Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accessibility of switched linear systems

The controllability of switched linear control systems is investigated. Two kinds of controllabilities, namely, the weak controllability and the controllability are proposed. Using the generalized Chow's theorem, the Lie algebra approach has been implemented to reveal the controllable sub-manifold of switched linear systems. The topological structure of the controllable sub-manifolds is investigated.
Tunable velocity-based deterministic lateral displacement for efficient separation of particles in various size ranges

Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) is a promising method showing great potential in achieving high-resolution separation of suspended particles based on their size, through the use of micropillars arranged in a periodic manner. In the traditional approach to DLD, the migration mode of a particle with a specific size is determined by the critical diameter (Dc), which is predetermined by the device's geometry. In contrast to conventional DLD chips that alter the direction of the pillar array to create an angle with the fluid streamlines, this paper proposes a novel approach by changing the direction of the streamlines. The proposed method enables the fabrication of a tunable DLD chip that is simple to produce and can generate a considerable Dc range by adjusting two control parameters. The first parameter is the ratio of velocity between the main outlet and minor outlets, with the main outlet located at the end of the microchannel and the minor outlets situated on the upper side. The second parameter is the flow rate ratio of two sheath inlets that controls particles' entrance position to the DLD chamber. By manipulating these parameters, Dc can be easily adjusted. This chip features completely horizontal rows of pillars that provide Dc values ranging from 1 to 25 μm.
Leaf nutrient resorption of two life-form tree species in urban gardens and their response to soil nutrient availability

Background Leaf nutrient resorption is a key strategy in plant conservation that minimizes nutrient loss and enhances productivity. However, the differences of the nutrient resorption among garden tree species in urban ecosystems were not clearly understood, especially the differences of nitrogen resorption efficiency (NRE) and phosphorous resorption efficiency (PRE) between evergreen and deciduous trees. Methods We selected 40 most generally used garden tree specie belonged two life forms (evergreen and deciduous) and investigated the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in green and senesced leaves and soil nutrient concentrations of nine samples trees for each species. Then, the nutrient concentrations and resorption efficiency were compared, and the soil nutrients utilization strategies were further analyzed. Results The results showed that the N concentration was significantly higher in the green and senesced leaves of deciduous trees than in the leaves of evergreen trees. The two life-form trees were both N limited and evergreen trees were more sensitive to N limitation. The NRE and PRE in the deciduous trees were significantly higher than those in the evergreen trees. The NRE was significantly positively correlated with the PRE in the deciduous trees. As the soil N and P concentrations increased, the nutrient resorption efficiency (NuRE) of the evergreen trees increased, but that of the deciduous trees decreased. Compared with the deciduous trees, the evergreen trees were more sensitive to the feedback of soil N and P concentrations. These findings reveal the N and P nutrient resorption mechanism of evergreen and deciduous trees and fill a gap in the understanding of nutrient resorption in urban ecosystems.
Scientific Evolution of Artificial Heart Valves: A Narrative Review

Cardiovascular disorders have always been the top contributors to the number of mortality occurring worldwide. But the last few decades have seen a drop in those numbers as the lives of millions of people have been saved due to ground-breaking advances in both therapeutic and surgical treatment modalities. Achieving this level of scientific glory in cardiology was a challenging feat. The credit goes to the scientists and physicians of the previous century who, despite their time's technological limitations, made discoveries and laid a solid foundation for modern medicine. Valvular complications are a major part of the global burden of cardiac diseases. The ongoing development of heart valve replacements remains a fascinating subject, as it continues to progress. Valve replacements comprise either mechanical heart valves or bioprosthetic heart valves. Both types of valves have their merits and demerits; their usage depends mostly on individual patient requirements. This article aims to review the evolution of the implantation of heart valves, and it is the objective of this article to give credit to scientists and physicians for their contributions. The article highlights the research gaps in finding more durable materials and the scope of further research in creating a heart valve that can be universally used for better patient outcomes.
Echocardiographic parameters recommended for assessing the severity of tricuspid regurgitation: concordance and discordance

