Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ELECTROSTATIC AND ELECTRICAL TRANSPORT ANALYSIS OF NANOMATERIALS AND NUMERICAL METHODS DEVELOPMENT

The nanotechnology today is continuously boosting the application of nanostructured materials in the development and innovation of electronic devices, such as Nano-Electromechanical Systems (NEMS), electrical transistors, thermoelectric devices, and solar cells. Due to the size miniaturization, quantum mechanical effects play important roles in the performance of such devices. To correctly capture the quantum mechanical effects and understand how these effects influence the electrostatic and electrical transport properties of nanomaterials, efficient and accurate computational models are highly desirable. Currently, the commonly used model for electrostatic analysis of nanoscale devices is based on self-consistent solution of the effective-mass Schrodinger equation coupled with the Poisson equation. However, a major drawback of this model is its inefficiency to simulate systems with large Degrees of Freedom (DOFs). To reduce the computational cost, in this thesis, two Component Mode Synthesis (CMS) approaches, namely the fixed-interface CMS and the free-interface CMS, are incorporated into the Schrodinger-Poisson model to speed up the electrostatic analysis in nanostructures. The new model is employed to analyze the quantum electrostatics in both nanowires and FinFETs. Numerical results demonstrate the superior computational performance in terms of efficiency and accuracy. In addition to the electrostatic analysis, carrier transport in nanostructures
Effects of Fluorescein Staining on Laser In Vivo Confocal Microscopy Images of the Cornea

This study was designed to identify whether topical fluorescein, a common ophthalmic tool, affects laser in vivo confocal microscopy of the cornea, a tool with growing applications. Twenty-five eye care specialists were asked to identify presence or absence of fluorescein in 99 confocal micrographs of healthy corneas. Responses were statistically similar to guessing for the epithelium (48% ± 14% of respondents correct per image) and the subbasal nerve plexus (49% ± 11% correct), but results were less clear for the stroma. Dendritic immune cells were quantified in bilateral images from subjects who had been unilaterally stained with fluorescein. Density of dendritic immune cells was statistically similar between the unstained and contralateral stained eyes of 24 contact lens wearers (P = .72) and of 10 nonwearers (P = .53). Overall, the results indicated that fluorescein staining did not interfere with laser confocal microscopy of corneal epithelium, subbasal nerves, or dendritic immune cells.
A mobile multicast algorithm using agents for mobile ad-hoc users

We describe an improved agent-based multicast algorithm for mobile ad-hoc users. Mobile multicast agents (MMAs) form a virtual backbone of an ad-hoc network and they provide multicast tree discovery and multicast tree maintenance. However, they do not complete datagram delivery. In order to ensure reliable multicast, MMAs are also in charge of datagram retransmission. The improved mobile multicast algorithm can simplify the multicast tree discovery, reduce control overhead of the network, and increase the total network throughput, in comparison with general AODV multicast operation. At the same time, it can also save battery power and transmission capabilities of those MMAs since they are only used to transfer control information and retransmitted packets. Hence we avoid draining the resources of some mobile nodes (MMAs), which is unfair.
Discernible differences in the babbling of infants according to target language

ABSTRACT Samples of babbling productions of 6-, 8- and 10-month-old infants from different language backgrounds were presented to adult judges whose task was to identify the infants from their own linguistic community. The results show that certain language-specific metaphonological cues render this identification possible when the samples exhibit long and coherent intonation patterns. The segmental indications that are present in the fully syllabic productions of canonical babbling do not allow the judges to identify the infants correctly from their own linguistic community. These results seem to support the hypothesis of an early influence on babbling of the metaphonological characteristics of the target language.
Way guard: a segmented counting bloom filter approach to reducing energy for set-associative caches

The design trend of caches in modern processors continues to increase their capacity with higher associativity to cope with large data footprint and take advantage of feature size shrink, which, unfortunately, also leads to higher energy consumption. This paper presents a technique using segmented counting Bloom filters called "Way Guard" to reduce the number of redundant way lookups in large set-associative caches to achieve dynamic energy savings. Our Way Guard mechanism only looks up an average of 25-30% of the cache ways and saved up to 65% of the L2 energy and up to 70% of the L1 cache energy.
Retinal vascular layers imaged by fluorescein angiography and optical coherence tomography angiography.

