Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Febrile Urinary Tract Infection: P fimbriae, Innate Host Response and Bacteremia

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are among the most common human infections, and febrile UTI with bacteremia the most severe form. The relation between bacteria and host decides disease severity. The dominating uropathogen is Escherichia coli (E. coli). P fimbriae are the virulence factor of E. coli most clearly associated to severe disease. P fimbriated E. coli predominated in bacteremic febrile UTI in both women and men, and carried papDNA sequences of papGIA2 and prsGJ96 adhesin type in both bacteremic and nonbacteremic patients. papGIA2 + E. coli were the major uropathogens in women of all ages, and the major cause of bacteremia in women. prsGJ96 + E. coli were common uropathogens in men, and associated with urinary tract abnormalities. papGIA2+ isolates was the only cause of bacteremia in healthy patients. Bacteremia in patients with host compromise was caused by a mixture of papGIA2+, prsGJ96+ or pap negative isolates. The results emphasise the strong influence of host factors on the selection of uropathogenic E. coli. Febrile UTI was accompanied by a broad and diverse local chemokine response with both CXC and CC chemokines, and by both local and systemic IL-6 responses, as measured in urine and serum. The responses showed therapy-related kinetics. The response magnitudes were associated to bacteremia and disease severity, and influenced by gender and general health. papGIA2+ E. coli were associated to pyelonephritis symptoms, high incidence of bacteremia, and high fever, CRP and higher CCL2/MCP-1 response. Febrile UTI patients with prsGJ96+ isolates had instead more focal symptoms from the lower urinary tract. Systemic IL-6 responses occurred regardless of bacteremia, suggesting that locally produced IL-6 trigger systemic responses. Urine CXCL8/IL-8 was found in all patients and may be used as a marker for UTI, and urine CCL2/MCP-1 for disease severity, correlating to kidney involvement and bacteremia. The results characterise papGIA2+ E. coli as the most virulent strains, with invasive abilities and causing bacteremia, kidney involvement and intense host responses. Seven days of adequate antibiotic therapy was shown to be effective and safe in hospitalised patients with community-acquired febrile UTI, regardless of gender, compromising conditions or bacteremia, and with no difference in clinical and bacteriological outcome compared to 14 days of therapy. Patients with persistence of the original uropathogen developed early clinical infection, whereas all super- or reinfections with gram-positive bacteria were asymptomatic. Bacteremic patients with compromising conditions might need closer observations or longer therapy until further studies. Women had a worse secondary outcome, with lower clinical and bacteriological cure rates, which probably reflect the natural course of UTI in women.
Incorporating Interactions and Gene Annotation Data in Genomic Prediction

In this work, we consider theoretical and practical aspects of models incorporating interactions, so called "epistasis models''. Moreover, we follow approaches towards the incorporation of biological prior knowledge into prediction methods. The three main chapters are given by the corresponding published articles. In the final discussion, the coding dependence of ridge regression methods is reviewed and the usefulness of the prediction of total genetic values in different breeding schemes is discussed. In the last part of the discussion, we review the results of this work in a broadened context, which is followed by an outlook on future work.
Improved neighbourhood search-based methods for graph layout

Graph drawing, or the automatic layout of graphs, is a challenging problem. There are several search-based methods for graph drawing that are based on optimising a fitness function which is formed from a weighted sum of multiple criteria. This thesis proposes a new neighbourhood search-based method that uses a tabu search coupled with path relinking in order to optimise such fitness functions for general graph layouts with undirected straight lines. None of these methods have been previously used in general multi-criteria graph drawing. Tabu search uses a memory list to speed up searching by avoiding previously tested solutions, while the path relinking method generates new solutions by exploring paths that connect high quality solutions. We use path relinking periodically within the tabu search procedure to speed up the identification of good solutions. We have evaluated our new method against the commonly used neighbourhood search optimisation techniques: hill climbing and simulated annealing. Our evaluation examines the quality of the graph layout (fitness function's value) and the speed of the layout in terms of the number of the evaluated solutions required to draw a graph. We also examine the relative scalability of our method. Our experimental results were applied to both random graphs and a real-world dataset. We show that our method outperforms both hill climbing and simulated annealing by producing a better layout in a lower number of evaluated solutions. In addition, we demonstrate that our method has greater scalability as it can lay out larger graphs than the state-of-the-art neighbourhood search-based methods. Finally, we show that similar results can be produced in a real world setting by testing our method against a standard public graph dataset.
Variación de la resistencia cortante del material de relave por causas meteorológicas y su influencia en la estabilidad física de la presa de relaves N.° 3 Mahr Túnel

