Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wide-Load-Range Efficiency Improvement for High-Frequency SiC-Based Boost Converter With Hybrid Discontinuous Current Mode

This paper proposes a hybrid current mode between triangular current mode (TCM) and discontinuous current mode (DCM) in order to improve a wide-load-range efficiency for a high-frequency SiC-based boost converter. At rated load, TCM, where the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) is achieved, is used in order to increase the switching frequency and minimize the boost converter. At light load, the hybrid discontinuous current mode (HDCM), where the TCM current is flown during the zero-current interval of DCM, is applied in order to achieve both ZVS and a reduction of a current ripple. This maintains a high efficiency over a wide load range. A 1-kW prototype is realized to compare HDCM over continuous current mode (CCM), DCM, and TCM. Compared to TCM, the root-mean-square current is reduced up to 56.6% with HDCM. Consequently, the efficiency of HDCM at light load of 0.1 p.u. is improved by 3.1%. Compared to DCM, the average-current ripple in HDCM is reduced by 82.3%, whereas the efficiency of HDCM at light load of 0.1 p.u. is improved by 1.5%. Finally, when the current ripple of CCM is designed to be half of TCM, the efficiency of HDCM at rated load is improved by 0.9% compared to CCM.
Chimpanzee Adenovirus Antibodies in Humans, Sub-Saharan Africa

Human sera from the United States, Thailand, and sub-Saharan Africa and chimpanzee sera were tested for neutralizing antibodies to 3 chimpanzee adenoviruses. Antibodies were more common in humans residing in sub-Saharan Africa than in humans living in the United States or Thailand. This finding suggests cross-species transmission of chimpanzee adenoviruses.
PIC: Enable Large-Scale Privacy Preserving Content-Based Image Search on Cloud

Many cloud platforms emerge to meet urgent requirements for large-volume personal image store, sharing and search. Though most would agree that images contain rich sensitive information (e.g., people, location and event) and people’s privacy concerns hinder their participation into untrusted services, today’s cloud platforms provide little support for image privacy protection. Facing large-scale images from multiple users, it is extremely challenging for the cloud to maintain the index structure and schedule parallel computation without learning anything about the image content and indices. In this work, we introduce a novel system PIC: A Privacy-preserving Image search system on Cloud, which is a step towards feasible cloud services which provide secure content-based large-scale image search with fine-grained access control. Users can search on others’ images if they are authorized by the image owners. Majority of the computationally intensive jobs are handled by the cloud, and a querier can now simply send the query and receive the result. Specially, to deal with massive images, we design our system suitable for distributed and parallel computation and introduce several optimizations to further expedite the search process. Our security analysis and prototype system evaluation results show that PIC successfully protects the image privacy at a low cost of computation and communication.
On Testing Efficiency of Karachi Stock Exchange Using Computational Intelligence

This paper tests the efficiency of the Karachi stock market. The efficient market hypothesis suggests that the current price of an asset reflects all information that can be obtained from historical data. According to the proponents of this hypothesis, the best strategy in the absence of any predictive ability is to buy and hold. The paper compares this buy and hold strategy against a computational intelligence based trading strategy which predicts the price of an asset. The prediction is then used to identify the buying and selling points of the asset. The strategy is based on neural networks whose weights are optimized through particle swarm optimization. Both buy and hold and computational intelligence based strategies are tested on KSE100 index values for the period June 2004 to April 2007. The results show that the computational intelligence based strategy out performs the buy and hold strategy.
General population reference values for 3-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-3L) questionnaire in Poland.

INTRODUCTION A Polish EQ-5D normative study published in 2010 was conducted in 2008 as a pilot study. The group of respondents was relatively small and had limited representativeness. OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to derive population norms for the 3-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-3L) questionnaire in Poland using a large, representative sample. RESPONDENTS AND METHODS Stratified random sampling was used. A total of 3941 respondents (age, 18-87 years) completed the self-administered paper-based EQ-5D-3L questionnaire (3973 completed the visual analog scale, EQ VAS) and were included in this study. Utility index scores were derived using the Polish time trade-off value set. RESULTS The study sample was representative of the general Polish population in terms of age, sex, geographical region, type and size of a given locality, level of education, and social and professional status. Mean EQ-5D-3L and visual analogue scale (EQ VAS) values decreased from 0.968 and 86.2 (age group, 18-24 years) to 0.730 and 54.0 (age group, ≥75 years), respectively. The most frequently reported complaints were pain/discomfort (45.8%) followed by anxiety/depression (33.3%), while the least commonly reported problem was self-care (9.4%). CONCLUSIONS Polish population norms developed for the EQ-5D-3L index, descriptive part of the EQ-5D-3L, and EQ VAS can be used as reference values. The availability of such normative data should encourage the use of EQ-5D-3L in health-related quality-of-life studies in Poland.
Pervasive Emotion Recognition Deficit Common to Alexithymia and the Repressive Coping Style

