Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The characterisation of InGaN/GaN quantum well light emitting diodes

By focussing on the properties of InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) LEDs the key physical processes relevant to all InGaN/GaN light emitters are studied. These include the strength of the piezoelectric field, the important current pathways and the effect doping densities and anneal temperatures have on device performance. Photocurrent absorption spectra, of 35A Ino.1Gao. 9N QW LEDs, were measured for a range of reverse bias. A bias of 8.5 V was necessary to counteract the affect of the internal piezoelectric field. Using this value and an appropriate approximation for the depletion width of a p-z'-n junction the calculated piezoelectric field was (1.9 0.15) MVcm"1, in good agreement with 1.8 MVcm"1 calculated using piezoelectric constants interpolated from the binaries. The absorption spectra of 26A wide Ino.i6Gao. 84N QW LEDs exhibit a band tail extending to low photon energies whereas emission occurs from the low energy side of this band tail, suggesting emission occurs from localised potential minima. Light-current (LI) characteristics, measured as a function of temperature, are sublinear and exhibit a distinctive temperature dependence. These characteristics are explained in terms of drift leakage which is exacerbated due to the large acceptor activation energy in Mg doped GaN. The data was simulated using a drift diffusion model and good agreement between experimental and simulated results is obtained providing the model includes the band tailing. Emission and absorption spectra and LI characteristics were measured for 25A Ino.1Gao. 9N/GaN QW LEDs subject to four different anneal temperatures of 700, 750, 850 and 900°C. Using a drift diffusion model, incorporating different acceptor concentrations to simulate the effect of different anneal temperatures, good agreement was achieved between the trends seen in the experimental results and those produced by the simulations. This confirms the important roles drift leakage and thermal annealing have on these devices.
A standard cytogenetic map for Anopheles sinensis and chromosome arm homology between the subgenera Anopheles and Cellia

Anopheles sinensis (Diptera: Culicidae) is an important vector of Plasmodium vivax in Southeast Asia. To facilitate population genetic and genomic studies of An. sinensis, we developed a standard cytogenetic photomap for this species. The polytene chromosomes were straightened and divided into 39 numbered divisions and 116 lettered subdivisions. The chromosomal localizations of 13 DNA probes were determined by fluorescent in situ hybridization. A comparison of the physical map for An. sinensis with the genome map for Anopheles gambiae revealed a whole‐arm autosomal translocation between the two species. Specifically, the 2R arm of An. gambiae corresponds to the 3R arm of An. sinensis and the pattern of correspondence of the other chromosome arms remains regular. We mapped the breakpoints of the polymorphic paracentric chromosomal inversion 3Ra to subdivisions 28A and 31A. The standard cytogenetic map developed in this study will be useful for detailed comparative genome mapping and population genetic studies of An. sinensis.
Therapies for coronaviruses. Part I of II – viral entry inhibitors

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus emerged fleetingly in the winter of 2002 and again in the winter of 2003, resulting in the infection of ∼ 8000 people and the death of ∼ 800. The identification of the putative natural reservoir suggests that a re-emergence is possible. The functions of many coronaviral proteins have now been elucidated, resulting in many novel approaches to therapy. Objective: To review anticoronaviral therapies based on inhibition of viral entry into the host cell and to cast light on promising approaches and future developments. Method: The published literature, in particular patent publications, is searched for relevant documents. The information is organized and critiqued. Results/conclusion: The approaches to combating coronaviral infections are built on the foundation of antivirals against other viruses and the fundamental insights gained by dissection of the coronaviral lifecycle. These approaches include the prevention of viral entry, reviewed here, and interference with the intracellular lifecycle of the virus in the infected cell, reviewed next. Of the viral-entry inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies have demonstrated efficacy, clinical application in other viral infections, and the potential to impact a future epidemic. Moreover, combinations of monoclonal antibodies have been shown to have a broader spectrum of antiviral activity.
Design of a low loss substrate mounted waveguide (SMW) filter employing individual resonators

