Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New sensorless vector control using minimum-order flux state observer in a stationary reference frame for permanent-magnet synchronous motors

This paper proposes a new sensorless vector control method that can be applied to both of salient-pole and nonsalient-pole permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs). The proposed method estimates the phase of a rotor flux by a newly developed state observer in a stationary reference frame for sensorless vector controls of PMSMs. The flux state observer has the following attractive features: 1) it requires no steady-state conditions for the dynamic mathematical model of the motor; 2) its order is the minimum second; 3) a single observer gain is simply constant over a wide operating range and can be easily designed; 4) it utilizes motor parameters in a very simple manner; and 5) its structure is very simple and can be realized at a very low computational load. The proposed speed-estimation method, which exploits the inherent physical relation of integration/derivation between phase and speed, is very simple and can properly estimate rotor speed. The usefulness of the proposed method is examined and confirmed through extensive experiments.
Innovation Process Barriers in Public Sector: a Comparative Analysis in Lithuania and the European Union

Innovation design and implementation becomes one of the essential conditions for the modernization of publicgovernance, but innovation process in public sector is a quite risky and the success is not always guaranteed, so itis important to identify and to prevent innovation barriers. Public sector organizations’ abilities to identify theinnovation barriers and to develop their management instruments, determine the quality and efficiency ofinnovation processes. The most frequently mentioned barriers to public sector innovations are a lack of foundingand human resources, regulatory requirements, a lack of management support and incentives for staff, an uncertainacceptance by users, a risk-averse culture and a staff resistance. The article focuses on the classification of publicsector innovation problems and barriers. The authors, using meta-analysis method, attempt to model interferencesof internal and external barriers to innovation. By a content analysis of secondary data, authors try to finddifferences, similarities and to compare innovation barriers in Lithuania and other countries of the EuropeanUnion.
Elevated central nervous system prostaglandins in human immunodeficiency virus—associated dementia

The dementia associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is poorly understood. Dementia is accompanied by infection and activation of macrophage lineage cells in the brain and production of toxic products by these cells has been postulated to play a role in the pathogenesis of dementia. Eicosanoids are potential products of activated macrophages that can mediate cell injury. We measured the levels of prostaglandin E2 in the cerebrospinal fluid of HIV‐positive individuals with dementia and/or myelopathy and compared these levels with those of HIV‐negative patients with other neurological diseases and HIV‐positive patients without dementia. Cerebrospinal fluid prostaglandin E2 levels were increased in dementia. This increase was associated with severity of dementia and correlated with cerebrospinal fluid levels of neopterin and β2‐microglobulin. Prostaglandins F2α and thromboxane B2, additional products of the cyclooxygenase pathway of arachidonic acid metabolism, were also elevated in dementia, but leukotriene C4, a product of the lipoxygenase pathway was not. Since synthesis of prostaglandins is regulated in part by the levels of inducible forms of cyclooxygenase, we measured the levels of cyclooxygenase‐1 and 2 mRNAs in the brains of HIV‐positive individuals with and without dementia by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Levels of intact cyclooxygenase‐1 mRNA were higher in the brains of demented individuals, but this did not reach statistical significance. These data demonstrate that prostaglandins are increased in the central nervous system in HIV‐associated dementia and may play a role in the development of neurological dysfunction.
Which manufacturing firms learn by exporting?

Using a longitudinal database (1996–2003) at the plant level, this article analyses the causal nexus between international trade engagement and productivity in Portugal. By applying the propensity score matching and a differences-in-differences estimator, the learning-by-exporting hypothesis is analysed in particular. A higher growth of labour productivity and total factor productivity is found for new exporting firms. To uncover the channels through which the learning effects are driven, the same methodology is applied to some sub-samples. Learning effects are higher for new exporters that are also importers or start importing at the same time. Other factors affecting learning ability are found in firms exporting to more developed markets, in those that achieve a certain threshold of export intensity and mainly for those firms that belong to sectors where Portugal has a comparative disadvantage.
Measuring business angel investment activity in the United Kingdom: a review of potential data sources

Business angels play a critical role in the creation of an entrepreneurial climate. However, measuring business angel investment activity on either a cross-sectional or time series basis is extremely problematic. This paper reviews various approaches to measuring business angel investment activity: simple extrapolations, supply-side approaches, demand-side approaches, hybrid approaches, investment-oriented approaches, tax incentive schemes and angel syndicates. It advocates that all developed countries should produce time series data on business angel investment activity to provide policy-makers with an overview of the financing environment and to monitor the effects of interventions in the market. This requires a clear definition of a business angel and a focus on investments rather than investors. The paper recommends a multi-methods approach to collecting data on the UK business angel market.
Hepatic fibrosis 2006: Report of the third AASLD Single Topic Conference

