Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent Variability in the Southern Oscillation: Isotopic Results from a Tarawa Atoll Coral

In the western tropical Pacific, the interannual migration of the Indonesian Low convective system causes changes in rainfall that dominate the regional signature of the El Ni�o—Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system. A 96-year oxygen isotope record from a Tarawa Atoll coral (1�N, 172�E) reflects regional convective activity through rainfall-induced salinity changes. This monthly resolution record spans twice the length of the local climatological record and provides a history of ENSO variability comparable in quality with those derived from instrumental climate data. Comparison of this coral record with a historical chronology of EI Ni�o events indicates that climate anomalies in coastal South America are occasionally decoupled from Pacific-wide ENSO extremes. Spectral analysis suggests that the distribution of variance in this record has shifted among annual to interannual periods during the present century, concurrent with observed changes in the strength of the Southern Oscillation.
Effect of Low and Chronic Radiation Exposure: A Case-Control Study of Mental Retardation and Cleft Lip/Palate in the Monazite-Bearing Coastal Areas of Southern Kerala

A population-based 1:3 age-matched case-control study was conducted during 2006–2009 to assess the role of high-level natural radiation (>1 mSv/year) on congenital mental retardation and cleft lip/palate in the southwest coastal area of Kerala. Dosimetry was carried out in the house where parents resided during conception and the subsequent two trimesters of pregnancy of the study subject. Conditional logistic regression did not suggest any statistically significant association of either mental retardation (n = 445) or cleft lip/palate (n = 116) with high-level natural radiation. The odds of mental retardation and cleft lip/palate among those exposed to high-level natural radiation relative to normal levels of natural background radiation (≤1 mSv/year) were 1.26 (95% CI: 0.91–1.73) and 0.56 (95% CI: 0.31–1.02), respectively, after controlling for gender and maternal age at birth of the study subject. The data did not suggest any dose-related trend in the risk of either mental retardation (P = 0.113) or cleft lip/palate (P = 0.908). Notwithstanding the use of a single dose estimate to reconstruct past radiation exposure and the complex etiology of congenital malformations, it may reasonably be concluded that the prevailing high-level natural radiation in the study area does not appear to increase the risk of either mental retardation or cleft lip/palate among offspring of parents staying in the area.
Reduction of parasitic capacitance in 10 kV SiC MOSFET power modules using 3D FEM

The benefits of emerging wide-band gap semiconductors can only be utilized if the semiconductor is properly packaged. Capacitive coupling in the package causes electromagnetic interference during high dv/dt switching. This paper investigates the current flowing in the parasitic capacitance between the output node and the grounded heat sink for a custom silicon carbide power module. A circuit model of the capacitive coupling path is presented, using parasitic capacitances extracted from ANSYS Q3D. Simulated values are compared with experimental results. A new iteration of the silicon carbide power module is designed, having reduced capacitive coupling without penalizing other parameters. The new module is tested experimentally, which verifies the reduced capacitive coupling to the heat sink.
Alpine biogeography of Parnassian butterflies during Quaternary climate cycles in North America

Growth of alpine glaciers during the Pleistocene had profound effects on montane landscapes in North America and the organisms now inhabiting alpine ecosystems. Biogeography of this region has often been viewed as a system of sky islands despite the fact that species richness patterns deviate from a strict island biogeographic model. One explanation is that alpine species are not in equilibrium because of late Quaternary geographic range shifts. Genetic data can provide evidence of nonequilibrium dynamics and the distributional shifts that occur during glaciation events in alpine landscapes. Using mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data, we examine the evolutionary history of butterflies in the Parnassius phoebus complex. We test explicit, alternative models of the biogeographic history of Parnassius smintheus and Parnassius behrii, including an equilibrium island model, ancestral radiation and fragmentation, an expanding alpine archipelago and an alpine archipelago refuge model. Our results support the alpine archipelago refuge model, in which alpine butterflies undergo population contraction during glacial climates followed by population expansion during interglacial phases. While butterflies can disperse between distant mountain ranges during glacial periods, gene flow is rare. We find evidence of recent connectivity between California and Colorado, population expansion events following deglaciation ∼20 000 years B.P., and small population sizes during the last glacial period. An analysis of lineage splitting suggests that morphological differences in P. smintheus and P. behrii are the result of late Pleistocene divergence (∼48 000 years B.P.) with limited gene flow. Our results demonstrate that spatially complex and nonequilibrium population dynamics influence alpine diversity patterns.
Penetration and Migration Success of Diplostomum spp. Cercariae in Arctic Charr