A surface mounted waveguide (SMW) resonator filter, embedded in substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology, is presented. It is designed by using a mode-matching technique (MMT) together with extracted pole filter synthesis. The center frequency is set for K-band operation. The filter consists of three individual resonators and exhibits a high unloaded Q factor compared to other SMW and regular, pure SIW filters. Simulation and measurement data are in good agreement. Additionally, a study on the resonator height is included. The presented filter is easy scalable and adaptable to low cost, high volume production by employing standard printed circuit board (PCB) processing technology.
Optimum Sleep-Wake Scheduling of Sensors for Quickest Event Detection in Small Extent Wireless Sensor Networks

We consider the problem of quickest event detection with sleep-wake scheduling in small extent wireless sensor networks in which, at each time slot, each sensor node in the awake state observes a sample and communicates the information to the fusion centre. The sensor nodes in the sleep state do not sample or communicate any information to the fusion centre (FC), thereby conserving energy. At each time slot, the FC, after having received the samples from the sensor nodes in the wake state, makes a decision to stop (and thus declare that the event has occurred) or to continue observing. If it decides to continue, the FC also makes the decision of choosing the number of sensor nodes to be in the wake state in the next time slot. We consider three alternative approaches to the problem of choosing the number of sensor nodes to be in the wake state in time slot k+1, based on the information available at time slot k, namely, 1. optimal control of M_{k+1}, the number of sensor nodes to be in the awake state in time slot k+1, 2. optimal control of q_{k+1}, the probability of a sensor node to be in the awake state in time slot k+1, and 3. optimal probability q that a sensor node is in the awake state in any time slot. In each case, we formulate the problem as a sequential decision process. We show that a sufficient statistic for the decision at time k is the a posteriori probability of change Pi_k. Also, we show that the optimal stopping rule is a threshold rule on Pi_k. The optimal policy for M_{k+1} can keep very few sensors wake during the prechange phase and then quickly increase the number of sensors in the wake state when a change is "suspected". Among the three sleep-wake algorithms described, we observe that the total cost is minimum for the optimum control of M_{k+1} and is maximum for the optimum control on q.
Combined head and eye tracking system for dynamic testing of the vestibular system

The authors present a combined head-eye tracking system suitable for use with free head movement during natural activities. This system provides an integrated head and eye position measurement while allowing for a large range of head movement (approx 1.8 m of head translation is tolerated). Six degrees of freedom of head motion and two degrees of freedom of eye motion are measured by the system. The system was designed to be useful for the evaluation of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). The VOR generates compensatory eye movements in order to stabilize gaze during linear or rotational motion of the head. Current clinical and basic research evaluation of the VOR has used a restricted range of head motion, mainly low-frequency, yaw rotation. An integrated eye-head tracking system such as the one presented here allows the VOR response to linear and angular head motion to be studied in a more physiologically relevant manner. Two examples of the utility of the integrated head and eye tracking system in evaluating the vestibular response to linear and angular motion are presented.
System combination for spoken language understanding

One of the first steps in an SLU system usually is the extraction of flat concepts. Within this paper, we present five methods for concept tagging and give experimental results on the state-of-the-art MEDIA corpus for both, manual transcriptions (REF) and ASR input (ASR). Compared to previous publications, some single systems could be improved and the ASR results are presented for the first time. We could improve the tagging performance of the best known result on this task by approx. 7% relatively from 16.2% to 15.0% CER for REF using light-weight system combination (ROVER). For the ASR task, we achieve improvements by approx. 3% relatively from 29.8% to 28.9% CER. An analysis of the differences in performance on both tasks is also given.
Evidence That Curcumin Suppresses the Growth of Malignant Gliomas in Vitro and in Vivo through Induction of Autophagy: Role of Akt and Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Signaling Pathways