The third American Associated for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD)–sponsored Single Topic Conference on hepatic fibrosis was held in June 2006. The conference was both international, with 6 countries represented, and cross‐disciplinary, linking the basic molecular and cellular biology of fibrogenic cells to clinical trial design for emerging antifibrotic therapies. The specific goals of the conference were: (1) to consolidate knowledge about the natural history of fibrosis; (2) to clarify potential endpoints and markers; (3) to emphasize new antifibrotic targets developed on the basis of advances in basic science; and (4) to understand current critical issues pertaining to clinical trial design. Given the tremendous growth of the field and the constraints of a 2‐day format, the selection of speakers was a challenge. A number of topics not included in the oral presentations were featured at poster sessions, lending breadth and depth to the meeting as a whole. Surprising new themes emerged about molecular, clinical, and regulatory aspects of the field, and a consensus emerged that hepatic fibrosis has matured into an integrated discipline that promises to significantly improve the prognosis of patients with fibrosing liver disease. (HEPATOLOGY 2007;45:242–249.)
You Can't Take It with You? Immigrant Assimilation and the Portability of Human Capital

The national origin of an individual's human capital is a crucial determinant of its value. Education and labor market experience acquired abroad are significantly less valued than human capital obtained domestically. This difference can fully explain the earnings disadvantage of immigrants relative to comparable natives in Israel. Variation in the return to foreign schooling across origin countries may reflect differences in its quality and compatibility with the host labor market. The return to foreign experience is generally insignificant. Acquiring additional education following immigration appears to confer a compound benefit by raising the return to education acquired abroad.
Decomposition of recalcitrant carbon under experimental warming in boreal forest

Over the long term, soil carbon (C) storage is partly determined by decomposition rate of carbon that is slow to decompose (i.e., recalcitrant C). According to thermodynamic theory, decomposition rates of recalcitrant C might differ from those of non-recalcitrant C in their sensitivities to global warming. We decomposed leaf litter in a warming experiment in Alaskan boreal forest, and measured mass loss of recalcitrant C (lignin) vs. non-recalcitrant C (cellulose, hemicellulose, and sugars) throughout 16 months. We found that these C fractions responded differently to warming. Specifically, after one year of decomposition, the ratio of recalcitrant C to non-recalcitrant C remaining in litter declined in the warmed plots compared to control. Consistent with this pattern, potential activities of enzymes targeting recalcitrant C increased with warming, relative to those targeting non-recalcitrant C. Even so, mass loss of individual C fractions showed that non-recalcitrant C is preferentially decomposed under control conditions whereas recalcitrant C losses remain unchanged between control and warmed plots. Moreover, overall mass loss was greater under control conditions. Our results imply that direct warming effects, as well as indirect warming effects (e.g. drying), may serve to maintain decomposition rates of recalcitrant C compared to non-recalcitrant C despite negative effects on overall decomposition.
Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia following coronary artery bypass grafting: a diagnostic dilemma

The diagnosis of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a challenge in post-cardiac surgery patients because of the high incidence of non-immune thrombocytopenia and heparin–platelet factor 4 antibodies in these groups. We present a case of HIT in a post coronary artery bypass surgery patient, which was successfully treated with prompt recognition and discontinuation of heparin products.
anofiber adsorbents for high productivity continuous downstream rocessing liver

An ever increasing focus is being placed on the manufacturing costs of biotherapeutics. The drive towards continuous processing offers one opportunity to address these costs through the advantages it offers. Continuous operation presents opportunities for real-time process monitoring and automated control with potential benefits including predictable product specification, reduced labour costs, and integration with other continuous processes. Specifically to chromatographic operations continuous processing presents an opportunity to use expensive media more efficiently while reducing their size and therefore cost. Here for the first time we show how a new adsorbent material (cellulosic nanofibers) having advantageous convective mass transfer properties can be combined with a high frequency simulated moving bed (SMB) design to provide superior productivity in a simple bioseparation. Electrospun polymeric nanofiber adsorbents offer an alternative ligand support surface for bioseparations. Their non-woven fiber structure with diameters in the sub-micron range creates a remarkably high surface area material that allows for rapid convective flow operations. A proof of concept study demonstrated the performance of an anion exchange nanofiber adsorbent based on criteria including flow and mass transfer properties, binding capacity, reproducibility and life-cycle performance. Binding capacities of the DEAE adsorbents were demonstrated to be 10 mg/mL, this is indeed only a fraction of what is achievable from porous bead resins but in combination with a very high flowrate, the productivity of the nanofiber system is shown to be significant. Suitable packing into a flow distribution device has allowed for reproducible bind-elute operations at flowrates of 2,400 cm/h, many times greater than those used in typical beaded systems. These characteristics make them ideal candidates for operation in continuous chromatography systems. A SMB system was developed and optimised to demonstrate the productivity of nanofiber adsorbents through rapid bind-elute cycle times of 7 s which resulted in a 15-fold increase in productivity compared with packed bed resins. Reproducible performance of BSA purification was demonstrated using a 2-component protein solution of BSA and cytochrome c. The SMB system exploits the advantageous convective mass transfer properties of nanofiber adsorbents to provide productivities much greater than those achievable with conventional chromatography media. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
Obesity in children.

