Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control of the modular multilevel converters for reduced switching frequency PWM operation

The Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) is becoming a favoured topology for high voltage applications due to its performance, flexibility in control and its modular and scalable design which allow it to be used over a wide variety of system voltage levels and power ratings. The converter consists of a number of cascaded half bridge cells with isolated capacitors to make up an upper and lower arm in each phase. A low switching frequency Pulse Width Modulation(PWM) scheme utilising a heuristic model predictive controller is introduced and then a modified method presented. The modified method uses forward prediction of the converter arm current zero crossings to further reduce the device switching frequency. Computer simulation results are then presented to confirm the control scheme operation.
A fault tolerant cascaded multilevel inverter topology for open circuit faults in switches

This paper proposes cascaded multilevel inverter topology that sustains open circuit faults in all switches. The basic unit of proposed circuit is designed with four unidirectional and two bidirectional switches to produce a five level output. It maintains the output voltage for an open circuit fault in any one of the bidirectional switch and the output falls to three levels for an open circuit fault in any one of the unidirectional switches. The proposed circuit is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK and a hardware prototype is developed to validate the theoretical and simulation claims.
1,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D deficiency accelerates alveolar bone loss independent of aging and extracellular calcium and phosphorus

BACKGROUND Vitamin D is critical for bone homeostasis and immunomodulation. We therefore assessed whether 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2 D) deficiency in mice with targeted deletion of the gene encoding 25-hydroxyvitamin D-1α-hydroxylase (1α(OH)ase [1αOH)ase-/- mice]) results in alveolar bone loss and periodontal inflammation in vivo. METHODS Ten-week-old and 12-month-old 1α(OH)ase-/- mice and wild-type littermates were fed a normal diet or a rescue diet, and the phenotype of the periodontium was then analyzed using microcomputed tomography, histology, immunohistochemistry, and real-time Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS Alveolar bone loss was increased and maxillary bone mineral density (BMD), osteoblast numbers, and the number of osterix-positive cells were decreased significantly in 1α(OH)ase-/- mice compared with wild-type mice. Although aging from 10 weeks to 12 months accentuated these changes, and a rescue diet reduced them, the alterations in the 1α(OH)ase-/- mice exceeded the effects of aging and diet change. Nuclear factor kappa light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-кB) p65 and CD3 positive cells, and the gene expression levels of interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-3 and -8 were all increased significantly in periodontal tissues of 1α(OH)ase-/- mice compared with wild-type mice. Aging from 10 weeks to 12 months also accentuated these changes, and a rescue diet reduced them, however, the alterations in the 1α(OH)ase-/- mice exceeded the effects of aging and diet change. CONCLUSION 1,25(OH)2 D deficiency in the 1α(OH)ase-/- mice accelerated alveolar bone loss by inhibiting osteoblastic bone formation and enhancing periodontal tissue degeneration in a calcium- and phosphorus- as well as an age-independent manner.
A Novel Metric for Edge Centrality

As we are in the age of big data, graph data become bigger. A big graph normally has the overwhelming numbers of edges. Existing metrics of edge centrality are not suitable for dealing with such a large graph. A novel metric for measuring the importance of edges in a graph is presented. This metric not only captures the structural feature of a graph, but also has the good scalability. The extensive experiments have demonstrated the performance of the proposed metric by comparing it with several popular metrics against real-world graphs.
Efficient Time Series Classification via Sparse Linear Combination

Time series classification presents a specific machine learning challenge due to the ordering of variables. Recent studies show that the simple nearest neighbor classifier with elastic distance measures is hard to beat and many researchers focus on alternative distance measures. Unlike nearest neighbor classifier try to find a training sample which has the minimum distance with test instance, we utilize a reconstruction strategy to determine the label of new time series in this paper. Concretely, for each test time series, we reconstruct it by using as few training samples as possible and then calculate the residuals between the test time series and the selected training samples of each class. The test time series is classified to the class with minimum residual. To get the required time series from the training set, we employ sparse restriction technique to discover the optimal combination of different training samples while fitting test time series. Meanwhile, to solve the scenarios where the time series dataset is linearly inseparable, we extend our method by the kernel trick. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed method can gain the significant improvement on commonly used time series datasets.
A molecular framework controlling style morphology in Brassicaceae

