Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semi-global sampled-data output feedback disturbance rejection control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the semi-global output feedback disturbance rejection control problem for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with additive disturbances using linear sampled-data control. Aiming to reject the adverse effects caused by the uncertainties and unknown nonlinear perturbations which may not satisfy the strict feedback or feedforward structure, a new generalised discrete-time extended state observer is proposed to estimate the disturbance at sampling points. An output feedback disturbance rejection control law is then constructed in a sampled-data form which facilitates digital implementations. By selecting adequate control gains and a sufficiently small sampling period to restrain the state growth under a zero-order-hold input, the semi-global asymptotic stability of the hybrid closed-loop system and the disturbance rejection ability are proved. Both numerical example and an application of a single-link robot arm system demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed method.
Connections Among Parental Mental Health, Stress, Child Routines, and Early Emotional Behavioral Regulation of Preschool Children in Low-Income Families

Reducing parenting stress and enhancing parental engagement in child routines are theorized as two important factors for ameliorating effects that maternal depression exerts on young children’s development. These connections are supported by behavioral parenting processes within attachment theory. Through secondary analysis of a large population of preschool-aged children, this study empirically examines the connections among parental mental health, stress, and engagement in child routine activities with children’s emotional regulatory competence. Path analysis using structural equation modeling demonstrates that maternal depression indirectly but significantly impacts children’s development. Parenting stress mediates the connection to parental engagement in child bedtime routines and to children’s regulatory competence. Parental engagement in child bedtime routines partially mediates the influence of parenting stress. The study also examines moderation effects of children’s gender and race/ethnicity. The results imply that although parents may be reluctant to seek professional help to address mental health difficulties for themselves, reducing parental stress and encouraging engagement in shared bedtime routines offers benefits to children’s regulatory competencies. Limitations of the study and future directions are considered as well.
Human-inspired feedback synergies for environmental interaction with a dexterous robotic hand

Effortless control of the human hand is mediated by the physical and neural couplings inherent in the structure of the hand. This concept was explored for environmental interaction tasks with the human hand, and a novel human-inspired feedback synergy (HFS) controller was developed for a robotic hand which synchronized position and force feedback signals to mimic observed human hand motions. This was achieved by first recording the finger joint motion profiles of human test subjects, where it was observed that the subjects would extend their fingers to maintain a natural hand posture when interacting with different surfaces. The resulting human joint angle data were used as inspiration to develop the HFS controller for the anthropomorphic robotic hand, which incorporated finger abduction and force feedback in the control laws for finger extension. Experimental results showed that by projecting a broader view of the tasks at hand to each specific joint, the HFS controller produced hand motion profiles that closely mimic the observed human responses and allowed the robotic manipulator to interact with the surfaces while maintaining a natural hand posture. Additionally, the HFS controller enabled the robotic hand to autonomously traverse vertical step discontinuities without prior knowledge of the environment, visual feedback, or traditional trajectory planning techniques.
Antioxidants of Edible Mushrooms

Oxidative stress caused by an imbalanced metabolism and an excess of reactive oxygen species (ROS) lead to a range of health disorders in humans. Our endogenous antioxidant defense mechanisms and our dietary intake of antioxidants potentially regulate our oxidative homeostasis. Numerous synthetic antioxidants can effectively improve defense mechanisms, but because of their adverse toxic effects under certain conditions, preference is given to natural compounds. Consequently, the requirements for natural, alternative sources of antioxidant foods identified in edible mushrooms, as well as the mechanistic action involved in their antioxidant properties, have increased rapidly. Chemical composition and antioxidant potential of mushrooms have been intensively studied. Edible mushrooms might be used directly in enhancement of antioxidant defenses through dietary supplementation to reduce the level of oxidative stress. Wild or cultivated, they have been related to significant antioxidant properties due to their bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols, polysaccharides, vitamins, carotenoids and minerals. Antioxidant and health benefits, observed in edible mushrooms, seem an additional reason for their traditional use as a popular delicacy food. This review discusses the consumption of edible mushrooms as a powerful instrument in maintaining health, longevity and life quality.
Preferred breeding habitats of Aedes Aegypti ( Diptera-Culicidae ) Mosquito and its public health implications in Dares Salaam , Tanzania

