Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Communications Channel – Theory and Measurements

The most recent increase in demand within the wireless user community for short-range, very high rate data and video transmission devices has motivated the growth of a new generation of broadband wireless access communication systems, i.e. Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radio (1)-(4). UWB technology has been employed for several decades in military and commercial communications applications like high-speed mobile Local Area Networks (LAN), imaging and surveillance systems, ground penetration radars, automotive sensors, medical monitors and recently Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN) (5). Spread-spectrum communication systems using ultra-short impulses have seen a renewed interest because of its fine resolution in delay to the order of a tenth of nanosecond though at the cost of a ultra wide frequency band. Low transmission power and large bandwidth together render the power spectral density of the transmitted signal extremely low, which allows the frequency-underlay of a UWB system with other existing radio systems. Hence, the short range radio UWB will play a critical role in the local/home (pico-cell) level of the broadband networks due to its unprecedented, broad bandwidth. Indoor wireless systems operate in the areas where usually there is no Line-of-Sight (LOS) radio path between the terminals, the transmitter, and the receiver, and where due to obstructions (furniture, partitions, walls, etc.), multi-diffraction, multi-reflections, and multi-scattering effects occur. These lead to not only additional losses (with regarding those obtained in LOS), but also multipath fading of the signal strength observed at the receiver. Basically, one of the most important aspects of any radio channel-modeling activity is the investigation of the distribution functions of channel parameters. Typically, these distributions are obtained from measurements or simulations based on almost exact or simplified descriptions of the environment. However, such methods often only yield insights into the statistical behavior of the channel and are not able to give a physical explanation of observed channel characteristics. Due to the extremely broad bandwidth, the channel is highly dispersive, even for an individual path. Physics-based models (2) are usually required to understand the multipath pulses waveforms that are necessary for optimal reception. There exist very good fundamental investigations on the UWB propagation channel characterization and modeling in the literature (6)-(11). More particularly, the references (9) and (11) give an excellent overview of the UWB channels and the authors in (10) 2
TailR: a platform for preserving history on the web of data

Linked data provides methods for publishing and connecting structured data on the web using standard protocols and formats, namely HTTP, URIs, and RDF. Much like the web of documents, linked data resources continuously evolve over time, but for the most part only their most recent state is accessible. In order to investigate the evolution of linked datasets and how changes propagate through the web of data it is necessary to make prior versions of such resources available. The lack of a common "self-service" versioning platform in the linked data community makes it more difficult for dataset maintainers to preserve past states of their data themselves. By implementing such a platform which also provides a consistent interface to historic dataset information, dataset maintainers can more easily start versioning their datasets while application developers and researchers instantly have the possibility of working with the additional temporal data without laboriously collecting it on their own. In this paper, we describe a basic model view for linked datasets and a platform for preserving the history of arbitrary linked datasets over time, providing access to prior states of contained resources via mementoes.
Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of the Wear of Primary EnamelAgainst Three Types of Full Coronal Coverage

Aims: the objective of the study was to assess the wear of primary teeth against three types of crown coverage, both quantitavely and qualitatively. Methods: specimens of 30 extracted primary molars, were mounted against 10 specimens of zirconia crowns (group A), 10 specimens of preveneered stainless steel crowns (group B), and 10 extracted primary molars and 10 specimens of stainless steel crowns (group C) and were undergone in vitro wear testing using an abrasive machine. Measurement of the amount of weight loss was performed, in addition to a scanning electron microscopic examination of the worn enamel surfaces. Results: the greatest wear was recorded in zirconium specimens, and the lowest was in preveneered stainless steel crowns with a significant difference noted between the three groups (p<0.001). The micro-morphological wear characteristics revealed the most aggressive wear with complete loss of enamel structure in zirconium specimens. Conclusions: the zirconium crowns induced the most severe wear in primary molars, followed by stainless steel crowns, and the least wear was induced by preveneered stainless steel crowns.
Bias Blind Spot: Structure, Measurement, and Consequences

People exhibit a bias blind spot: they are less likely to detect bias in themselves than in others. We report the development and validation of an instrument to measure individual differences in the propensity to exhibit the bias blind spot that is unidimensional, internally consistent, has high test-retest reliability, and is discriminated from measures of intelligence, decision-making ability, and personality traits related to self-esteem, self-enhancement, and self-presentation. The scale is predictive of the extent to which people judge their abilities to be better than average for easy tasks and worse than average for difficult tasks, ignore the advice of others, and are responsive to an intervention designed to mitigate a different judgmental bias. These results suggest that the bias blind spot is a distinct metabias resulting from naive realism rather than other forms of egocentric cognition, and has unique effects on judgment and behavior. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, judgment and decision making.
NF-E 2-related Factor-2 Mediates Neuroprotection against Mitochondrial Complex I Inhibitors and Increased Concentrations of Intracellular Calcium in Primary Cortical Neurons *