Background Current guidelines recommend integrating several echocardiographic indices to evaluate the severity of tricuspid regurgitation (TR). Discordance of indices, including qualitative and quantitative methods, commonly exists in practice. The discordance among these parameters has not yet been fully elucidated. Methods A total of 127 patients with recognizable TR jets without pulmonary regurgitation or intracardiac shunt were prospectively enrolled. We evaluated 8 parameters by 2-dimensional (2D) echocardiography: proximal iso-velocity surface area (PISA)–derived regurgitant volume (RVol), PISA-derived effective regurgitant orifice area (EROA), PISA radius, vena contracta width (VCW), color Doppler jet area, tricuspid valve annular diameter, inferior vena cava (IVC) diameter, and peak E wave. According to current guidelines, each echocardiographic parameter was determined to represent either severe or non-severe TR. A concordance score was calculated as the number of concordant parameters divided by 8, with a higher score reflecting better concordance. Data were further categorized into 3 subgroups: complete concordance (0 discordant parameters), high concordance (1–2 discordant parameters), and low concordance (3–4 discordant parameters). Results The mean concordance score was 81%±17% for the entire cohort. There were 48 (38%) patients with complete concordance, including 6 patients with severe TR. In contrast, the low concordance group (n=43, 34%) mostly comprised severe TR patients (36 patients). When considering only EROA, RVol, and VCW, concordance improved, with 98 patients (77%) in complete agreement. Conclusions Concordance seems limited when using echocardiographic parameters to assess TR severity. Applying only EROA, RVol, and VCW results in better concordance, as recommended by the current guidelines.
A semiparametric spatiotemporal Hawkes‐type point process model with periodic background for crime data

Past studies have shown that crime events are often clustered. This study proposes a spatiotemporal Hawkes‐type point process model, which includes a background component with daily and weekly periodization, and a clustering component that is triggered by previous events. We generalize the non‐parametric stochastic reconstruction method so that we can estimate each component in the background rate and the triggering response that appears in the model conditional intensity: the background rate includes a daily and a weekly periodicity, a separable spatial component and a long‐term background trend. Two relaxation coefficients are introduced to stabilize and secure the estimation process. This model is used to describe the occurrences of violence or robbery cases in Castellón, Spain, during 2 years. The results show that robbery crime is highly influenced by daily life rhythms, revealed by its daily and weekly periodicity, and that about 3% of such crimes can be explained by clustering. Further diagnostic analysis shows that the model could be improved by considering the following ingredients: the daily occurrence patterns are different between weekends and working days; in the city centre, robbery activity shows different temporal patterns, in both weekly periodicity and long‐term trend, from other suburb areas.
Computational Investigation of Conformational Properties of Short Azapeptides: Insights from DFT Study and NBO Analysis

Azapeptides have gained much attention due to their ability to enhance the stability and bioavailability of peptide drugs. Their structural preferences, essential to understanding their function and potential application in the peptide drug design, remain largely unknown. In this work, we systematically investigated the conformational preferences of three azaamino acid residues in tripeptide models, Ac-azaXaa-Pro-NHMe [Xaa = Asn (4), Asp (5), Ala (6)], using the popular DFT functionals, B3LYP and B3LYP-D3. A solvation model density (SMD) was used to mimic the solvation effect on the conformational behaviors of azapeptides in water. During the calculation, we considered the impact of the amide bond in the azapeptide models on the conformational preferences of models 4–6. We analyzed the effect of the HB between the side-chain main chain and main-chain main-chain on the conformational behaviors of azapeptides 4–6. We found that the predicted lowest energy conformation for the three models differs depending on the calculation methods. In the gas phase, B3LYP functional indicates that the conformers tttANP-1 and tttADP-1 of azapeptides 4 and 5 correspond to the type I of β-turn, the lowest energy conformation with all-trans amide bonds. Considering the dispersion correction, B3LYP-D3 functional predicts the conformers tctANP-2 and tctADP-3 of azapeptide 4 and 5, which contain the cis amide bond preceding the Pro residue, as the lowest energy conformation in the gas phase. The results imply that azaAsx and Pro residues may involve cis-trans isomerization in the gas phase. In water, the predicted lowest energy conformer of azapeptides 4 and 5 differs from the gas phase results and depends on the calculational method. For azapeptide 6, regardless of calculation methods and phases, tttAAP-1 (β-I turn) is predicted as the lowest energy conformer. The results imply that the effect of the side chain that can form HBs on the conformational preferences of azapeptides 4 and 5 may not be negligible. We compared the theoretical results of azaXaa-Pro models with those of Pro-azaXaa models, showing that incorporating azaamino acid residue in peptides at different positions can significantly impact the folding patterns and stability of azapeptides.
LOWER AND UPPER SEMI CONVERGENCE IN NORMED QUASILINEAR SPACES

In this paper concerning with the notion of convergence in normed quasilinear spaces, we show that convergence of a sequence depends directly on partial order relation defined on the normed quasilinear space. Then we introduce the notions of “lower semi convergence” and “upper semi convergence”. We note that these new definitions about convergence would be an alternative for not convergent sequences in normed quasilinear spaces.
ContainerMinMaxGD: a Toolbox for (Min,+)-Linear Systems