Los agentes meteorológicos pueden producir alteraciones en la composición física y química del material almacenado en una presa de relaves, pues modifican sus propiedades y sus condiciones de estabilidad física. En esta investigación se evaluó el comportamiento de la resistencia cortante del relave por causas meteorológicas y su influencia en la estabilidad física de la presa N. ° 3 Mahr Túnel. Además, se ejecutaron ensayos triaxiales tipo CU en muestras inalteradas extraídas de la presa para diferentes periodos de exposición. Los resultados indican que la resistencia cortante incrementa cuando aumenta el periodo de exposición meteorológica, lo que a su vez aumenta los factores de seguridad del análisis de estabilidad de la presa.
Single‐feed microstrip antenna for wide angle circular polarisation with six metal columns

A circularly polarised microstrip antenna with a wide beamwidth and wide axial ratio (AR) beamwidth is presented. The antenna is mainly composed of a dielectric substrate, a single-feed patch, a reduced ground, and six metal columns. The reduced ground and six metal columns are primarily used to broaden the radiation beamwidth and improve the AR performance of the wide angle. According to the measured results, the antenna achieves a bandwidth of 3.78% from 7.78 to 8.08 GHz with an AR 10 dB. In addition, half-power beamwidth of 211° × 209° and 3 dB AR beamwidth of 222° × 239° at 8.0 GHz are observed. The antenna is a single-feed type with a simple structure and no additional feed network, which can be extended to some wide beamwidth and wide AR beamwidth applications in the X-band, even higher than the Ku-band.
Bad Droid! An in-depth empirical study on the occurrence and impact of Android specific code smells

Knowing the impact of bad programming practices or code smells has led researchers to conduct numerous studies in software maintenance. Most of the studies have defined code smells as bad practices that may affect the quality of the software. However, most of the existing research is heavily focused on detecting traditional code smells and less focused on mobile application specific Android code smells. Presently, there is a few papers that focus on android code smells a catalog for Android code smells. This catalog defines 30 Android specific code smell that may impact maintainability of an app. In this research, we plan to introduce a detector tool called BadDroidDetector for Android code smells that can detect 13 code smells from the catalog. We will also conduct an empirical study to know the distribution of 13 smell that we detect and know the severity of these smells.
An Origami-Inspired Spherical Transformable Metamaterial Based on Symmetry Groups

Most currently existing mechanical metamaterial designs are based on Bravais lattices. These consist of parallelogram or parallelepiped unit cells, which are respectively translated along two or three independent vectors to fill the complete space. This approach is inherently unable to match curved surfaces like spheres, since these cannot be constructed only from parallel and perpendicular lines. In this paper, we introduce a generalized unit cell, based on the symmetry groups of the sphere. We use this approach to develop a spherical transformable origami-inspired metamaterial. We describe the motions of this new metamaterial, as well as experimental observations on a physical, 3D printed model.
A Diagnostic Equation for Tendency of Lapse-Rate-Tropopause Heights and Its Application