IMPORTANCE The retinal vasculature is involved in many ocular diseases that cause visual loss. Although fluorescein angiography is the criterion standard for evaluating the retina vasculature, it has risks of adverse effects and known defects in imaging all the layers of the retinal vasculature. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography can image vessels based on flow characteristics and may provide improved information. OBJECTIVE To investigate the ability of OCT angiography to image the vascular layers within the retina compared with conventional fluorescein angiography. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In this study, performed from March 14, 2014, through June 24, 2014, a total of 5 consecutive, overlapping B-scan OCT angiography images composed of 216 A-scans were obtained at 216 discrete positions within a region of interest, typically a 2 × 2-mm area of the retina. The flow imaging was based on split-spectrum amplitude decorrelation angiography (SSADA), which can dissect layers of vessels in the retina. These distinct layers were compared with the fluorescein angiograms in 12 healthy eyes from patients at a private practice retina clinic to evaluate the ability to visualize the radial peripapillary capillary network. The proportion of the inner vs outer retinal vascular layers was estimated by 3 masked readers and compared with conventional fluorescein angiograms of the same eyes. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Outcome measures were visualization of the radial peripapillary capillary network in the fluorescein and SSADA scans and the proportion of the inner retinal vascular plexus vs the outer retinal capillary plexus as seen in SSADA scans that would match the fluorescein angiogram. RESULTS In none of the 12 eyes could the radial peripapillary capillary network be visualized completely around the nerve head by fluorescein angiography, whereas the network was readily visualized in the SSADA scans. The fluorescein angiograms were matched, with a mean proportion of the inner vascular plexus being 95.3% (95% CI, 92.2%-97.8%) vs 4.7% (95% CI, 2.6%-5.7%) for the outer capillary plexus from the SSADA scans. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Fluorescein angiography does not image the radial peripapillary or the deep capillary networks well. However, OCT angiography can image all layers of the retinal vasculature without dye injection. Therefore, OCT angiography, and the findings generated, have the potential to affect clinical evaluation of the retina in healthy patients and patients with disease.
Neural computations for sound pattern recognition: evidence for summation of an array of frequency filters in an echolocating bat

Microchiropteran bats use an auditory sonar system for orientation and prey capture. Many bats use highly structured constant-frequency (CF) and frequency-modulated (FM) sonar orientation signals. Mechanisms for sound pattern recognition are important for the perception of these and other types of auditory signals. The processing and recognition of FM sound components appears to be important for certain complex perceptual tasks, including target distance perception. I have conducted behavioral studies using artificial echoes to simulate the conditions of a bat flying toward a target. An innate vocalization response of the bat to the simulated approaching target was used to assess the ability of the bat to analyze the structure of and extract distance information from different types of synthetic FM sound patterns. The bat's performance depended on the structure of the artificial echo. The pattern recognition performance of the bats was similar when they were presented with either a naturally structured artificial CF/FM echo or an artificial CF/FM echo containing an FM component consisting of a series of pure tone steps. The ability of the bats to recognize appropriately the structure of an FM signal constructed from a sequence of pure tones depended on the number of pure tone steps in the series. Noctilio was able to recognize FM sound patterns containing 99 or greater pure tone steps. The minimum required number of pure tone steps could be distributed over different frequency ranges. The bats were able to resolve individual tone steps in the series that were separated by at least 100 Hz. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A common X-linked inborn error of carnitine biosynthesis may be a risk factor for nondysmorphic autism

