Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simplified Isolated Forward Converter

This thesis pertains to a forward converter consisting only of primary-side control circuits for regulating the output voltage. Control circuits in a conventional forward converter for regulating the output voltage control the on and off times of primary-side switching transistor by comparing the output voltage directly with the reference voltage. To isolate the primary from the secondary, the converter must contain not only the main transformer but also insulated transformers in control circuit power supply and transistor driver circuits. Since the forward converter described in this thesis converts output voltage to primary-side voltage proportioned to the output voltage by the main transformer, all control circuits in the converter can be configured on the primary side; to isolate the primary side from the secondary side, only the main transformer need be insulated. The converter generates a fly-back voltage from energy stored in the main transformer by turning a transistor on and cramps the voltage at a level proportional to the output voltage. This thesis describes how this forward converter produces stable output.
Elevated levels of cerebrospinal fluid α-synuclein oligomers in healthy asymptomatic LRRK2 mutation carriers

Mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 gene are the most common cause of autosomal dominant Parkinson’s disease (PD). To assess the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of α-synuclein oligomers in symptomatic and asymptomatic leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutation carriers, we used enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) to investigate total and oligomeric forms of α-synuclein in CSF samples. The CSF samples were collected from 33 Norwegian individuals with leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutations: 13 patients were clinically diagnosed with PD and 20 patients were healthy, asymptomatic leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutation carriers. We also included 35 patients with sporadic PD (sPD) and 42 age-matched healthy controls. Levels of CSF α-synuclein oligomers were significantly elevated in healthy asymptomatic individuals carrying leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutations (n = 20; P < 0.0079) and in sPD group (n = 35; P < 0.003) relative to healthy controls. Increased α-synuclein oligomers in asymptomatic leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 mutation carriers showed a sensitivity of 63.0% and a specificity of 74.0%, with an area under the curve of 0.66, and a sensitivity of 65.0% and a specificity of 83.0%, with an area under the curve of 0.74 for sPD cases. An inverse correlation between CSF levels of α- synuclein oligomers and disease severity and duration was observed. Our study suggests that quantification of α-synuclein oligomers in CSF has potential value as a tool for PD diagnosis and presymptomatic screening of high-risk individuals.
The role of surgery in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer

Nowadays, the standard management of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer is correct surgical staging and optimal tumour cytoreduction followed by platinum and taxane-based chemotherapy. Standard surgical staging consists of peritoneal washings, total hysterectomy, and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, inspection of all abdominal organs and the peritoneal surface, biopsies of suspicious areas or randomised biopsies if they are not present, omentectomy and para-aortic lymphadenectomy. After this complete surgical staging, the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging system for ovarian cancer is applied to determine the management and prognosis of the patient. Complete tumour cytoreduction has shown an improvement in survival. There are some criteria to predict cytoreduction outcomes based on serum biomarkers levels, preoperative imaging techniques, and laparoscopic-based scores. Optimised patient selection for primary cytoreduction would determine patients who could benefit from an optimal cytoreduction and might benefit from interval surgery. The administration of intraperitoneal chemotherapy after debulking surgery has shown an increase in progression-free survival and overall survival, especially in patients with no residual disease after surgery. It is considered that 3–17% of all epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) occur in young women that have not fulfilled their reproductive desires. In these patients, fertility-sparing surgery is a worthy option in early ovarian cancer.
Lung Basal Stem Cells Rapidly Repair DNA Damage Using the Error-Prone Nonhomologous End-Joining Pathway

Lung squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC), the second most common subtype of lung cancer, is strongly associated with tobacco smoking and exhibits genomic instability. The cellular origins and molecular processes that contribute to SqCC formation are largely unexplored. Here we show that human basal stem cells (BSCs) isolated from heavy smokers proliferate extensively, whereas their alveolar progenitor cell counterparts have limited colony-forming capacity. We demonstrate that this difference arises in part because of the ability of BSCs to repair their DNA more efficiently than alveolar cells following ionizing radiation or chemical-induced DNA damage. Analysis of mice harbouring a mutation in the DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs), a key enzyme in DNA damage repair by nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ), indicated that BSCs preferentially repair their DNA by this error-prone process. Interestingly, polyploidy, a phenomenon associated with genetically unstable cells, was only observed in the human BSC subset. Expression signature analysis indicated that BSCs are the likely cells of origin of human SqCC and that high levels of NHEJ genes in SqCC are correlated with increasing genomic instability. Hence, our results favour a model in which heavy smoking promotes proliferation of BSCs, and their predilection for error-prone NHEJ could lead to the high mutagenic burden that culminates in SqCC. Targeting DNA repair processes may therefore have a role in the prevention and therapy of SqCC.
Sibling status effects: Parents' perceptions of their own children.