The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere and is normally defined by the temperature lapse rate. Previous studies have noted that synoptic-scale and planetary-scale disturbances bring about lapse-rate-tropopause (LRT) height fluctuations on time scales from several days to several years. In the present study, a diagnostic expression for the tendency of LRT height is derived by assuming that the LRT can be characterized as a discontinuity in the vertical gradient of the potential temperature. In addition, the contribution from each term in the thermodynamic equation to the LRT height is quantified. The derived equation is validated by examining the time variation of the LRT height associated with baroclinic waves in an idealized numerical calculation, that of the zonal-mean LRT height in GPS radio occultation data, and that of the LRT height in reanalysis data.
Effects of active layer thickness on performance and stability of dual-active-layer amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors

Wenxing Huo(霍文星)1,2, Zengxia Mei(梅增霞)1,†, Yicheng Lu(卢毅成)3, Zuyin Han(韩祖银)1,2, Rui Zhu(朱锐)1,2, Tao Wang(王涛)1,2, Yanxin Sui(隋妍心)1,2, Huili Liang(梁会力)1, and Xiaolong Du(杜小龙)1,4,‡ 1Key Laboratory for Renewable Energy, Beijing Key Laboratory for New Energy Materials and Devices, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 2School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 3Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University, 94 Brett Rd, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854 4Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan 523808, China
A wideband planar magneto‐electric tapered slot antenna with wide beamwidth

In this article, a wideband planar magneto‐electric (ME) tapered slot antenna (TSA) with wide beamwidth both in the E‐plane and H‐plane is investigated. By simply etching slots on the basic TSA, which can function as a combination of magnetic dipole and electric dipole, stable unidirectional patterns with wide beamwidth are obtained. The metal ground plane is further modified to realize wide beamwidth across a wide frequency bandwidth. Moreover, a double‐layer structure is employed to suppress the cross polarization. The measured results show that the proposed antenna can achieve an impedance bandwidth of 51.7% (7.22‐12.25 GHz) with a stable gain of 2.3 dBi, and a pattern bandwidth of 43% (7.8‐12.2GHz) for more than 135° half‐power beamwidth. The measured front‐to‐back (F/B) ratio is more than 15 dB in the pattern bandwidth.
SISTEMAS BIOENERGÉTICOS AERÓBIO E ANAERÓBIO EM RELAÇÃO AO ESTRESSE OXIDATIVO

Sabe-se que o exercicio fisico e um vetor de beneficios diretos e indiretos, uma vez que promove o ajuste fisiologico orgânico e dinâmico e proporciona incremento nos indicadores e variaveis associadas ao campo psicologico. Apesar desses beneficios, a ciencia questiona se a intensidade exagerada e/ou o volume desmedido de exercicios fisicos, mesmo adequadamente prescritos, seriam caracteristicas potencialmente danosas no transcorrer dos anos. O presente estudo apresenta comparacoes entre atividades fisicas utilizando fontes bioenergeticas aerobicas e anaerobicas visando identificar qual dos sistemas gera maior quantidade de radicais livres, tornando assim, mais propenso a levar seu praticante ao estresse oxidativo. O exercicio fisico executado de forma incorreta e nao respeitando o criterio da individualidade intensifica os processos metabolicos, podendo predispor ao estresse oxidativo, fator este que sabidamente favorece o envelhecimento precoce e outras alteracoes fisiologicas significativas. O acumulo excessivo destas especies instaveis de oxigenio no organismo apresenta a capacidade de oxidar outras moleculas, causando diversos danos aos sistemas corporal. Apos a analise dos artigos conclui-se que o fator tempo (volumetria) de exercicio e mais determinante para o estresse oxidativo do que o fator intensidade. Desta forma as atividades de alta intensidade e curta duracao apresentam-se como uma alternativa positiva para incremento e manutencao da saude.
LobNet platform: Target tracking with a low resolution camera network

