Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new sinusoidal input-output three-phase full-bridge direct power converter

A direct power converter based variable frequency drive with three-level input/output waveforms is presented. The proposed drive generates common-mode free output voltages while drawing sinusoidal input currents. Like the conventional matrix converter, the input and output quantities are controlled simultaneously with one controller. Unlike the conventional matrix converter, the circuit always provides a freewheeling path for the load and source currents, thus eliminating the clamp circuit. Further, zero voltage switching (ZVS) of the front-end is naturally achieved. Functional operation of the converter is demonstrated using a hardware prototype. The drive is evaluated for the output common-mode voltage as well as its performance to load and source transients. Extension of the presented drive to an open-end winding drive with enhanced voltage gain is also discussed in context of previous research.
PROFILING TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY WORKPLACES AND THE RISE OF STRESS

Our everyday working life is shaped by constant global changes brought by globalization, communication technologies and cultural, political and macroeconomic factors. As a result, both individuals and organizations are faced with constant challenges, which require new adaptive responses. Work as such brings indeed numerous benefits to an individual and society as a whole. Nevertheless, if new demands will continue to exceed our coping abilities, we will be hearing the word “stress” in a work-related context more often. It may be an overused term in our day-to-day language and it is undeniable that experiencing certain levels of stress can have positive effects. However, there is overwhelming evidence of the increased prevalence of stress-related absenteeism with vast negative consequences; it cannot be ignored. In discussing challenges that contemporary workplaces are facing, involving stress causes and its effects, this article urges employers to take active steps in supporting the psychological well-being of their staff. It concludes that one of the possible responses could be building a resilient and happy workforce. In this article survey reports from CIPD, EU and ONS are used, as well as other research studies in the field of health management, with a particular focus on the relationship between “stress” and work, and individuals’ abilities to cope with stress demands and challenges.
A Longitudinal Study of Physical Fitness in Elite Junior Tennis Players.

PURPOSE To analyze how physical fitness (PF) improves in elite junior tennis players related to age, maturity, and performance level. METHODS Elite junior tennis players (n = 113 boys, n = 83 girls) divided by performance level were monitored longitudinally from U14 to U16. Maturity, upper and lower-body power, speed, and agility were measured during subsequent competitive seasons. Improvement was analyzed per sex using multilevel analysis. RESULTS PF components for boys and girls improved over age (U14-U16) (ES .53-.97). In boys, the more mature boys outscored the less mature boys in upper and lower-body power from U14-U16. In girls, high-ranked girls outscored lower-ranked girls on lower-body power, speed, and agility (U14-U16) (p < .05). CONCLUSION Boys and girls improved on all PF components during U14-U16. In boys, power was related to maturity. In girls, lower-body power, speed, and agility were related to tennis performance. This has important implications for talent development.
Prospective analysis of infectious disease surveillance data using syndromic information

In this paper, we describe a Bayesian hierarchical Poisson model for the prospective analysis of data for infectious diseases. The proposed model consists of two components. The first component describes the behavior of disease during nonepidemic periods and the second component represents the increase in disease counts due to the presence of an epidemic. A novelty of our model formulation is that the parameters describing the spread of epidemics are allowed to vary in both space and time. We also show how syndromic information can be incorporated into the model to provide a better description of the data and more accurate one-step-ahead forecasts. These real-time forecasts can be used to identify high-risk areas for outbreaks and, consequently, to develop efficient targeted surveillance. We apply the methodology to weekly emergency room discharges for acute bronchitis in South Carolina.
Hyaluronic Acid Facilitates the Recovery of Hematopoiesis following 5‐Fluorouracil Administration

The fate of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is determined by microenvironmental niches, but the molecular structure of these local networks is not yet completely characterized. Our recent observation that glycosaminoglycan hyaluronic acid (HA), a major component of the bone marrow extracellular matrix, is required for in vitro hematopoiesis led us to suggest a role for HA in structuring the hematopoietic niche. Accordingly, HA deprivation induced by various treatments might lead to an imbalance of normal HSC homeostasis. Since 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU) administration sharply decreases the amount of cell surface–associated HA in bone marrow, we examined whether the administration of exogenous HA enhances suppressed hematopoiesis in 5‐FU–treated mice. HA administered to mice following 5‐FU infusion facilitated the recovery of leukocytes and thrombocytes in the peripheral blood. Intravenously infused HA was found in the bone marrow, where it bound endothelial cells and resident macrophages and increased expression of the hematopoiesis‐supportive cytokines interleukin‐1 and interleukin‐6. In agreement with these observations, enhanced hematopoietic activity was detected in the bone marrow, as measured by elevated counts of long‐term culture‐initiating cells (LTC‐ICs), committed progenitors, and the total number of mature bone marrow cells. Overall, our results suggest that HA is required for regulation of the hematopoiesis‐supportive function of bone marrow accessory cells and, therefore, participates in hematopoietic niche assembly.
Distributed and Grid Computing via the Browser

