Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Utilization of Flexible Demand in a Virtual Power Plant Set-Up

High penetration levels from renewable energy sources in large-scale power systems demand a high degree of flexibility in the transmission and distribution system. This paper presents a method for utilization of flexible demand in the low-voltage distribution system using the thermal mass of a building to defer power consumption from electric space heating. The power consumption for heating is controlled by an operational virtual power plant, which is sending a set point for requested power consumption to the building management system. An optimization problem is formulated such that the discrete dispatch of power from ten electric space heaters is following the power set point given constraints on the indoor comfort that is defined by the users of the building. The controlling method has been implemented in an intelligent office building and used for demonstration of flexible demand in the low voltage network.
Comparison of immunosuppressive effects of cyclosporine A in a murine model of systemic candidiasis and of localized thrushlike lesions

Candida albicans is an opportunistic human pathogen preferentially causing invasive and disseminated infection in patients with defective phagocytic defenses and serious mucocutaneous infection in patients with deficient T-cell function. Phagocytes appear to protect the host from fungal invasion even in the absence of adaptive immune mechanisms, while as-yet-undefined T-cell-dependent factors seem necessary for control of C. albicans on body surfaces. To study host defense mechanisms on body surfaces, we developed a new model of thrush in artificial pneumatized cysts in mice. Cyclosporine A, a relative selective suppressor of T-cell-mediated immunity and natural killer cell activity, promoted the formation of thrushlike lesions on cyst surfaces and impeded elimination of C. albicans from such lesions. As expected from the absence of an impairment of antimicrobial phagocytic activity, cyclosporine A had no effect on systemic candidiasis induced by intravenous inoculation. Surprisingly, athymic nude mice were not more susceptible to superficial candidiasis than control mice and were comparably affected by cyclosporine A. In contrast, beige mice, which in addition to phagocytic dysfunction have reduced natural killer cell activity, were more susceptible to thrushlike lesions, and cyclosporine A was correspondingly less active in this mouse strain. Immunosuppression with cyclosporine A affects host defense mechanisms which are operative against superficial candidiasis but appear superfluous in resistance to the invasive form of this mycosis, an indication for the divergent nature of host defense against the two forms of candidiasis.
Developmental expression of glycine immunoreactivity and its colocalization with gaba in the embryonic chick lumbosacral spinal cord

The development of immunoreactivity for the putative inhibitory amino acid neurotransmitter glycine was investigated in the embryonic and posthatched chick lumbosacral spinal cord by using postembedding immunocytochemical methods. Glycine immunoreactive perikarya were first observed at embryonic day 8 (E8) both in the dorsal and ventral gray matters. The number of immunostained neurons sharply increased by ElO and was gradually augmented further at later developmental stages. The general pattern of glycine immunoreactivity characteristic of mature animals had been achieved by E12 and was only slightly altered afterward. Most of the immunostained neurons ware located in the presumptive deep dorsal horn (laminae IV‐VI) and lamina VII, although glycine‐imrnunoreactive neurons were scattered throughout the entire extent of the spinal gray matter. By using some of our previously obtained and published data concerning the development of gamma‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)‐ergic neurons in the embryonic chick lumbosacral spinal cord, we have compared the numbers, sizes, and distribution of glycine‐ and GABA‐immunoreactive spinal neurons at various develomental stages and found the following marked differences in the developmental characteristics of these two populations of putative inhibitory interneurons. (i) GABA immunoreactivity was expressed very early (E4), whereas immunoreactivity for glycine appeared relatively late (ES) in embryonic development. (ii) In the ventral horn, GABA immunoreactivity declined, whereas immunoreactivity for glycine gradually increased from ES onward in such a manner that the sum of glycinergic and GABAergic perikarya remained constant during the second half of embryonic development. (iii) Glycinergic and GABAergic neurons showed different distribution patterns in the spinal gray matter throughout the entire course of embryogenesis as well as in the posthatched animal. When investigating the colocalization of glycine and GABA immunoreactivities, perikarya immunostained for both amino acids were revealed at all developmental stages from E8 onward, and the proportions of glycine‐ and GABA‐immunoreactive neurons that were also immunostained for the other amino acid were remarkably constant during development. The characteristic features of the development of the investigated putative inhibitory spinal interneuroris are discussed and correlated with previous neuroanatomical and physiological studies. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss Inc.
Monocyte mediated cytotoxic activity against melanoma

