Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cascaded multilevel inverter with multicarrier PWM technique and voltage balancing feature

Multilevel inverters generate low harmonic waveforms at the output, which makes them suitable for high voltage energy conversion scheme to deliver efficient high power to the loads from renewable energy sources like photovoltaic systems which are penetrating to the electric grid nowadays, significantly. In this paper a single-phase hybrid multilevel inverter based on cascading full bridge and half bridge cells is introduced. Moreover the associated switching technique with multicarrier PWM is designed to generate five-level voltage at the output. As well, the designed switching technique allows the capacitors of the half bridge cell to have balanced voltage despite load changes. Furthermore, this study is extended to more cells using unequal DC sources to produce more voltage levels. Simulations have been performed on two and three cells to demonstrate the efficiency of the presented cascaded inverter with equal and unequal DC sources and switching technique.
The Relationship between Inattentional Insensitivity of Visual, Tactile, and Olfactory Stimuli

Thirty-six participants were tested on inattentional blindness (IB), inattentional insensitivity for tactile stimuli, and inattentional insensitivity for olfactory stimuli. Inattentional insensitivity (IIS) is the inability to detect the sensation of a salient stimulus while performing a task within a congruent sensory modality. The Invisible Gorilla video (Simons, 2003) was used to test IB. Half of the participants were tasked while engaged in each sensory condition, and half of the participants were not tasked. Chi square analyses showed that tasked participants displayed more IB than nontasked participants. In addition, tasked participants in the tactile condition displayed more IIS for a salient tactile stimulus than participants who were not tasked. No differences were found between groups for IIS in the olfactory condition. High working memory (WM) participants showed better performance than low WM participants in the tactile task. High WM participants also showed better performance during the visual condition (i.e., higher accuracy for basketball counts). Finally, results suggest a possible relationship between IIS with performance across different sensory modalities.
Association Between Duration of Dual Antiplatelet Therapy and Angiographic Multivessel Disease on Outcomes in Patients Treated With Newer-Generation Drug-Eluting Stents

Background—There is general agreement that the optimal duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) in patients treated with drug-eluting stents should be individualized. We hypothesized that the extent of coronary artery disease may affect the clinical outcomes of DAPT. Methods and Results—We pooled patient-level data from 5 large, randomized trials comparing short-term DAPT with prolonged therapy. From the data, we identified 5476 patients who received newer-generation drug-eluting stents. Net adverse clinical event (NACE) was defined as a composite of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, stroke, or major bleeding. At 1 year, NACE had occurred in 171 patients (3.1%). Independent predictors of NACE were older age (>65 years), sex, presence of diabetes mellitus, left ventricular dysfunction (ejection fraction <40%), and angiographic multivessel disease. Multivessel disease and DAPT duration were significantly associated with NACE (P for interaction=0.002); the association was driven by the greater occurrence of myocardial infarction in patients with multivessel disease. In patients with multivessel disease, 6-month DAPT (versus 12-month DAPT) was associated with a higher incidence of myocardial infarction (adjusted hazard ratio=2.748; 95% confidence interval=1.375–5.491; P=0.004), compared with patients with single-vessel disease (P for interaction=0.001). Conclusions—In patients treated with newer-generation drug-eluting stents, a significant interaction between DAPT strategy and multivessel disease was found regarding the occurrence of NACE at 1 year. Among adverse events, myocardial infarction was more frequent in 6-month DAPT than in 12-month DAPT in patients with multivessel disease.
Evaluation of MODIS VI Products Using the AERONET-based Surface Reflectance Validation Network Dataset

MODIS vegetation index (VI) products (MOD13) are widely used in many science applications that aim to monitor and characterize spatial and temporal vegetation dynamics from space. The quality and reliability of the MODIS VI products are vital to these studies, and thus there is a need to assess their quality. In this study, the AERONET-based Surface Reflectance Validation Network (ASRVN) dataset is used to evaluate the quality of the MODIS 1 km, 16-day composite NDVI and EVI products. Our results show a positive bias of red reflectances, which is responsible for bias in the MODIS NDVI and two-band EVI (EVI2). The negative bias of the MODIS blue reflectance nullifies this effect on the standard EVI, resulting in insignificant bias in EVI. EVI and NDVI temporal profiles match ASRVN VI profiles even during higher aerosol optical thickness (AOT) periods, indicating that the VI products are not significantly affected by aerosols.
Behavioral and cognitive consequences of reciprocal versus compensatory responses to preinteraction expectancies.