Large scale grid computing has only recently become feasible due to the maturation and widespread use of the internet. A browser-based distributed model shows promise, considering the significant amount of “untapped” processing power available. With “Web 2.0” applications quickly becoming the norm, a distributed platform is practical with in-browser scripting and data transport technologies. Currently, 95% of browsers have JavaScript enabled. The new technologies, such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript), Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, in combination with the tried and true HTTP protocol, make a browser-based distributed model available to anyone simply browsing the internet.
New Directions in Research on Human Trafficking

This article evaluates four popular claims regarding human trafficking’s international magnitude, trends, and seriousness relative to other illicit global activities. I find that the claims are neither evidence-based nor verifiable. Second, an argument is made for carefully conducted microlevel research on trafficking. Several such studies are described, including the contributions to this volume of The Annals. I argue for microlevel research, which has advantages over grand, macrolevel claims—advantages that are both quantitative (i.e., identifying the magnitude of trafficking within a measurable context) and qualitative (i.e., documenting complexities in lived experiences)—and is better suited to formulating contextually appropriate policy and enforcement responses.
Aneurysm outflow angle at MRA as discriminant for accurate diagnosis and differentiation between small sidewall cerebral aneurysms and infundibula

Objective To evaluate whether the aneurysm outflow angle (OA) at MR angiography (MRA) might serve as discriminant for accurate diagnosis of, and differentiation between, small sidewall cerebral aneurysms (SCAs) and infundibula. Methods Between June 2007 and July 2015, 426 consecutive patients with SCAs completed both an MRA and DSA examination. Of these, 156 patients with small SCAs and 52 patients with infundibula were included in this study. A patient with an OA ≥90° was defined as having a SCA, while those with OA <90° were defined as having an infundibulum. Results DSA identified 172 SCAs in 156 patients and 55 infundibula in 52 patients. The average OA on MRA was 102.96°±13.36° (range 60°–151°) in 172 SCAs of 156 patients. An OA of ≥90° was seen for 159 (92.4%) small SCAs in 147 patients, while an OA of <90° was observed for 13 SCAs. The average OA on MRA was 69.05°±14.26° (range 35–107°) in 55 infundibula of 52 patients. An OA of ≥90° was seen in one patient with one infundibulum; while an OA of <90° was observed for 54 infundibula (98.2%) in 51 patients. The average OA in SCAs (n=172) was greater than the average OA in infundibula (n=55; 102.96° vs 69.05°, p<0.001). Conclusions The OA at MRA could serve as discriminant for accurate diagnosis of, and differentiation between, small SCAs and infundibula.
Computing the Modular Inverse of a Polynomial Function over GF(2P) Using Bit Wise Operation

Most public key crypto systems use finite field modulo arithmetic. This modulo arithmetic is applied on real numbers, binary values and polynomial functions. The computation cost is based on how it works with minimum use of scarce resources like processor and memory We have implemented the determination of the multiplicative in-verse of a polynomial over GF(2(superscript p)) with minimum computational cost. The ”Extended Euclidean Algorithm” (EEA) has been demonstrated to work very well manually for integers and polynomials. However polynomial manipulation cannot be computerized directly. We have implemented the same by using simple bit wise shift and XOR operations. In small applications like smart cards, mo-bile devices and other small memory devices, this method works very well. To the best of our knowledge, the pro-posed algorithm seems to be the first, efficient and cost effective implementation of determining the multiplicative inverse of polynomials over GF(2(superscript p)) using computers. As this is a pioneering work, the results could not be compared with that of any previous work.
Joint frequency-domain differential detection and equalization for DS-CDMA signal transmissions in a frequency-selective fading channel

It has been revealed that direct sequence code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA) can achieve a good bit-error rate (BER) performance, comparable to multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA), by using coherent frequency-domain equalization (FDE) instead of coherent Rake combining. However, coherent FDE requires accurate channel estimation. Pilot-assisted channel estimation is a practical solution, but its accuracy is sensitive to the Doppler spread. In this paper, a frequency-domain differential encoding and detection scheme is proposed for a DS-CDMA mobile radio. Joint frequency-domain differential detection and equalization (FDDDE) based on minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion is presented, where a simple decision feedback filter is used to provide a reliable reference signal for MMSE-FDDDE. Also presented is an approximate BER analysis. It is confirmed by both approximate BER analysis and computer simulation that MMSE-FDDDE provides good BER performance close to the coherent MMSE-FDE and shows high robustness against the Doppler spread; it outperforms coherent MMSE-FDE for large Doppler spreads. The proposed MMSE-FDDDE can also be applied to MC-CDMA. A performance comparison between uncoded DS- and MC-CDMA shows that DS-CDMA with MMSE-FDDDE achieves better BER performance than MC-CDMA with MMSE-FDDDE for small spreading factors.
Potential role of vascular targeted therapy to combat against tumor

