Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 2.5V 14-bit /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ CMOS-SOI capacitive accelerometer

This paper presents a 2.5V 14b fully-differential /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ interface IC in 0.25/spl mu/m CMOS based on a programmable front-backend architecture for a high-resolution SOI capacitive accelerometer. Capacitive resolution is 22aF at 75Hz (RBW = 1 Hz), equivalent to 110/spl mu/g with a dynamic range of 85dB and sensitivity of 0.5V/g. The chip occupies 2mm/sup 2/ and consumes 6mW.
Proposing A Symmetric Key Bit-Level Block Cipher

A novel bit level block cipher based symmetric key cryptographic technique using G.C. D is proposed in this research paper. Entire plain text file is read one character at a time and according to the binary representation of ASCII value of the characters, entire plain text file is divided into n number of 16 bit blocks. Then an agreed-upon symmetric key file is formed by dividing each 16 bit block into two 8 bit sub blocks and by using Greatest Common Divisor (G.C.D) operation among them. The key size is 40 times the number of 16 bit blocks present in the plain text file as each block produces a key of size 40 bits. The character corresponding to the G.C. D value for each block is stored in the cipher text file which is sent by the sender to the receiver along with the symmetric key file. From the symmetric key file and the cipher text file, the receiver by applying reverse procedure, gets back the original plain text file. This technique has several merits, some of them are formation of symmetric key file dynamically, achievement of 50% compression rate in the cipher text file, better security in terms of brute force attack and applicability of the technique for a large number of files of different size and type.
Synthetic ACTH in High Risk Patients with Idiopathic Membranous Nephropathy: A Prospective, Open Label Cohort Study

New therapeutic agents are warranted in idiopathic membranous nephropathy. Synthetic ACTH may be advantageous with reported remission rates up to 85% and few side effects. We conducted a prospective open label cohort study from 2008 till 2010 (NCT00694863). We prospectively selected patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy and high risk for progression (defined as βeta-2-microglobulin (β2m) excretion of >500 ng/min). For comparison, we selected matched historical controls treated with cyclophosphamide. The prospectively selected patients received intramuscular injections of synthetic ACTH during 9 months (maximal dose 1 mg twice a week). The primary endpoints concerned the feasibility and incidence of remissions as a primary event. Secondary endpoints included side effects of treatment and the incidence of remissions and relapses at long-term follow-up. Twenty patients (15 men) were included (age 54±14 years, serum creatinine 104 μmol/l [IQR 90–113], urine protein:creatinine ratio 8.7 g/10 mmol creatinine [IQR 4.3–11.1]). Seventeen patients (85%) completed treatment. 97% of injections were administered correctly. Cumulative remission rate was 55% (complete remission in 4 patients, partial remission 7 patients). In a group of historical controls treated with cyclophosphamide and steroids, 19 of 20 patients (95%) developed a remission (complete remission in 13 patients, partial remission in 6 patients) (p<0.01). The main limitation of our study is its small size and the use of a historical control group. We show that treatment with intramuscular injections of synthetic ACTH is feasible. Our data suggest that synthetic ACTH is less effective than cyclophosphamide in inducing a remission in high risk patients with idiopathic membranous nephropathy. The use of synthetic ACTH was also associated with many adverse events. Therefore, we advise against synthetic ACTH as standard treatment in membranous nephropathy. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00694863
Age-related prevalence of complement-fixing antibody to Mycoplasma pneumoniae during an 8-year period