In this paper, we present a new platform for environment monitoring using very low specification cameras. These latter are distinguished by their visual sensors offering tiny images (30*30 pixels), completely local processing thanks to the max10 FPGA and the SmartMesh IP technology offering a mesh network. The lack of information extracted by visual sensors is filled by intensive communication and data exchanged between cameras after each detection. Thus, a re-identification process is applied based on exchanged and extracted data after each target detection.
Approximate Designs for Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) With Application to Speech Recognition

This paper presents different approximate designs for computing the FFT. The tradeoff between accuracy and performance is achieved by adjusting the word length in each computational stage. Two algorithms for word length modification under a specific error margin are proposed. The first algorithm targets an approximate FFT for an area-limited design compared to the conventional fixed design; the second algorithm targets performance so it achieves a higher operating frequency. Both of the proposed algorithms show that an efficient balance between hardware utilization and performance is possible at stage-level. The proposed approximate FFT designs are implemented on FPGA; experimental results show that hardware utilization using the first approximate algorithm are reduced by at least nearly 40%. The second algorithm increases performance of the designs by over 20%. Fine granularity design is also investigated, where the FPGA resources for a 256-point FFT computation can be further reduced by nearly 10% compared to a coarse design. Finally, the proposed approximate designs are applied to a feature extraction module in an isolated word recognition system; the numbers of LUTs and FFs for the Mel frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) extraction module are decreased by up to 47.2% and 39.0%, respectively with a power reduction of up to 27.0% at a loss in accuracy of less than 2%.
Relation Between Cigarette Smoking, Body Fat Distribution and Density of Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Women.

Abstract : Coronary heart disease is the number one killer of American women; however, most scientific research regarding risk factors for disease has focused on men. The purpose of this study was to describe the relation between cigarette smoking, distribution of body fat, and density of lipoprotein, cholesterol in women. Variables selected for study were total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, cigarette smoking, and the waist to hip circumference ratio. The sample consisted of 75 adult women volunteers, ages 22 to 74 years. Data were collected at three sites over a four week period. Statistically significant correlations were found between an increased waist to hip circumference ratio and decreased HDL-cholesterol, and increased triglycerides. No significant correlation was found between the waist to hip ratio and total cholesterol or LDL-cholesterol. Finally, no significant correlation was found between cigarette smoking and an increased waist to hip ratio or decreased HDL-cholesterol.
Electrical transport and optical properties of Cd3As2 thin films

Cd3As2, as a three-dimensional (3D) topological Dirac semimetal, has attracted wide attention due to its unique physical properties originating from the 3D massless Dirac fermions. While many efforts have been devoted to the exploration of novel physical phenomena such as chiral anomaly and phase transitions by using bulk crystals, the development of high-quality and large-scale thin films becomes necessary for practical electronic and optical applications. Here, we report our recent progress in developing single-crystalline thin films with improved quality and their optical devices including Cd3As2-based heterojunctions and ultrafast optical switches. We find that a post-annealing process can significantly enhance the crystallinity of Cd3As2 in both intrinsic and Zn-doped thin films. With excellent characteristics of high mobility and linear band dispersion, Cd3As2 exhibits a good optical response in the visible-to-mid-infrared range due to an advantageous optical absorption, which is reminiscent of 3D graphene. It also behaves as an excellent saturable absorber in the mid-infrared regime. Through the delicate doping process in this material system, it may further open up the long-sought parameter space crucial for the development of compact and high-performance mid-infrared ultrafast sources.
Polyphonic STE(A)M and the role of Physics