The larval habitats of the mosquito Aedes aegypti L (Diptera-Culicidae) were investigated in urban Dar es Salaam, using larval traps (old tyres, vegetations, outdoor water storage containers and flower pots). The study was carried out in the four sampling sites namely, Vingunguti, Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA), Mbagala and Mkuranga (Vikindu). The aim was to assess the influence of habitat changes in urban Dar es Salaam (the capital city of the united republic of Tanzania) on the preferred breeding habitats of Ae. Aegypti mosquitoes and its possible public health implications on the residents of the City. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bred in all the habitats sampled. Old tyres recorded the highest number of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes followed by water storage containers and vegetation. Flower-pots habitat was the least preferred, with the lowest number of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes.Other mosquito species belonging to five genera were also collected and these were found to live in sympatry with Ae. aegypti larvae. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in species occurrence in the four larval habitats sampled. The availability of the habitats to support the breeding of Ae. aegypti mosquito, which are potential vectors of urban yellow fever, Chikungunya fever, Dengue fever and Rift Valley Fever Viruses implies that theresidents of Dar es Salaam City are at risk of mosquito-borne diseases should an outbreak occur. It is therefore important that, residents of the City are enlightened on environmental factors that contribute to mosquito breeding and that, the Government together with the community institute proper sanitation measures to reduce mosquito breeding habitats.
Signal-Based Overload Control for SIP Servers

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servers can experience prolonged overload due to high rates of incoming service requests or partial network failures. SIP servers need to be equipped with some form of adaptive overload detection and control, in order to protect against high and unpredictable levels of demand and to keep response times low enough during processing overload to preclude customers abandoning their service requests prematurely. Many SIP servers have internal (local) overload control mechanism, where the overload servers reject enough new INVITE requests to maximize successful completion of admitted sessions. However such mechanisms can only protect the SIP servers against overload to a limited extent, and it cannot prevent congestion collapse. In this paper, we introduce Signal-Based Overload Control, SBOC, which does not require changes in the SIP protocol, as it is implemented at the sending (upstream) servers, consequently it does not impose processing burden on overloaded servers. Extensive simulations show that SBOC maximizes the goodput of the SIP network, and adapts appropriately under realistic overload profile.
Type I Interferon Protects against Pneumococcal Invasive Disease by Inhibiting Bacterial Transmigration across the Lung

Streptococcus pneumoniae infection is a leading cause of bacterial pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Type I interferon (IFN-I), whose contribution to antiviral and intracellular bacterial immunity is well established, is also elicited during pneumococcal infection, yet its functional significance is not well defined. Here, we show that IFN-I plays an important role in the host defense against pneumococci by counteracting the transmigration of bacteria from the lung to the blood. Mice that lack the type I interferon receptor (Ifnar1 −/−) or mice that were treated with a neutralizing antibody against the type I interferon receptor, exhibited enhanced development of bacteremia following intranasal pneumococcal infection, while maintaining comparable bacterial numbers in the lung. In turn, treatment of mice with IFNβ or IFN-I-inducing synthetic double stranded RNA (poly(I:C)), dramatically reduced the development of bacteremia following intranasal infection with S. pneumoniae. IFNβ treatment led to upregulation of tight junction proteins and downregulation of the pneumococcal uptake receptor, platelet activating factor receptor (PAF receptor). In accordance with these findings, IFN-I reduced pneumococcal cell invasion and transmigration across epithelial and endothelial layers, and Ifnar1 −/− mice showed overall enhanced lung permeability. As such, our data identify IFN-I as an important component of the host immune defense that regulates two possible mechanisms involved in pneumococcal invasion, i.e. PAF receptor-mediated transcytosis and tight junction-dependent pericellular migration, ultimately limiting progression from a site-restricted lung infection to invasive, lethal disease.
Anatomical evidence for medial pulvinar connections with the posterior cingulate cortex, the retrosplenial area, and the posterior parahippocampal gyrus in monkeys

Reciprocal connections between the medial pulvinar and the limbic neocortex in monkeys were demonstrated by means of tritiated amino acid injections in the medial pulvinar and the cingulate cortex, and HRP injections in the medial pulvinar. It appears that the medial nucleus of the pulvinar sends projection fibres to the posterior cingulate gyrus (area 23), the retrosplenial area, and the posterior parahippocampal gyrus (areas TH and TF). The labeled terminals were concentrated in two bands, one in the deeper part of layer III and in layer IV, and the other in layer I. These projections were observed to be reciprocal, and the cortical afferent fibers to the medial pulvinar were found to originate from the deep layers of the cortex.
Electrically active axons degenerate when exposed to nitric oxide