We determined the age-related prevalence of complement-fixing antibody to Mycoplasma pneumoniae from the computerized laboratory results of our routine diagnostic department. The material consisted of about 58,000 sera from an 8-year period, 1971 to 1978. Among children less than 1 month old, the frequency of complement-fixing antibody of titers greater than or equal to 8 was low (23%), and no decrease representing loss of maternal antibody was seen thereafter. An unexpectedly early increase in the antibody prevalence up to 62% was seen by 6 months of age. The frequency of antibody was high among young children from the age of 4 months, in whom symptomatic infection due to M. pneumoniae is rare. The frequency of higher titers (greater than or equal to 32) and the geometric mean titer increased more slowly, coinciding with the known age distribution of symptomatic M. pneumoniae disease; the frequency of high titers and the geometric mean titer peaked at the age of 7 to 10 years. Two explanations for the high frequency of complement-fixing antibody to M. pneumoniae in young children are discussed. It may be due to an asymptomatic infection caused by M. pneumoniae or to a nonspecific stimulus by lipids of other organisms, plants, or tissues leading to production of antibodies crossreacting with M. pneumoniae, or it may be due to both of the above. During the study, two extensive epidemics due to M. pneumoniae occurred in Finland, but the prevalence of complement-fixing antibody bore no correlation with these peaks of occurrence.
Fast computation of local correlation coefficients

This paper presents an acceleration method, using both algorithmic and architectural means, for fast calculation of local correlation coefficients, which is a basic image-based information processing step for template or pattern matching, image registration, motion or change detection and estimation, compensation of changes, or compression of representations, among other information processing objectives. For real-time applications, the complexity in arithmetic operations as well as in programming and memory access latency had been a divisive issue between the so-called correction-based methods and the Fourier domain methods. In the presented method, the complexity in calculating local correlation coefficients is reduced via equivalent reformulation that leads to efficient array operations or enables the use of multi-dimensional fast Fourier transforms, without losing or sacrificing local and non-linear changes or characteristics. The computation time is further reduced by utilizing modern multi-core architectures, such as the Sony-Toshiba-IBM Cell processor, with high processing speed and low power consumption.
Physical and Chemical Characterization of Atmospheric Ultrafine Particles in the Los Angeles Area

Atmospheric ultrafine particles (diameter < 0.1 μm) are under study by inhalation toxicologists to determine whether they pose a threat to public health, yet, little is known about the chemical composition of ultrafine particles in the atmosphere of cities. In the present work, the number concentration, size distribution, and chemical composition of atmospheric ultrafine particles is determined under wintertime conditions in Pasadena, CA, near Los Angeles. These experiments are conducted using a scanning differential mobility analyzer, laser optical counter, and two micro-orifice impactors. Samples are analyzed to create a material balance on the chemical composition of the ultrafine particles. The number concentration of ultrafine particles in the size range 0.017 < d_p < 0.1 μm, analyzed over 24-h periods, is found to be consistently in the range 1.3 × 10^4 ± 8.9 × 10^3 particles cm^(-3) air. Ultrafine particle mass concentrations are in the range 0.80−1.58 μg m^(-3). Organic compounds are the largest contributors to the ultrafine particle mass concentration. A small amount of sulfate is present in these particles, at concentrations too low to tell whether it exists as unneutralized sulfuric acid. Iron is the most prominent transition metal found in the ultrafine particles. These data may assist the health effects research community in constructing realistic animal or human exposure studies involving ultrafine particles.
Implementing the Binding and Accommodation Theory for Anaphora Resolution and Presupposition Projection

Computational aspects of Van der Sandt's binding and accommodation theory (BAT) for presupposition projection and anaphora resolution are presented and discussed in this article. BAT is reformulated to meet requirements for computational implementation, which include operations on discourse representation structures (renaming and merging), the representation of presuppositions (allowing for selective binding and determining free and bound variables), and a formulation of the acceptability constraints imposed by BAT. An efficient presupposition resolution algorithm is presented, and several further improvements such as preferences for binding and accommodation are discussed and integrated in this algorithm. Finally, innovative use of first-order theorem provers to carry out consistency checking of discourse representations is investigated.
Crohn's disease presenting as gastric outlet obstruction