Objective Previous research has demonstrated a deficit in the ability to recognize emotions in alexithymic individuals. The repressive coping style is thought to preferentially impair the detection of unpleasant compared with pleasant emotions, and the degree of deficit is typically thought to be less severe than in alexithymia. We compared emotion recognition ability in both individuals with alexithymia and those with the repressive coping style. Methods Three hundred seventy-nine subjects completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, the Marlowe-Crowne Scale (a measure of repressive defensiveness), the Bendig Short Form of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Perception of Affect Task. The Perception of Affect Task consists of four 35-item emotion recognition subtasks: matching sentences and words, faces and words, sentences and faces, and faces and photographs of scenes. The stimuli in each subtask consist of seven emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, and neutral) depicted five times each. Recognition accuracy results were collapsed across subtasks within each emotion category. Results Highly alexithymic subjects (for all, p < .01) and those with low emotional awareness (for all, p < .001) were consistently less accurate in emotion recognition in all seven categories. Highly defensive subjects (including repressors) were less accurate in the detection of anger, sadness, fear, and happiness (for all, p < .05). Furthermore, scores on the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale accounted for significantly more variance in performance on the Perception of Affect Task than scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Scale (p < .01). Conclusions The results indicate that alexithymia and the repressive coping style are each associated with impairments in the recognition of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions and that the two styles of emotional self-regulation differ more in the magnitude than in the quality of these impairments.
Optogenetic Modulation and Multi-Electrode Analysis of Cerebellar Networks In Vivo

The firing patterns of cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs), as the sole output of the cerebellar cortex, determine and tune motor behavior. PC firing is modulated by various inputs from different brain regions and by cell-types including granule cells (GCs), climbing fibers and inhibitory interneurons. To understand how signal integration in PCs occurs and how subtle changes in the modulation of PC firing lead to adjustment of motor behaviors, it is important to precisely record PC firing in vivo and to control modulatory pathways in a spatio-temporal manner. Combining optogenetic and multi-electrode approaches, we established a new method to integrate light-guides into a multi-electrode system. With this method we are able to variably position the light-guide in defined regions relative to the recording electrode with micrometer precision. We show that PC firing can be precisely monitored and modulated by light-activation of channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) expressed in PCs, GCs and interneurons. Thus, this method is ideally suited to investigate the spatio/temporal modulation of PCs in anesthetized and in behaving mice.
Acute Regional Circulatory and Renal Hemodynamic Effects of Converting‐enzyme Inhibition in Patients with Congestive Heart Failure

The acute effects of the angiotensin converting-enzyme inhibitor captopril on regional blood flow, renal hemodynamics and sodium excretion were studied in 12 patients with severe congestive heart failure. Converting-enzyme inhibition decreased systemic vascular resistance by 27% and increased cardiac index by 16%. Estimated hepatic blood flow decreased 17%, but renal blood flow increased 60%. The ratio of renal-systemic blood flow increased from 0.10 ± 0.01 to 0.14 ± 0.02 (p = 0.031). Although renal plasma flow increased from 202.8 ± 28.8 to 323.7 ± 42.7 mI/min (p = 0.008), the glomerular filtration rate did not change significantly from the mean pretreatment value of 82.1 ± 12.3 mI/min. The filtration fraction decreased from 41.3 ± 3.8% to 33.4 ± 4.5% (p = 0.050), while urinary sodium excretion doubled, from 34.5 ± 9.6 to 68.2 ± 19.6 uEq/min. The plasma renin activity increased from 12.6 ± 5.0 to 29.9 ± 8.4 ng/ml/hr (p = 0.030) as plasma aldosterone concentration decreased from 30.5 ± 6.5 to 11.3 ± 1.2 ng/dl (p = 0.010) and norepinephrine concentrations decreased from 774 ± 105 to 618 ± 85 pg/nl (p = 0.020). We conclude that converting-enzyme inhibition reverses renal vasoconstriction in congestive heart failure and redistributes regional blood flow. The natriuresis may be mediated by one or more of the following: improved renal plasma flow, reduction in filtration fraction, suppression of hyperaldosteronism, and lowering of circulatory catecholamine concentrations.
A Probabilistic Approach to Full-Text Document Clustering

In addressing the issue of text document clustering, a suitable function for measuring the distance between documents is needed. In this paper we explore a function for scoring document similarity based on probabilistic considerations: similarity is scored according to the expectation of the same words appearing in two documents. This score enables the investigation of different smoothing methods for estimating the probability of a word appearing in a document for purposes of clustering. Our experimental results show that these different smoothing methods may be more or less effective depending on the degree of separability between the clusters. Furthermore, we show that the cosine coefficient widely used in information retrieval can be associated with a particular form of probabilistic smoothing in our model. We also introduce a specific scoring function that outperforms the cosine coefficient and its extensions such as TFIDF weighting in our experiments with document clustering tasks. This new scoring is based on normalizing (in the probabilistic sense) the cosine similarity score and adding a scaling factor based on the characteristics of the corpus being clustered. Finally our experiments indicate that our model, which assumes an asymmetry between positive (word appearance) and negative (word non-appearance) information in the document clustering task, outperforms standard mixture models that weight such information equally.
Capacity achieving LDPC codes through puncturing