Abstract We exposed 2 groups of young-of-the-year Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) singly to 54 ± 2 (mean ± SE) Diplostomum spp. cercariae that had emerged from 4 randomly sampled snail hosts (Lymnaea stagnalis). The rearing tanks of the fish received Diplostomum spp. cercariae via the incoming water; therefore, 18 of the 36 fish had parasites in their eyes before the experimental exposure. Of the Diplostomum spp. cercariae presented to the fish, 19% penetrated and 46% of those that had penetrated the fish migrated successfully to the lens of the fish eye. The migration success of Diplostomum spp. from the site of penetration to the fish eye lens was lower in the previously parasitized (37.0 ± 8.7% [mean ± SE] adjusted with the number of penetrated cercariae) than in the unparasitized fish (55.3 ± 8.8%) and differed between the individual snail host from which the cercariae had emerged. In addition, the migration success of Diplostomum spp. decreased with an increase in the number of the cercariae that penetrated the fish. At the individual snail host level, there seemed to be a trade-off between penetration and migration ability of the cercariae. The results indicate that success of Diplostomum spp. in penetration and especially in migration to the fish eye is affected by both the molluscan first intermediate host and the piscine second intermediate host.
Sub-THz Sensor Array With Embedded Signal Processing in 90 nm CMOS Technology

The architecture and the operation of a sub-THz sensor array are presented, which have been implemented in standard 90 nm CMOS technology. The integrated sensor array is arranged around of 12 silicon field effect plasma wave detectors with integrated planar antennas. The received signals are further processed by pre-amplifiers, analog to digital converters, and a time shared digital domain lock-in amplifier. The system automatically locks to external modulation and provides standard digital streaming output. Instead of building a uniform array, seven different antenna types with various polarization properties (horizontal and vertical linear; left and right handed circular polarization) and spectral responsivity have been integrated. The sensors altogether provide broadband response from 0.25 to 0.75 THz. The peak amplified responsivity of the sensors is 185 kV/W at 365 GHz and at the detectivity maximum, the noise equivalent power (NEP) is near to 40 pW/√Hz. Under nonzero drain current, the peak sensitivity rises above 1.2 MV/W with a moderate NEP ~ 200 pW/ Hz at 50 nA source-drain current. Application example is provided as a multi-wavelength transmission imaging case study.
Design of a current harmonic detector method applied in photovoltaic inverters with ancillary service capability

The multifunctional operation of photovoltaic (PV) inverters consists in using the PV inverter for ancillary services as reactive power injection and harmonic current compensation. The multifunctional operation can improve the ac-grid power quality. Thus, this paper presents a dynamic method based on the Second Order Generalized Integrator coupled with a Phase Locked Loop (SOGI-PLL) structure to detect the most predominant harmonic current components in the distribution system. This work intends to show the improvement of the detection method by the use of negative feedback on the SOGI. It is used an extension of this detector to detect multiple harmonic currents according to its amplitude. Besides, the influence of the discretization method is presented and the error in this conversion is analyzed. At last, it can be seen a performance improvement in the detection of the harmonic current amplitudes.
[The chemotherapy of Chagas disease].

To date, Chagas disease has defied all attempts to develop an efficient and safe chemotherapy. Drugs effective on T. cruzi as trypanocidal agents may be classified as (a) drugs of extensive clinical use: Nifurtimox and Benznidazole; (b) drugs of restricted clinical use: azoles (e.g. Ketoconazole, Econazole; Miconazole); Amphotericin B; Allopurinol, Allopurinol ribosides and Primaquine; (d) drugs effective on T. cruzi and in experimental Chagas disease (murine model): alkyllysophospholipids; 5-amino-imidazole-4-carboxamides; bisbenzyl-isoquinolines; cruzipain (crucein) inhibitors; Gossipol; phenothiazines; d) drugs effective in vitro without other reported effects, acridines, actinomycin D, Crystal Violet (gentian violet), diterpenes (Mikania obtusata); N,N'-dimethyl-2-propen-1-amine, epoxidienthiol carbamates, Fe-chelators, guanyl hydrazones, o-naphthoquinones (beta-lapachone); quinoids (miconidine; tingenone); Olivacine, phenazine methosulfate, phenoxi-phenoxyl drugs, Proadifen, pyridinium azolate betaines, sesquiterpenes (Lychophora sp), sesquiterpene lactones, tetrahydrocarbazoles, DL-alpha-trifluoromethylarginine, triphenylmetane dyes. It is generally agreed that Nifurtimox and Benznidazole (a) are effective on acute Chagas' disease, but may not be effective in the chronic phase; (b) their effect depends on the susceptibility of T. cruzi strains to the drug; (c) they produce adverse effects in patients that may prevent prolonged treatments; they are genotoxic and produce biochemical damage in the mammalian tissues. Redox-cycling of Nifurtimox and Benznidazolee generates "reactive oxygen species" which explain the biological effects. At variance with the mammalian host, T. cruzi is deficient in antioxidant enzymes which are essential to prevent oxidative damage. Azoles are effective inhibitors of T. cruzi growth in vitro and in vivo since they inhibit sterol C14-delta 24(25) demethylase, an enzyme catalysing ergosterol production. Azoles reduce parasitemia and extend the survival of infected mice but do not produce parasitological cure and their clinical effectiveness is questionable. Allopurinol allopurinol ribosides and related compounds inhibit T. cruzi hypoxantine-guanine ribosyl transferase, thus preventing the synthesis of adenylic and guanylic acids and also DNA. They reduce parasitemia and negativize xenodiagnosis but these effects may not be permanent, which invalidates their clinical use. Cysteine-protease inhibitors recognize T. cruzi protease (cruzipain, crucein) active site, thus allowing a covalent linkage with the inhibitor. These peptide inhibitors are effective in acute and chronic murine models. Phenothiazines inhibit trypanothione reductase and a specially favoured fit is a small 2-substitued 2-chloro and 2-trifluoromethyl with a remote hydrophobic patch. The essential phenotiazine nucleus can adopt more than one inhibitory orientation in its binding site. Phenothiazines are promising trypanocidal agents for the treatment of Chagas' disease. The methodology for developing new drugs for the treatment of Chagas' disease is discussed.
Molecular profiling of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: genetics meets epigenetics to identify predisposing genes