ABSTRACT Organ formation in multicellular organisms depends on the coordinated activities of regulatory components that integrate developmental and hormonal cues to control gene expression and mediate cell-type specification. For example, development of the Arabidopsis gynoecium is tightly controlled by distribution and synthesis of the plant hormone auxin. The functions of several transcription factors (TFs) have been linked with auxin dynamics during gynoecium development; yet how their activities are coordinated is not known. Here, we show that five such TFs function together to ensure polarity establishment at the gynoecium apex. The auxin response factor ETTIN (ARF3; herein, ETT) is a central component of this framework. Interaction of ETT with TF partners is sensitive to the presence of auxin and our results suggest that ETT forms part of a repressive gene-regulatory complex. We show that this function is conserved between members of the Brassicaceae family and that variation in an ETT subdomain affects interaction strengths and gynoecium morphology. These results suggest that variation in affinities between conserved TFs can lead to morphological differences and thus contribute to the evolution of diverse organ shapes. Summary: Variation in interaction affinity between transcription factors of an ETTIN-containing complex underlies diversity of gynoecium style structure among members of the Brassicacea family.
Clinical Features and Outcome of Acute Exacerbation of Interstitial Pneumonia: Collagen Vascular Diseases-Related versus Idiopathic

Background: Relatively little is known about acute exacerbation (AE) of interstitial pneumonia associated with collagen vascular diseases (CVD-IPs). Objectives: This study was aimed at clarifying clinical characteristics and outcome in AE of CVD-IPs, compared with those of idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 112 admission cases with suspected AE of CVD-IPs or IIPs during 2003–2009. IIPs were diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) or non-IPF, mostly based on radiologic findings. Of these, 15 AEs of CVD-IPs (6 rheumatoid arthritis, 6 dermatomyositis and 3 systemic sclerosis) and 47 AEs of IIPs (13 IPF and 34 non-IPF) were included. Results: The clinical characteristics in AE of CVD-IPs were similar to those of IIPs, except for younger age (63.3 ± 6.8 vs. 73.8 ± 9.1 years; p = 0.0001) and higher PaO2/FiO2 at the onset of AE (205 ± 81.2 vs. 145 ± 53.8 mm Hg; p = 0.002) in the former. Dermatomyositis-related interstitial pneumonia (IP) showed a relatively indolent onset and was often associated with worsening control of the underlying disease, whereas AE of other CVD-IPs resembled that of IIPs. 90-day mortality of 33% in AE of CVD-IPs was similar to that of IIPs (44%; p = 0.44) or non-IPF (34%; p = 0.94), but was significantly better than that of IPF (69%; p = 0.04). Conclusion: Clinical features and outcome in AE of CVD-IPs were similar, if not identical, to those of IIPs, having a significant impact on the clinical course. AE of advanced IPF with typical radiologic features seems to have higher mortality compared with other forms of IP.
Exploring Orientation Cues in Both Digital and Physical Books

Electronic books (eBooks) and eReaders are now a commonplace tool in the reading experience for many readers. Yet these have long received mixed reviews. Designing suitable interactions that support successful eReading experiences is a relevant task. This paper reports on an exploration of orientation cue designs for electronic books through consideration of design techniques implemented in both physical books (pBooks) and eBooks. We executed a case study of contemporary pBook and eBook orientation cue designs and report on the results of a heuristic evaluation with a small set of expert evaluators. Our findings identify the need for further investigation of the design of orientation cues for both pBooks and eBooks.
Jointly Optimal Spatial Channel Assignment and Power Allocation for MIMO SWIPT Systems