INTRODUCTION Obesity is the result of long-term energy imbalances, where daily energy intake exceeds daily energy expenditure. Along with long-term health problems, obesity in children may also be associated with psychosocial problems, including social marginalisation, low self-esteem, and impaired quality of life. Most obese adolescents stay obese as adults. Obesity is increasing among children and adolescents, with 16.8% of boys and 15.2% of girls in the UK aged 2 to 15 years obese in 2008. METHODS AND OUTCOMES We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of lifestyle interventions for the treatment of childhood obesity? What are the effects of surgical interventions for the treatment of childhood obesity? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). RESULTS We found 14 systematic reviews and RCTs that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions. CONCLUSIONS In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following lifestyle interventions: behavioural, diet, and multifactorial interventions; physical activity; and bariatric surgery.
Management decisions for a continuous improvement process in industry using the analytical hierarchy process

Continuous improvement strategies are of increasing importance but difficult to establish and sustain. This paper uses multiple criteria decision‐making (MCDM), based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), as a means of systematising the decision process underlying strategy determination. A generic framework is developed to formulate an ideal strategy for a continuous improvement process (CIP) using AHP. The paper also discusses issues relating to consistency and sensitivity analysis.
Automatic crack inspection for concrete bridge bottom surfaces based on machine vision

In bridge buildings, concrete is widely used because its materials are considerably low-cost and it has high plasticity. However, some drawbacks exist in this kind of bridges, and crack is the most common ones. In order to avoid the cracks in bridge buildings becoming worse, it is necessary to periodically perform the inspection for it. Thus, a bridge inspection robot system with machine vision is designed for precise and robust bridge crack detection. In order to facilitate the analysis for cracks, a number of images are collected and are stitched into a high quality panorama, then the crack-like defects in the panorama are segmented. Firstly, in this paper, a quick and high-quality method for image stitching is applied, which is based on ORB algorithm. Then, the local directional evidence(LDE) method is used to enhance the crack structures from low contrast images, which serves as a preprocessing. Finally, the crack-like defects can be easily segmented by several morphological operations and a technique called Tubularity flow field. The experimental results have not only verified the rapidity and high-quality of applied image stitching method, but also the excellent effect of the segmentation method.
The Role of Energy Quality in Shaping Long-Term Energy Intensity in Europe

On the European aggregate level there is an inverted-U curve for long-term energy intensity. In the 19th century aggregate European energy intensity rose, followed by a declining trend during the 20th century. This article discusses the possible explanations for the declining trend during the 20th century and explores the role of energy quality as expressed in energy prices. For the first time a complete set of national energy retail prices covering two centuries has been constructed and used for Britain, while the energy price data previously available for Sweden until 2000 has been updated to 2009. This allows us to explore the role of energy quality in shaping long-term energy intensity. We find no relation between energy quality and energy intensity in the 19th century, while energy quality may have stimulated the declining energy intensity in Europe over the 20th century, but is not the sole or even main reason for the decline. Rather, increased economic efficiency in the use of energy services seems to have been the main driver for the decline after 1970, presumably driven by the information and communication technology.
The Rcs Phosphorelay Is a Cell Envelope Stress Response Activated by Peptidoglycan Stress and Contributes to Intrinsic Antibiotic Resistance