Abstract This study explored to what extent parents' beliefs about the effects of sibling status on children are reflected in their perceptions of their own children. The 105 parents in the study completed two adjective checklists: one asking them to describe what they would expect an only, oldest, or youngest child in a family to be like, and another asking them to describe their own children. Children's sibling status and age were significant factors in the ratings parents made. Parents with more than one child also were more consistent than parents with only children in rating their own children compared with rating hypothetical children of similar sibling status. Understanding more about how these different parental expectations are formed might help to explain differences in how parents treat only, firstborn, and lastborn children.
Understanding Women’s Achievement Choices

I am delighted to write this commentary for this special section about two of my previous articles in Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ): the 1987 article entitled ‘‘Gender Roles and Women’s Achievement-Related Decisions’’ and the 1994 article entitled ‘‘Understanding Women’s Educational and Occupational Choices. ’’ Please find the original articles at pwq . sagepub.com/content/11/2/135 and http://pwq.sagepub.com/ content/18/4/585. I was asked to reflect on the personal and professional contexts that led to these articles, the impact of these articles on the field as well as on my career, and the current and likely future directions of work in this area. Let me begin, however, by thanking all my collaborators who made this work possible. I have been blessed with many outstanding collaborators over the years (acknowledged in my Author Note)—they have all contributed as much as I have to the work that led to these articles and that has guided my research program for the last 40 years.
The Extraction of Pharmacogenetic and Pharmacogenomic Relations - A Case Study Using PharmGKB

In this paper, we report on adapting the JREX relation extraction engine, originally developed For the elicitation of protein-protein interaction relations, to the domains of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics. We propose an intrinsic and an extrinsic evaluation scenario which is based on knowledge contained in the PharmGKB knowledge base. Porting JREX yields favorable results in the range of 80% F-score for Gene-Disease, Gene-Drug, and Drug-Disease relations.
Rehabilitation of Gait Speed After Stroke: A Critical Review of Intervention Approaches

Purpose. Walking speed is a cardinal indicator of poststroke gait performance; however, no consensus exists regarding the optimal treatment method(s) for its enhancement. The most widely accepted criterion for establishing the contribution of treatment to walking speed is the gain in speed. The actual speed, however, at the end of the intervention (final speed) may be more important for functional community ambulation. This review examines the contribution of the prevailing methods for gait rehabilitation to final walking speed. Method. Walking speed information was derived from studies included in meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and clinical practice guidelines. Recent references, not included in the mentioned sources, were incorporated in cases when gait speed was an outcome variable. Final speed was assessed by the reported speed values and by inferring the capacity for functional community walking at the end of the intervention period. Results. Similar outcomes for final walking speed were found for the different prevailing treatment methods. Treatment gains were likewise comparable and generally insufficient for upgrading patients' functional community walking capacity. Conclusions. Different treatment methods exist for poststroke gait rehabilitation. Their availability, mode of application, and costs vary, yet outcomes are largely similar. Therefore, choosing an appropriate method may be guided by a pragmatic approach. Simple “low technology” and conventional exercise to date is at least as efficacious as more complex strategies such as treadmill and robotic-based interventions.
The Best Quality Cooperation between Parents and Experts in Early Intervention.

The process of early intervention, both for children with delayed development and for those with disabilities, depends to a great extent on parent-expert cooperation. Based on an analysis of literature, this article describes the main challenges facing successful parental cooperation and what is to be achieved by it. The results of a survey of 984 mothers in Bavaria are used to illustrate the personal views of mothers regarding cooperation and what they expect to achieve from parent-expert partnerships. The indicators for effective parent-expert collaboration that became apparent from this survey can and should be used in the development of systematic cooperation diagnostics for early intervention.
An extended data-flow architecture for data analysis and visualization

Modular visualization environments utilizing a data-flow execution model have become quite popular in recent years, especially those that incorporate visual programming tools. However, simplistic implementations of such an execution model are quite limited when applied to problems of realistic complexity, which negate the intuitive advantage of data-flow systems. This situation can be resolved by extending the execution model to incorporate a more complete and efficient programming infrastructure while still preserving the virtues of pure "data-flow". This approach has been used for the implementation of a general-purpose software package, IBM Visualization Data Explorer.
The Brief Depression Scale - Reliability and validity of a new self-rating depression scale