Autophagy is a response of cancer cells to various anticancer therapies. It is designated as programmed cell death type II and characterized by the formation of autophagic vacuoles in the cytoplasm. The Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/p70 ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K) and the extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) pathways are two major pathways that regulate autophagy induced by nutrient starvation. These pathways are also frequently associated with oncogenesis in a variety of cancer cell types, including malignant gliomas. However, few studies have examined both of these signal pathways in the context of anticancer therapy-induced autophagy in cancer cells, and the effect of autophagy on cell death remains unclear. Here, we examined the anticancer efficacy and mechanisms of curcumin, a natural compound with low toxicity in normal cells, in U87-MG and U373-MG malignant glioma cells. Curcumin induced G2/M arrest and nonapoptotic autophagic cell death in both cell types. It inhibited the Akt/mTOR/p70S6K pathway and activated the ERK1/2 pathway, resulting in induction of autophagy. It is interesting that activation of the Akt pathway inhibited curcumin-induced autophagy and cytotoxicity, whereas inhibition of the ERK1/2 pathway inhibited curcumin-induced autophagy and induced apoptosis, thus resulting in enhanced cytotoxicity. These results imply that the effect of autophagy on cell death may be pathway-specific. In the subcutaneous xenograft model of U87-MG cells, curcumin inhibited tumor growth significantly (P < 0.05) and induced autophagy. These results suggest that curcumin has high anticancer efficacy in vitro and in vivo by inducing autophagy and warrant further investigation toward possible clinical application in patients with malignant glioma.
3D reconstruction of detail change on dynamic non-rigid objects

3D reconstruction of a moving object is notable technique in fields such as digital archives or entertainments. [de Aguiar et al. 2008] is able to reconstruct motion and spatio-temporally coherent time-varying geometry using by eight multi-view video and a range scanner. However, they couldn't capture the numerous high-frequency folds of garments, it make the realism of the re-constructed dynamic models reduce. On the other hand, [Hernández et al. 2007] proposed the technique to reconstruct detailed 3D shape of moving cloth including high frequency folds by using one camera. They also use three primary colored lights to acquire the shading information independently at the same time. This property made it possible to estimate surface normals on the object from the video sequence by using photometric stereo. However, there is a defect that the area which can be reconstructed is only limited to frontal surface.
Major Causes of Hospital Admission in Beta Thalassemia Major Patients in Southern Iran

Objective Beta thalassemia major is a prevalent hereditary disease in Mediterranean region especially Iran. Early blood transfusion is necessary for most of the patients and frequent transfusion can cause various medical problems for the patients. The aim of this study was to find major causes of hospital admission in beta thalassemia major patients to reach the accurate preventive and therapeutic plans for these patients. Methods Four hundred twenty six patients were admitted to the Nemazee Hospital (the main University referral Hospital Center affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Fars Province, southern Iran) during 3 years period (January 2007 to January 2010). A questionnaire was filled containing age, gender, hemoglobin level, frequency of blood transfusions, deferoxamine injection, cause of hospital admission and hospital course. Findings The mean age of patients was 11.28 years. The mean serum ferritin level was 1820±749 µg/lit. Two hundred fifty five (59.75%) patients were male and 171 (40.25%) patients were female. The top five most prevalent causes of hospital admission were splenectomy (21.8%), infections (19.9%), congestive heart failure (19.0%), diabetes mellitus (13.4%), and Liver biopsy (11.5%). (P=0.0002) Conclusion Results of this study revealed that infections and complications due to iron overload are major causes of hospital admission in beta thalassemia major patients.
Motion planning and control of interactive humanoid robotic arms

