Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple ICA-based real-time blind source extraction applied to handy size microphone

A new blind source extraction method in widespread noise conditions is proposed, which is based on multiple frequency-domain independent component analysis (FDICA) combining projection back and spectral subtraction. In addition, We implement the proposed method to digital signal processor (DSP) for a more realistic real-time operation, and develop a new blind source extraction (BSE) microphone which can extract a target sound in real-time. In this paper, we illustrate and evaluate the proposed method and BSE microphone. And experimental results reveal that the extraction performance of the proposed method are superior to that of conventional methods, and we show the efficacy of microphone.
Fault tolerant 24 KVA interleaved inverter

This paper focuses on the use of specific coupling transformer associations which allow easily improving the availability of power electronics converter based on interleaved structures. By using these structures, the system will continue working (with reduced output power) in case of power component failure. The paper focuses on the behaviour and the magnetic and electrical interconnection between the several coupling transformers and describes how, by shutting down some phases of the power electronic converter, it will be possible to ensure the systems operation. These structures are normally sized to work with a fixed number of phases. Our control strategy induces new constraints on magnetic component, especially saturation problems which will induce some modifications on the control strategy. Finally a 24kVA fault tolerant Power electronic converter driven by an FPGA and based on coupling transformers is presented with the experimental results.
Body surface Laplacian ECG mapping

A noninvasive approach has been developed to resolve spatially distributed cardiac electrical activity by measuring the surface Laplacian of the body surface potential. Computer simulations demonstrate the ability of the Laplacian map compared with the potential map to image spatially distributed dipole sources embedded in a semi-infinite volume conductor. Body surface Laplacian mapping has been implemented in human subjects utilizing dry bipolar Laplacian electrodes and was compared with potential maps obtained using the central terminal of each bipolar Laplacian electrode. The body surface Laplacian map appears to resolve depolarization and repolarization of different regions of the heart. Further improvements of the body surface Laplacian mapping may permit noninvasive mapping of spatially distributed intracardiac events. <<ETX>>
Collision avoidance path planning for hospital robot with consideration of disabled person's movement characteristic

A novel algorithm of collision avoidance path planning, especially for hospital robot, is proposed. The algorithm puts into consideration the movement characteristic of various kinds of disabled person, which are represented by wheelchair user and crutch user here. A model which implies the energy to move to a certain point from present location is introduced for each kind of disabled person. The model does not only consist of the distance to target point, but also the rotation angle and the person's easiness to change direction. Based on what kind of person the oncoming person is, the robot uses the appropriate model and estimates the easiest path for the person to move. Then, the robot plans an avoidance path.
Design of a new type of the damped filter for system stability of DC-DC converter

Based on a series R-C damping circuit used to stabilize the whole system, a new type of damped filter is proposed, and the expressions of the optimal damping design are deduced. Moreover, the blocking capacitance is much smaller than the parallel R-C damping circuit proposed in previous literature. The new type of filter used for the input and output filter of the buck converter is benefit to maintain the stability of the system and a smooth output waveform. The advantages of the new type of filter are illustrated and verified by MATLAB/Simulink.
Oral cleft defects and maternal exposure to ambient air pollutants in New Jersey.

BACKGROUND Evidence links exposure to ambient air pollution during pregnancy, particularly gaseous pollutants and particulate matter, to an increased risk of adverse reproductive outcomes though the results for birth defects have been inconsistent. METHODS We compared estimated exposure to ambient air pollutants during early pregnancy among mothers of children with oral cleft defects (cases) to that among mothers of controls, adjusting for available risk factors from birth certificates. We obtained ambient air pollutant data from air monitoring sites in New Jersey for carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO(2)), particulate matter <10 microm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10) and particulate matter <2.5 microm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5). We used values from the nearest monitor (within 40 km of the residence at birth) for controls, cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CLP) and cleft palate only (CPO). RESULTS Based on logistic regression analyses for each contaminant and all contaminants together, there were no consistent elevated associations between selected air pollutants and cleft malformations. Quartile of CO concentration showed a consistent protective association with CPO (p < 0.01). For other contaminants, confidence intervals (95%) of the odds ratios for some quartiles excluded one. CLP showed limited evidence of an association with increasing SO(2) exposure while CPO showed weak associations with increasing O3 exposure. CONCLUSION There was little consistent evidence associating cleft malformations with maternal exposure to ambient air pollutants. Evaluating particular pollutants or disease subgroups would require more detailed measurement of exposure and classification of cleft defects.
Molecular Neuroscience Review Article Modulation of Gsk-3 as a Therapeutic Strategy on Tau Pathologies Role and Regulation of Gsk-3 Activity

Glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) is ubiquitously expressed and unusually active in resting, non-stimulated cells. In mammals, at least three proteins (α, β1, and β2), generated from two different genes, gsk-3α and gsk-3β, are widely expressed at both the RNA and protein levels although some tissues show preferential expression of some of the three proteins. Control of GSK-3 activity occurs by complex mechanisms that depend on specific signaling pathways, often controlling the inhibition of the kinase activity. GSK-3 appears to integrate different signaling pathways from a wide selection of cellular stimuli. The unique position of GSK-3 in modulating the function of a diverse series of proteins and its association with a wide variety of human disorders has attracted significant attention as a therapeutic target and as a means to understand the molecular basis of brain disorders. Different neurodegenerative diseases including frontotemporal dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, and Alzheimer's disease, present prominent tau pathology such as tau hyperphosphorylation and aggregation and are collectively referred to as tauopathies. GSK-3 has also been associated to different neuropsychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. GSK-3β is the major kinase to phosphorylate tau both in vitro and in vivo and has been proposed as a target for therapeutic intervention. The first therapeutic strategy to modulate GSK-3 activity was the direct inhibition of its kinase activity. This review will focus on the signaling pathways involved in the control of GSK-3 activity and its pathological deregulation. We will highlight different alternatives of GSK-3 modulation including the direct pharmacological inhibition as compared to the modulation by upstream regulators. A number of neurodegenerative disorders present intraneu-ronal proteinaceous aggregates, denoted as neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), as common markers of disease. NFT are made up of hyperphosphorylated, aggregated tau. Thus, they are collectively referred as tauopathies, and include disorders such as frontotem-poral dementia (FTP), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and Alzheimer's disease (AD), among others. The mechanisms responsible for tau aggregation are still unknown. Therefore, understanding how tau is regulated may be essential to identify the origin of tau aggregate formation. The regulation of tau takes place predominantly through post-translational modifications where tau phosphorylation has been suggested to play a central role in tau aggregation. It is generally accepted that an increase in tau phosphorylation reduces its affinity for microtubules, resulting in neuronal cytoskeleton instability. Even though abnormal tau phosphorylation occurs in many of the tau pathologies mentioned above, tau phosphoryla-tion appears not to be …
Middleware Software for Embedded Systems

Embedded systems with communicating and computing ability and multimedia functions work to every corner of daily life. However, the diverse architectures of embedded systems cause problems corresponding to reuse, portability and dependability. Middleware is a set of software that executes between operating system and application to solve stated problems. The advantages include unified interface, scalable and transparent abilities. This project investigates middleware technology on embedded systems and then proposes embedded middleware architecture to overcome the problems relating to reuse, portability, dependability and transparency. The proposed middleware consists of API module, service manager module and content manager module. The API module is designed to communicate with upper layer and lower layer by unified interface. Also, it provides a set of methods for solving problems of portability and dependability. The service manager module conducts a set of services for application. Moreover, it is able to automatically generate and deploy content information. The content manager module organizes and supplies information to the service manager module. Additionally, it solves transparent problem by ASCII and URL representation. In order to verify the feasibility for the proposed approach, we design the application of touch screen for embedded middleware system. Not only middleware but also embedded operating system, shell script, embedded graphical user interface and application are validated. Finally, we assess the functionality and integrated test of embedded middleware system by S3C2410 and XScale PXA270 system.
Translocation of Bim to the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Mediates ER Stress Signaling for Activation of Caspase-12 during ER Stress-induced Apoptosis*

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress activates caspase-12 in murine cells, triggering the ER stress-specific cascade for implementation of apoptosis. In C2C12 murine myoblast cells, activation of the cascade occurs without release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, suggesting that the cascade is independent of mitochondrial damage. Stable overexpression of Bcl-xL in C2C12 cells suppressed activation of caspase-12 and apoptosis. In ER-stressed cells, but not in normal cells, Bcl-xL was co-immunoprecipitated with Bim, a pro-apoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family, suggesting that Bcl-xL sequesters Bim, thereby inhibiting the apoptotic signaling. Fractionation of C2C12 cells revealed that ER stress led to translocation of Bim from a dynein-rich compartment to the ER, while stable overexpression of Bcl-xL suppressed accumulation of Bim on the ER. Although the toxic effect of Bim had been previously observed only at the mitochondrial outer membrane, overexpression of a Bim derivative, Bim(ER), targeted at the surface of the ER led to apoptosis. A C2C12 transfectant overexpressing the caspase-12 suppressor protein was resistant to Bim(ER), suggesting that the toxic effect of Bim on the ER is dependent on activation of caspase-12. Knockdown of Bim by RNA interference provided cells resistant to ER stress. These results suggest that translocation of Bim to the ER in response to ER stress is an important step toward activation of caspase-12 and initiation of the ER stress-specific caspase cascade.
Antigenic and structural characterization of Treponema pallidum (Nichols strain) endoflagella