NF-E2-related factor-2 (Nrf2) regulates the gene expression of phase II detoxification enzymes and antioxidant proteins through an enhancer sequence referred to as the antioxidant-responsive element (ARE). In this study, we demonstrate that Nrf2 protects neurons in mixed primary neuronal cultures containing both astrocytes ( 10%) and neurons ( 90%) through coordinate up-regulation of ARE-driven genes. Nrf2 / neurons in this mixed culture system were more sensitive to mitochondrial toxin (1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,5,6-tetrahydropyridine or rotenone)-induced apoptosis compared with Nrf2 / neurons. To understand the underlying mechanism of this observed differential sensitivity, we compared the gene expression profiles using oligonucleotide microarrays. Microarray data showed that Nrf2 / neuronal cultures had higher expression levels of genes encoding detoxification enzymes, antioxidant proteins, calcium homeostasis proteins, growth factors, neuronspecific proteins, and signaling molecules compared with Nrf2 / neuronal cultures. As predicted from the microarray data, Nrf2 / neurons were indeed more vulnerable to the cytotoxic effects of ionomycinand 2,5-di(t-butyl)-1,4-hydroquinone-induced increases in intracellular calcium. Finally, adenoviral vector-mediated overexpression of Nrf2 recovered ARE-driven gene expression in Nrf2 / neuronal cultures and rescued Nrf2 / neurons from rotenoneor ionomycin-induced cell death. Taken together, these findings suggest that Nrf2 plays an important role in protecting neurons from toxic insult.
Preserving Location-Related Privacy Collaboratively in Geo-social Networks

The emerging geo-social networks bring us attractive location-based services as well as serious location-related privacy threats. Location information of users in geo-social networks might be revealed by friends carelessly, or deduced by users curiously or even maliciously. In order to avoid location leakages, we propose collaborative privacy management in geo-social networks. Users specify and broadcast their preferences on location-related privacies in advance, so that potential leakages can be reported automatically when new resources arrive. If necessary, the associated spatial and/or temporal information of resources will be tweaked according to the privacy preferences of involving users, so that "old" leakages can be eliminated while ensuring that "new" ones are not introduced. We design algorithms for such tweaks and construct experiments on a simulated dataset to demonstrate their usability and applicability.
Use of microsatellite markers to assess the identity and genetic diversity of Vitis labrusca and Vitis rotundifolia cultivars

Ten grapevine cultivars were genotyped at eight microsatellite loci to characterize their identity and genetic diversity. Of these, nine cultivar profiles matched with those of databases and 'Magoon' matched with 'Regale' in the present study and 'Regale' in the University of California (Davis) database, implicating a likely error in planting. The number of alleles ranged from 5 (VVM5) to 9 (VVMD31), and the observed heterozygosity ranged from 37.14 (VVMD5) to 97.14% (VVMD27), with no significant differences in relation to the expected values for any of the loci, with the exception of VVMD5. The polymorphism information content values were observed to be above 0.25 in more than 85% of the loci analyzed, and VVMD31 was the most informative. The UPGMA analysis clustered the cultivars into two distinct groups. Within each group, the most divergent cultivars were 'Bountiful' (V. rotundifolia) and 'Goethe' (V. labrusca), also exhibiting the largest number of private alleles, 4 and 7, respectively. When comparing the two groups, the most divergent accessions were 'Bountiful' and 'Bordo', with the highest Nei distance. It was demonstrated that there is sufficient genetic variability in the cultivars used in this study to support breeding programs.
Demonstration of the cold sintering process study for the densification and grain growth of ZnO ceramics

With the cold sintering process (CSP), it was found that adding acetic acid to an aqueous solution dramatically changed both the densities and the grain microstructures of the ZnO ceramics. Bulk densities >90% theoretical were realized below 100°C, and the average conductivity of CSP samples at around 300°C was similar to samples conventionally sintered at 1400°C. Frequently, ZnO is also used as a model ceramic system for fundamental studies for sintering. By the same procedure as the grain growth of the conventional sintering, the kinetic grain growth exponent of the CSP samples was determined as N = 3, and the calculated activated energy of grain growth was 43 kJ/mol, which is much lower than that reported using conventional sintering. The evidence for grain growth under the CSP is important as it indicates that there is a genuine sintering process being activated at these low temperatures and it is beyond a pressurized densification process.
Fuel Properties and Combustion Kinetics of Hydrochar Prepared by Hydrothermal Carbonization of Corn Straw