Humanoid robots are widely discussed in recent years. The motion planning and control of humanoid robots can be discussed based on mobility of platforms and manipulations of arms. In this paper, we propose a robotic arm which manipulation is analog to the motion of humanpsilas upper extremities. The proposed robotic arm is designed as a seven degree-of-freedom configuration. To increase the interactivity with humans, a six-axis force sensor is attached on the wrist of the robot to capture the force applied on the robotic arm. Subsequently, the robotic arm is moved following the force applied on the wrist. In addition to the compliance of humanpsilas motion, the robotic arm is capable of dynamically planning spatial trajectories for various straight lines, circles, or predefined paths. Especially, due to the structure of this seven degree-of-freedom robotic arm, we cannot find a unique solution for the inverse kinematics. In this work, we present a behavior based inverse kinematics approach to solve this problem in terms of the fuzzy reasoning. Various behaviors for a given spatial position or path, such as writing, pickup, etc., may result different inverse kinematic solution, and may generate different elbow trajectories as well. Therefore, the proposed robotic arm not only has similar structure to humans, but also represents similar behavior to humans. More specially, the compliance function makes this robotic arm possible to interact with humans. Consequently, a robotic arm with tendon driven architecture is demonstrated to validate the proposed motion planning and control approaches based on an ARM based controller.
Different Functional and Structural Characteristics between ApoA-I and ApoA-4 in Lipid-Free and Reconstituted HDL State: ApoA-4 Showed Less Anti-Atherogenic Activity

Apolipoprotein A-I and A-IV are protein constituents of high-density lipoproteins although their functional difference in lipoprotein metabolism is still unclear. To compare anti-atherogenic properties between apoA-I and apoA-4, we characterized both proteins in lipid-free and lipid-bound state. In lipid-free state, apoA4 showed two distinct bands, around 78 and 67 Å on native gel electrophoresis, while apoA-I showed scattered band pattern less than 71 Å. In reconstituted HDL (rHDL) state, apoA-4 showed three major bands around 101 Å and 113 Å, while apoA-I-rHDL showed almost single band around 98 Å size. Lipid-free apoA-I showed 2.9-fold higher phospholipid binding ability than apoA-4. In lipid-free state, BS3-crosslinking revealed that apoA-4 showed less multimerization tendency upto dimer, while apoA-I showed pentamerization. In rHDL state (95:1), apoA-4 was existed as dimer as like as apoA-I. With higher phospholipid content (255:1), five apoA-I and three apoA-4 were required to the bigger rHDL formation. Regardless of particle size, apoA-I-rHDL showed superior LCAT activation ability than apoA-4-rHDL. Uptake of acetylated LDL was inhibited by apoA-I in both lipid-free and lipid-bound state, while apoA-4 inhibited it only lipid-free state. ApoA-4 showed less anti-atherogenic activity with more sensitivity to glycation. In conclusion, apoA-4 showed inferior physiological functions in lipid-bound state, compared with those of apoA-I, to induce more pro-atherosclerotic properties.
Genetic Screen for Chromosome Instability in Mice: Mcm4 and Breast Cancer

We recently isolated a hypomorphic mutation of Mcm4 in a phenotype-based screen for chromosome instability in mice. This mutation, named Chaos3 (Chromosome aberrations occurring spontaneously 3), causes exclusively mammary adenocarcinomas in ~80% of homozygous females. Mcm4 encodes a subunit of the MCM2-7 complex, the replication-licensing factor and the replicative helicase. The Mcm4Chaos3 mutation appears to destabilize the MCM2-7 complex, causing impaired DNA replication. These findings demonstrate, for the first time, the causative role of an Mcm mutation in cancer development. Furthermore, this raises the possibility that hypomorphic mutations in MCM2-7 genes may increase breast cancer risk in humans.
Quantifying the risk of power loss in PV modules due to micro cracks

Micro cracks in wafer based silicon solar cell modules are nowadays identified by a human observer with the electroluminescence (EL) method. However, the essential question of how the micro cracks affect the PV module performance has yet to be answered. We experimentally analyze the direct impact of micro cracks on the module power and the consequences after artificial aging. We show that the immediate effect of micro cracks on the module power is small, whereas the presence of micro cracks is potentially crucial for the performance of the module after artificial ageing. This confirms the necessity to develop the means of quantifying the risk of power loss in PV modules with cracked solar cells in their lifetime, in order to enable manufacturers to discard defective modules with high risk of failure while keeping modules with uncritical micro cracks. As a first step towards a risk estimation we develop an upper bound for the potential power loss of PV modules due to micro cracks in the solar cells. This is done by simulating the impact of inactive solar cell fragments on the power of a common PV module type and PV array. We show that the largest inactive cell area of a double string protected by a bypass diode is most relevant for the power loss of the PV module. A solar cell with micro cracks, which separate a part of less than 8% of the cell area, results in no power loss in a PV module or a PV module array for all practical cases. In between approximately 12% to 50% of inactive area of a single cell in the PV module the power loss increases nearly linearly from zero to the power of one double string.
Hes genes regulate size, shape and histogenesis of the nervous system by control of the timing of neural stem cell differentiation