We present a unique presentation of Crohn's disease in a 25-year-old male with a 3-month history of progressive gastric outlet obstruction symptoms including reflux, vomiting, postprandial pain and weight loss, with no other symptoms. Multiple imaging investigations as well as gastroscopic biopsies revealed a non-specific prepyloric lesion, without evidence of malignancy. A distal gastrectomy was performed. Subsequent histological evaluation revealed gastroduodenal Crohn's disease. Follow-up revealed no evidence of disease elsewhere in the gastrointestinal system or systemically. While it is not uncommon for Crohn's disease to involve the stomach and duodenum, it is rare for gastroduodenal disease to be the initial presentation. Isolated gastroduodenal Crohn's disease typically presents with non-specific gastritis-like symptoms over a number of years. This patient had a unique course of Crohn's disease with rapid onset of symptoms, predominantly relating to gastric outlet obstruction and no prior or subsequent history of gastrointestinal symptoms.
Green Laser Crystallization of GeSi Thin Films and Dopant Activation

Laser-crystallization of amorphous $Ge_{0.85}Si_{0.15}$ films is studied, using green laser scanning and preformed topography to steer the crystallization. Large crystals (8x2 $\mu m^2$) are formed with location-controlled grain boundaries. The obtained films were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, X-Ray Photoelectron spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction and Spectroscopic Ellipsometry. In addition, the activation of ion-implanted poly- $Ge_{0.85}Si_{0.15}$ films is compared after furnace annealing, rapid thermal annealing and green-laser annealing
An extension of spatial and tactile perception based on haptics

This paper describes the assistive technology device called ELC (Electronic Long Cane), which was developed as a mobility aid for blind or visual impaired people. This approach comprises an ergonomic design along with an embedded electronics inside the grip of a traditional long cane which, by mean of haptics, spreads human spatial and tactile perception, so improving human locomotion. Qualitative results are presented and discussed.
Preparation and Characterization of NiCoFerrite Nanoparticles by Thermal Method

The NiCoFerrite nanoparticle has been prepared using thermal method. Polyvinyl pyrrolidon (PVP) was used as a reducing agent due to its reducing effect on agglomeration of particles. The characterization studies such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been done for explore the particles size. By Scherer"s equation the average particles size has been estimated that support TEM results. An increasing in particles size was observed with increasing calcinations temperature. FTIR confirmed the presence of metal oxide.
Autophagy as a Possible Underlying Mechanism of Nanomaterial Toxicity

The rapid development of nanotechnologies is raising safety concerns because of the potential effects of engineered nanomaterials on human health, particularly at the respiratory level. Since the last decades, many in vivo studies have been interested in the pulmonary effects of different classes of nanomaterials. It has been shown that some of them can induce toxic effects, essentially depending on their physico-chemical characteristics, but other studies did not identify such effects. Inflammation and oxidative stress are currently the two main mechanisms described to explain the observed toxicity. However, the exact underlying mechanism(s) still remain(s) unknown and autophagy could represent an interesting candidate. Autophagy is a physiological process in which cytoplasmic components are digested via a lysosomal pathway. It has been shown that autophagy is involved in the pathogenesis and the progression of human diseases, and is able to modulate the oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory responses. A growing amount of literature suggests that a link between nanomaterial toxicity and autophagy impairment could exist. In this review, we will first summarize what is known about the respiratory effects of nanomaterials and we will then discuss the possible involvement of autophagy in this toxicity. This review should help understand why autophagy impairment could be taken as a promising candidate to fully understand nanomaterials toxicity.
Effects of Bismuth Oxide on the Properties of Calcium Phosphate Bioceramics

The aim of this work is to study the phase stability and sinterability of bismuth oxide (Bi2O3) doped HA ranging from 0.05 wt% to 1 wt%. The green samples were sintered in air at temperature ranging from 1000oC to 1400oC. In this experiment, the results from XRD analysis revealed that the stability of HA phase was disrupted when addition of 0.3, 0.5 and 1.0 wt% Bi2O3 were used and when samples sintered above 1100oC, 1000oC and 950oC, respectively. In general, HA containing 0.5 wt% of Bi2O3 and when sintered at 1000oC was found to be beneficial in enhancing densification, Young’s modulus, Vickers hardness and fracture toughness. Throughout the sintering regime, the highest value of relative bulk density of 98.7% was obtained for 0.5 wt% Bi2O3-doped HA when sintered at 1000oC. A maximum Young’s modulus of 119.2 GPa was observed for 0.1 wt% Bi2O3-doped HA when sintered at 1150oC. Additionally, 0.5 wt% Bi2O3-doped HA was able to achieve highest hardness of 6.04 GPa and fracture toughness of 1.21 MPam1/2 at sintering temperature of 1000oC. Furthermore, the Young’s modulus of HA was found to vary linearly with bulk density.
FaceDirector: Continuous Control of Facial Performance in Video