Purified endoflagella from Treponema pallidum, Nichols strain, were characterized both structurally and antigenically. Structural analysis showed T. pallidum endoflagella are composed of 35- and 33-kilodalton (kDa) subunits which lack cysteine and do not share N-terminal amino acid sequence homology (20 residues). Intact endoflagella were dissociated into the composite subunits by incubation, which disrupts noncovalent bonds. Antiserum raised against purified T. pallidum endoflagella identified shared epitopes on the endoflagellar polypeptides of the nonpathogen, Treponema phagedenis biotype Reiter. Pathogen-specific epitopes were also found on the 35- and 33-kDa polypeptides by using affinity-purified endoflagellar antibodies. The pathogen-specific epitopes were localized by immunoblotting analysis of chymotryptic digests of the endoflagellar subunits; 18- and 26-kDa fragments derived from the 35-kDa subunit were found to possess a majority of the pathogen-specific epitopes. Both the 35- and 33-kDa subunits had surface exposure, as determined by immunoelectron microscopy, although additional immunochemical data indicated that the surface exposure of the 35-kDa subunit was greater.
Jumonji and cardiac fate.

Considerable information is known about the extracellular signals that drive pluripotent stem cells through a stepwise program to become cardiomyocytes. A paper by Ohtani et al. in this issue now links extrinsic signals to histone demethylation needed to form mesoderm, the first step in cardiogenesis.
Title : Multispecies d iel transcriptional oscillations in open ocean 1 heterotrophic bacterial assemblages 2

Affiliations: 6 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 7 Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 8 Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 9 HI 96822, USA. 10 Department of Microbiology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. 11 Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, CA 95039, USA. 12 Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering, Nanyang Technological 13 University, Singapore 637551. 14 6 Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 15 02139, USA. 16 17 *Correspondence to: delong@mit.edu; edelong@hawaii.edu 18
CERVICAL SPINE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS: PERPETUATING RATHER THAN PREDISPOSING FACTORS FOR TEMPOROMANDIBULAR DISORDERS IN WOMEN

Aim: The purpose of this study was to assess in a sample of female community cases the relationship between the increase of percentage of cervical signs and symptoms and the severity of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and vice-versa. Material and Methods: One hundred women (aged 18-26 years) clinically diagnosed with TMD signs and symptoms and cervical spine disorders were randomly selected from a sample of college students. Results: 43% of the volunteers demonstrated the same severity for TMD and cervical spine disorders (CSD). The increase in TMD signs and symptoms was accompanied by increase in CSD severity, except for pain during palpation of posterior temporal muscle, more frequently observed in the severe CSD group. However, increase in pain during cervical extension, sounds during cervical lateral flexion, and tenderness to palpation of upper fibers of trapezius and suboccipital muscles were observed in association with the progression of TMD severity. Conclusion: The increase in cervical symptomatology seems to accompany TMD severity; nonetheless, the inverse was not verified. Such results suggest that cervical spine signs and symptoms could be better recognized as perpetuating rather than predisposing factors for TMD.
Implementation of Pattern Recognition Algorithms in Processing Incomplete Wind Speed Data for Energy Assessment of Offshore Wind Turbines

Offshore wind turbine (OWT) installations are continually expanding as they are considered an efficient mechanism for covering a part of the energy consumption requirements. The assessment of the energy potential of OWTs for specific offshore sites is the key factor that defines their successful implementation, commercialization and sustainability. The data used for this assessment mainly refer to wind speed measurements. However, the data may not present homogeneity due to incomplete or missing entries; this in turn, is attributed to failures of the measuring devices or other factors. This fact may lead to considerable limitations in the OWTs energy potential assessment. This paper presents two novel methodologies to handle the problem of incomplete and missing data. Computational intelligence algorithms are utilized for the filling of the incomplete and missing data in order to build complete wind speed series. Finally, the complete wind speed series are used for assessing the energy potential of an OWT in a specific offshore site. In many real-world metering systems, due to meter failures, incomplete and missing data are frequently observed, leading to the need for robust data handling. The novelty of the paper can be summarized in the following points: (i) a comparison of clustering algorithms for extracting typical wind speed curves is presented for the OWT related literature and (ii) two efficient novel methods for missing and incomplete data are proposed.
Multi-agent reinforcement learning based on quantum chaotic computer