The joint design of spatial channel assignment and power allocation in multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems capable of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer is studied. Assuming availability of channel state information at both communications ends, we maximize the harvested energy at the multi-antenna receiver, while satisfying a minimum information rate requirement for the MIMO link. We first derive the globally optimal eigenchannel assignment and power allocation design, and then present a practically motivated tight closed-form approximation for the optimal design parameters. Selected numerical results verify the validity of the optimal solution and provide useful insights on the proposed designs as well as the Pareto-optimal rate-energy tradeoff.
Information-Flow-Based Access Control for Web Browsers

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies such as Ajax and Mashup has revealed the weakness of the same-origin policy[1], the current de facto standard for the Web browser security model. We propose a new browser security model to allow fine-grained access control in the client-side Web applications for secure mashup and user-generated contents. We propose a browser security model that is based on information-flow-based access control (IBAC) to overcome the dynamic nature of the client-side Web applications and to accurately determine the privilege of scripts in the event-driven programming model.
A Compact Two-via Hammer Spanner-Type Polarization-Dependent Electromagnetic Bandgap Structure

In this letter, a compact two-via hammer spanner-type polarization-dependent electromagnetic bandgap (TVHS-PDEBG) structure is proposed. Asymmetrical structure of the TVHS-PDEBG results in different bandgap properties in the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$x$ </tex-math></inline-formula>- and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$y$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-directions. Compactness of the structure is achieved because of the usage of two-via per unit PDEBG cell, U-shaped rectangular slot, stretched strip, and square EBG patch with central located via embedded in adjacent PDEBG cell. The simulation of the TVHS-PDEBG is carried out using Ansoft high-frequency structure simulator, and it is validated experimentally. These results are compared with fabricated central located via EBG having similar parameters. Simulated and experimental results prove that, compared with complementary split ring resonator-based PDEBG and dual asymmetrical U-shaped-type PDEBG, the TVHS-PDEBG presents a 35.48% and 16.66% reduction in the center frequency of the lower bandgap.
Localized Delivery of Amifostine Enhances Salivary Gland Radioprotection

Radiotherapy for head and neck cancers commonly causes damage to salivary gland tissue, resulting in xerostomia (dry mouth) and numerous adverse medical and quality-of-life issues. Amifostine is the only Food and Drug Administration–approved radioprotective drug used clinically to prevent xerostomia. However, systemic administration of amifostine is limited by severe side effects, including rapid decrease in blood pressure (hypotension), nausea, and a narrow therapeutic window. In this study, we demonstrate that retroductal delivery of amifostine and its active metabolite, WR-1065, to murine submandibular glands prior to a single radiation dose of 15 Gy maintained gland function and significantly increased acinar cell survival. Furthermore, in vivo stimulated saliva secretion was maintained in retrograde-treated groups at levels significantly higher than irradiated-only and systemically treated groups. In contrast to intravenous injections, retroductal delivery of WR-1065 or amifostine significantly attenuated hypotension. We conclude that localized delivery to salivary glands markedly improves radioprotection at the cellular level, as well as mitigates the adverse side effects associated with systemic administration. These results support the further development of a localized delivery system that would be compatible with the fractionated dose regimen used clinically.
HealthyClassroom - A Proof-of-Concept Study for Discovering Students' Daily Moods and Classroom Emotions to Enhance a Learning-teaching Process using Heterogeneous Sensors

This paper introduces an interactive system that discovers students’ daily moods and classroom emotions to enhance the teaching and learning process using heterogeneous sensors. The system is designed to enable (1) detecting students daily moods and classroom emotions using physiological, physical activities, and event tags data coming from wristband sensors and smart-phones, (2) discovering association/correlation between students’ lifestyle and daily moods, and (3) displaying statistical reports and the distribution of daily moods and classroom emotions of students, both in individual and group modes. A pilot proof-of-concept study was carried out using Empatica E4 wristband sensors and Android smart-phones, and preliminary evaluation and findings showing promising results are reported and discussed.
Early metabolic response to acute myocardial ischaemia in patients undergoing elective coronary angioplasty