The performance of punctured LDPC codes under maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding is studied in this paper via deriving and analyzing their average weight distributions (AWDs) and the corresponding asymptotic growth rate of the AWDs. In particular, we prove that capacity-achieving codes of any rate and for any memoryless binary-input output-symmetric (MBIOS) channel under ML decoding can be constructed by puncturing some original LDPC codes with small enough rate. Moreover, we prove that the gap to capacity of all the punctured codes can he the same as the original codes with a small enough rate. Conditions under which puncturing results in no rate loss with asymptotically high probability are also given in the process. These results show high potential for puncturing to be used in designing capacity-achieving codes, and also be used in rate-compatible coding under any MBIOS channel.
Emerging topics and new developments in the field: the 2012 international breath analysis meeting

The 2012 International Breath Analysis meeting was held in Sonoma, CA (USA) from 28 October–01 November 2012. The focus of the meeting covered several important topics within the research area, including both engineering and the biomedical sciences. As human breath analysis further develops as a multi-disciplinary field, it is clear that sensor development, instrumentation systems and algorithms play critical roles. Although much emphasis in the last decade has focused on breath biomarker compound identification and physiological relevance, we increasingly turn our attention toward portable, fieldable sensor platforms for non-invasive breath monitoring. The mission of this workshop was to assemble a group of leading experts to discuss their own research, debate trends and future directions of the field, and contemplate areas of research that deserve special attention moving forward.
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING IN VIRTUAL REALITY TRAINING ENVIRONMENTS

Technological advances in areas such as transportation, communications, and science are rapidly changing our world--the rate of change will only increase in the 21st century. Innovations in training will be needed to meet these new requirements. Not only must soldiers and workers become proficient in using these new technologies, but shrinking manpower requires more cross-training, self-paced training, and distance learning. Two key technologies that can help reduce the burden on instructors and increase the efficiency and independence of trainees are virtual reality simulators and natural language processing. This paper focuses on the design of a virtual reality trainer that uses a spoken natural language interface with the trainee. RTI has developed the Advanced Maintenance Assistant and Trainer (AMAT) with ACT II funding for the Army Combat Service Support (CSS) Battlelab. AMAT integrates spoken language processing, virtual reality, multimedia and instructional technologies to train and assist the turret mechanic in diagnosing and maintenance on the M1A1 Abrams Tank in a hands-busy, eyes-busy environment. AMAT is a technology concept demonstration and an extension to RTI’s Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMAT) which was developed for training National Guard organizational mechanics. VMAT is currently deployed in a number of National Guard training facilities. The AMAT project demonstrates the integration of spoken human-machine dialogue with visual virtual reality in implementing intelligent assistant and training systems. To accomplish this goal, RTI researchers have implemented the following features:
NEUREGULIN-1 INDUCES BRANCHING MORPHOGENESIS IN THE DEVELOPING LUNG THROUGH A PI3K SIGNAL PATHWAY

Neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) induces signal transduction through the activation of its receptor, a heterodimer of human epidermal growth factor receptors 2 and 3 (HER2/HER3). Signal transduction through this receptor/ligand system plays a critical role in the developing heart, mammary gland, and nervous systems. Previous studies showed that NRG-1–induced HER2 activation resulted in pulmonary epithelial cell proliferation in the human fetal lung. The authors hypothesized that NRG-1 further contributes to lung development and maturation by inducing branching morphogenesis. In the present study, the authors show that NRG-1, HER2, and HER3, but not HER4, are expressed in the developing mouse lung. Addition of NRG-1 to fetal lung explants increased lung branching morphogenesis by 32% (P < .05). This increase in branching was blocked by 2C4, an antibody directed against HER2 that inhibits its dimerization and subsequent NRG-1–induced signal transduction. To gain an understanding of the intracellular signaling pathways involved in NRG-1–induced branching morphogenesis, the authors specifically blocked the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) and mitogen activation protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. Inhibition of PI3K signaling significantly decreased NRG-1–induced branching morphogenesis (P < .05). Inhibition of NRG-1–induced MAPK activation had no effect on explant branching morphogenesis. These data suggest that NRG-1, binding to the HER2/HER3 heterodimer receptor complex, induces pulmonary branching morphogenesis through HER2 activation of the PI3K pathway.
Alpha Interferon Potently Enhances the Anti-Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Activity of APOBEC3G in Resting Primary CD4 T Cells

