Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A regulation strategy for virtual power plant

A large number of batteries and gas generators in a virtual power plant (VPP) can achieve high profits by providing high-quality frequency regulation services. Therefore, the virtual power plant will participate in the regulation market for those batteries and gas generators. However, uncertainty of intermittent energy in VPP will damage the performance score in settlement and decrease the benefit of VPP. In order to give full play to the high-quality regulation services of VPP, this paper introduces a regulation mechanism for VPP, and we propose a calculation method of VPP's frequency performance. To reduce the influence of fluctuation of intermittent power and load on VPP's regulation performance, an improved VPP regulation control strategy is proposed. Finally, the results show the effectiveness of the control strategy.
The dynamics of immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis during different stages of natural infection: A longitudinal study among Greenlanders

Objective Understanding human immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) during different stages of infection is important for development of an effective tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. We aimed to evaluate immunity to Mtb infection by measuring immune responses to selected Mtb antigens expressed during different stages of infection over time and to observe sustainability of immunity. Methods In a cohort study comprising East Greenlanders aged 17–22 years (2012 to 2014) who had either; undetectable Mtb infection, ongoing or prior Mtb infection at enrolment, we measured immunity to 15 antigens over a one-year period. Quantiferon-TB Gold testing (QFT) defined Mtb infection status (undetected/detected). The eligible study population of East Greenlanders aged 17–22 years was identified from the entire population using the Civil Registration System. From the source population 65 participants were selected by stratified random sampling according to information on Mtb infection stage. Retrospective and prospective information on notified TB (including treatment) was obtained through the mandatory TB notification system and was used to characterise Mtb infection stage (ongoing/prior). Immunity to 15 antigens including two QFT antigens, PPD and 12 non-QFT antigens (representing early, constitutive and latent Mtb infection) was assessed by measuring immune responses using whole-blood antigen stimulation and interferon gamma measurement. Results Of 65 participants, 54 were considered Mtb-infected. Immunity to Mtb infection fluctuated with high annual risk of conversion (range: 6–69%) and reversion (range: 5–95%). During follow-up, five (8%) participants were notified with TB; neither conversion nor reversion was associated with an increased risk of progressing to TB. Conclusions Our findings suggest that human immunity to natural Mtb infection over time is versatile with fluctuations, resulting in high levels of conversion and reversion of immunity, thus human immunity to Mtb is much more dynamic than anticipated. The study findings suggest future use of longitudinal assessment of immune responses when searching for TB vaccine candidate antigens.
Interaction Reﬁnement in Object-Oriented Systems

: An OO designer typically starts with a high-level idea of the interactions between the key objects in the system. As the design progresses, the designer reﬁnes these interactions by identifying the exact operations of each object that other objects will invoke and the order of invocations, or by introducing new objects with appropriate operations to mediate the required interactions between existing objects, etc. These reﬁnements are usually not recorded, so the rationale behind the design maybe lost. We motivate the notion of interaction reﬁnement with a few examples, provide a precise deﬁnition of the concept
Group learning improves case analysis in veterinary medicine.

INTRODUCTION Group learning has become important to professional students in the healing sciences. Groups share factual and procedural resources to enhance their performances. METHODOLOGY We investigated the extent to which students analyzing case-based evaluations as teams acquired an immediate performance advantage relative to those analyzing them as individuals and the extent to which group work on one problem led to better performance by individual students on related problems. We blinded written evaluations by randomly assigning numbers to groups of students and using removable tracers. Differences between groups and individuals were evaluated using Student's t statistic. Similar comparisons were evaluated by meta-analysis to determine overall trends. RESULTS Students who analyzed evaluations as a group had an 8.5% performance advantage over those who analyzed them as individuals. When evaluations were divided into those asking questions related to treatment, differential diagnosis, and prognosis, specific performance advantages for groups relative to individuals were 8.9%, 5.9%, and 6.1% respectively. Students who had previously been trained by group evaluations had a 1.5% advantage relative to those who received their training as individuals. CONCLUSIONS Answers by students analyzing evaluations as groups suggested a deeper understanding, in large part because of their improved ability to explain treatment and to conduct differential diagnosis. These improvements suggested limited abilities to use previous experience to improve present performance.
Classification based binaural dereverberation

