Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toll-like receptor 9 in alimentary tract cancers

Cancers of the alimentary tract include many common cancer types, some of which have wellestablished treatment protocols and relatively good prognosis, such as colorectal cancer, and others, which have generally very poor prognosis. The gastrointestinal canal is colonized by a multitude of bacteria, the effects of which are currently poorly understood. Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) in cells of the alimentary tract recognizes the bacterial DNA-fragments and regulates immune functions in the host and the cancer. This thesis examines the function and prognostic significance of Toll-like receptor 9 in oral and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma as well as in esophageal, gastric and colorectal adenocarcinoma. The studies were made using tissue samples from patient cohorts and various cell culture techniques. Our data indicate that high expression of Toll-like receptor 9 in cancer cells associates with metastatic properties in oral and esophageal cancers and poor prognosis in esophageal adenocarcinoma and oral squamous cell carcinoma. Cell culture studies further suggest that TLR9 is functional in alimentary tract cancers and mediates cellular invasion when activated. Based on the results, TLR9 is active in alimentary tract cancers and its expression is related to poor cancer prognosis. Thus, TLR9 may represent a novel therapeutic target in alimentary tract cancers and might provide a link between bacteria and oral and gastrointestinal cancer.
Functional Imaging Experience in a Germline Fumarate Hydratase Mutation–Positive Patient With Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma

ABSTRACT Objective: To report the functional imaging experience with a 29-year-old woman carrying a mutation in the fumarate hydratase (FH)-encoding gene and a history of a pheochromocytoma (PHEO) and retroperitoneal paraganglioma (PGL). Methods: The patient was found to have a splice-site mutation in the FH gene at intron 2, c.268-2A>G. To confirm this, immunohistochemical staining was performed on tumor tissue slides from the patient's previous surgeries. The patient underwent biochemical testing for PHEO/PGL, which included chromogranin A and plasma methoxytyramine. The patient's tumors were also imaged using several imaging modalities, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, and positron emission tomography (PET)/CT studies using [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]-FDG), [18F]-fluorodopamine ([18F]-FDA), [18F]-fluorodihydroxyphenylalanine ([18F]-FDOPA), and [68Ga]-tetraazacyclododecanetetraacetic acid–[Tyr3]-octreotate ([68Ga]-DOTATATE) as tracers. Results: The patient .
Food Handling Practices, Knowledge and Beliefs of Families with Young Children Based on the Health Belief Model

Objective: To determine current food handling practices, knowledge and beliefs of primary food handlers with children 10 years old and the relationship between these components. Design: Surveys were developed based on FightBac! ™ concepts and the Health Belief Model (HBM) construct. Participants: The majority of participants (n= 503) were females (67%), Caucasians (80%), aged between 30 to 49 years old (83%), had one or two children (83%), prepared meals all or most of the time (76%) and consumed meals away from home three times or less per week (66%). Analysis: Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rho) (p<0.05 and one-tail) and Chi-square were used to examine frequency and correlations. Results: Few participants reached the food safety objectives of Healthy People 2010 for safe food handling practices (79%). Mixed results were reported for perceived susceptibility. Only half of the participants (53-54%) reported high perceived severity for their children if they contracted food borne illness. Most participants were confident of their food handling practices for their children (91%) and would change their food handling practices if they or their family members previously experienced food poisoning (79%). Participants' reasons for high self-efficacy were learning from their family and independently acquiring knowledge and skills from the media, internet or job. The three main barriers to safe food handling were insufficient time, lots of distractions and lack of control of the food handling practices of other people in the household. Participants preferred to use food safety information that is easy to understand, has scientific facts, causes feelings of health-threat and has lots of pictures or visuals. Participants demonstrate high levels of knowledge in certain areas of the FightBac! TM concepts but lacked knowledge in other areas. Knowledge and cues to action were most supportive of the HBM construct, while perceived susceptibility was least supportive of the HBM construct. Conclusions: Most participants demonstrate many areas to improve in their food handling practices, knowledge and beliefs. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Dr and Dr Kaye Stanek-Krogstrand for their guidance in my project. As an undergraduate research assistant under the supervision of Dr Julie Albrecht, she sparked my interest in conducting research which led me to pursue my graduate studies. Her extensive knowledge on research taught me to use my time wisely, gather resources effectively and approach problems creatively. Dr Ian Newman provided me a strong background for the …
Resveratrol Suppresses TNF-α-induced Fractalkine in Endothelial Cells

Renal Regeneration Laboratory and Department of Internal Medicine (S.O.M., W.K., M.J.S., S.L., K.P.K., D.H.K., S.K.P.) Department of Diagnostic Radiology (S.Y.L.), Research Institute of Clinical Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering (J.N.S.), Woosuk University, Jeonju, Republic of Korea Molecular Pharmacology Fast Forward. Published on April 13, 2006 as doi:10.1124/mol.106. 022392
Electromagnetic-Thermal Coupled Simulation Under Various Fault Conditions of a Triple Redundant 9-phase PMASynRM