It is proposed that there are two basic interaction strategies by means of which a perceiver's preinteraction impression of a target person can mediate both the perceiver's and the target's subsequent interaction behavior. The first is the “reciprocity strategy” that underlies the process of behavioral confirmation (i.e., the “self-fulfilling prophecy”) described by various theorists; the second is the “compensation strategy” suggested by the results of studies by Bond (1972) and Swann and Snyder (1980). The results of Experiment 1 provided consistent behavioral and self-report evidence for the operation of each of these strategies in the context of unstructured, face-to-face interactions. The data converged to suggest that the creation in one dyad member of a “friendly” preinteraction expectancy led to the adoption of the reciprocity strategy, whereas the creation of an “unfriendly” expectancy led to the adoption of the compensation strategy, and that in each case the behavior of both perceivers and targ.
How Do We See Art: An Eye-Tracker Study

We describe the pattern of fixations of subjects looking at figurative and abstract paintings from different artists (Molina, Mondrian, Rembrandt, della Francesca) and at modified versions in which different aspects of these art pieces were altered with simple digital manipulations. We show that the fixations of the subjects followed some general common principles (e.g., being attracted to saliency regions) but with a large variability for the figurative paintings, according to the subject’s personal appreciation and knowledge. In particular, we found different gazing patterns depending on whether the subject saw the original or the modified version of the painting first. We conclude that the study of gazing patterns obtained by using the eye-tracker technology gives a useful approach to quantify how subjects observe art.
Electronic House Arrest: An Examination of Citizen Attitudes

This study reports the findings of a survey of attitudes toward the use of electronic house arrest. Data are from a sample of 1,000 randomly selected households from a voter registration list in Oneida County, New York. The return rate was 56%. The results indicate strong, yet conditional support for the use of electronic telemetry to control offenders. Level of support is related to how and why electronic house arrest is used as a criminal sanction, offense seriousness, and the extent to which criminals are monitored.
Security Modeling and Analysis of Cross-Protocol IoT Devices

In the Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices are connected using various communication protocols, such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee. Some IoT devices have multiple built-in communication modules. If an IoT device equipped with multiple communication protocols is compromised by an attacker using one communication protocol (e.g., Wi-Fi), it can be exploited as an entry point to the IoT network. Another protocol (e.g., ZigBee) of this IoT device could be used to exploit vulnerabilities of other IoT devices using the same communication protocol. In order to find potential attacks caused by this kind of cross-protocol devices, we group IoT devices based on their communication protocols and construct a graphical security model for each group of devices using the same communication protocol. We combine the security models via the cross-protocol devices and compute hidden attack paths traversing different groups of devices. We use two use cases in the smart home scenario to demonstrate our approach and discuss some feasible countermeasures.
The timing of phasic transmitter release is Ca2+-dependent and lacks a direct influence of presynaptic membrane potential

Ca2+ influx through voltage-gated Ca2+ channels and the resulting elevation of intracellular Ca2+ concentration, [Ca2+]i, triggers transmitter release in nerve terminals. However, it is controversial whether in addition to the opening of Ca2+ channels, membrane potential directly affects transmitter release. Here, we assayed the influence of membrane potential on transmitter release at the calyx of Held nerve terminals. Transmitter release was evoked by presynaptic Ca2+ uncaging, or by presynaptic Ca2+ uncaging paired with presynaptic voltage-clamp depolarizations to +80 mV, under pharmacological block of voltage-gated Ca2+ channels. Such a change in membrane potential did not alter the Ca2+ dependence of transmitter release rates or synaptic delays. We also found, by varying the amount of Ca2+ influx during Ca2+ tail-currents, that the time course of phasic transmitter release is not invariant to changes in release probability. Rather, the time difference between peak Ca2+ current and peak transmitter release became progressively shorter with increasing Ca2+ current amplitude. When this time difference was plotted as a function of the estimated local [Ca2+]i at the sites of vesicle fusion, a slope of ≈100 μs per 10 μM [Ca2+]i was found, in reasonable agreement with a model of cooperative Ca2+ binding and vesicle fusion. Thus, the amplitude and time course of the [Ca2+]i signal at the sites of vesicle fusion controls the timing and the amount of transmitter release, both under conditions of brief periods of Ca2+ influx, as well as during step-like elevations of [Ca2+]i produced by Ca2+ uncaging.
Constructing the Overlay Network by Tuning Link Weights

When transport in networks follows the shortest paths, the union of all shortest path trees Gcupspt can be regarded as the "transport overlay network". Overlay networks such as peer-to-peer networks or virtual private networks can be considered as a subgraph of Gcupspt. We construct two types of Gcupspt: (a) Gcupspt(alpha) where alpha is the extreme value index of polynomial link weights and (b) Gcupspt(rho) where rho is the correlation coefficient of the 2-dimensional correlated uniformly distributed link weights in QoS routing. By tuning the extreme value index alpha of polynomial link weights, a phase transition occurs around a critical extreme value index ac of the link weight distribution. If alpha > alphac, transport in the network traverses many links whereas for alpha < alphac, all transport flows over a critical backbone: the minimum spanning tree (MST). In QoS routing with 2-dimensional link weights, as we decrease the correlation coefficient rho from 1 to -1, the overlay GUSpt becomes denser, and is equal to the substrate when rho = -1. With the Erdos-Renyi random graph as the underlying topology, we show that the overlay Gcupspt(rho) is also close to an Erdos-Renyi random graph Gp (N), an observation with potential for mobile and wireless ad-hoc networks. The existence of such a controllable transition in the overlay structure may allow network operators to steer and balance flows in their network.
Stem Cells for Augmenting Tendon Repair

