Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Power losses in flux concentrators of inductor systems for induction cooktops

Sources of the power losses in inductor systems for induction heating home appliances are described in this paper. Energy efficiency is one of the main concerns in the design of this kind of components, thus, the power losses estimation based on computational methods constitutes a powerful tool to achieve optimal results. However, classical model neglects the contribution of the power losses in the flux concentrator usually made of ferrite. This work is focused on the assessment of the importance of this contribution with the support of numerical simulations performed in COMSOL®. Finally, the power losses in the ferrites carried out from the simulation are compared to the total power consumption of the induction heating system in order to determine the importance of the power losses in the flux concentrators.
A modelling study of locomotion‐induced hyperpolarization of voltage threshold in cat lumbar motoneurones

During fictive locomotion the excitability of adult cat lumbar motoneurones is increased by a reduction (a mean hyperpolarization of ≈6.0 mV) of voltage threshold (Vth) for action potential (AP) initiation that is accompanied by only small changes in AP height and width. Further examination of the experimental data in the present study confirms that Vth lowering is present to a similar degree in both the hyperpolarized and depolarized portions of the locomotor step cycle. This indicates that Vth reduction is a modulation of motoneurone membrane currents throughout the locomotor state rather than being related to the phasic synaptic input within the locomotor cycle. Potential ionic mechanisms of this locomotor‐state‐dependent increase in excitability were examined using three five‐compartment models of the motoneurone innervating slow, fast fatigue resistant and fast fatigable muscle fibres. Passive and active membrane conductances were set to produce input resistance, rheobase, afterhyperpolarization (AHP) and membrane time constant values similar to those measured in adult cat motoneurones in non‐locomoting conditions. The parameters of 10 membrane conductances were then individually altered in an attempt to replicate the hyperpolarization of Vth that occurs in decerebrate cats during fictive locomotion. The goal was to find conductance changes that could produce a greater than 3 mV hyperpolarization of Vth with only small changes in AP height (< 3 mV) and width (< 1.2 ms). Vth reduction without large changes in AP shape could be produced either by increasing fast sodium current or by reducing delayed rectifier potassium current. The most effective Vth reductions were achieved by either increasing the conductance of fast sodium channels or by hyperpolarizing the voltage dependency of their activation. These changes were particularly effective when localized to the initial segment. Reducing the conductance of delayed rectifier channels or depolarizing their activation produced similar but smaller changes in Vth. Changes in current underlying the AHP, the persistent Na+ current, three Ca2+ currents, the ‘h’ mixed cation current, the ‘A’ potassium current and the leak current were either ineffective in reducing Vth or also produced gross changes in the AP. It is suggested that the increased excitability of motoneurones during locomotion could be readily accomplished by hyperpolarizing the voltage dependency of fast sodium channels in the axon hillock by a hitherto unknown neuromodulatory action.
A simple, predictive, structure‐based skin permeability model

By an extension of our simple, molecular size‐based model recently developed to describe octanol‐water partition coefficients, we were able to obtain an entirely structure‐based model that seems well suited to describe human skin permeability data. The corresponding equations not only eliminate the physicochemical interrelatedness of the parameters of the original Potts & Guy approach that was obtained from similar considerations, but also maintain its elegant simplicity and are consistent with a basic physicochemical model of the related phenomena. As the new model is structure based and fully computerized, it allows direct estimation of skin permeability for any molecule of known structure without the need to obtain octanol‐water partition coefficients or other experimental data.
Exploring Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) as a housing finance option in Nigeria

While traditional housing finance system in Nigeria could not stem the estimated shortage of 17 million, some identified modern sources had also made little impact on housing finance. Sustainable real estate financing requires a system which can be repackaged and traded for further creation of credit over time as fitting into the structure of Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). The paper examines literature for the nature and workings of REIT. It identifies REIT types and examples as well as its benefits across its operational world. In the applicability of REIT to Nigeria, some germane considerations are explored as related to ownership structure and institutional investors among others. The study finds out that the level of appreciation of REIT is low in Nigeria. The performance of the Stock Exchange (SE) too has not been very encouraging for REITs’ operation. For the few REIT companies listed on the SE, the share prices are low partly because of a recent crash of the Nigerian stock market, from which recovery is very slow. While the national housing policy in Nigeria absolves the government from direct construction of houses, private or quasi-public housing development institutions need to find sustainable means of housing finance. This paper contributes to the discussions on alternative means of housing finance as REIT could be subscribed to even by small investors. However, improved education on REIT could also ameliorate housing finance in Nigeria. Keywords: Housing finance, Housing market, REITs, Stock market
Late infantile Hirschsprung disease–mental retardation syndrome with a 3-bp deletion in ZFHX1B

A 48-year-old woman with late infantile onset mental retardation developed megacolon. Although the patient had no typical clinical features of Hirschsprung disease–mental retardation syndrome, a new 3–base pair deletion, eliminating an Asn, was identified in the responsible gene ZFHX1B. This suggests that screening for ZFHX1B mutations is warranted even in the absence of typical clinical features of the syndrome.
Project Selection Frameworks and Methodologies for Reducing Risks in Project Portfolio Management

Extracting and consolidating knowledge from past projects can help managers in selecting projects with the correct level of riskiness, while market analysis gives directions for reaching the objective of a balanced project portfolio. To this extent, the chapter discusses strategic importance of project selection and the role of risks and uncertainties in project portfolio management and presents different some fundamental and innovative frameworks and project selection methodologies for balancing risks. Finally, the chapter proposes a model containing an innovative methodology, based on artificial neural networks, to help managers in balancing project portfolio and assessing projects during the selection phase on the basis of risks, uncertainties and critical success factors.
Cloning vectors derived from animal viruses.