A new, ten-item, self-rated depression scale, the Brief Depression Scale (BDS), was validated in 275 psychiatric in-patients and out-patients with depressive illness and anxiety disorders and a non-clinical sample of 50 subjects. The BDS showed satisfactory convergence with the interview rated Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (rs = 0.72 and p < 0.001) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scales (rs = 0.70 and p < 0.001) and with the depression subscale of the self-rated Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (rs = 0.89 and p < 0.0001). The BDS had satisfactory internal consistency with a Cronbach's a-value of 0.86. The construct validity of the scale was assessed by principal components analysis and a two-factor solution was found in the clinical sample which explained 54% of the variance in the BDS total score. The sensitivity of the scale to clinical change in patients treated over an 8 week period was found to be satisfactory (as judged by the biserial correlation coefficient of change in BDS score with changes in other depression measures). The BDS had a sensitivity of 87% and specificity of 90% at a cut-off score of 19. The BDS is a brief, reliable and valid measure which may be useful in primary and secondary care settings as both a screening and outcome measure for depression
Physical model of the impact of metal grain work function variability on emerging dual metal gate MOSFETs and its implication for SRAM reliability

A new model of work function variability (WFV) based on grain orientation differences of the polycrystalline metal gate is reported. Our model predicts that at the 22 nm technology node, among the three device variability sources: random dopant fluctuation (RDF), line edge roughness (LER) and WFV, WFV will cross over RDF and becomes the dominating factor. The SRAM circuit analysis shows that write/read failures are underestimated by 9 orders of magnitude by the area weighted averaged work function model.
Legitimacy, Authority, and Community in Electronic Support Groups

In electronic support groups, people use Internet-based electronic text communication to discuss personal problems or disorders with others who share common circumstances. Although their discussions exist only in the electronic medium, these groups can be viewed usefully as discourse communities. The authors draw on what is known about two other popular sources of help—face-to-face self-help groups and self-help books—to frame the rhetorical challenges faced by members of electronic support groups. The authors then compare the discourse of electronic support groups with that of electronic hobby groups to demonstrate that the two sets differ in terms of the rhetorical behavior of their participants. The authors analyze messages to determine how members establish legitimacy and authority in their texts and how message exchange gives rise to group identity and a sense of community. Our observations indicate that although some discourse characteristics and some rhetorical features are common to all the electronic groups we studied, others are unique to the special requirements of electronic support groups.
The problem of noise in classification: Past, current and future work

Data have been accumulated to wait for being analyzed in real world. But the imperfection of data complicates the analysis process. According to “garbage in, garbage out”, model built on such data will mislead the following study. Multiple empirical studies have showed that noise in dataset dramatically decrease the classification accuracy and increase the complexity of classification. Therefore, the problem of noise in classification is always the focus in machine learning and data mining. At the same time, noise is uncertain, so the problem is also a difficult and open problem. For systematically studying the problem, we summarize and analyze the main researches from the aspects of noise model, method of handling noise and algorithms of handling noise. Based on the past and current work, we discuss some new directions in solving the problem.
Analysis of Damping and Synchronizing Torques Part I-A General Calculation Method

A new method is presented to calculate the synchronizing and damping components of electrical torque developed in a synchronous machine with arbitrary complexity of machine and control configuration. The individual contributions of field, damper, and reluctance components are determined explicitly. The method is based on numerical analysis of system time responses using a least squares error criterion. The method is equally applicable to responses obtained from on-line measurements or system simulation.
Fast Economic Development Accelerates Biological Invasions in China

Increasing levels of global trade and intercontinental travel have been cited as the major causes of biological invasion. However, indirect factors such as economic development that affect the intensity of invasion have not been quantitatively explored. Herein, using principal factor analysis, we investigated the relationship between biological invasion and economic development together with climatic information for China from the 1970s to present. We demonstrate that the increase in biological invasion is coincident with the rapid economic development that has occurred in China over the past three decades. The results indicate that the geographic prevalence of invasive species varies substantially on the provincial scale, but can be surprisingly well predicted using the combination of economic development (R2 = 0.378) and climatic factors (R2 = 0.347). Economic factors are proven to be at least equal to if not more determinant of the occurrence of invasive species than climatic factors. International travel and trade are shown to have played a less significant role in accounting for the intensity of biological invasion in China. Our results demonstrate that more attention should be paid to economic factors to improve the understanding, prediction and management of biological invasions.
Imagery and Emotion Components of Event Descriptions about Self and Various Others