We recently reported a deletion of exon 2 of the trimethyllysine hydroxylase epsilon (TMLHE) gene in a proband with autism. TMLHE maps to the X chromosome and encodes the first enzyme in carnitine biosynthesis, 6-N-trimethyllysine dioxygenase. Deletion of exon 2 of TMLHE causes enzyme deficiency, resulting in increased substrate concentration (6-N-trimethyllysine) and decreased product levels (3-hydroxy-6-N-trimethyllysine and γ-butyrobetaine) in plasma and urine. TMLHE deficiency is common in control males (24 in 8,787 or 1 in 366) and was not significantly increased in frequency in probands from simplex autism families (9 in 2,904 or 1 in 323). However, it was 2.82-fold more frequent in probands from male-male multiplex autism families compared with controls (7 in 909 or 1 in 130; P = 0.023). Additionally, six of seven autistic male siblings of probands in male-male multiplex families had the deletion, suggesting that TMLHE deficiency is a risk factor for autism (metaanalysis Z-score = 2.90 and P = 0.0037), although with low penetrance (2–4%). These data suggest that dysregulation of carnitine metabolism may be important in nondysmorphic autism; that abnormalities of carnitine intake, loss, transport, or synthesis may be important in a larger fraction of nondysmorphic autism cases; and that the carnitine pathway may provide a novel target for therapy or prevention of autism.
Impaired Mitochondrial Biogenesis Precedes Heart Failure in Right Ventricular Hypertrophy in Congenital Heart Disease

Background— The outcome of the surgical repair in congenital heart disease correlates with the degree of myocardial damage. In this study, we determined whether mitochondrial DNA depletion is a sensitive marker of right ventricular (RV) damage and whether impaired mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) replication contributes to the transition from compensated hypertrophy to failure. Methods and Results— RV samples obtained from 31 patients undergoing cardiac surgery were compared with 5 RV samples from nonfailing hearts (control). Patients were divided into compensated hypertrophy and failure groups, based on preoperative echocardiography, catheterization, and/or MRI data. Mitochondrial enzyme activities (citrate synthase and succinate dehydrogenase) were maintained during hypertrophy and decreased by ≈40% (P<0.05 versus control) at the stage of failure. In contrast, mtDNA content was progressively decreased in the hypertrophied RV through failure (by 28±8% and 67±11%, respectively, P<0.05 for both), whereas mtDNA-encoded gene expression was sustained by increased transcriptional activity during compensated hypertrophy but not in failure. Mitochondrial DNA depletion was attributed to reduced mtDNA replication in both hypertrophied and failing RV, and it was independent of PGC-1 downregulation but was accompanied by reduced expression of proteins constituting the mtDNA replication fork. Decreased mtDNA content in compensated hypertrophy was also associated with pathological changes of mitochondria ultrastructure. Conclusions— Impaired mtDNA replication causes early and progressive depletion of mtDNA in the RV of the patients with congenital heart disease during the transition from hypertrophy to failure. Decreased mtDNA content probably is a sensitive marker of mitochondrial injury in this patient population.
Efficient Nonnegative Tucker Decompositions: Algorithms and Uniqueness

Nonnegative Tucker decomposition (NTD) is a powerful tool for the extraction of nonnegative parts-based and physically meaningful latent components from high-dimensional tensor data while preserving the natural multilinear structure of data. However, as the data tensor often has multiple modes and is large scale, the existing NTD algorithms suffer from a very high computational complexity in terms of both storage and computation time, which has been one major obstacle for practical applications of NTD. To overcome these disadvantages, we show how low (multilinear) rank approximation (LRA) of tensors is able to significantly simplify the computation of the gradients of the cost function, upon which a family of efficient first-order NTD algorithms are developed. Besides dramatically reducing the storage complexity and running time, the new algorithms are quite flexible and robust to noise, because any well-established LRA approaches can be applied. We also show how nonnegativity incorporating sparsity substantially improves the uniqueness property and partially alleviates the curse of dimensionality of the Tucker decompositions. Simulation results on synthetic and real-world data justify the validity and high efficiency of the proposed NTD algorithms.
Optimized Singular Vector Denoising Approach for Speech Enhancement