Conclusions The examples discussed above show clearly that the development of vectors for use in eukaryotic cells is presently proceeding very rapidly. Knowledge gained from the use of one type of vector defines the design criteria for the next type and thus many systems become obsolete before they are fully developed. Some future work can be predicted with reasonable certainty. The vast majority of future vectors will incorporate dominant selectable markers and regulatable promoters and we can expect to see vectors containing several different origins of DNA replication so that their replication can be controlled in several ways. In parallel with these refinements will occur the development of eukaryotic vectors suitable for the primary cloning of genomic DNA or cDNA. This will be of the greatest importance as it will allow the immunological or phenotypic recognition of genes by virtue of their expression in eukaryotic cells, thus facilitating the isolation of eukaryotic genes which can not be detected by the techniques available for screening prokaryotic clones. The use of such vector systems will surely be a central feature of all future work in eukaryotic molecular biology.
Education and tourism as a driver of socio-economic development of a city (case-study of the City of Kazan)

This paper deals with the effect of education and tourism on urban development on the example of the city of Kazan - the capital and the most populated city of the Republic of Tatarstan. Educational system of the city has been briefly described, the higher education system, as well as both formal and informal educational institutions have been considered. Trends in the growth of the number of foreign students of the higher educational institutions of Kazan have been mentioned. The effect of the higher educational institutions on the urban economy has been described. An educational function of museums and libraries has been mentioned, educational activities held in museums and libraries of the city, as well as creative use of urban spaces for educational purposes have been exemplified. The impact of the variety of educational institutions of different levels on the economic and cultural development of the city, as well as on the strengthening of the tourism appeal has been described. Trends in the development of the tourism industry of the city as one of the most promising sectors of the urban economy have been described. The examples of interactive projects, organized by the museums, interesting on the one hand for tourists visiting the city, and, on the other hand, educational in nature, have been given. The attractiveness of Kazan as a promising and popular area of domestic tourism, which on top of that offers the extensive opportunities for educational tourism, gas been described.
Experimental Designs and Estimation for Online Display Advertising Attribution in Marketplaces

Online Display Advertising’s importance as a marketing channel is partially due to its ability to attribute conversions to campaigns. Current industry practice to measure ad effectiveness is to run randomized experiments using placebo ads, assuming external validity for future exposures. We identify two different effects, i.e., a strategic effect of the campaign presence in marketplaces, and a selection effect due to user targeting; these are confounded in current practices. We propose two novel randomized designs to: (1) estimate the overall campaign attribution without placebo ads, (2) disaggregate the campaign presence and ad effects. Using the Potential Outcomes Causal Model, we address the selection effect by estimating the probability of selecting influenceable users. We show the ex-ante value of continuing evaluation to enhance the user selection for ad exposure mid-flight. We analyze two performance-based (CPA) and one Cost-Per-Impression (CPM) campaigns with 20 million users each. We estimate a negative CPM campaign presence effect due to cross product spillovers. Experimental evidence suggests that CPA campaigns incentivize selection of converting users regardless of the ad, up to 96% more than CPM campaigns, thus challenging the standard practice of targeting most likely converting users.Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi. org/10.1287/mksc.2016. 0982 .
Epidemiological and economic burden of Alzheimer's disease: a systematic literature review of data across Europe and the United States of America.

BACKGROUND Alzheimer's disease (AD) weighs heavily on health expenditure and is strongly associated with increasing age. Due to population aging, increasing global prevalence of AD will pose huge challenges to public health and elderly care systems in all countries across the world. OBJECTIVES This study aimed to better understand the burden of AD from a healthcare perspective. METHODS A systematic literature review of journal articles published between January 2002 and December 2012 was performed for studies conducted in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (USA), using Medline, Embase, and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database. RESULTS 3,288 references were initially retrieved, and 39 epidemiological and 66 economic publications were selected for data extraction. AD incidence rates greatly varied between countries; however, prevalence was more consistent across all included countries, ranging between 3-7%. Overall, medical costs were lower in France compared to other included countries and increased with AD severity, e.g., direct medical costs per year for mild AD ranged from 5,476 int$ in France to 27,380 int$ in Spain. Limitations, such as heterogeneous methodology and missing data, prevented the comparison of results across studies between countries or the conclusion of any trend over time. CONCLUSION This review corroborates previous understanding that AD burden is high for both society and healthcare providers. Limitations regarding study heterogeneity restricted conclusions; further research is required. Stakeholders could benefit from new healthcare strategies addressing both epidemiological and economic aspects of AD.
Increased Breast Cancer Risk among Women Who Work Predominantly at Night