A novel learning policy in multi-agent reinforcement learning is presented, trying to find another tradeoff of exploration and exploitation efficiently, It use the output of the classical quantum computer as an input for chaotic dynamics amplifier, The novel amplifier consider the chaotic effect, it can amplify the initial value in polynomial time. It considers the action selection problem and argues that the problem, in principle, can be solved in polynomial time if it combines the quantum computer with the chaotic dynamics amplifier based on the logistic map.
Transfer Learning on Stack Exchange Tags

In this project, we implement different machine learning methods and test their ability to transfer the knowledge learned on training categories ( e.g. biology, cooking) to predict tags of the unseen ”physics” category on Stack Exchange. We use the Glove word2vector model as the bridge of transfer leaning and try to train a model to understand the similarity of the meanings of the ”title+content” and ”tags”, which may be transfered across different categories. We use unsupervised models like latent-Dirichlet Allocation and Tf-idf weighted neighbor search and supervised models such as logistic regression and recurrent neural network. The prediction results across different categories achieve reasonable F-1 scores, but they also show very strong bias towards the training categories.
The importance of leukotrienes in airway inflammation in a mouse model of asthma

Inhalation of antigen in immunized mice induces an infiltration of eosinophils into the airways and increased bronchial hyperreactivity as are observed in human asthma. We employed a model of late-phase allergic pulmonary inflammation in mice to address the role of leukotrienes (LT) in mediating airway eosinophilia and hyperreactivity to methacholine. Allergen intranasal challenge in OVA-sensitized mice induced LTB4 and LTC4 release into the airspace, widespread mucus occlusion of the airways, leukocytic infiltration of the airway tissue and broncho-alveolar lavage fluid that was predominantly eosinophils, and bronchial hyperreactivity to methacholine. Specific inhibitors of 5- lipoxygenase and 5-lipoxygenase-activating protein (FLAP) blocked airway mucus release and infiltration by eosinophils indicating a key role for leukotrienes in these features of allergic pulmonary inflammation. The role of leukotrienes or eosinophils in mediating airway hyperresponsiveness to aeroallergen could not be established, however, in this murine model.
Staff-led interventions for improving oral hygiene in patients following stroke.

BACKGROUND For people with limitations due to neurological conditions such as stroke, the routine practice of oral care may become a challenge. Evidence-based supported oral care intervention is essential for this patient group. OBJECTIVES To compare the effectiveness of staff-led oral care interventions with standard care for ensuring oral hygiene for individuals after a stroke. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the trials registers of the Cochrane Stroke Group and Oral Health Group (August 2005), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library Issue 1, 2006), MEDLINE (1966 to February 2006), CINAHL (1982 to February 2006), Research Findings Electronic Register (February 2006), National Research Register (Issue 1, 2006), ISI Science and Technology Proceedings (August 2005), Dissertation Abstracts and Conference Papers Index (August 2005). We scanned reference lists from relevant papers and contacted authors and researchers in the field. SELECTION CRITERIA We identified randomised controlled trials that evaluated one or more interventions designed to improve oral hygiene. Trials based on a mixed population were included, provided it was possible to extract the data specific to the individuals post stroke. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two review authors independently classified identified trials according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, assessed the trial quality and extracted data. Clarification was sought from study authors when required. MAIN RESULTS Eight eligible randomised controlled trials were identified but only one provided stroke-specific information. It compared an oral health care education training programme (OHCE) delivered to nursing home care assistants to delayed training intervention in the control group. Comparisons were made at one and six months after the intervention, using the primary outcome measures dental plaque and denture plaque, and three secondary outcomes. The data available for the 67 individuals with a stroke (obtained from the larger cluster randomised controlled trial) showed that denture plaque scores were significantly reduced up to six months (p < 0.00001) after the intervention. Staff knowledge (P = 0.0008) and attitudes (P = 0.0001) towards oral care also improved significantly. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Based on one study with a small number of stroke survivors, providing oral care training for carers in a nursing home setting improves their knowledge of and attitudes towards the provision of oral care. In turn, residents' dentures were cleaner, though other oral hygiene measures did not change. Further evidence relating to oral care interventions is severely lacking, in particular with reference to care in hospital for those following stroke.