Tumors, like other tissues, have a fundamental requirement for access to the nutrients, oxygen and waste removal functions of the circulatory system. Vascular targeted therapy exploits this basic need, along with molecular heterogeneity observed between normal and tumor blood vessels, to develop efficient and selective chemotherapies that essentially starve tumors by destroying their vasculature. As the basic principle on which this therapy is based differs from agents that directly target cancerous cells, combining it with traditional therapies such as radiation, surgery and existing chemotherapies has the potential to create powerful new anticancer strategies. As the requirement for vascularization is universal to solid tumors, vascular targeted therapies have the potential for broad applicability. Vascular targeted therapies include both angiogenesis inhibitors, which inhibit neovascularization, and vascular disrupting agents, which destroy existing vasculature. Applications of this model include finding peptides that bind specifically to cell surface markers on tumor vessel endothelial cells and might deliver chemotherapeutic agents. Expression profiling with microarrays, serial analysis of gene expression, and in vitro and in vivo screening of phage display libraries have identified candidate peptides for targeted delivery to the tumor endothelium.
Tree-adjoining grammars and lexicalized grammars

In this paper, we will describe a tree generating system called tree-adjoining grammar(TAG)and state some of the recent results about TAGs. The work on TAGS is motivated by linguistic considerations. However, a number of formal results have been established for TAGs, which we believe, would be of interest to researchers in tree grammars and tree automata. After giving a short introduction to TAG, we briefly state these results concerning both the properties of the string sets and tree sets (Section 2). We will also describe the notion of lexicalization of grammars (Section 3) and investigate the relationship of lexicalization to context-free grammars (CFGs) and TAGS (Section 4). Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science, Technical Report No. MSCIS-91-22. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cis_reports/445 Tree-Adjoining Grammars and Lexicalized Grammars MS-CIS-91-22 LINC LAB 197 Aravind K. Joshi Yves Schabes Department of Computer and Information Science School of Engineering and Applied Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389
Nucleation of calcium oxalate crystals by albumin: involvement in the prevention of stone formation.

BACKGROUND Urine is supersaturated in calcium oxalate, which means that it will contain calcium oxalate crystals that form spontaneously. Their size must be controlled to prevent retention in ducts and the eventual development of a lithiasis. This is achieved, in part, by specific inhibitors of crystal growth. We investigated whether promoters of crystal nucleation could also participate in that control, because for the same amount of salt that will precipitate from a supersaturated solution, increasing the number of crystals will decrease their average size and facilitate their elimination. METHODS Albumin was purified from commercial sources and from the urine of healthy subjects or idiopathic calcium stone formers. Its aggregation properties were characterized by biophysical and biochemical techniques. Albumin was then either attached to several supports or left free in solution and incubated in a metastable solution of calcium oxalate. Kinetics of calcium oxalate crystallization were determined by turbidimetry. The nature and efficiency of nucleation were measured by examining the type and number of neoformed crystals. RESULTS Albumin, one of the most abundant proteins in urine, was a powerful nucleator of calcium oxalate crystals in vitro, with the polymers being more active than monomers. In addition, nucleation by albumin apparently led exclusively to the formation of calcium oxalate dihydrate crystals, whereas calcium oxalate monohydrate crystals were formed in the absence of albumin. An analysis of calcium oxalate crystals in urine showed that the dihydrate form was present in healthy subjects and stone formers, whereas the monohydrate, which is thermodynamically more stable and constitutes the core of most calcium oxalate stones, was present in stone formers only. Finally, urinary albumin purified from healthy subjects contained significantly more polymers and was a stronger promoter of calcium oxalate nucleation than albumin from idiopathic calcium stone formers. CONCLUSIONS Promotion by albumin of calcium oxalate crystallization with specific formation of the dihydrate form might be protective, because with rapid nucleation of small crystals, the saturation levels fall; thus, larger crystal formation and aggregation with subsequent stone formation may be prevented. We believe that albumin may be an important factor of urine stability.
Simultaneous degradation estimation and restoration of confocal images and performance evaluation by colocalization analysis