In this paper, a novel approach for speech signal enhancement is presented. This approach employs singular value decomposition (SVD) to overlook noise subspace and uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimally set the essential parameters. The method is elicited by analyzing the effects of environmental noises on the singular vectors as well as the singular values of clean speech signals. This article reviews the existing approaches for subspace estimation and proposes novel techniques for effectively enhancing the singular values and vectors of a noisy speech. This results in a considerable attenuation of the noise and retaining quality of the original speech. The efficiency of our proposed method is affected by a number of parameters which are optimally set by utilizing the GA. Extensive sets of experiments have been carried out on speech signals impaired by additive white Gaussian noise and/or different types of realistic coloured noises. The results of applying the six superior speech enhancement methods are compared using the objective (SNR) and subjective (PESQ) measures.
The iceberg has melted: theoretical, measurement and applied developments in the area of mood and physical activity

Investigations of relationships between mood and physical activity have provided a focus for researchers for decades; led by William P. Morgan's pioneering research efforts since the 1960s. Generally, the central tenets of Morgan's (1985) mental health model, which proposed an inverse relationship between psychopathology and sport performance, have stood the test of time (see Raglin, 2001). However, one proposal associated with Morgan, immortalised in a 1980 article Test of Champions: The Iceberg Profile, in which he espoused the importance of a mood profile characterised by low anger, confusion, depression, fatigue and tension, and high vigour, has been the subject of much critical debate in the sport psychology literature (e.g., Renger, 1993; Rowley, Landers, Kyllo, & Etnier, 1995; Terry, 1995, Beedie, Terry, & Lane, 2000), which continues to the present time. The presentations in this symposium will address a wide range of theoretical, measurement and applied issues concerned with the inter-relationships between mood and physical activity, both in the sport and exercise domains. First, Dr. Chris Beedie will address definitional issues and their impact on measurement. In particular, he will discuss how the origins of the POMS influence contemporary uses of the measure, highlight the limitations of single adjective items, and reflect on how distinctions between moods and emotions have significant implications for researchers and practitioners. Next, Prof. Andy Lane will address the theoretical basis for research into mood and performance and assess how this influences the measurement of mood. In doing so, he will review the way in which theoretical developments have guided measurement and will propose future challenges for researchers within the field. Finally, Prof. Peter Terry will provide an overview of the implications for practitioners. He will focus discussion on some of the many applied uses for mood profiling, identify guidelines for best practice, and critically appraise the use of mood management strategies.
Cement Reaction and Resultant Physical Properties of Cement Paste

The body of data about the reaction kinetics of cement has greatly grown in recent years, and in terms of techniques for the prediction of the resulting hydrate formation phases, databases contributing to thermodynamic equilibrium calculations have been developed and are growing increasingly sophisticated. On the other hand, though many studies on cement aim to contribute to concrete engineering and numerical model researchers have pointed out the necessity of shedding light on the relationship between the microstructures generated by hydration and physical properties, such data remains scarce. This study investigated Portland cements using two commonly used water-cement ratios and three types of mineral compositions in the material age range of up to one year. The phase composition in relation to cement hydration was determined by X-ray powder diffraction and Rietveld analysis. In terms of physical properties, compressive strength and Young's modulus were measured through loading tests, and Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio were also obtained from the ultrasonic pulse propagation velocity of longitudinal and transverse waves. Further, water vapor adsorption tests to shed light on moisture behavior were conducted, yielding the BET specific surface area. Thermal conductivity, an im- portant determinant of thermal behavior, was measured using the transient hot wire method. On the premise of the ap- plication of these physical properties to numerical calculations, their correlation with the information obtained from the phase composition was considered, leading to the proposal of simple and relatively high-accuracy empirical formulas. Further, background information about raising the correlation of these empirical formulas was also discussed.
KNET: Integrating Hypermedia and Bayesian Modeling