Molecular profiling may lead to a better understanding of a disease. This knowledge is especially important in malignancies, where multiple alterations are required during the progression from premalignant to malignant stages. Such information can be useful for the development of novel biomarkers that allow the prediction of a clinical course, response to treatment or early detection. Molecular data is also utilized to develop targeted therapies. Moreover, gene defects identified in profiling studies will help to understand the molecular pathways disrupted in the disease. This review provides an overview of molecular profiling approaches in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). We will describe our current understanding of genetic alterations in CLL, the use of familial CLL for the identification of predisposing mutations, and the search for epigenetic alterations in CLL.
Plasma cytokines can help to identify the development of severe acute pancreatitis on admission

Abstract Severe acute pancreatitis (AP) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Early severity stratification remains a challenging issue to overcome to improve outcomes. We aim to find novel plasma cytokines for the early identification of severe AP according to the revised Atlanta criteria. In this prospective observational study, 30 cytokines, screened semiquantitatively with a human multicytokine array, were submitted to quantitative determination using either microparticle-based multiplex immunoassays analyzed on a Luminex 100 platform or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits. The cytokine profiles of patients and the discriminative value of cytokines for severe AP were analyzed. Plasma samples of 70 patients with AP (20 mild, 30 moderately severe, and 20 severe) were selected in this study if they were admitted within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms. Plasma from healthy volunteers was collected as the healthy control. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) and pentraxin 3 (PTX3) on admission were independent prognostic markers for the development of severe AP and had higher discriminative powers than conventional markers (GDF-15 vs hematocrit, P = .003; GDF-15 vs C-reactive protein, P = .037; GDF-15 vs creatinine, P = .048; GDF-15 vs Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II, P = .007; PTX3 vs hematocrit, P = .006; PTX3 vs C-reactive protein, P = .047; PTX3 vs Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II, P = .011; PTX3 vs Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis, P = .048). Plasma GDF-15 and PTX3 can help to identify the development of severe AP on admission. Future work should validate their accuracy in a larger, multicenter patient cohort.
Comparative analysis of texture descriptors for classification

Texture analysis has been an important research area due to wide range of applications in the field of image processing, machine vision and pattern recognition. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of texture descriptors for texture classification. We focus on state of the art texture descriptors which have been widely used for classification in literature and shown promising results. These descriptors comprise of Local Binary Patterns (LBP) and its various extensions, Gabor wavelets and fractal analysis which are invariant to scale, orientation and illumination. Some of the benchmark texture databases have been used for the extraction of features for each descriptor and then the classification performance was achieved using K-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier. All texture descriptors performance is then compared and analyzed in detail. It has been observed that Local Binary Pattern generally outperforms other descriptors on three out of fours datasets.
Production of Microbial Bio-Pesticides from Waste Disposal of Chicken Feathers

Poopathi S1*, Murugan K2, Selvakumari J1, Mani C1, Bala P1, de Britto RLJ1, Pattnaik S3, Santhosh Goud3 and Prabakaran K4 1Vector Control Research Centre (Indian Council of Medical Research), Indira Nagar, Puducherry, India 2Vice-Chancellor, Thiruvalluvar University, Serkkadu, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India 3Post-graduate Department of Zoology, Berhampur University, Berhampur, Odisha, India 4Department of Zoology, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Postgraduate Studies (Autonomous), Lawspet, Puducherry, India
Supporting multifaceted viewing of word clouds with focus+context display