We propose a pedagogical ‘model for polyphonic STE(A)M education’. With this model teachers worked a yearlong in a Professional Learning Community. The model made schools think about their choices for STE(A)M and it gave them a ‘language’ to explain their choices. Why should schools do STE(A)M? What is STE(A)M? How and for Whom schools bring STE(A)M into their curriculum? During the course of the PLC, it became gradually clear that single subject matters still play a crucial role in STE(A)M and precisely from this insight the polyphonic model arose. Different viewpoints and inquiry methodologies from single subjects are needed to discover the connections between and across the disciplines. We illustrate this interdisciplinary STE(A)M education model in a few examples where physics plays its role between arts and engineering. It was recognized in our PLC that STE(A)M learning within and across disciplines makes lessons more relevant to learners, as they see how things are related and this also seems to foster creativity and problem solving. This confirms what was found in educational research. By reflecting on their practices, schools rediscovered that, apart from aiming at children with talent for STE(A)M, it is still their duty to give children also ‘STEM for all’ and ‘STEM to explore’ experiences.
Improving care for people with long-term conditions

This policy document focuses on the need to enhance the role of the pharmacist as part of a multidisciplinary approach in tackling the challenges facing the NHS in treating and supporting people with long term conditions (LTCs). The recommendations in this policy are aimed at key stakeholders who have collective responsibility for ensuring the best care for people living with a LTC. Key recommendations
A geometrical description of global dynamics in trained feedback networks

Recurrent neural networks have been extensively studied in the context of neuroscience and machine learning due to their ability to implement complex computations. While substantial progress in designing effective learning algorithms has been achieved in the last years, a full understanding of trained recurrent networks is still lacking. Specifically, the mechanisms that allow computations to emerge from the underlying recurrent dynamics are largely unknown. Here we focus on a simple, yet underexplored computational setup: a feedback architecture trained to associate a stationary output to a stationary input. By deriving an approximate mean-field description of the global network dynamics, we show that this task admits several classes of solutions, characterized by different stability properties. These classes of solutions differ in the geometrical arrangement of the readout with respect to the input vectors, defined in the high-dimensional space spanned by the network population. We show that our theoretical approach can be used to understand how standard training techniques implement the input-output task in finite-size feedback networks. In particular, our approximate description captures the local and the global stability properties of the target solution, and predicts training performance.
Effect of Q-factor manipulation via pedal spacers on lower limb frontal plane kinematics during cycling

Anecdotal evidence suggests that frontal plane kinematics of the lower extremity are an important aspect of bicycle fit, however, frontal plane adjustments are often overlooked during common fitting procedures. The purpose of this study was to manipulate pedal stance width via pedal spacers to determine their influence on frontal plane kinematics of the hip, knee, and ankle during cycling. Twenty-four young healthy recreational cyclists (12 female) completed five minutes of pedaling at their preferred cadence and power output under three stance widths conditions: no spacer, 20 mm spacer, and 30 mm spacer. For each subject, the pedaling cadence and power output were kept identical for all experimental conditions. Lower extremity marker position data were captured at 250 Hz for the last two minutes of each condition. Sixty consecutive crank cycles were analyzed to identify peak and minimum hip, knee, and ankle angles in the frontal plane. With an increase in pedal stance width, hip and knee peak abduction angles increased and peak adduction angles decreased (p 0.05). Pedal spacers are an effective way of manipulating pedal stance width and frontal plane kinematics of the hip and knee.
ITU-PRP: Parallel and Distributed Computing Middleware for Java Developers

ITU-PRP provides a Parallel Programming Framework for Java Developers on which they can adapt their sequential application code to operate on a distributed multi-host parallel environment. Developers would implement parallel models, such as Loop Parallelism, Divide and Conquer, Master-Slave and Fork-Join by the help of an API Library provided under framework. Produced parallel applications would be submitted to a middleware called Parallel Running Platform (PRP), on which parallel resources for parallel processing are being organized and performed. The middleware creates Task Plans (TP) according to application’s parallel model, assigns best available resource Hosts, in order to perform fast parallel processing. Task Plans will be created dynamically in real time according to resources actual utilization status or availability, instead of predefined/preconfigured task plans. ITU-PRP achieves better efficiency on parallel processing over big data sets and distributes divided base data to multiple hosts to be operated by Coarse-Grained parallelism. According to this model distributed parallel tasks would operate independently with minimal interaction until processing ends.