This article performs electromagnetic (EM) and thermal coupled simulation based on two-dimensional (2-D) transient electromagnetic and 3-D thermal model of a triple redundant nine-phase permanent magnet-assisted synchronous reluctance motor under various fault conditions at different speeds. The coupled simulation process is controlled by a scripting file. The resultant temperatures under EM-thermal coupled simulation will be comprehensively compared with those under thermal-only simulation. The predicted current waveforms under fault conditions by the 2-D EM model and predicted temperatures by the 3-D thermal model will be compared with the test results for validation. The outcomes of the study not only gives a better understanding of the thermal behavior, but also provides a guidance to the necessity of the EM-thermal coupled simulation under different fault conditions as well as to determination of the maximum permissible fault detection time before permanent damage due to the fault may occur.
A Novel Features Selection Approach with Common Spatial Pattern for EEG Based Brain–Computer Interface Implementation

This paper presents a novel method for the selection of spatial filters and features in electroencephalography (EEG) based motor imagery classification. The analyzing EEG data are divided into training and test sets. The training set is used to select appropriate spatial filters with dominant features. To accomplish such features, the EEG of training set is segmented again into two subsets termed as training subset and test subset. The features of both subsets are extracted using common spatial pattern. Then features of training subset are ranked using mutual information based approach. Besides, the features of test subset are also ranked according to the order of the training subset features. The initial classification performance using training and test subsets are obtained by using linear discriminant analysis. Then a grid search method is employed to select the effective number of spatial filter pairs as well as the discriminative features. Thus obtained spatial filter and features are used in actual classification accuracy of the test set of EEG. The experimental results show that the proposed approach yields comparatively superior classification performance compared to prevailing methods.
Analytical validation of novel consequent pole E‐core stator permanent magnet flux switching machine

Flux switching machines (FSMs) encompass unique features of conventional direct current machine, permanent magnet (PM) synchronous machine and switch reluctance machine. Permanent magnet FSM (PMFSM) is capable of high torque density and applicable for high-speed application, however conventional PMFSM exhibits demerits of high PM volume, high torque ripples and significant stator flux leakage. In this paper, a novel consequent pole E-core stator PMFSM is proposed and compared with conventional topology utilising 2D finite-element analysis (2D-FEA). Finite-element analysis revealed that proposed design enhanced flux modulation effects by introducing flux bridges and flux barriers as a result reduced cogging torque by reducing 46.53% of the total PM volume, reduce torque ripples by reducing PM slot effects and reduce flux leakage utilising flux bridges in the stator. Furthermore, analytical model for flux linkages, cogging torque, mechanical torque, no load and on-load magnetic flux density (MFD) is developed for initial design of conventional and proposed model. 2D analytical methodologies resolve equivalent magnetic circuits for open-circuit flux linkages, Fourier analysis for cogging torque, Laplace equations for MFD and Maxwell stress tensor for mechanical torque. Finally, results obtained from 2D-FEA and analytical methodologies are validated and compared.
Particle swarm optimization–based adaptive super-twisting sliding mode control design for 2-degree-of-freedom helicopter

This paper presents a novel design of adaptive super-twisting sliding mode controller for two-axis helicopter with model uncertainties. The high-order super-twisting sliding mode control strategy is used to guarantee that the sliding surface can reach the equilibrium point in a shorter time and to avoid the chattering problem. The adaptive control algorithm has been developed based on Lyapunov theory to estimate the unknown parameters of 2-degree-of-freedom helicopter such that the global stability of the controlled system based on adaptive super-twisting sliding mode is guaranteed. A comparison study between conventional and adaptive super-twisting sliding mode controllers is made and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified via computer simulation.
Mitigation of Pattern-Dependent Effect in SOA at O-Band by Using DSP

Semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is regarded as a promising candidate to amplify the optical signal in next-generation access network, especially for O-band signal transmission. However, the SOA-based system suffers from the pattern-dependent effect due to its gain saturation. Compared to digital signal processing (DSP) at receiver, DSP in the transmitter can reduce implementation complexity, which is attractive for the multi-user system. In this paper, we propose three methods to mitigate the pattern-dependent effect in SOA and compare their performance based on: 1) look-up-table (LUT) considering pattern-dependent effect, 2) pre-distortion without considering pattern-dependent effect, 3) probabilistic shaping (PS). The performance of three mitigation methods is investigated in an intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD) 4-ary pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM-4) transmission system at O-band. Our research results show that all these schemes can improve the receiver dynamic range of PAM-4 signals at 50 Gbit/s and 100 Gbit/s. Moreover, PS and LUT can also improve the receiver dynamic range of 75-Gbit/s PAM-8 signals.
Fast Detection of Myricetin With the Use of Dedicated Microdroplets

