused a significant release of platelet EVs (pl-EVs). Moreover, PLY-induced nEVs but not NETs promoted platelet activation. The pretreatment of nEVs with proteinase K inhibited platelet activation, indicating that the surface proteins of nEVs play a role in this process. Our findings demonstrate that PLY activates neutrophils and platelets to release EVs and support an important role for neutrophil EVs in modulating platelet functions in pneumococcal infections.
Effects of ADC nonlinearities in sine-wave amplitude measurement

This paper deals with effects of uniform and nonuniform quantization in amplitude measurement of a sine wave by means of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). More specifically, the analytical relation between ADC nonlinearity and the error when the amplitude of the input sine wave has to be measured, is derived. This relation leads to both quantitative and qualitative results concerning ADC nonlinearity effects on sine wave measurement. Thus, a criterion is derived to minimize errors in practical measurements.