The potential of using hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) on corn straw (CS) was studied for the production of solid fuel. The effects of hydrothermal conditioning on the mass yield, energy yield, higher heating value (HHV), H/C and O/C atomic ratios, the morphology, and equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of hydrochars were examined by varying the reaction temperature (170 °C, 200 °C, 230 °C, and 260 °C) and the residence time (15 min and 30 min). The results demonstrated that the solid fuel properties of hydrochar produced at 230 °C for 30 min had an appropriate HHV of 20.51 MJ/kg, a mass yield of 64.80%, and an energy yield of 77.41%. The physical structure changed because of hydrothermal carbonization and the hydrophobicity of hydrochar increased in comparison to raw corn straw after hydrothermal carbonization. The combustion characteristics and kinetic parameters of raw corn straw and hydrochar were calculated based on the thermogravimetric curves according to Arrhenius equation. The activation energies of hydrochars were larger than that of raw corn straw. The comprehensive combustibility index (S) of raw corn straw was greater than that of hydrochar when the reaction temperature and residence time were 230 °C and 30 min, respectively.
Early Identification and Management of Psychological Risk Factors (“Yellow Flags”) in Patients With Low Back Pain: A Reappraisal

Originally the term “yellow flags” was used to describe psychosocial prognostic factors for the development of disability following the onset of musculoskeletal pain. The identification of yellow flags through early screening was expected to prompt the application of intervention guidelines to achieve secondary prevention. In recent conceptualizations of yellow flags, it has been suggested that their range of applicability should be confined primarily to psychological risk factors to differentiate them from other risk factors, such as social and environmental variables. This article addresses 2 specific questions that arise from this development: (1) Can yellow flags influence outcomes in people with acute or subacute low back pain? and (2) Can yellow flags be targeted in interventions to produce better outcomes? Consistent evidence has been found to support the role of various psychological factors in prognosis, although questions remain about which factors are the most important, both individually and in combination, and how they affect outcomes. Published early interventions have reported mixed results, but, overall, the evidence suggests that targeting yellow flags, particularly when they are at high levels, does seem to lead to more consistently positive results than either ignoring them or providing omnibus interventions to people regardless of psychological risk factors. Psychological risk factors for poor prognosis can be identified clinically and addressed within interventions, but questions remain in relation to issues such as timing, necessary skills, content of treatments, and context. In addition, there is still a need to elucidate mechanisms of change and better integrate this understanding into the broader context of secondary prevention of chronic pain and disability.
Using Multivariate Analysis of Scanning-Rochigram Data to Reveal Material Functionality

The scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is a powerful platform for studying materials and their many varied properties (including structural, electronic, magnetic, ferroic etc.) locally and at their fundamental length-scales. In its current standard implementation, STEM imaging is severely restricted by the instrumental linkage in which the information rich electron diffraction pattern (Ronchigram) is reduced to a single value (e.g. through the integrated intensity over a relatively large detector) at each beam location resulting in loss and distortion of information about important but subtle aspects of material properties. Previous theoretical and experimental work [1, 2, 3,4] suggests that full acquisition of the Ronchigram at each spatial location during a scan can enable super resolution, phase-contrast imaging, imaging of internal fields, and 3D sample reconstruction. Data acquisition and storage has evolved to a point now that it is possible to capture high resolution 4D ptychography data sets rapidly, and the use of large-scale compute facilities enables the processing and mining of these multi-GB data sets to distil the most salient aspects of the data while separating the statistically significant variations (signal) from noise. In the current work we have utilized the DE-12 camera (Direct Electron, LP, San Diego, CA), equipped with a 4096 x 3072 pixels Direct Detection Device (DDD®) sensor [5] installed on an aberration corrected FEI Titan operating at 300
A simple approach for designing a PID controller for an experimental air blower system

This paper focuses on the identification and control of an air blower system PT-326. Modelling of the PT-326 system is required before designing the controller. Hence, it is estimated by using system identification toolbox available in MATLAB. The process of identification began with the collection of input and output data from an experiment. The collected data is used for model estimation based on the selection of auto-regressive with exogenous ARX model structure of the PT-326 system. Based on the input and output data of the system, best fit criterion and correlation analysis of the residual are analysed to determine the adequate parameters of ARX model representing the PT-326 system. To achieve a good performance for the air blower system, right selection of the PID controller parameters is essential. This paper also presents a simple approach for designing a PID controller using minimum square error tuning scheme and compares it with a conventional Ziegler-tuning method for the identified model via simulation and experiment. The results obtained from both tuning methods show that the outputs of the system with the PID controller in simulation and experiment are almost similar.
Brain regions involved in swallowing: Evidence from stroke patients in a cross-sectional study