Imagery and emotion have been identified as two of the main component systems of autobiographical events. It is not yet known, however, whether a primary focus on either the self or others may have an impact on these components. To investigate this issue, half of the participants in this study provide a real and made-up event description about themselves, and half provide descriptions about a well-known other. In addition, all participants generated a made-up event description about an unfamiliar other. In accord with predictions generated from a multiple-system model, real events received higher visual detail, imagability, and positive emotion ratings than made-up events. This pattern was also evident for a novel measure of imagery, in which real events were rated as being much more dynamic than made-up events. However, contrary to theoretical positions which postulate a special enhanced role for self-referent information processing, the self-descriptive events were not rated as being easier to imagine and did not have more positive emotions or visual detail, than descriptive events about well-known others. This pattern suggests that efficient cognitive schemata may be involved in the processing of information about both the self and well-known others. In contrast, descriptions of an unfamiliar other received lower imagery and emotionality ratings, suggesting that less well-differentiated cognitive structures are involved in component processing for these individuals.
Competent Actors or Vulnerable Objects? Constructions of Children and State Intervention among Finnish Politicians in Relation to the Child Protection Act 1983 and 2006

This article investigates constructions of children and state intervention among Finnish MPs during the parliamentary debates relating to the 1983 and 2006 enactments of the Child Protection Act. It seeks to illuminate the politicization of children within a parliamentary framework, and to illuminate the role of dominant discourses, ideas and ideological views in shaping child protection policy. The research data consist of the official transcriptions of speeches made by MPs during the preliminary debates relating to the 1983 and 2007 bills on child protection.The data were analysed by using qualitative content analysis. The results suggest that the notion of the child as an actor with individual rights was rather controversial among MPs in 1983. The core of this controversy consisted of whether or not parental authority should be weakened in favour of enhanced child agency, and whether it would be advisable to permit more intense public intervention in the family sphere. In the 2006 debate, by contrast, the idea of children's rights and agency had become an uncontested principle that impregnated most of the speakers' statements. However, this accentuation of the child's agency pro forma was accompanied by rather gloomy evaluations of the well-being of contemporary families with children, including claims for more rigorous public actions in order to regulate family-related risks. This resulted in a somewhat paradoxical situation where children's rights were emphasized, while at the same time stricter demands on public and adult control over children were presented.
GAPSS: the Global Anti-Phospholipid Syndrome Score.

OBJECTIVE To develop and validate a risk score [global APS score (GAPSS)] derived from the combination of independent risk for thrombosis and pregnancy loss (PL), taking into account the aPL profile, conventional cardiovascular risk factors and the autoimmune antibody profile. METHODS This cross-sectional study included 211 consecutive SLE patients. Data on clinical manifestations, conventional cardiovascular risk factors, aPL profile, ANAs, ENA and anti-dsDNA were collected. Long-term low-dose aspirin, oral anticoagulant and HCQ treatment were also included in the analysis. Patients were randomly divided into two sets by a computer-generated randomized list. We developed GAPSS in the first set of patients (n = 106), assigning the risk factors identified by multivariate analysis weighted points proportional to the β-regression coefficient values. GAPSS was validated in the second set of patients (n = 105). The relationship between GAPPS and thrombosis and/or PL was analysed. RESULTS In the first set, higher values of GAPSS were seen in patients who experienced thrombosis and/or PL compared with those without clinical events [GAPSS 9.3 (4.8) (range 1-19) and 5.3 (4) (range 0-16), P < 0.001]. Also taken separately, patients who experienced thrombosis or PL showed higher GAPSS compared with those without clinical events [GAPSS 9.6 (4.8) (range 1-19) vs 4.9 (5) (range 0-14), P = 0.027 for thrombosis; 7.3 (5) vs 3.9 (5.1) (range 0-16), P = 0.024 for PL, respectively]. In the second set, the results were similar, with statistically higher values of GAPSS in patients with a clinical history of thrombosis and/or PL compared with those without events [GAPSS 9.5 (5.6) (range 0-20) and 3.9 (4.1) (range 0-17), P < 0.001). Higher values were also seen when subclassifying the patients according to the clinical manifestation, thrombosis or PL [GAPSS 9.5 (5.6) (range 0-20) vs 4.8 (5.4) (range 0-17), P = 0.036 for thrombosis; 7.9 (3.3) vs 3.8 (5.4) (range 0-16), P = 0.037 for PL, respectively). CONCLUSION These data propose a substantial improvement in risk prediction of thrombosis or PL in SLE based on assessment of the GAPSS, a quantitative scoring system.