A novel method for joint restoration and estimation of the degradation of confocal microscope images is presented. The observed images are degraded due to two sources: blurring due to the band‐limited nature of the optical system [modelled by the point spread function (PSF)], and Poisson noise contaminates the observations due to the discrete nature of the photon detection process. The proposed method iterates noise reduction, blur estimation and deblurring, and applies these steps in two phases, i.e. a training phase and a restoration phase. In the first phase, these three steps are iterated until the blur estimation converges. Noise reduction and blur estimation are performed using steerable pyramids, and the deblurring is performed by the Richardson–Lucy algorithm. The second phase is the actual restoration. From then on, the blur estimation is used as a criterion to measure the image quality. The iterations are stopped when this measure converges, a result that is guaranteed. The integrated method is completely automatic, and no prior information on the image is required. The method has been given the name SPERRIL (Steerable Pyramid‐based Estimation and Regularized Richardson–Lucy restoration). Compared with existing techniques by both objective measures and visual observation, in the SPERRIL‐restored images noise is better suppressed.
Children's visual attention to “playschool”: A time series analysis

Abstract Videorecords of ten “Playschool” viewing sessions were made in real time for nine preschool children and examined for visual attention to the screen. The effects on attention of segment switchpoints (i.e., script changes in content) were contrasted with idiosyncratic serial fluctuations in eye movements on and off the screen. Time series analysis (TSA) indicated that segment switchpoints were much more salient as mediators of changes in visual attention than were internally generated fluctuations (as modelled by moving average and autoregressive TSA components). When preschoolers watch familiar magazine-type programmes in environments which include distractions it seems that they consciously and visually attend to programme segment switchpoints in what is an active viewing or attentional process. It is suggested that at other times children monitor the TV programme intermittently in accordance with their idiosyncratic visual attention cycles and by listening to the sound track (i.e., via auditory.
Pilot physiology, cognition and flight performance during flight simulation exposed to a 3810-m hypoxic condition

Background. Hypoxia is a physiological state defined as a reduction in the distribution of oxygen to the tissues of the body. It has been considered a major factor in aviation safety worldwide because of its potential for pilot disorientation. Pilots are able to operate aircrafts up to 3810 m without the use of supplemental oxygen and may exhibit symptoms associated with hypoxia. Objective. To determine the effects of 3810 m on physiology, cognition and performance in pilots during a flight simulation. Methods. Ten healthy male pilots engaged in a counterbalanced experimental protocol comparing a 0-m normoxic condition (NORM) with a 3810-m hypoxic condition (HYP) on pilot physiology, cognition and flight performance. Results. Repeated-measures analysis of variance demonstrated a significant (p ≤ 0.05) time by condition interaction for physiological and cognitive alterations during HYP. A paired-samples t test demonstrated no differences in pilot performance (p ≥ 0.05) between conditions. Conclusion. Pilots exhibited physiological and cognitive impairments; however, pilot performance was not affected by HYP.
Analysis of Total Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-Specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-Cell Responses: Relationship to Viral Load in Untreated HIV Infection

ABSTRACT Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-specific T-cell responses are thought to play a key role in viral load decline during primary infection and in determining the subsequent viral load set point. The requirements for this effect are unknown, partly because comprehensive analysis of total HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+T-cell responses to all HIV-encoded epitopes has not been accomplished. To assess these responses, we used cytokine flow cytometry and overlapping peptide pools encompassing all products of the HIV-1 genome to study total HIV-specific T-cell responses in 23 highly active antiretroviral therapy naı̈ve HIV-infected patients. HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell responses were detectable in all patients, ranging between 1.6 and 18.4% of total CD8+ T cells. HIV-specific CD4+ T-cell responses were present in 21 of 23 patients, although the responses were lower (0.2 to 2.94%). Contrary to previous reports, a positive correlation was identified between the plasma viral load and the total HIV-, Env-, and Nef-specific CD8+ T-cell frequency. No correlation was found either between viral load and total or Gag-specific CD4+ T-cell response or between the frequency of HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. These results suggest that overall frequencies of HIV-specific T cells are not the sole determinant of immune-mediated protection in HIV-infection.
Word Identification for Mandarin Chinese Sentences

Chinese sentences are composed with string of characters without blanks to mark words. However the basic unit for sentence parsing and understanding is word. Therefore the first step of processing Chinese sentences is to identify the words. The difficulties of identifying words include (1) the identification of complex words, such as Determinative-Measure, reduplications, derived words etc., (2) the identification of proper names, (3) resolving the ambiguous segmentations. In this paper, we propose the possible solutions for the above difficulties. We adopt a matching algorithm with 6 different heuristic rules to resolve the ambiguities and achieve an 99.77% of the success rate. The statistical data supports that the maximal matching algorithm is the most effective heuristics.
Funciones ejecutivas y discapacidad intelectual: evaluación y relevancia. Executive function and intelectual disabilities: assesment and relevance.

Summary. In this work, a theoretical review about the last tools used to assessment the executive functioning (EF) in people with intellectual disability (ID) is presented. Despite the gro- wing importance that the research is giving to the executive function in the cognitive profi- le of people with ID, there are few studies about the executive function in this population and there are few standardized available tests. Therefore, the aim of this work is to make available a set of instruments to assessment the EF in the ID that could be used by psy- chologists and educators.