Objective Balloon-induced transient coronary ischaemia represents a model of myocardial ischaemia and reperfusion. We are interested in the very early systemic metabolic response to this event. Methods Blood samples of patients with stable angina (SA) were collected before and after coronary angioplasty. Serum metabolic profiles were obtained using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to investigate changes in metabolite concentrations. Results Thirty-four consecutive patients with SA, undergoing elective coronary angioplasty at Policlinico Umberto I of Rome, were included in this study. Changes in metabolites concentration induced by balloon occlusion in venous and arterial sera were detected. In both serum types, a significant increase in ketone bodies, 2-hydroxybutyrate, glutamine and O-acetylcarnitine concentration is observed, while alanine, lactate, phenylalanine and tyrosine decreased after intervention. Most significant metabolic changes were detected in arterial serum. Conclusions Our study points out two main global metabolic changes in peripheral blood after balloon-induced coronary ischaemia: ketone bodies increase and lactate decrease. Both could be related to compensation mechanisms finalised to fulfil heart’s needs after short period of myocardial ischaemia and probably after reperfusion.
Understanding How People Use Twitter During Election Debates

During televised election debates, it is now common for citizens to take to social media to express their own opinions. Within this paper, we present a thematic analysis of the tweets generated during a debate from the 2015 UK General Election. The aim of this work is to explore the visible online behaviour seen on Twitter. We argue that by exploring what types of tweets emerge regardless of their political affiliation, we will gain a deeper understanding of citizen’s behaviours online during live debates. We observed that citizens use Twitter to commentate along by sharing their opinions, experiences, make provocative or humorous statements, and interact and inform others.
Natural polysaccharides: versatile excipients for controlled drug delivery systems

The application of natural polysaccharides in controlled drug delivery systems to deliver the bioactive agents has been hampered by the synthetic polymers. The main benefits of the natural polysaccharides are their being non-toxic, biodegradable, biocompatible, abundantly available, and less expensive and most importantly esuriently. Due to the advances in drug delivery technology, natural polysaccharides are included in controlled drug delivery to fulfill multitask functions and in some cases directly or indirectly influence the extent and /or rate of drug release. Some natural polysaccharides have even shown environmental-responsive gelation characteristics in order to achieve controlled drug release according to specific therapeutic needs. This article gives an overview of natural polysaccharides that are used or investigated as versatile excipients in controlled drug delivery systems.
On the Evolutionary History, Population Genetics and Diversity among Isolates of Salmonella Enteritidis PFGE Pattern JEGX01.0004

Facile laboratory tools are needed to augment identification in contamination events to trace the contamination back to the source (traceback) of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Enteritidis (S. Enteritidis). Understanding the evolution and diversity within and among outbreak strains is the first step towards this goal. To this end, we collected 106 new S. Enteriditis isolates within S. Enteriditis Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern JEGX01.0004 and close relatives, and determined their genome sequences. Sources for these isolates spanned food, clinical and environmental farm sources collected during the 2010 S. Enteritidis shell egg outbreak in the United States along with closely related serovars, S. Dublin, S. Gallinarum biovar Pullorum and S. Gallinarum. Despite the highly homogeneous structure of this population, S. Enteritidis isolates examined in this study revealed thousands of SNP differences and numerous variable genes (n = 366). Twenty-one of these genes from the lineages leading to outbreak-associated samples had nonsynonymous (causing amino acid changes) changes and five genes are putatively involved in known Salmonella virulence pathways. While chromosome synteny and genome organization appeared to be stable among these isolates, genome size differences were observed due to variation in the presence or absence of several phages and plasmids, including phage RE-2010, phage P125109, plasmid pSEEE3072_19 (similar to pSENV), plasmid pOU1114 and two newly observed mobile plasmid elements pSEEE1729_15 and pSEEE0956_35. These differences produced modifications to the assembled bases for these draft genomes in the size range of approximately 4.6 to 4.8 mbp, with S. Dublin being larger (∼4.9 mbp) and S. Gallinarum smaller (4.55 mbp) when compared to S. Enteritidis. Finally, we identified variable S. Enteritidis genes associated with virulence pathways that may be useful markers for the development of rapid surveillance and typing methods, potentially aiding in traceback efforts during future outbreaks involving S. Enteritidis PFGE pattern JEGX01.0004.
Comprehensive Review on Custodiol-N (HTK-N) and its Molecular Side of Action for Organ Preservation.