Word clouds provide an effective way to visually summarize important keywords from a large collection of text. Despite their increasing popularity, relatively less attention has been paid on developing interactive techniques for flexible word cloud navigation and manipulation. In this article, we present a focus + context display technique to support multifaceted viewing of word clouds. In our algorithm, the sizes of words in a word cloud are first changed to reflect the current importance metric selected by the user and then scaled to balance space utilization and word readability. To remove word overlaps caused by changes of sizes while maintaining the positional dependency modeled by a directed acyclic graph, we propose a force-directed model that also maximizes the utilization of display space. We demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of our techniques through case studies using a real-world dataset and evaluate the performance of the constraint-based overlap removal method in achieving stable layouts during importance transformation.
Phase efficient neural network using Curvelet features for face recognition

This paper presents a novel scheme for face recognition application, by utilizing curved singularities obtained from curvelet transform and trained on phase efficient neural network. The phase efficient neural network is formed by processing the statistical descriptor and smooth coefficients of curvelet transform with neural network and then post-process with phase only correlation (POC). Neural network minimizes the search space of face subjects by yielding the response values to POC. The match/mismatch recognition accuracy is based upon the peak detection from the POC surface. The amalgamation of two recognition techniques on curvelet features have enabled us to look into the new dimension of not only improving the accuracy of neural network but also to decrease the computational and time cost of phase only correlation.
Resource Allocation in Vehicular Cloud Computing Systems With Heterogeneous Vehicles and Roadside Units

Vehicular cloud computing (VCC) system coordinates the vehicular cloud (consisting of vehicles’ computing resources) and the remote cloud properly to provide in-time services to users. Although pervious works had established the models for resource allocation in the VCC system based on semi-Markov decision processes (SMDPs), few of them discussed heterogeneity of vehicles and influences of roadside units (RSUs). Heterogeneous vehicles made by different manufacturers may be equipped with different amount of computing resources; and furthermore, RSU can enhance the computing capability of VCC. Therefore, this paper creates an SMDP model for VCC resource allocation that additionally considers heterogeneous vehicles and RSUs, and proposes an approach for finding the optimal strategy of VCC resource allocation. The two additional features significantly elaborate the SMDP model, and demonstrate different results from the original model. Simulation shows that the resource allocation in the VCC system can be captured by the proposed model, which performs well in terms of long-term expected values (consisting of consumption costs of power and time), under various parameter settings.
A survey on active disturbance rejection control

The conventional PID controllers have been in existence in the process industry from its very birth for almost a century. The empirical approach of the PID presents a limitation in tuning for practising engineers, since it requires ample experience and a sound knowledge of the plant. Another approach that came up with the development of modern control paradigm also had an inherent drawback of model dependency. Tuning of controllers in model based approach was challenging due to the mismatch of the actual system with approximate model. This situation demanded, a model independent approach to take care of the uncertainties of the plant, including the disturbances and the unknown dynamics of the plant. The principle of Active Disturbance Rejection Control(ADRC) satisfactorily tackles the drawbacks of both PID and model based approaches. It proves successful in a variety of industrial applications. The unique features of ADRC are the robustness of the controller and its rich capability in uncertainty reduction. This paper presents a survey on Active Disturbance Rejection Control and its developments.
Barrier Breakdown Mechanisms in MgO-Based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions under Pulsed Conditions

A thorough investigation of barrier breakdown in MgO based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions is presented. Our samples were tested under pulsed electrical stress. By studying the effect of delay between two pulses, we observe that an optimum endurance of MTJs is obtained for an intermediate value of delay between pulses which allows a partial discharge of the trapping sites between two pulses. The charge trapping-detrapping model that we have developed shows a good coherence with experimental results. We discuss how delay between two pulses affects the charge state of the sample. The average value in time and the time-modulation of this charge give rise to distinct breakdown mechanisms. We evaluate the MTJ probability of breakdown for different applied pulse conditions. We then deduce an expected endurance of the MTJs depending on the characteristics of the electrical stress in terms of delay, amplitude, unipolarity versus bipolarity. A charge trapping-detrapping model was proposed to explain our experimental observations.
The Relevance between Negative Reinforcement Incentive, Organizational Recognition and Organizational Competitiveness——An Empirical Study Based on the Branches of Four Major Commercial Banks

Based on the sample data of the branches of four major commercial banks, this paper uses structural equation model to validate the relevance between negative reinforcement incentives, organizational recognition and organizational competitiveness. It's found that regression incentive can promote team recognition and colleague recognition, but it does not promote profession recognition and value recognition; punitive incentive can promote profession recognition, team recognition, colleague recognition,value recognition. Negative reinforcement incentive is widely used in the Western large commercial banks and obviously shows management effectiveness. It is worth being learned, used for reference and digested by the four state-owned commercial banks, and changed into incentive tool for effective management. The four banks should make use of negative reinforcement incentive to inspire employees further, and continuously improve the organizational competitiveness of organizations at all levels.