Reverberation has a detrimental effect on speech perception both in terms of quality as well as intelligibility, as late reflections smear temporal and spectral cues. The ideal binary mask, which is an established computational approach to sound separation, was recently extended to remove reverberation. Experiments with both normal hearing and hearing impaired listeners have shown significant intelligibility improvements for reverberant speech processed using such a priori binary masks. The dereverberation problem can thus be formulated as a classification problem, where the desired output is the ideal binary mask. The goal in this approach is to produce a mask that selects the time-frequency regions where the direct energy dominates the energy from the late reflections. In this study, a binaural dereverberation algorithm is proposed which utilizes the binaural cues of interaural time and level differences as features. The algorithm is tested in highly reverberant environments using both simulated and recorded room impulse responses. Evaluations show significant improvements over the unprocessed condition as measured by both a speech quality measure and a speech intelligibility predictor.
A Conserved Mechanism Controls Translation of Rubisco Large Subunit in Different Photosynthetic Organisms1

We previously proposed a mechanism for control of Rubisco expression and assembly during oxidative stress in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The N terminus of the large subunit (LSU) comprises an RNA recognition motif (RRM) that is normally buried in the protein, but becomes exposed under oxidizing conditions when the glutathione pool shifts toward its oxidized form. Thus, de novo translation and assembly of Rubisco LSU stop with similar kinetics and the unpaired small subunit (SSU) is rapidly degraded. Here we show that the structure of the N-terminal domain is highly conserved throughout evolution, despite its relatively low sequence similarity. Furthermore, Rubisco from a broad evolutionary range of photosynthetic organisms binds RNA under oxidizing conditions, with dissociation constant values in the nanomolar range. In line with these observations, oxidative stress indeed causes a translational arrest in land plants as well as in Rhodospirillum rubrum, a purple bacterium that lacks the SSU. We highlight an evolutionary conserved element located within α-helix B, which is located in the center of the RRM and is also involved in the intramolecular interactions between two LSU chains. Thus, assembly masks the N terminus of the LSU hiding the RRM. When assembly is interrupted due to structural changes that occur under oxidizing conditions or in the absence of a dedicated chaperone, the N-terminal domain can become exposed, leading to the translational arrest of Rubisco LSU. Taken together, these results support a model by which LSU translation is governed by its dimerization. In the case that regulation of type I and type II Rubisco is conserved, the SSU does not appear to be directly involved in LSU translation.
Fast XML Structural Join Algorithms by Partitioning

An XML structural join evaluates structural relationships (e.g. parent-child or ancestor-descendant) between XML elements. It serves as an important computation unit in XML pattern matching. Several classical structural join algorithms have been proposed such as Stack-tree join and XR-Tree join. In this paper, we consider to answer the problem of structural join by partitioning. The Dietz numbering scheme is used for encoding since nodes with the Dietz encodings could be well distributed on a plane. We first extend the relationships between nodes to the relationships between partitions on a plane and obtain some observations and properties about the relationships between partitions. We then propose a new partition-based method, named P-Join for structural join between ancestor and descendant nodes based on the properties derived from our observations. Moreover, we present an enhanced partitioned-based structural join algorithm and two optimised methods. Extensive experiments show that the performance of our proposed algorithms outperform that of Stack-tree and XR-Tree algorithms. In order to store the partitioning results, we design a simple but efficient index structure, called PSS-tree. The experimental result shows that it has less maintenance overhead than XR-Tree.
Simultaneous measurement of displacement and temperature with a single singlemode-multimode-singlemode (SMS) fiber structure

We report an experimental study of a SMS fiber sensor for simultaneously measuring both displacement and temperature. By measuring both central wavelength spectral shifts and peak power variations, displacement and temperature can be independently determined with a demonstrated sensitivity to displacement of 0.62 μm and a temperature sensitivity of 1 °C by using a typical OSA which has a wavelength resolution of 10 pm and power measurement resolution of 0.01 dB.
Synthesis of fuzzy sliding mode controller for liquid level control in spherical tank

Abstract Spherical tanks are often used in process industries as storage or surge tank where control of level is essential. The liquid level in the spherical tank is modeled using first principle technique. A sliding mode controller (SMC) is designed initially to get the information of the stable closed loop process. Fuzzy-based SMC controller is developed by collecting the sliding surface data to reduce the chattering effect caused by SMC and to get the smooth sliding surface. The designed controller can drive the system states to the boundary layer. The performance of the proposed controller is compared with IMC based PI controller and the SMC. Proposed controller performance is encouraging and can be suggested for implementation in controlling the liquid level in spherical geometry.
Epstein-Barr virus replication within pulmonary epithelial cells in cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis.