Radial glial cells derive from neuroepithelial cells, and both cell types are identified as neural stem cells. Neural stem cells are known to change their competency over time during development: they initially undergo self-renewal only and then give rise to neurons first and glial cells later. Maintenance of neural stem cells until late stages is thus believed to be essential for generation of cells in correct numbers and diverse types, but little is known about how the timing of cell differentiation is regulated and how its deregulation influences brain organogenesis. Here, we report that inactivation of Hes1 and Hes5, known Notch effectors, and additional inactivation of Hes3 extensively accelerate cell differentiation and cause a wide range of defects in brain formation. In Hes-deficient embryos, initially formed neuroepithelial cells are not properly maintained, and radial glial cells are prematurely differentiated into neurons and depleted without generation of late-born cells. Furthermore, loss of radial glia disrupts the inner and outer barriers of the neural tube, disorganizing the histogenesis. In addition, the forebrain lacks the optic vesicles and the ganglionic eminences. Thus, Hes genes are essential for generation of brain structures of appropriate size, shape and cell arrangement by controlling the timing of cell differentiation. Our data also indicate that embryonic neural stem cells change their characters over time in the following order: Hes-independent neuroepithelial cells, transitory Hes-dependent neuroepithelial cells and Hes-dependent radial glial cells.
Designing visual user interfaces for mobile applications

People want to do more with their mobile phones and every day new mobile applications are launched in a increasingly wide number of domains. However, traditional UI knowledge is not sufficient to design effective interfaces for mobile applications because the mobility context presents developers with several peculiarities and new challenges. This tutorial will introduce participants to the design of visual interfaces for mobile applications. In particular, it will: (i) illustrate the peculiar aspects of mobile interaction that make it more difficult to build effective user interfaces for mobile users, (ii) show how the powerful graphics capabilities of today's mobile devices can be exploited to create interfaces that help users on the move do more with their phones, requiring less time and attention, (iii) look at recent developments in the engineering of mobile UIs such as tool support for mobile interface development, including mobile end-user programming.
The Incidence and Health Economic Burden of Ischemic Amputation in Minnesota, 2005-2008

Introduction Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is the most severe manifestation of peripheral artery disease (PAD), is associated with high rates of myocardial infarction, stroke, and amputation, and has a high health economic cost. The objective of this study was to estimate the incidence of lower limb amputation, the most serious consequence of CLI, and to create a surveillance methodology for the incidence of ischemic amputation in Minnesota. Methods We assessed the incidence of ischemic amputation using all inpatient hospital discharge claims in Minnesota from 2005 through 2008. We identified major and minor ischemic amputations via the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) procedure codes for lower limb amputation not due to trauma or cancer and assessed geographic and demographic differences in the incidence of ischemic amputation. Results The age-adjusted annual incidence of lower limb ischemic amputation in Minnesota during the 4-year period was 20.0 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval, 19.4-20.6). Amputations increased significantly with age, were more common in men and in people with diabetes, and were slightly more common in rural residents. The number of amputation-related hospitalizations was steady over 4 years. The median total charge for each amputation was $32,129, and cumulative inpatient hospitalization charges were $56.5 million in 2008. Conclusion The incidence of ischemic amputation is high and results in major illness and health economic costs. These data represent the first population-based estimate of ischemic amputation at the state level and provide a national model for state-based surveillance.