ABSTRACT The interferon (IFN) system, including various IFNs and IFN-inducible gene products, is well known for its potent innate immunity against wide-range viruses. Recently, a family of cytidine deaminases, functioning as another innate immunity against retroviral infection, has been identified. However, its regulation remains largely unknown. In this report, we demonstrate that through a regular IFN-α/β signal transduction pathway, IFN-α can significantly enhance the expression of apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme-catalytic polypeptide-like 3G (APOBEC3G) in human primary resting but not activated CD4 T cells and the amounts of APOBEC3G associated with a low molecular mass. Interestingly, short-time treatments of newly infected resting CD4 T cells with IFN-α will significantly inactivate human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) at its early stage. This inhibition can be counteracted by APOBEC3G-specific short interfering RNA, indicating that IFN-α-induced APOBEC3G plays a key role in mediating this anti-HIV-1 process. Our data suggest that APOBEC3G is also a member of the IFN system, at least in resting CD4 T cells. Given that the IFN-α/APOBEC3G pathway has potent anti-HIV-1 capability in resting CD4 T cells, augmentation of this innate immunity barrier could prevent residual HIV-1 replication in its native reservoir in the post-highly active antiretroviral therapy era.
Incidence and Prevalence of Glaucoma in Severe Ocular Surface Disease

Purpose: To describe the incidence and prevalence of glaucoma in a patient population with severe ocular surface disease (OSD). Methods: A retrospective case series was compiled from all charts of patients in the Cincinnati Eye Institute/University of Cincinnati and University of Minnesota population with a diagnosis of severe OSD from 1991 to 2003. The incidence and prevalence of glaucoma in the overall patient population were identified, and stratified into disease subgroups. Results: Of the 108 eyes evaluated in this study, 71 were diagnosed with glaucoma. The overall prevalence of glaucoma in patients with severe OSD is 65.7%, with a range from 42.9% to 88.4%. Analysis by subgroup shows the highest percentage of patients with concurrent glaucoma fall into the categories of aniridia and chemical injury, and the lowest was noted in those patients with autoimmune or iatrogenic OSD. Overall, the incidence of glaucoma was 20.4%, with a range of 13.6% to 60%. Conclusions: Compared with previous studies, our results show a significantly higher prevalence of glaucoma in patients with severe OSD. This information warrants increased attention to treatment and management of OSD and concurrent glaucoma.
Passive and Active Schizophrenia: Toward a New Descriptive Micropsychopathology

The “experiences” reported by individuals affected by schizophrenia are fundamental components of the descriptive approach adopted by current diagnostic systems for mental disorders and by clinical diagnostic interviews and rating scales for the assessment of the symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the technical literature does not rely on a specific definition of experiences in schizophrenia. This article introduces a specific, restrictive, operationalized definition of the “experiential substrate” of schizophrenia, defined by the “self-giving” “passive experiences” of the disorder that break into the consciousness of the affected individual, and are distinguished from the “active” acts of judgment formulation and conviction/belief attainment. The experiential substrate of schizophrenia may be considered similar to the experiential substrate of pain. The operationalization of the definition of passive experiences can enable the experiential substrate of schizophrenia to be acknowledged as an independent domain with a specific role in the assessment of the disorder, a role that is substantially omitted or ignored by current research and practice. The term “descriptive micropsychopathology” is proposed for this new method aimed to describe passive experiences and active judgments as independent domains to enhance the reformulation of criteria for symptom assessment and, consequently, reformulation of the criteria for the assessment of the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions aimed at prevention, care, and rehabilitation in schizophrenia. A new measure focusing on the evaluation of the passive experiences of schizophrenia and on the disturbance they cause to patients is also described.
Nutrient depletion and metabolic profiles in breast carcinoma cell lines measured with a label-free platform

The response of two well-characterized human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) to a series of nutrient deficiencies is investigated with a label-free cell assay platform. The motivation of the research is to analyze adaptive responses of tumor cell metabolism and to find limiting conditions for cell survival. The platform measures extracellular values of pH and dissolved oxygen saturation to provide data of extracellular acidification rates and oxygen uptake rates. Additional electric cell substrate impedance sensing and bright-field cell imaging supports the data interpretation by providing information about cell morphological parameters. A sequential administration of nutrient depletions does not cause metabolic reprogramming, since the ratios of oxygen uptake to acidification return to their basal values. While the extracellular acidification drops sharply upon reduction of glucose and glutamine, the oxygen uptake is not affected. In contrast to other published data, cell death is not observed when both glucose and glutamine are depleted and cell proliferation is not inhibited, at least in MCF-7 cultures. It is assumed that residual concentrations of nutrients from the serum component are able to maintain cell viability when delivered regularly by active flow like in the cell assay platform, and, in a similar way, under physiological conditions.