Axonal degeneration is a major cause of permanent deficit in inflammatory neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Axons undergo degeneration specifically at the site of the inflammatory lesions, suggesting that locally produced inflammatory factors mediate the phenomenon. One such factor is nitric oxide (NO), which we have previously reported can cause reversible conduction block in axons. Here we confirm these observations and extend them to show that axons exhibit the early stages of wallerian degeneration if they are conducting impulses at physiological frequencies while they are exposed to the low micromolar concentrations of NO that are likely to occur at sites of inflammation. Rat dorsal roots were concurrently exposed in vivo to both NO and sustained impulse activity at 1, 50, or 100 Hz. Although our in vivo observations necessarily focused on the more acute responses, morphological examination of exposed roots at the end of the recording period revealed nodal and paranodal changes consistent with acute wallerian degeneration in roots stimulated at 50 or 100 Hz. This interpretation was confirmed in a few experiments that were prolonged to permit more obvious indicators of degeneration to develop. In these experiments the formation of myelin ovoids and frank axonolysis occurred in more than 95% of fibers. Roots stimulated at only 1 Hz appeared normal. We propose that the combination of normal impulse traffic and NO at sites of inflammation may cause axonal degeneration and that electrical activity may therefore be an important factor in causing permanent disability in patients with neuroinflammatory disorders. Ann Neurol 2001;49:470–476
THE DISCOURSE STRUCTURING POTENTIAL OF DIFFERENTIAL OBJECT MARKING , THE CASE OF INDEFINITE AND DEFINITE DIRECT OBJECTS IN ROMANIAN

This paper investigates pe-marking of postverbal human direct objects in Romanian as an instance of differential object marking (DOM). Specifically, we compare the conditions under which unmodified definite noun phrases are pe-marked with the conditions under which indefinite noun phrases are pe-marked. We argue that pe-marking does not only signal the referential property of specificity for indefinites and referentiality for definites, but that it also signals the discourse-pragmatic property of Discourse Structuring Potential (DSP). DSP is reflected by (i) a higher likelihood of subsequent mention (Givón 1983, Ariel 2001, Arnold 2010) and (ii) a higher topic shift potential (Givón 1983). Discussing the findings from different sentence-continuation experiments we conducted, we argue that pe-marked unmodified definite noun phrases and pe-marked indefinite noun phrases show a higher DSP than their unmarked counterparts.
Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis: Our Recent Experience - One-year Experience of Atypical Onset of an Uncommon Disease

Eosinophilic gastroenteritis is an unusual entity that is rarely found in daily clinical practise. Its aetiology is unknown and diagnosis can be made microscopically with evidence of massive eosinophilic infiltration in patients with chronic gastrointestinal symptoms, excluding entities that may cause such findings (parasitic infestation, medical therapy, inflammatory bowel disease, and so on). Allergic processes are usually associated and these normally respond well to steroids. We present our last year's experience of four women with eosinophilic gastroenteritis with an extraordinary atypical clinical onset. Two of the women presented with an acute abdomen and two with isolated colonic involvement. The management of acute abdomen avoiding surgery and a complete response with azathioprine are the outstanding variables that make our recent cases of special interest. Demographic variables were similar to others reported from our medium, with the exception of a higher incidence of women. Our cases suggest the wide spectrum of clinical presentations and show the high suspicion index needed for a diagnosis that is made by pathologists.
A partitioning flow for accelerating applications in processor-FPGA systems

This paper presents a hardware/software partitioning flow for improving performance in systems-on- chip comprised by processor and Field Programmable Gate Array. Speedups are achieved by executing critical software parts on the reconfigurable FPGA logic. A generic hybrid system architecture is considered by the methodology. The partitioning flow uses an automated analysis process at the basic-block level for detecting critical application parts. Two different instances of the generic platform and five real-world applications are used in the experiments. The analytical experimentation illustrates that the speedup of the applications ranges from 1.3 to 3.7 relative to an all software solution.
Real-time behaviour synthesis for dynamic hand-manipulation

Dexterous hand manipulation is one of the most complex types of biological movement, and has proven very difficult to replicate in robots. The usual approaches to robotic control - following pre-defined trajectories or planning online with reduced models - are both inapplicable. Dexterous manipulation is so sensitive to small variations in contact force and object location that it seems to require online planning without any simplifications. Here we demonstrate for the first time online planning (or model-predictive control) with a full physics model of a humanoid hand, with 28 degrees of freedom and 48 pneumatic actuators. We augment the actuation space with motor synergies which speed up optimization without removing dexterity. Most of our results are in simulation, showing non-prehensile object manipulation as well as typing. In both cases the input to the system is a high level task description, while all details of the hand movement emerge online from fully automated numerical optimization.
Markerless human motion capture through visual hull and articulated ICP