Tendon healing is fraught with complications such as reruptures and adhesion formation due to the formation of scar tissue at the injury site as opposed to the regeneration of native tissue. Stem cells are an attractive option in developing cell-based therapies to improve tendon healing. However, several questions remain to be answered before stem cells can be used clinically. Specifically, the type of stem cell, the amount of cells, and the proper combination of growth factors or mechanical stimuli to induce differentiation all remain to be seen. This paper outlines the current literature on the use of stem cells for tendon augmentation.
The impact of climate change on the geographical distribution of two vectors of Chagas disease: implications for the force of infection

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is the most important vector-borne disease in Latin America. The vectors are insects belonging to the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and are widely distributed in the Americas. Here, we assess the implications of climatic projections for 2050 on the geographical footprint of two of the main Chagas disease vectors: Rhodnius prolixus (tropical species) and Triatoma infestans (temperate species). We estimated the epidemiological implications of current to future transitions in the climatic niche in terms of changes in the force of infection (FOI) on the rural population of two countries: Venezuela (tropical) and Argentina (temperate). The climatic projections for 2050 showed heterogeneous impact on the climatic niches of both vector species, with a decreasing trend of suitability of areas that are currently at high-to-moderate transmission risk. Consequently, climatic projections affected differently the FOI for Chagas disease in Venezuela and Argentina. Despite the heterogeneous results, our main conclusions point out a decreasing trend in the number of new cases of Tr. cruzi human infections per year between current and future conditions using a climatic niche approach.
Cutting Edge: Mechanical Forces Acting on T Cells Immobilized via the TCR Complex Can Trigger TCR Signaling

Engagement of the TCR by antigenic peptides presented by the MHC activates specific T cells to control infections. Recent theoretical considerations have suggested that mechanical forces acting on the TCR may be important for receptor triggering. In this study, we directly tested the hypothesis that physical forces acting on the TCR can initiate signaling in T cells by micromanipulation of individual T cells bound to artificial APCs expressing engineered TCR ligands. We find that mechanical forces acting on T cells bound to APCs via the TCR complex but not other surface receptors can initiate signaling in T cells in an Src kinase-dependent fashion. Our data indicate that T cells are mechanically sensitive when coupled to APCs by the TCR and indicates that the TCR may act as a mechanosensor. Our data provide new insight into TCR function.
The heritability of mental traits in humans: A proposal for a more coherent discussion

It is proposed to simplify the debate about the heritability of mental traits in humans by concentrating on two crucial issues: Population specificity of heritability estimates and the relation of these estimates to the malleability of the trait to which they refer. It is demonstrated that due to vast differences between the environmental variations of populations there would have to be a heritability estimate for every imaginable population, and that a heritability estimate allows no predictions whatsoever about the malleability of the trait in question. It is therefore concluded that this field of research should be abandoned.
Health economists and medical writers: Collaboration or collision?

Medical writers are perceived by many health economists to be incompetent in health economics writing. Medical writers need to abolish this common perception, and so must develop an understanding of cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, and other health economic concepts. To be accepted as useful members of the publications team, medical writers must also adapt to and understand health economists and their needs. Health economics research is often poorly communicated and medical writers can make a great deal of difference in this increasingly important area.
Annotated Bibliography of Literature on Food Environments

L. (2007). The development of a healthy eating indicator shopping basket tool (HEISB) for use in food access studies—identification of key food items. This literature review of UK designations of "healthy food" in Scotland helps create objective criteria of "healthy food. " The healthy eating indicator shopping basket (HEISB) was created through the review of surveys done throughout the UK. HEISB isbased on UK Food Standards Assessment nutrient content, cultural acceptance, use of foods in previous models, price, convenience, variety. Using this model effectively would
Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems

Organizations engaged in the production and mass distribution of "cultural" items are often confronted by highly uncertain environments at their input and output boundaries. This paper outlines the structure and operation of entrepreneurial organizations in the most speculative segments of three cultural industries: book publishing, phonograph records, and motion pictures. Commercial cultural products are conceived as nonmaterial goods, directed at a mass public of consumers, for whom they serve an esthetic, rather than a clearly utilitarian purpose. Three adaptive "coping" strategies are set forth and examined: the deployment of "contact" men to organizational boundaries; overproduction and differential promotion of new items; and the cooptation of mass-media gatekeepers. The concept of an "industry system" is proposed as a useful frame of reference in which to trace the filtering of new products and ideas as they flow from producer to consumer and in which to examine relations among organizations. This substantive area, seldom viewed from an organizational perspective, is then related to a growing body of literature in the subfield of interorganizational relations.
Evaluation time estimation for pass transistor logic circuits