The appearance of macrophages in human tumours, the so called tumour-infiltrating or tumour-associated macrophages (TIM or TAM) has suggested a role for these cells in host defence mechanisms against cancer.1–4 in this review we discuss monocyte-mediated cytotoxic activity against melanoma, as reported by a number of different authors. Although most studies described in this review have used melanoma cell lines as targets for monocyte/macrophage cytotoxicity, it would be incomplete if cytotoxicity against other target cells such as K562 or WEHI-164 is not discussed. At least two distinct mechanisms of killing by monocytes/macrophages can be distinguished; direct recognition and cytotoxicity by the effector cells and antibody-mediated lysis of the tumour cells (antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, ADCC). Both types of cytotoxicity will be discussed.
Increase in the Export of Alkalinity from North America's Largest River

Chemical weathering and the subsequent export of carbonate alkalinity (HCO3– + CO3–2) from soils to rivers account for significant amounts of terrestrially sequestered atmospheric CO2. We show here that during the past half-century, the export of this alkalinity has increased dramatically from North America's largest river, the Mississippi. This increased export is in part the result of increased flow resulting from higher rainfall in the Mississippi basin. Subcatchment data from the Mississippi suggest that the increase in the export of alkalinity is also linked to amount and type of land cover. These observations have important implications for the potential management of carbon sequestration in the United States.
Enhanced Entrainment of Synchronous Inverters for Distributed Power Sources

Synchronization has gained attention in science recently. In electrical engineering, a power network requires generators and loads to be in synchronization. The increase in distributed dc power sources without sophisticated controls has made synchronization more difficult. This paper proposes a synchronous inverter designed for linking distributed power sources within a power network. The linkage inverters should have high confidential characteristics to keep the network stable. The frequency and phase synchronization between synchronous generators in power network has been acheived through power transmission systems. The synchronous inverters contribute in the development of the sophisticated power networks by providing distributed power sources that maintain synchronous operation.
Diagnostic Efficacy of Magnifying Endoscopy with Narrow-Band Imaging for Gastric Neoplasms: A Meta-Analysis

Background Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) is a novel, image-enhanced endoscopic technique for differentiating gastrointestinal neoplasms and potentially enabling pathological diagnosis. Objectives The aim of this analysis was to assess the diagnostic performance of ME-NBI for gastric neoplasms. Methods We performed a systematic search of the PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases for relevant studies. Meta-DiSc (version 1.4) and STATA (version 11.0) software were used for the data analysis. Random effects models were used to assess diagnostic efficacy. Heterogeneity was tested by the Q statistic and I2 statistic. Meta-regression was used to analyze the sources of heterogeneity. Results A total of 10 studies, with 2151 lesions, were included. The pooled characteristics of these studies were as follows: sensitivity 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.81–0.89), specificity 0.96 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.95–0.97), and area under the curve (AUC) 0.9647. In the subgroup analysis, which compared the diagnostic efficacy of ME-NBI and white light imaging (WLI), the pooled sensitivity and specificity of ME-NBI were 0.87 (95% CI: 0.80–0.92) and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.90–0.95), respectively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.9556. In contrast, the pooled sensitivity and specificity of WLI were 0.61 (95% CI: 0.53–0.69) and 0.65 (95% CI: 0.60–0.69), respectively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.6772. Conclusions ME-NBI presents a high diagnostic value for gastric neoplasms and has a high specificity.
The Carbon Impacts of Wood Products

Abstract Wood products have many environmental advantages over nonwood alternatives. Documenting and publicizing these merits helps the future competitiveness of wood when climate change impacts are being considered. The manufacture of wood products requires less fossil fuel than nonwood alternative building materials such as concrete, metals, or plastics. By nature, wood is composed of carbon that is captured from the atmosphere during tree growth. These two effects—substitution and sequestration—are why the carbon impact of wood products is favorable. This article shows greenhouse gas emission savings for a range of wood products by comparing (1) net wood product carbon emissions from forest cradle–to–mill output gate minus carbon storage over product use life with (2) cradle-to-gate carbon emissions for substitute nonwood products. The study assumes sustainable forest management practices will be used for the duration of the time for the forest to regrow completely from when the wood was removed for pr.
Guardian of the Furnace: Mitochondria, TRAP1, ROS and stem cell maintenance

Mitochondria are key to eukaryotic cell survival and their activity is linked to generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which in turn acts as both an intracellular signal and an effective executioner of cells with regards to cellular senescence. The mitochondrial molecular chaperone tumor necrosis factor receptor associated protein 1 (TRAP1) is often termed the cytoprotective chaperone for its role in cancer cell survival and protection from apoptosis. Here, we hypothesize that TRAP1 serves to modulate mitochondrial activity in stem cell maintenance, survival and differentiation. © 2013 IUBMB Life, 66(1):42–45, 2014
A domain-independent semantic tagger for the study of meaning associations in English text