Background: Limited data available about the mechanisms of dysphagia and areas involving swallow after brain damage; accordingly it is hard to predict which cases are more likely to develop swallowing dysfunction based on the neuroimaging. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between brain lesions and dysphagia in a sample of acute conscious stroke patients. Materials and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 113 acute conscious stroke patients (69 male mean [standard deviation (SD)] age 64.37 [15.1]), participated in this study. Two neurologists and one radiologist localized brain lesions according to neuroimaging of the patients. Swallowing functions were assessed clinically by an expert speech pathologist with the Mann Assessment of Swallowing Ability (MASA). The association of brain region and swallowing problem was statistically evaluated using Chi-square test. Results: Mean (SD) MASA score for the dysphagic patients was 139.61 (29.77). Swallowing problem was significantly more prevalent in the right primary sensory (P = 0.03), right insula (P = 0.005), and right internal capsule (P = 0.05). Conclusion: It may be concluded from these findings that the right hemisphere lesions associated with occurring dysphagia. Further studies using more advanced diagnostic tools on big samples particularly in a perspective structure are needed.
Diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of primary ciliary dyskinesia: PCD foundation consensus recommendations based on state of the art review

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a genetically heterogeneous, rare lung disease resulting in chronic oto‐sino‐pulmonary disease in both children and adults. Many physicians incorrectly diagnose PCD or eliminate PCD from their differential diagnosis due to inexperience with diagnostic testing methods. Thus far, all therapies used for PCD are unproven through large clinical trials. This review article outlines consensus recommendations from PCD physicians in North America who have been engaged in a PCD centered research consortium for the last 10 years. These recommendations have been adopted by the governing board of the PCD Foundation to provide guidance for PCD clinical centers for diagnostic testing, monitoring, and appropriate short and long‐term therapeutics in PCD patients. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2016;51:115–132. © 2015 The Authors. Pediatric Pulmonology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Physio-Microstructural Properties of Aerated Cement Slurry for Lightweight Structures

Cementitious composites, including ferrocement and continuous fiber reinforced cement, are increasingly considered for building construction and repair. One alternative in processing of these composites is to infiltrate the reinforcement (continuous fibers or chicken mesh) with a flowable cementitious slurry. The relatively high density of cementitious binders, when compared with polymeric binders, are a setback in efforts to introduce cementitious composites as lower-cost, fire-resistant, and durable alternatives to polymer composites. Aeration of the slurry is an effective means of reducing the density of cementitious composites. This approach, however, compromises the mechanical properties of cementitious binders. An experimental program was undertaken in order to assess the potential for production of aerated slurry with a desired balance of density, mechanical performance, and barrier qualities. The potential for nondestructive monitoring of strength development in aerated cementitious slurry was also investigated. This research produced aerated slurries with densities as low as 0.9 g/cm3 with viable mechanical and barrier qualities for production of composites. The microstructure of these composites was also investigated.
Synthesis and characterisation of a 3D-printable gelatin – epoxy amine double network hydrogel

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Design and Application Space Exploration of a Domain-Specific Accelerator System

Domain-specific accelerators are a reaction adapting to device scaling and the dark silicon era. This paper describes a radar signal processing oriented configurable accelerator and the application space exploration of the system. The system is built around accelerator engines and general-purpose processors (GPPs) that make it suitable for intensive computing kernel acceleration and complex control tasks. It is geared toward high-performance radar digital signal processing; we characterize the applications and find that each of them contains a series of serializable kernels. Taking advantage of this discovery, we design an algorithm pool that shares the same computation resource and memory resource, and each algorithm is size reconfigurable. On the other hand, shared on-chip addressable scratchpad memory eliminates unnecessary explicit data copy between accelerators. Performance of the system is evaluated from measurements performed both on an FPGA SoC test chip and on a prototype chip fabricated by CMOS 40 nm technology. The experimental results show that for different algorithms, the proposed system achieves 1.9× to 10.1× performance gain compared with a state-of-the-art TI DSP chip. In order to characterize the application of the system, a complex real-life task is adopted, and the results show that it can obtain high throughput and desirable precision.