BACKGROUND The later fate of a graft is highly dependent on its initial quality. Aside from that the three predominant phases during transplantation (Tx) organ retrieval, cold static preservation and reperfusion cause in a direct and indirect manner graft injury. There is complex ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) triggered during the whole process of Tx which contributes to further damage of the graft. METHODS The today's organ preservation with commercially available solutions that all have toxic potential per se is still imperfect. Thus, improved preservation solutions are desperately needed to be able to even safely preserve grafts from extended criteria donors which are more susceptible to especially IRI. Most recently, a modified less toxic histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK; Custodiol®) the so called histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate-N (HTK-N) for both better cardioplegia and organ preservation for Tx has been developed. It is characterized as an electrolyte balanced, iron chelatorsupplemented, and amino acid-fortified organ preservation solution with replaced buffer ameliorating resistance to injury during the cold static preservation with subsequent IRI. Numerous in vitro and in vivo experiments have shown the superiority of the HTK-N solution in ROS generation, microcirculation, and subsequent inflammatory response compared with HTK. RESULTS According to data available to date, HTK-N has both lower cytotoxicity and higher protective potential than HTK. First clinical studies on both HTK-N for cardioplegia in cardiac surgery and for organ preservation for transplantation have been performed or are ongoing. CONCLUSION In this review, the novelty and composition of HTK-N and studies investigating the potential of this new solution are focussed, after summarizing the most relevant molecular mechanisms of IRI.
Comparative Study of the Behavior of Feature Reduction Methods in Person Re-identification Task

One of the goals of person re-identification systems is to support video-surveillance operators and forensic investigators to find an individual of interest in videos acquired by a network of non-overlapping cameras. This is attained by sorting images of previously observed individuals for decreasing values of their similarity with a given probe individual. Existing appearance descriptors, together with their similarity measures, are mostly aimed at improving ranking quality. Many of these descriptors generate a high feature vector represented as an image signature. To tackle person re-identification in real-world scenario the processing time will be crucial, so an individual of interest within a network camera should be found out swiftly. We therefore study some feature reduction methods to achieve a significant trade-off between processing time and ranking quality. Although, observing some redundancies on the generated patterns of a given descriptor are not deniable, we suggest to employ a feature reduction method before use of it in real-world scenarios. In particular, we have tested three reduction methods: PCA, KPCA, and Isomap. We then evaluate our study on two benchmark data sets (VIPeR, and i-LIDS), by using two state-of-the-art descriptors on person re-identification task. The results presented in this paper, after applying the feature reduction step, are very promising in terms of recognition rate.
Recent Development of Inorganic Nanoparticles for Biomedical Imaging

Inorganic nanoparticle-based biomedical imaging probes have been studied extensively as a potential alternative to conventional molecular imaging probes. Not only can they provide better imaging performance but they can also offer greater versatility of multimodal, stimuli-responsive, and targeted imaging. However, inorganic nanoparticle-based probes are still far from practical use in clinics due to safety concerns and less-optimized efficiency. In this context, it would be valuable to look over the underlying issues. This outlook highlights the recent advances in the development of inorganic nanoparticle-based probes for MRI, CT, and anti-Stokes shift-based optical imaging. Various issues and possibilities regarding the construction of imaging probes are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.