According to the theory of Network Calculus based on the (min,+) algebra (see [2] and [5]), analysis and measure of worst-case performance in communication networks can be made easily and several toolboxes such as COINC [1] or DISCO [6] offer to do it. However, the exact computations – sum, inf-convolution, subadditive closure – of such systems are often memory consuming and time costly (see [1] and [4]). That is why we developed a toolbox called ContainerMinMaxGD which handles some “container” of ultimately pseudo-periodic functions and makes approximated computations. The convexity properties of the bounds of a container provide efficient algorithms (linear and quasi-linear complexity) for sum, inf-convolution and subadditive closure. The ContainerMinMaxGD toolbox is a set of C++ classes which can be found at the following address: http://www.istia. univ-angers.fr/~euriell. lecorronc/Recherche/softwares.php.
Self-Heating and Corner Rounding Effects on Time Dependent Dielectric Breakdown of Stacked Multi-Nanosheet FETs

In this work, by employing the developed kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC)-based time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) analysis simulator, the lifetime characteristics change by TDDB in the stacked multi-nanosheet field-effect transistor (mNS-FET) of the 3-nm technology node was investigated. The influence of the self-heating (SH) and electric field crowding effects due to channel corner rounding observed in the channel region of the mNS-FET on TDDB was verified by linking the commercial technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulator with the developed TDDB simulator. Analysis with a well-calibrated simulator shows that the static SH effect by DC voltage in single-unit operation can significantly reduce TDDB lifetime by more than 90%, but the dynamic SH effect during actual logic circuit operation is attenuated, resulting in a decrease in TDDB lifetime of 42.7%-51.4%, which depends on the circuit behaviors. In addition, it was verified that electric field crowding effect and effective width variation, according to the degree of corner rounding of the gate-all-around channel, influence TDDB lifetime characteristics. The effect of the corner rounding effect on the TDDB lifetime characteristics is explained by an effective width variations and the electrical field enhancement of the corner edge area due to electrical field crowding. Through these analysis results, it is confirmed that the SH effect should be considered when analyzing the TDDB lifetime characteristics for robust circuit design, and the TDDB characteristics can also be improved by optimizing the channel shape.
Developing a Transformer-based Clinical Part-of-Speech Tagger for Brazilian Portuguese

Electronic Health Records are a valuable source of information to be extracted by means of natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as morphosyntactic word tagging. Although there have been significant advances in health NLP, such as the Transformer architecture, languages such as Portuguese are still underrepresented. This paper presents taggers developed for Portuguese texts, fine-tuned using BioBERtpt (clinical/biomedical) and BERTimbau (generic) models on a POS-tagged corpus. We achieved an accuracy of 0.9826, state-of-the-art for the corpus used. In addition, we performed a human-based evaluation of the trained models and others in the literature, using authentic clinical narratives. Our clinical model achieved 0.8145 in accuracy compared to 0.7656 for the generic model. It also showed competitive results compared to models trained specifically with clinical texts, evidencing domain impact on the base model in NLP tasks.
On the mean integrated squared error of a plug-in estimator for convolutions

The nonparametric estimation of convolutions is considered. Using the mean integrated squared error, we explore the performance of a plug-in estimator under mild assumptions on the model. We illustrate these general results via wavelet hard thresholding estimators for two different density estimation problems. In particular, we prove that they attain fast rates of convergence for a wide class of unknown functions. Simulation results illustrate the theory.
Some algorithms for total variation based image restoration

This paper deals with numerical schemes for image restoration. These schemes rely on a duality-based algorithm proposed in 1979 by Bermudez and Moreno, and on general minimization schemes recently developped by Y. Nesterov. Total variation regularization and smoothed total variation regularization are investigated. Algorithms are presented for such regularizations in image restoration. We prove the convergence of all the proposed schemes. We illustrate our study with numerous numerical examples, and we make comparisons between the different schemes presented in the paper. Our experiments are in favor of Bermudez-Moreno approach to get a fast approximation for smoothed total variation regularization, whereas Y. Nesterov.
Surface Wetting with Droplets: A Phase Field Approach

In order to be able to predict the static solution of three dimensional wetting scenarios, a free energy functional that is dependent on a continuous order parameter is formulated. This free energy functional can be linked to molecular dynamics (MD) simulations by input parameters. Static equilibrium configurations can be computed by minimizing the overall free energy using an evolution equation of Allen‐Cahn type. Details of the presented model are followed by illustrative examples that demonstrate the pertinency of the approach. (© 2017 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Evaluation of the Effect of Pb Pollution on Avian Influenza Virus-Specific Antibody Production in Black-Headed Gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus)