A next critical advancement in human motion capture is the development of a non-invasive and marker-free system. In this study a marker-free approach based on an articulated iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm with soft joint constraints was evaluated using the HumanEva dataset. Our tracked results accurately overlay the visual data. As the ground truth marker placement and methodology for calculating joint centers is not sufficiently documented, accurate quantitative comparison of error is impossible. Nevertheless, average difference and standard deviation between corresponding joints are reported to give an “upper bound” to the error of the proposed algorithm. The standard deviation for most joints is around 1 to 2 cm.
Forming attachments in foster care: Infant attachment behaviors during the first 2 months of placement

This study investigated the development of attachment relationships in 38 foster infant–caregiver dyads over the first 2 months of placement. We used the Parent Attachment Diary to measure foster infants' daily attachment behaviors, the Adult Attachment Interview to examine foster parents' attachment states of mind, and Ainsworth's Strange Situation to capture attachment classifications. We examined differences in diary scales (secure, avoidant, resistant, and coherence) as they related to age at placement and foster parent attachment, using hierarchical linear modeling and analyses of variance. The results indicated infants with autonomous foster parents and infants placed at younger ages showed higher early and overall levels of secure behavior, less avoidant behavior, and more coherent attachment strategies compared to infants placed with nonautonomous foster parents. Changes in attachment behaviors over time were not predicted by the models; however, there was a significant decrease in the daily coherence of attachment behaviors associated with Strange Situation disorganization. Finally, we found significant concordance between the diary and Strange Situation scales for secure and avoidant behaviors.This research is part of an ongoing study of infants in foster care conducted at the University of Delaware in collaboration with the Baltimore City Department of Social Services and Delaware Department of Family Services. This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R0152135) to the second author. We acknowledge the help of Kathleen Albus and Brady Bates with this project. Thanks are also due to Doris Loftin, Beverly Williams, and Gerri Robinson of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, as well as John Bates, Darlene Lantz, and Kathy Way of the Delaware Division of Children, Youth, and Their Families. Our deepest gratitude is expressed to the caseworkers, foster families, and children at both agencies.
Characterization of a Defense Complex Consisting of Interleukin 1 and Phenol Oxidase from the Hemolymph of the Tobacco Hornworm, Manduca sexta(*)

Hemolymph of fifth instar Manduca sexta larvae collected under non-sterile conditions exhibited the presence of a novel high molecular weight protein complex, which was absent from the hemolymph collected aseptically. The high molecular weight complex consisted of, at least, prophenol oxidase, phenol oxidase, and an interleukin 1-like molecule, thereby demonstrating the generation of this complex as a consequence of a host defense response. While the native phenol oxidase and the interleukin 1-like molecule possessed molecular weights of about 80,000 and 17,000, respectively, the complex had a molecular weight of about 400,000. Apart from prophenol oxidase, phenol oxidase, and interleukin 1, dopachrome isomerase and other, as of yet unidentified, proteins may be part of the complex as judged by the presence of additional bands observed during SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The significance of the assembly of this defense complex for insect host defense strategies is discussed.
Multiple Elements Controlling Adherence of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 to HeLa Cells

ABSTRACT Adherence of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) to the intestinal epithelium is essential for initiation of infection. Intimin is the only factor demonstrated to play a role in intestinal colonization by EHEC O157:H7. Other attempts to identify additional adhesion factors in vitro have been unsuccessful, suggesting that expression of these factors is under tight regulation. We sought to identify genes involved in the control of adherence of EHEC O157:H7 to cultured epithelial cells. A total of 5,000 independent transposon insertion mutants were screened for their ability to adhere to HeLa cells, and 7 mutants were isolated with a markedly enhanced adherence. The mutants adhered at levels 113 to 170% that of the wild-type strain, and analysis of the protein profiles of these mutants revealed several proteins differentially expressed under in vitro culture conditions. We determined the sequence of the differentially expressed proteins and further investigated the function of OmpA, whose expression was increased in a mutant with an insertionally inactivated tcdA gene. An isogenic ompA mutant showed reduced adherence compared to the parent strain. Disruption of the ompA gene in the tdcA mutant strain abolished the hyperadherent phenotype, and anti-OmpA serum inhibited adhesion of wild-type and tdcA mutant strains to HeLa cells. Enhanced adhesion mediated by OmpA was also observed with Caco-2 cells, and anti-OmpA serum blocked adherence to HeLa cells of other EHEC O157:H7 strains. Our results indicate that multiple elements control adherence and OmpA acts as an adhesin in EHEC O157:H7.
An Empirical Scale of Prestige Status of Occupations

Average prestige status ratings for ioo representative occupations are presented in the form of a numerical scale. Government officials and professional workers received the highest ratings; small business men, salesmen, clerical workers and skilled workers were given medium ratings; and unskilled workers were given lowest positions. Illustrations are presented of the use of the ratings in the identification of occupational strata, and in correlating prestige with other characteristics of occupational classes.