A 4-cyano-4’-pentylbiphenyl(5CB) microdroplet-based sensing method for myricetin (MY) detection, which is produced by a syringe pump connected tapered capillary microtube and functionalized by dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at the aqueous/liquid crystal (LC) interface is proposed and demonstrated. As the concentration of MY increases, the 5CB microdroplet exhibits a structural transition from a bipolar configuration to a radial configuration. We also exploit the 5CB microdroplet to act as an optical microcavity of the whispering gallery mode (WGM) and obtain typical WGM lasing spectra under a pulsed laser pump. The WGM spectrum, which is related to the orientation of LC molecules at the aqueous/LC interface, presents a spectral blue shift with the increase of the MY addition. The sensitivity within the detection range is 0.04 nm/ $\mu \text{M}$ . The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of this simple and small size system for MY detection.
Digital Dual-Input Doherty Configuration for Ultrawideband Application

In this article, based on a dual-input configuration (DIC), a method for implementing ultrawideband or multiband load-modulated Doherty power amplifiers (DPAs) is proposed. The proposed DIC possesses two Doherty operating modes with respect to the working frequency. Each subamplifier of the DIC plays a changeable role versus frequency, changing from carrier to peaking or changing from peaking to carrier. A dual-input DPA working over 0.7–3 GHz (a relative bandwidth of 124%) is constructed for validating the proposed theory. Under continuous-wave signal excitation, experimental results illustrate that the fabricated power amplifier achieves a 6-dB back-off efficiency of over 40% across 0.7–3 GHz. The maximum output power of the fabricated DPA changes from 42.2 to 44.7 dBm across the whole working band. Meanwhile, a 20-MHz wideband modulated signal with a peak-to-average ratio of 6.04 dB is utilized to stimulate the fabricated DPA at 0.9, 1.8, 2.4, and 2.8 GHz. After digital predistortion, the measured adjacent channel leakage ratios are less than $-$50 dBc at four experimental frequency points.
A Tunable Transmission Line With Controllable Phase Shifting and Characteristic Impedance

Tunable transmission lines have a high demand in the 5G wireless communication applications. In this brief, a novel transmission line is presented to control both electrical length and characteristic impedance individually, creating flexible functions. For the first function, the proposed transmission line can perform as a tunable phase shifter with 90° phase tuning range and a low insertion loss variation. For the second function, the proposed transmission line can tune the characteristic impedance from 23 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\Omega }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> to 145 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\Omega }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with a fixed phase delay. The <italic>ABCD</italic>-matrix method is applied to derive the design equations. For the practical implementation, the varactor equivalent parasitic resistances are considered, and the even-odd mode is applied to re-optimize the proposed two tuning functions. To verify the design theory, an experimental prototype is simulated, fabricated, and measured. Both simulation and measurement results match well with the design theory.
Chloride and pH Determination on a Wireless, Flexible Electrochemical Sensor Platform

A stamp-sized, flexible, wireless, generic electrochemical sensor platform was demonstrated for use as a potentiometric pH and amperometric Cl<sup>−</sup> sensor. The platform combines flexible printed circuit technology with screen-printed electrodes, which enables cheap and easy quantification of biorelevant analytes in many different environments. pH sensors with graphene oxide as the recognition element was constructed on a ferrocyanide modified carbon electrode, to maintain a well-defined redox potential even at high alkalinity. A solid-state reference electrode based on a NaCl-doped polyvinyl butyral membrane ensured applicability towards sample matrices of unknown composition by remining unsensitive (±7.1 mV) to external Cl<sup>−</sup> in the range pCl 0–3. The platform was able to linearly (−26.3 mV pH<sup>−1</sup>, r<sup>2</sup> = 0.99) quantify pH in the range of 2–9 with a maximum inter-sensor standard deviation of 0.43 pH units. Secondly, a Cl<sup>−</sup> sensor combining three unmodified Ag/AgCl electrodes with squarewave amperometry was designed, simulated and tested. A sensitivity of (−147.7 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> pCl<sup>−1</sup>, r<sup>2</sup> = 0.97) was obtained, with a maximum inter-sensor standard deviation of 0.27 pCl units in the range pCl 0–3.
Reinforcement Learning-Based Downlink Interference Control for Ultra-Dense Small Cells