BACKGROUND--Cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis (synonymous with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) is a clinically heterogeneous condition in which the precipitating factor is unclear. Both environmental and infective factors have been implicated. An association between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis was suggested over a decade ago by a study based on EBV serology, but the significance of this has been unclear. METHODS--Lung tissue obtained surgically from patients (n = 20) with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis was investigated for evidence of EBV replication and compared with lung tissue from 21 control patients. Fourteen of the 20 patients had received no specific therapy for cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis at the time of biopsy. Monoclonal antibodies directed against the EBV viral antigens, EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA) and gp 340/220 antigen, which are expressed during the lytic phase of the EBV life cycle, were studied. RESULTS--Fourteen (70%) of the 20 patients with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis were positive for both EBV VCA and gp 340/220 compared with two (9%) of the 21 controls. In the patients with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis viral replication was localised to pulmonary epithelial cells using epithelial cell markers, and immunohistochemical analysis confirmed the staining to be within type II alveolar cells. CONCLUSIONS--This is the first report of in vivo EBV replication within epithelial cells of the lower respiratory tract in an immunocompetent human host. Furthermore, this suggests that EBV may be an immune trigger or contribute to lung injury in cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis, thus offering a potential new avenue of treatment.
EXISTENCE OF RADIAL POSITIVE SOLUTIONS VANISHING AT INFINITY FOR ASYMPTOTICALLY HOMOGENEOUS SYSTEMS

In this article we study elliptic systems called asymptotically homogeneous because their nonlinearities may not have polynomial growth. Using the Gidas-Spruck Blow-up method, we obtain a priori estimates, and then using Leray-Schauder topological degree theory, we obtain radial positive solutions vanishing at infinity.
CGCExplorer: a semi-automated search procedure for provably correct concurrent collectors

Concurrent garbage collectors are notoriously hard to design, implement, and verify. We present a framework for the automatic exploration of a space of concurrent mark-and-sweep collectors. In our framework, the designer specifies a set of "building blocks" from which algorithms can be constructed. These blocks reflect the designer's insights about the coordination between the collector and the mutator. Given a set of building blocks, our framework automatically explores a space of algorithms, using model checking with abstraction to verify algorithms in the space. We capture the intuition behind some common mark-and-sweep algorithms using a set of building blocks. We utilize our framework to automatically explore a space of more than 1,600,000 algorithms built from these blocks, and derive over 100 correct fine-grained algorithms with various space, synchronization, and precision tradeoffs.
Intraoperative Hyperglycemia during Infant Cardiac Surgery Is Not Associated with Adverse Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at 1, 4, and 8 Years

Background: It is unknown whether intraoperative hyperglycemia in infants is associated with worse neurodevelopmental outcomes after low-flow cardiopulmonary bypass (LF), deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (CA), or both. Methods: In a database review of a prospective trial of 171 infants undergoing arterial switch for D-transposition of the great arteries who were randomly assigned to predominately LF or CA, glucose was measured after induction (T1), 5 min after cardiopulmonary bypass onset (T2), at the onset of CA or LF (T3), 5 min after CPB resumption (T4), at rewarming to 32°C (T5), 10 min after cardiopulmonary bypass weaning (T6), and 90 min after CA or LF (T7). Outcomes included seizures, electroencephalographic findings, and neurodevelopmental evaluation at 1, 4, and 8 yr. Results: Glucose concentrations were affected by support strategy and age at surgery. Lower glucose in the entire group at T6–T7 tended to predict electroencephalographic seizures (P = 0.06 and P = 0.007) but was not related to clinical seizures. Within the predominantly CA group, higher glucose did not correlate with worse outcomes. Rather, it was associated with more rapid electroencephalographic normalization of “close burst” and “relative continuous” activity at all times except T2 (P ≤ 0.03), a finding more pronounced in infants aged 7 days old or younger. Intraoperative serum glucose concentrations were unrelated to neurodevelopmental outcomes at ages 1, 4, and 8 yr. Conclusions: Low glucose after cardiopulmonary bypass tended to relate to electroencephalographic seizures and slower electroencephalogram recovery, independent of CA duration. High glucose concentrations were not associated with worse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Avoiding hypoglycemia may be preferable to restricting glucose in infants undergoing heart surgery.
Genetic regulation of glucoraphanin accumulation in Beneforté® broccoli