A comparison of semantic tagging with syntactic Part-of-Speech tagging leads us to propose that a domain-independent semantic tagger for English corpora should not aim to annotate each word with an atomic 'sem-tag', but instead that a semantic tagging should attach to each word a set of semantic primitive attributes or features. These features should include: - lemma or root, grouping together inflected and derived forms of the same lexical item; - broad subject categories where applicable; - selectional restrictions; - a meaning definition, stated in terms of a restricted Defining Vocabulary, and processed to remove stoplist-words and repetitions. A semantic tagger meeting this description can be derived from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, if combined with a robust lemmatiser; allowing automated semantic tagging of large English corpora such as LOB and BNC.
A Novel Surface Antigen of Relapsing Fever Spirochetes Can Discriminate between Relapsing Fever and Lyme Borreliosis

ABSTRACT In a previous immunoproteome analysis of Borrelia hermsii, candidate antigens that bound IgM antibodies from mice and patients infected with relapsing fever spirochetes were identified. One candidate that was identified is a hypothetical protein with a molecular mass of 57 kDa that we have designated Borrelia immunogenic protein A (BipA). This protein was further investigated as a potential diagnostic antigen for B. hermsii given that it is absent from the Borrelia burgdorferi genome. The bipA locus was amplified and sequenced from 39 isolates of B. hermsii that had been acquired from western North America. bipA was also expressed as a recombinant fusion protein. Serum samples from mice and patients infected with B. hermsii or B. burgdorferi were used to confirm the immunogenicity of the recombinant protein in patients infected with relapsing fever spirochetes. Lastly, in silico and experimental analysis indicated that BipA is a surface-exposed lipoprotein in B. hermsii. These findings enhance the capabilities of diagnosing infection with relapsing fever spirochetes.
A Review of Natural Fibers Used in Biocomposites: Plant, Animal and Regenerated Cellulose Fibers

Natural fibers today are a popular choice for applications in composite manufacturing. Based on the sustainability benefits, biofibers such as plant fibers are replacing synthetic fibers in composites. These fibers are used to manufacture several biocomposites. The chemical composition and properties of each of the fibers changes, which demands the detailed comparison of these fibers. The reinforcement potential of natural fibers and their properties have been described in numerous papers. Today, high performance biocomposites are produced from several years of research. Plant fibers, particularly bast and leaf, find applications in automotive industries. While most of the other fibers are explored in lab scales they have not yet found large-scale commercial applications. It is necessary to also consider other fibers such as ones made from seed (coir) and animals (chicken feather) as they are secondary or made from waste products. Few plant fibers such as bast fibers are often reviewed briefly but other plant and animal fibers are not discussed in detail. This review paper discusses all the six types of plant fibers such as bast, leaf, seed, straw, grass, and wood, together with animal fibers and regenerated cellulose fibers. Additionally, the review considers developments dealing with natural fibers and their composites. The fiber source, extraction, availability, type, composition, and mechanical properties are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of using each biofiber are discussed. Three fabric architectures such as nonwoven, woven and knitted have been briefly discussed. Finally, the paper presents the overview of the results from the composites made from each fiber with suitable references for in-depth studies.
Neural Conditional Energy Models for Multi-label Classification

Multi-label classification (MLC) is a type of structured output prediction problems where a given instance can be associated to more than one labels at a time. From the probabilistic point of view, a model predicts a set of labels y given an input vector v by learning a conditional distribution p(y|v). This paper presents a powerful model called a Neural Conditional Energy Model (NCEM) to solve MLC. The model can be viewed as a hybrid deterministic-stochastic network of which we use a deterministic neural network to transform the input data, before contributing to the energy landscape of v, y, and a single stochastic hidden layer h. Non-linear transformation given by the neural network makes our model more expressive and more capable of capturing complex relations between input and output, and using deterministic neurons facilitates exact inference. We present an efficient learning algorithm that is simple to implement. We conduct extensive experiments on 15 real-world datasets from wide variety of domains with various evaluation metrics to confirm that NCEM is significantly superior to current state-of-the-art models most of the time based on pair-wise t-test at 5% significance level. The MATLAB source code to replicate our experiments are available at https://github.com/Kublai-Jing/NCEM.
On cuff imbalance and tripolar ENG amplifier configurations