The dense deployment of small cells in 5G cellular networks raises the issue of controlling downlink inter-cell interference under time-varying channel states. In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning based power control scheme to suppress downlink inter-cell interference and save energy for ultra-dense small cells. This scheme enables base stations to schedule the downlink transmit power without knowing the interference distribution and the channel states of the neighboring small cells. A deep reinforcement learning based interference control algorithm is designed to further accelerate learning for ultra-dense small cells with a large number of active users. Analytical convergence performance bounds including throughput, energy consumption, inter-cell interference, and the utility of base stations are provided and the computational complexity of our proposed scheme is discussed. Simulation results show that this scheme optimizes the downlink interference control performance after sufficient power control instances and significantly increases the network throughput with less energy consumption compared with a benchmark scheme.
Fully Integrated Autonomous Interface With Maximum Power Point Tracking for Energy Harvesting TEGs With High Power Capacity

In this article, a novel fully autonomous and integrated power management interface circuit is introduced for energy harvesting using thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to supply power to Internet of Thing nodes. The circuit consists of a self-starting dc–dc converter based on a dual-phase charge pump with LC-tank oscillator, a digital MPPT unit, and a 1-V LDO regulator. The novel maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm avoids open-circuit state, and accommodates varying input power and ultra-low voltage conditions. Validation data from the fabricated test-chip in 180 nm standard CMOS technology indicates the circuit start-up voltage is as low as 170 mV. The maximum output power capacity is 0.5 mW, which is the highest noted in the literature for a fully integrated solution. The high output power at low cost is achieved with a peak system efficiency of 30%. The relatively low efficiency is expected, since the focus of the design is high power capacity at low cost. The MPPT algorithm reaches 98% maximum accuracy for a source output resistance of 40 Ω, which is typical for wearable TEG modules.
Model-Independent Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Tracking Control for High-Speed Trains with Actuator Saturation

This paper investigates the fault-tolerant tracking control problem of high-speed trains (HSTs) subject to unknown model parameters with unavailable uncertainties, unmeasurable additional disturbance, and unpredictable actuator faults constrained by actuator saturation. An adaptive passive fault-tolerant tracking control strategy based on variable-gain proportion-integral-derivative (PID)-type sliding mode surface is proposed to handle the problem. Unknown model parameters, gains of the PID-type sliding mode surface, and upper bounds of the lumped system uncertainty which includes additional disturbance, modeling uncertainties, and uncertainties resulting from actuator faults, are estimated online by adaptive technology. The input saturation (actuator output saturation) constraint is handled by introducing an auxiliary signal. The proposed controller can compensate for the effects of the lumped uncertainty and the actuator faults effectively. Moreover, the controller is model-independent, which means it requires no prior knowledge of model parameters and upper bounds of the lumped uncertainty, and does not depend upon fault detection and diagnosis module. The asymptotic stability of the closed-loop train system is demonstrated by Lyapunov theory. Good fault-tolerant tracking capacity, effective anti-actuator saturation ability, and strong robustness of the proposed controller are verified via numerical simulation.
HYPERTENSION IN SOUTH AFRICA

High blood pressure (BP) or hypertension is a common condition in South Africa and is a risk factor for heart attacks, stroke, left ventricular hypertrophy, renal disease, and blindness. People who have hypertension are usually unaware that they have the condition, unless the BP has been measured at health-care facilities. It is therefore frequently referred to as a ’silent epidemic’ in South Africa. Consequently, hypertension is universally underdiagnosed and/or inadequately treated resulting in extensive target-organ damage and premature death. Furthermore, hypertension frequently co-exists with other risk factors for chronic diseases of lifestyle (CDL), such as diabetes and obesity. These interrelationships of hypertension with other CDL risk factors and the various possible target organs that can be influenced by uncontrolled hypertension result in a diverse picture that has an impact on the different population groups within South Africa. This picture can also be influenced by the impact of socio-demographic or genetic factors in different settings. Seedat 1 summarised the pathophysiology of hypertension and response to treatment as follows: “Black hypertensive patients in South Africa are prone to cerebral haemorrhage, malignant hypertension, kidney disease leading to uraemia and congestive heart failure, whereas coronary heart disease (CHD) is relatively uncommon. In contrast, CHD is the major outcome related to hypertension in the white and Indian communities. In black patients with hypertension, the responses to antihypertensive medication such as the beta-blockers and the angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) inhibitors are poor, unless these agents are combined with a thiazide diuretic. Black patients respond best to diuretics, vasodilators or calcium channel blockers. ” The impact of hypertension on mortality in an African population was assessed by Kaufman et al. 2 in 1996. They reported that the risk of death increased by 60%, with an increase of 20 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure (BP) in rural Nigeria, and estimated that the population attributable risk (the reduction in total mortality that would have been observed if hypertension were not present) was 7%, showing the impact of hypertension on all-cause mortality in rural Nigeria. 2