We present a method to continuously blend between multiple facial performances of an actor, which can contain different facial expressions or emotional states. As an example, given sad and angry video takes of a scene, our method empowers the movie director to specify arbitrary weighted combinations and smooth transitions between the two takes in post-production. Our contributions include (1) a robust nonlinear audio-visual synchronization technique that exploits complementary properties of audio and visual cues to automatically determine robust, dense spatiotemporal correspondences between takes, and (2) a seamless facial blending approach that provides the director full control to interpolate timing, facial expression, and local appearance, in order to generate novel performances after filming. In contrast to most previous works, our approach operates entirely in image space, avoiding the need of 3D facial reconstruction. We demonstrate that our method can synthesize visually believable performances with applications in emotion transition, performance correction, and timing control.
Fuzzy Rating Scale-Based Questionnaires and Their Statistical Analysis

The fuzzy rating method has been introduced in psychometric studies as a tool, which allows the capture of and accurate reflection of the diversity, subjectivity, and imprecision inherent in human responses to many questionnaires. The lack of statistical techniques for in-depth analysis of these responses has been, for years, the appearance of an important barrier. At present, this barrier is being overcome thanks to new statistical techniques. In this way, the information from fuzzy rating method-based responses can be suitably explored and exploited. This paper aims to formally endorse some of the main statistical benefits of using free-response format fuzzy rating scale-based questionnaires instead of using the closed-response format involving fuzzy linguistic representations.
Hedge Funds Are Not Destabilizing

The possibility that hedge fund trading destabilizes or creates a volatile market is frequently debated. This hypothesis is in stark contrast to the traditional speculative stabilizing theory that profitable speculation must involve buying when the price is low and selling when the price is high. To test the hypothesis that hedge fund trading is destabilizing we employ a unique dataset from the U.S. CFTC on individual positions of hedge funds in a heavily traded financial futures market, the 10-year T-notes. While others have used a more aggregated version of our data, here we test, for the first known time, whether hedge funds cause, in a forecasting sense, price movements and volatility in futures markets and, therefore, destabilize the market. Our findings confirm that hedge fund trading in futures markets is not destabilizing. In particular, hedge funds trading activity reduces volatility levels.
The utility of tweeted URLs for web search

Microblogging as introduced by Twitter is becoming a source of tracking real-time news. Although identifying the highest quality or most useful posts or tweets from Twitter for breaking news is still an open problem, major web search engines seem convinced of the value of such posts and have already started allocating part of their search results pages to them. In this paper, we study a different aspect of the problem for a search engine: instead of the value of the posts, we study the value of the (shortened) URLs referenced in these posts. Our results indicate that unlike frequently bookmarked URLs, which are generally of high quality, frequently tweeted URLs tend to fall in two opposite categories: they are either high in quality, or they are spam. Identifying the quality category of a URL is not trivial, but the combination of characteristics can reveal some trends.
Drug-eluting balloons for percutaneous coronary interventions

Correspondence to: Marco Zimarino, MD, PhD Institute of Cardiology “G. d’Annunzio” University – Chieti C/o Ospedale SS. Annunziata Via dei Vestini, 66013 Chieti, Italy Tel: +39 0871 41512, Fax: +39 0871 402817 E-mail: m.zimarino@unich.it Received: November 27, 2008 Accepted: November 27, 2008 Prepublished online: December 4, 2008 doi:10.1160/TH08-11-0770
Effects of a Direct Injection of Liposoluble Iron into Rat Striatum. Importance of the Rate of Iron Delivery to Cells