Electroneurogram (ENG) recording techniques benefit from the use of tripolar cuffs because they assist in reducing interference from sources outside the cuff. However, in practice the performance of ENG amplifier configurations, such as the quasi-tripole and the true-tripole, has been widely reported to be degraded due to the departure of the tripolar cuff from ideal behavior. This paper establishes the presence of cuff imbalance and investigates its relationship to cuff asymmetry, cuff end-effects and interference source proximity. The paper also presents a comparison of the aforementioned amplifier configurations with a new alternative, termed the adaptive-tripole, developed to automatically compensate for cuff imbalance. The output signal-to-interference ratio of the three amplifier configurations were compared in vivo for two interference signals (stimulus artifact and M-wave) superimposed on compound action potentials. The experiments showed (for the first time) that the two interference signals result in different cuff imbalance values. Nevertheless, even with two distinct cuff imbalances present, the adaptive-tripole performed better than the other two systems in 61.9% of the trials.
On music genre classification via compressive sampling

Recent work [1] combines low-level acoustic features and random projection (referred to as “compressed sensing” in [1]) to create a music genre classification system showing an accuracy among the highest reported for a benchmark dataset. This not only contradicts previous findings that suggest low-level features are inadequate for addressing high-level musical problems, but also that a random projection of features can improve classification. We reproduce this work and resolve these contradictions.
Chapter 11 : SYMBOLIC SIGNAL FLOW GRAPH METHODS IN SWITCHED-CAPACITOR DESIGN

In previous chapters the use of symbolic methods has been largely dedicated to the lower levels of analog circuit design encompassing circuit elements such as amplifiers and comparators [1, 2, 3]. In this chapter we shall describe symbolic signal flow graph (SFG) computational techniques for the analysis and synthesis of switched-capacitor (SC) circuits. This is based on a hierarchical approach in which signal processing building blocks are defined in terms of basic elements whose characterization resides in a knowledge-base. This knowledge-base can be developed both for analog and digital discrete-time building blocks using the common SFG representation of their operation but, for conciseness, we shall consider herein its specific implementation only for discrete-time SC signal processing building blocks. Besides the Introduction this chapter comprises six additional sections. Section 11.2 discusses the flow of information for circuit analysis and synthesis
Immune attack on the schwann cell surface in acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy

The localization, mode of action, and roles of complement in the Guillain‐Barré syndrome have been controversial. We used high‐resolution immunocytochemistry to localize complement activation products in early stages of the acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP) pattern of Guillain‐Barré syndrome. Three AIDP subjects who were autopsied had had symptoms for 3 to 9 days at the time of death. Immunocytochemistry was performed on etched, epoxy resin‐embedded sections, and the next thin section was compared by electron microscopy (thick/thin sections). Many fibers had a rim of the complement activation marker C3d and the terminal complement complex neoantigen C5b‐9 along the outer surface of the Schwann cells. Ultrastructural analysis of these C3d‐positive fibers showed mild vesicular changes of the outermost myelin lamellae. Vesicular degeneration was seen before the invasion of macrophages into the myelin, and was the predominant change in the subject with symptoms for 3 days. C3d staining was not found on myelin membranes. The results suggest that at least some forms of AIDP are complement mediated. We speculate that complement is activated by antibody bound to epitopes on the outer surface of the Schwann cell and that the resulting complement activation initiates the vesiculation of myelin.
On Implementing Pairing-Based Protocols with Elliptic Curves of Embedding Degree One

We observe that the conventional classification of pairings into Types 1, 2, 3 and 4 is not applicable to pairings from elliptic curves with embedding degree one. We define three kinds of pairings from these elliptic curves, and discuss some subtleties with using them to implement pairing-based protocols.
Carbon nanotubes as integrative materials for organic photovoltaic devices

In this Highlight article we conduct a critical evaluation of recent advances in the use of carbon nanotubes (CNT) for photocurrent generation. In particular, two strategies have been described. On one hand, CNT serve as photoactive material in photovoltaic devices. Alternatively, CNT are implemented as semitransparent conducting material in the construction of electrodes. Hereby, the following incentives are considered: flexible, transparent, more efficient, and large area organic photovoltaic devices.
Statistical Goal Parameter Recognition

We present components of a system which uses statistical, corpus-based machine learning techniques to perform instantiated goal recognition — recognition of both a goal schema and its parameter values. We first present new results for our previously reported statistical goal schema recognizer. We then present our goal parameter recognizer. The recognizer is fast (linear in the number of observed actions) and is able to recognize parameter values which were never seen in training. In addition, this is the first system we are aware of that uses statistical methods to recognize goal parameter values.