KNET is a general-purpose shell for constructing expert systems based on belief networks and decision networks. Such networks serve as graphical representations for decision models, in which the knowledge engineer must define clearly the alternatives, states, preferences, and relationships that constitute a decision basis. KNET contains a knowledge-engineering core written in Object Pascal and an interface that tightly integrates HyperCard, a hypertext authoring tool for the Apple Macintosh computer, into a novel expert-system architecture. Hypertext and hypermedia have become increasingly important in the storage management, and retrieval of information. In broad terms, hypermedia deliver heterogeneous bits of information in dynamic, extensively cross-referenced packages. The resulting KNET system features a coherent probabilistic scheme for managing uncertainty, an objectoriented graphics editor for drawing and manipulating decision networks, and HyperCard's potential for quickly constructing flexible and friendly user interfaces. We envision KNET as a useful prototyping tool for our ongoing research on a variety of Bayesian reasoning problems, including tractable representation, inference, and explanation.
Ocular Anti-VEGF Therapy for Diabetic Retinopathy: Overview of Clinical Efficacy and Evolving Applications

Ocular anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy represents one of the most significant advances in modern medicine. The introduction and widespread use of ocular anti-VEGF therapy for age-related macular degeneration heralded a new era in the treatment of vascular and exudative diseases of the retina. Its expanding indications now include diabetic macular edema and proliferative diabetic retinopathy, two vision-threatening forms of diabetic retinopathy. It is widely anticipated that ocular anti-VEGF therapy could spark a dramatic shift in the treatment paradigm for diabetic retinopathy. However, despite its clear efficacy shown in clinical trials, the dynamic landscape of evolving medical, ethical, and economic issues related to this new treatment suggests significant challenges ahead. In this article, we provide a discussion of this topic as part of this two-part Bench to Clinic narrative. Here, our Clinic contribution provides an overview of the current evidence from clinical trials on anti-VEGF therapy for diabetic retinopathy, and highlights the hopes and fears of this new treatment from clinical and public health standpoints. In the Bench narrative that precedes this contribution, Simó et al. provide an overview of the role of VEGF in the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy.
Detection of Schistosoma mansoni Eggs in Feces through their Interaction with Paramagnetic Beads in a Magnetic Field

Background Diagnosis of intestinal schistosomiasis in low endemic areas is a problem because often control measures have reduced egg burdens in feces to below the detection limits of classical coproparasitological methods. Evaluation of molecular methods is hindered by the absence of an established standard with maximum sensitivity and specificity. One strategy to optimize method performance, where eggs are rare events, is to examine large amounts of feces. A novel diagnostic method for isolation of Schistosoma mansoni eggs in feces, and an initial evaluation of its performance is reported here. Methodology/Principal Findings Known amounts of S. mansoni eggs were seeded into 30 g of normal human feces and subjected to a sequence of spontaneous sedimentation, sieving, Ritchie method, incubation and isolation through interaction with paramagnetic beads. Preliminary tests demonstrated the efficacy of lectins as ligands, but they also indicated that the paramagnetic beads alone were sufficient to isolate the eggs under a magnetic field through an unknown mechanism. Eggs were identified by microscopic inspection, with a sensitivity of 100% at 1.3 eggs per gram of feces (epg). Sensitivity gradually decreased to 25% at a concentration of 0.1 epg. In a preliminary application of the new method to the investigation of a recently established focus in southern Brazil, approximately 3 times more eggs were detected than with the thick-smear Kato-Katz method. Conclusions/Significance The novel S. mansoni detection method may significantly improve diagnosis of infections with low burdens in areas of recent introduction of the parasite, areas under successful control of transmission, or in infected travelers. It may also improve the evaluation of new treatments and vaccines.