This paper describes a mathematical model for the prediction of binary decision diagram (BDD) depth measures, such as the longest path length (LPL) and the average path length (APL). The formal core of the model is a formula for the average LPL and APL over the set of BDD derived from Boolean logic expressions with a given number of variables and product terms. The formula was determined by extensive empirical studies of these measures. The proposed model can provide valuable information about Pass Transistor Logic (PTL) evaluation time for any variable ordering method without building the BDD. Our experimental results show good correlation between the theoretical results and those predicted by the mathematical model, which will greatly reduce the time complexity of applications that use BDDs
Exposure Fusion Based on Shift-Invariant Discrete Wavelet Transform *

Until now, most exposure fusion methods are easy to be influenced by the location of object in the image. However, when capturing the source images, slight shift in the camera's position will yield blurry or double images. In order to solve the problem, a method called SIDWTBEF is proposed, which is based on shift-invariant discrete wavelet transform (SIDWT). It is more robust to images those have slight shift. On the other hand, in this paper, we present a novel way to get the chrominance information of the scene, and the saturation of the fused image can be adjusted using one user-controlled parameter. The luminance images sequence of the source images are decomposed by SIDWT into sub-images with a certain level scale. In the transform domain, different fusion rules are used for the high-pass sub-images and the low-pass sub-images combination respectively. In the end, in order to reduce the inconsistencies induced by the fusion rule after applying the inverse transform of SIDWT, an enhancement operator is proposed. Experiments show that SIDWTBEF can give comparative results compared to other shift dependent exposure fusion methods.
Perception of competence: risk and protective predictors following an e‐self‐advocacy intervention for adolescents with learning disabilities

The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of competence among adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) who participated in a virtual supported self‐advocacy programme within the risk and protective paradigm. The sample consisted of 374 adolescents with and without learning disabilities, students of the 7th to 9th grades, at 15 schools across Israel. The adolescents were divided into three groups, matched by age and gender: 111 adolescents with LD who participated in a five‐month virtual‐supported intervention, and two comparison groups: adolescents with LD (N = 115) who did not participate in the program and adolescents without LD (N = 148). The self‐perceptions of adolescents were assessed using the following questionnaires: basic psychological skills (competence and relatedness); hope and loneliness. Following the intervention, higher competence scores were reported by students with LD who participated in the programme. At that time (the end of the academic year), the predictors of the groups of students with LD for the competence measure were their level of competence at the beginning of the period, their belonging to the group who participated in the intervention, their loneliness and hope. Comparisons with predictors of the group of students without LD, and with predictors of competence at the beginning of the year, emphasized the importance of risk factors (loneliness) and the protective factors (hope) for students with LD. In addition, the results focused attention at the contribution of the participation in an e‐supported self advocacy programme for enhancing competence among students with LD.
Neuroplastin‐55 binds to and signals through the fibroblast growth factor receptor

Neuroplastin (Np) is a glycoprotein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) and existing in two isoforms, Np55 and Np65, named according to their molecular weights. The extracellular part of Np65 contains three immunoglobulin (Ig)‐like modules (Igl, Ig2, and Ig3), whereas Np55 lacks the Igl module. Of these two isoforms, only Np65 is involved in homophilic interactions resulting in cell adhesion, whereas the role of Np55 is poorlyunderstood. The present studyreports for the first time the crystal structure of the ectodomain of Np55 at 1.95‐Å resolution and demonstrates that Np55 binds to and activates the fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1). Furthermore, we identify a sequence motif in the Ig2 module of Np55 interacting with FGFR1 and show that a synthetic peptide encompassing this motif, termed narpin, binds to and activates FGFR1. We show that both Np55 and the narpin peptide induce neurite outgrowth through FGFR1 activation and that Np55 increases synaptic calcium concentration in an FGFR1‐dependent manner. Moreover, we demonstrate that narpin has an antidepressive‐like effect in rats subjected to the forced swim test, suggesting that Np55‐induced signaling may be involved in synaptic plasticity in vivo. Owczarek, S. , Kiryushko, D. , Larsen, M. H. , Kastrup, J. S. , Gajhede, M. , Sandi, C. , Berezin, V. , Bock, E. , Soroka, V. Neuroplastin‐55 binds to and signals through the fibroblast growth factor receptor. FASEB J. 24, 1139–1150 (2010). www.fasebj. org