ABSTRACT Gram-negative bacteria possess stress responses to maintain the integrity of the cell envelope. Stress sensors monitor outer membrane permeability, envelope protein folding, and energization of the inner membrane. The systems used by gram-negative bacteria to sense and combat stress resulting from disruption of the peptidoglycan layer are not well characterized. The peptidoglycan layer is a single molecule that completely surrounds the cell and ensures its structural integrity. During cell growth, new peptidoglycan subunits are incorporated into the peptidoglycan layer by a series of enzymes called the penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs). To explore how gram-negative bacteria respond to peptidoglycan stress, global gene expression analysis was used to identify Escherichia coli stress responses activated following inhibition of specific PBPs by the β-lactam antibiotics amdinocillin (mecillinam) and cefsulodin. Inhibition of PBPs with different roles in peptidoglycan synthesis has different consequences for cell morphology and viability, suggesting that not all perturbations to the peptidoglycan layer generate equivalent stresses. We demonstrate that inhibition of different PBPs resulted in both shared and unique stress responses. The regulation of capsular synthesis (Rcs) phosphorelay was activated by inhibition of all PBPs tested. Furthermore, we show that activation of the Rcs phosphorelay increased survival in the presence of these antibiotics, independently of capsule synthesis. Both activation of the phosphorelay and survival required signal transduction via the outer membrane lipoprotein RcsF and the response regulator RcsB. We propose that the Rcs pathway responds to peptidoglycan damage and contributes to the intrinsic resistance of E. coli to β-lactam antibiotics.
Terrorist bombing at the USA Embassy in Nairobi: the media response.

BACKGROUND On 7th August 1998, a terrorist bomb destroyed the American Embassy in Nairobi, killing and injuring thousands of people. OBJECTIVES To describe the media component of the (larger) mental health response, and evaluate the impact of the intervention. DESIGN Descriptive cross sectional study. SETTING Nairobi, three months after the explosion. SUBJECTS Residents of Nairobi and outlying areas, exposed to the bomb blast and who received Radio and TV coverage about the explosion. INTERVENTIONS Radio and TV broadcasts, starting hours after the explosion and continuing for two weeks thereafter. RESULTS Of a sample of 400 respondents interviewed, 172 reported they were affected by the bomb blast, either directly or through friends and relatives. TV and radio had the highest reach, (89% and 85%) respectively. Seventy per cent felt the programmes gave victims hope and 90% felt the programmes should continue, as they were helpful to the needy. CONCLUSION The media is a controversial, sometimes overused and at times underused resource in Disaster Management. Judicious use of the media was shown to be helpful in this study. Literature supports media interventions in disaster. Doctors working in disaster areas need to understand the media and to prepare for its use as it compliments other interventions.
Applying entrepreneurial orientation to a medium sized firm

Purpose – The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the authors aim to investigate the applicability of the five (EO) dimensions of autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness to a medium‐sized firm. Second, the research seeks to explore firm processes leading to the development of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in a medium‐sized domestic US firm. Thus, it endeavours to examine the applicability of EO dimensions as well as the processes by which EO arose in the focal company.Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a multi‐method approach entailing analysis of archival data as well as semi‐structured interviews of executives to examine the applicability of EO dimensions as well as the processes associated with the development of EO to a medium sized firm competing in a Midwestern US market. Such an in‐depth analysis of one firm provides rich data, enabling the exploration of EO using qualitative methods.Findings – While the medium‐sized domestic US busine.
Estimation of population-based cancer-specific potential years of life lost in Belgium

The potential years of life lost (PYLL) observed in a cohort of cancer patients cannot be fully assigned to the cancer as both cancer-related and non-cancer-related deaths contribute. A method is presented to decompose the observed all-cause PYLL into cancer mortality and population background mortality fractions when cause of death information is not available. Furthermore, the association of cancer-specific PYLL with cancer-specific mortality and mean age at diagnosis is explored and the impact of the follow-up window length is examined. The framework of the actuarial relative survival and the Ederer II method is applied to estimate the population background mortality contribution, PYLL*. The fraction (PYLL−PYLL*)/PYLL is then attributed to the cancer. The method is applied to cancer incidence in Belgium 2004–2014, about 631 300 cancer patients. The cancer-specific PYLL divided by the number of cancer patients, mean PYLL, in the Belgian cancer population ranges from 0.4 years for prostate cancer to 15 years for tumours of the central nervous system. The cancer-specific mean PYLL increases with both increasing cancer-specific mortality and decreasing age at diagnosis. Longer follow-up periods yield larger cancer-specific mean PYLL until statistical cure of cancer is achieved. The mean PYLL results, obtained by dividing the PYLL by the number of cancer patients, are visualized in combination with cancer incidence and mean age and mean life expectancy at diagnosis, providing an elegant summary to rank and compare cancer sites in terms of incidence, relative survival and PYLL.