For a better understanding of the role of iron imbalance in neuropathology, a liposoluble iron complex (ferric hydroxyquinoline, FHQ) was injected into striatum of rats. The effects of two modalities of iron injections on brain damage, hydroxyl radical ( ” OH) production (assessed by the salicylate method coupled to microdialysis) and tissue reactive iron level (evaluated ex vivo by the propensity of the injected structure for lipid peroxidation) were examined. Rapid injection of FHQ (10 nmoles of 5 mM FHQ pH 3 solution over 1-min period) but not that of corresponding vehicle led to extensive damage associated with increased tissue free iron level in the injected region. Conversely, neither lesion nor free iron accumulation was observed after slow FHQ injection (10 nmoles of a 100 w M FHQ pH 7 solution over 1-h period) as compared to corresponding vehicle injection. Production of ” OH was induced by slow FHQ injection but not by rapid FHQ injection, probably as a result of in vivo abolition of iron-induced ” OH formation by acid pH. Indeed, rapid injection of FAC pH 7 (ferric ammonium citrate, 5 mM in saline) was associated with ” OH formation whereas rapid injection of FAC pH 3 did not. Our results identify the rate of iron delivery to cells as an important determinant of iron toxicity and do not support a major role for extracellular ” OH in damage associated with intracerebral iron injection.
Cytokine gene expression in murine lymphocytes activated in the presence of FK 506, bredinin, mycophenolic acid, or brequinar sodium.

A Variety of new immunosuppressive drugs with distinct and diverse modes of action are currently being evaluated for their potential to control allograft and xenograft rejection. FK 506 is a macrolide lactone that, like cyclosporine A (CyA), inhibits selectively very early events in CD4+ T-lymphocyte activation and proliferation. In contrast, bredinin (BR; mizoribine), mycophenolic acid (MPA, the active moiety of RS61443), and brequinar sodium (BQR) inhibit later events in the cell cycle by interfering with purine (BR and MPA) or pyrimidine (BQR) biosynthesis. These antiproliferative drugs (BR, MPA, and BQR) are candidates to replace azathiopnne in combination therapy with CyA or FK 506 and steroids. Because there is little published information concerning the influence, if any, of BR, MPA, and BQR on production of lymphokine message, we have examined mRNA transcription for the immunoregulatory cytokines IL-2 and IL-10 in activated murine spleen cells.
Tensile Properties of Open Cell Ceramic Foams

Full understanding of response of highly porous (cellular) ceramic foams to different mechanical loading conditions is important because of their potential use in industry, medical and other applications. Technique of tensile test of ceramic foam materials has been developed and first knowledge is described in the paper. Tested material was based on alumina ceramic; it was manufactured by slurry coating of polyurethane foam. Two cell sizes were included into the study 10 and 60 PPI. Testing procedure consists from fixation of ceramic foam into aluminium pots by suitable adhesive. Tensile test results generated using two specimen sizes with cross-section 10x10 and 15x15 mm have been statistically analysed. Basic fractographic analysis was applied to get corresponding figure about specimens behaviour during tensile loading.
An improved design of a wireless keyboard powered by solar cells and a large capacitor

This paper mainly proposes an improved design of a wireless keyboard system by analyzing the hardware characteristics of each of its modules with the goal of reducing the power consumption of the wireless keyboard. In our experiment we have set the wireless keyboard at a fixed active voltage of 2.2 V with the lowest possible current consumption. The system can extend the working hours by 1.94 times and the standby hours by 5.67 times. Instead of the memory effect of the rechargeable battery our design uses a non-memory self-sufficient component of a 15 Farad 4.6 V large capacitor with a smaller size than that of the rechargeable battery. This capacitor can be recharged up to more than 100,000 times as our energy storage unit which supplies the power for the whole wireless keyboard, and in which the power exhaustion probability is less than 1% as it uses solar cells of 9.7 cmtimes5.8 cm1.