Simple Summary Lead (Pb) is an environmental pollutant with reported contamination from mammals to fish. In particular, birds are often reported to be poisoned, and populations of some avian species have even reduced. In this study, we examined the causal relationship between the effects on immune function, which is one of the biological effects caused by Pb pollution, and focused on the expression of avian influenza virus (AIV) antibodies. Among black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) that migrate in winter, two populations were targeted in this study: one was overwintering in Tokyo Bay (Tokyo Bay population; TBP) and the other in Mikawa Bay (Mikawa Bay population; MBP). Pb pollution was evaluated based on blood lead levels (BLL) and antibody positive rate (infection history), and antibody titer was evaluated using serum. The results indicated that the antibody titer was significantly decreased owing to increased BLL in MBP. There were no significant year-to-year differences in BLL or antibody titer. In the wintering period, antibody titer was also significantly decreased owing to increased BLL in TBP. The findings of this study indicated that Pb pollution had a possible negative effect on the antibody production of AIV. Abstract Lead (Pb), an environmental pollutant, has been widely reported to have contaminated mammals, including humans and birds. This study focuses on the effects of Pb pollution on avian influenza virus (AIV) antibody production. A total of 170 black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) were captured in Tokyo Bay (TBP) from January 2019 to April 2020 and in Mikawa Bay (MBP) from November 2019 to April 2021. The gulls were weighed, subjected to blood sampling, and released with a ring band on their tarsus. The samples were used to measure blood Pb levels (BLL) and AIV-specific antibodies. The BLL were compared using the Wilcoxon two-sample test between the period when black-headed gulls arrived and the wintering period, defined by the number of gulls counted in each area. A significant increase was found in the TBP. A decrease in BLL significantly increased antibody titer during wintering in TBP and MBP. Pb pollution had a negative effect on the production of AIV antibodies. These findings suggest that wild birds that were contaminated by Pb in the environment may facilitate the spread of zoonotic diseases, further increasing the possibility that environmental pollutants may threaten human health.
MODEL AVERAGING, AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO MODEL SELECTION IN HIGH DIMENSIONAL DATA ESTIMATION

Model averaging is an alternative approach to classical model selection in model estimation. The model selection such as forward or stepwise regression, use certain criteria in choosing one best model fitted the data such as AIC and BIC. On the other hand, model averaging estimates one model whose parameters determined by weighted averaging the parameter of each approximation models. Instead of conducting inference and prediction only based one best chosen model, model averaging covering model uncertainty problem by including all possible model in determining prediction model. Some of its developments and applications also challenges will be described in this paper. Frequentist model averaging will be preferential described. Keywords : model selection, frequentist model averaging, high dimensional data
Caries-preventing effect of a hydroxyapatite-toothpaste in adults: a 18-month double-blinded randomized clinical trial

Background Dental caries is a worldwide challenge for public health. The aim of this 18-month double-blinded, randomized, clinical trial was to compare the caries-preventing effect of a fluoride-free, hydroxyapatite toothpaste (test) and a toothpaste with sodium fluoride (1450 ppm fluoride; positive control) in adults. Methods The primary endpoint was the percentage of subjects showing no increase in overall Decayed Missing Filled Surfaces (DMFS) index. The study was designed as non-inferiority trial. Non-inferiority was claimed if the upper limit of the exact one-sided 95% confidence interval for the difference of the primary endpoint DMFS between test and control toothpaste was less than the predefined margin of non-inferiority (Δ ≤ 20%). Results In total, 189 adults were included in the intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis; 171 subjects finished the study per protocol (PP). According to the PP analysis, no increase in DMFS index was observed in 89.3% of subjects of the hydroxyapatite group and 87.4% of the subjects of the fluoride group. The hydroxyapatite toothpaste was not statistically inferior to a fluoride toothpaste with regard to the primary endpoint. Conclusion Hydroxyapatite was proven to be a safe and efficient anticaries agent in oral care. Clinical trial registration NCT04756557.
Safety and Effectiveness of Concomitant Mitral Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair and Left Atrial Appendage Closure

Background: Concomitant mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (M-TEER) and left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) showed to be a feasible approach to optimize the treatment of patients eligible for both procedures, but mid-term outcomes are unclear. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed consecutive patients undergoing M-TEER and enrolled in the local prospective Getting Reduction of Mitral Insufficiency by Percutaneous Clip Implantation (GRASP) registry. We compared patients undergoing isolated M-TEER (n = 58, 58.5%) with those undergoing concomitant M-TEER and LAAC (n = 41, 41.5%) from January 2018 to December 2022. The primary endpoint was a composite of all-cause death, stroke or systemic embolism, hospitalization for heart failure, and bleeding at 1 year. The co-primary endpoint was procedural success. Results: The primary endpoint was similar between patients undergoing concomitant M-TEER+LAAC or isolated M-TEER (Kaplan Meier (KM) estimates 36.6% vs. 44.8%; plog-rank = 0.75). Procedural success was also similar (92.7% vs. 94.8%; p = 0.69). At 1- year, minor bleeds were lower in patients undergoing concomitant M-TEER and LAAC (KM estimates 0.0% vs. 18.9%; plog-rank < 0.01). Conclusion: In patients with concomitant MR and AF and eligible for M-TEER and LAAC treatment, a combined approach of M-TEER and LAAC was as safe as an M-TEER-alone strategy and associated with lower minor bleeding at 1 year.