Diets rich in broccoli (Brassica oleracea var italica) have been associated with maintenance of cardiovascular health and reduction in risk of cancer. These health benefits have been attributed to glucoraphanin that specifically accumulates in broccoli. The development of broccoli with enhanced concentrations of glucoraphanin may deliver greater health benefits. Three high-glucoraphanin F1 broccoli hybrids were developed in independent programmes through genome introgression from the wild species Brassica villosa. Glucoraphanin and other metabolites were quantified in experimental field trials. Global SNP analyses quantified the differential extent of B. villosa introgression The high-glucoraphanin broccoli hybrids contained 2.5–3 times the glucoraphanin content of standard hybrids due to enhanced sulphate assimilation and modifications in sulphur partitioning between sulphur-containing metabolites. All of the high-glucoraphanin hybrids possessed an introgressed B. villosa segment which contained a B. villosa Myb28 allele. Myb28 expression was increased in all of the high-glucoraphanin hybrids. Two high-glucoraphanin hybrids have been commercialised as Beneforté® broccoli. The study illustrates the translation of research on glucosinolate genetics from Arabidopsis to broccoli, the use of wild Brassica species to develop cultivars with potential consumer benefits, and the development of cultivars with contrasting concentrations of glucoraphanin for use in blinded human intervention studies.
To participate or not participate in unprofessional behavior – Is that the question?

Abstract Introduction: Medical education provides students with abundant learning opportunities, each of which is embodied with messages concerning what is expected from students. This paper analyses students? exposure to instances of unprofessional behavior, investigating whether they judge such behavior to be unprofessional and whether they also participate in unprofessional behavior. Methods: The survey developed in the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago was the basis of this questionnaire that was answered by 276 students from two medical schools in Brazil and Portugal. Results: Unprofessional behavior was observed frequently by students in both universities, and the mean participation rates were similar (26% and 27%). Forty-five percent of students? participation in unprofessional behavior was explained by academic year, prior observation, and judgment. Discussion: The results indicate that once students have observed, participated in or misjudged unprofessional behavior, they tend to participate in and misjudge such behavior. The frequency with which students judged behaviors they had observed or participated in as ? borderline? or unprofessional could mean that they are experiencing moral distress. Conclusion: Proper discussion of unprofessional behavior should foster a broad debate to encourage empowered students, faculties, and physicians to co-create a more professional environment for patient care.
Troponin I is required for myofibrillogenesis and sarcomere formation in Drosophila flight muscle

Myofibrillar proteins assemble to form the highly ordered repetitive contractile structural unit known as a sarcomere. Studies of myogenesis in vertebrate cell culture and embryonic developmental systems have identified some of the processes involved during sarcomere formation. However, isoform changes during vertebrate muscle development and a lack of mutants have made it difficult to determine how these proteins assemble to form sarcomeres. The indirect flight muscles (IFMs) of Drosophila provide a unique genetic system with which to study myofibrillogenesis in vivo. We show in this paper that neither sarcomeric myosin nor actin are required for myoblast fusion or the subsequent morphogenesis of muscle fibres, i.e. fibre morphogenesis does not depend on myofibrillogenesis. However, fibre formation and myofibrillogenesis are very sensitive to the interactions between the sarcomeric proteins. A troponin I (TnI) mutation, hdp3, leads to an absence of TnI in the IFMs and tergal depressor of trochanter (TDT) muscles due to a transcript-splicing defect. Sarcomeres do not form and the muscles degenerate. TnI is part of the thin filament troponin complex which regulates muscle contraction. The effects of the hdp3 mutation are probably caused by unregulated acto-myosin interactions between the thin and thick filaments as they assemble. We have tested this proposal by using a transgenic myosin construct to remove the force-producing myosin heads. The defects in sarcomeric organisation and fibre degeneration in hdp3 IFMs are suppressed, although not completely, indicating the need for inhibition of muscle contraction during muscle development. We show that mRNA and translated protein products of all the major thin filament proteins are reduced in hdp3 muscles and discuss how this and previous studies of thin filament protein mutants indicate a common co-ordinated control mechanism that may be the primary cause of the muscle defects.
An efficient approach to texture‐based image retrieval

In this article, we present an efficient approach for image retrieval based on the textural information of an image, such as orientation, directionality, and regularity. For this purpose, we apply the nonlinear modified discrete Radon transform to estimate these visual contents. We then utilize texture orientation to construct the rotated Gabor transform for extraction of the rotation‐invariant texture feature. The rotation‐invariant texture feature, directionality, and regularity are the main features used in the proposed approach for similarity assessment. Experimental results on a large number of texture and aerial images from standard databases show that the proposed schemes for feature extraction and image retrieval significantly outperform previous works, including methods based on the MPEG‐7 texture descriptors. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 17, 295–302, 2007