Irregular working hours, including working at night, have serious psychological and physiological effects. In a nationwide population-based case-control study, we investigated the breast cancer risk among 30- to 54-year-old Danish women who worked predominantly at night. Individual employment histories were reconstructed back to 1964 for each of 7035 women with breast cancer and their individually matched controls from the records of a nationwide pension scheme with compulsory membership. Odds ratios, including 5 years of induction time and adjusted for socio-economic status, age at the birth of first and last child and number of children, were estimated by conditional logistic regression analysis. The odds ratio for breast cancer among women who worked at night at least half of a year was 1.5 (95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 1.7), and there was a tendency to increasing odds ratio by increasing duration of nighttime employment.
CLINICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TUMOR STROMA IN BREAST CANCER PATIENTS

Objective: to examine the relationship between the expression of CD34 antigen class II, which is a marker of endothelial cells and is used to identify the capillaries and the ratio of the stroma — the parenchyma in tumor tissue, stages T1–2N0–1M0 with general and disease-free survival of patients with breast cancer (BC). Object and methods: the investigations were conducted in 267 patients with BC T1–2N0–1M0. Fixing material was carried out using neutral 10% buffered formalin. After the immunohistochemical reaction sections were counterstained with Mayer’s hematoxylin. In evaluating the results, the 5 fields of view take into account the number of microvessels in one field of view. Results: peculiarities of tumor stroma in BC with the CD34 class II antigen expression, which is a marker of endothelial cells and was used to identify capillaries. In tumors in which the stromal component was more than 50% by MAb to the antigen CD34, less than 30 microvessels were determined in one field of vision. In cases where the proportion of stroma accounted less than 50% of the tumor area, the number of identified vessels increased to 52. Overall and disease-free survival rates were higher in patients with manifested reaction of tumor stroma. Conclusions: the patients with BC, the expression of CD34 antigen in the blood vessels of the tumor and the area occupied by stroma, are in inverse correlation (r = -0,68). In tumors with marked stroma of microvessels in one field of vision was reduced, and, conversely, when the tumor stroma was noticeable less microvessel density was higher. Increasing the area occupied by the tumor stroma, the prognosis of patients with BC have been more favorable, despite the high degree of expression of CD34 antigen class II tumor cells in BC.
The Cellular Immune System in Female Patients with or without Genital Warts: A Study of Peripheral White Blood Cell Components

The immune system plays a vital role in the fight against infections. The commonest viral infections treated in the genitourinary medicine (GUM) departments are genital warts. Knowledge about the status of the immune system in these patients may help in their clinical management. This study compares the values of various blood cell components in the peripheral blood of 2 groups of female patients—those with genital warts against those without genital warts. The mean monocyte count was lower among patients with genital warts.
Acute low back pain: systematic review of its prognosis

Abstract Objectives To describe the course of acute low back pain and sciatica and to identify clinically important prognostic factors for these conditions. Design Systematic review. Data sources Searches of Medline, Embase, Cinahl, and Science Citation Index and iterative searches of bibliographies. Main outcome measures Pain, disability, and return to work. Results 15 studies of variable methodological quality were included. Rapid improvements in pain (mean reduction 58% of initial scores), disability (58%), and return to work (82% of those initially off work) occurred in one month. Further improvement was apparent until about three months. Thereafter levels for pain, disability, and return to work remained almost constant. 73% of patients had at least one recurrence within 12 months. Conclusions People with acute low back pain and associated disability usually improve rapidly within weeks. None the less, pain and disability are typically ongoing, and recurrences are common.
Residential Customer Satisfaction Performance Assessment Model for Electricity Service for a Power Utility in Brazil

Measuring organizational performance is a necessary condition for improving management systems and the achievement of companies' strategic objectives. To evaluate customer satisfaction has been a challenge for companies since high levels of satisfaction correlate with high levels of performance. Particularly in the provision of public services such as water, sanitation, gas and energy, it can assess the level of consumer satisfaction with power utilities. The design of the performance measurement system model and the respective formulation of its indicators is, therefore, a critical element in the design of the service operations management system. Performance evaluation in utilities' services is strongly connected to customer satisfaction. This work presents a literature review of customer satisfaction and performance evaluation and a set of performance measures to form the customer satisfaction for electric power supply services. The main result is a framework regarding the performance indicators to be monitored for electricity services customer satisfaction, the frequency of measurement, the frequency of review, who is responsible for the measurement and the source of data.
Probabilistic approaches for tracking physiological states in the cortex through sleep and seizures

Author(s): Dadok, Vera Marie | Advisor(s): Szeri, Andrew J | Abstract: We present work in this dissertation on methods to map measured electrode signals from human subjects into the physiologically relevant parameter space of a mathematical model of the cortex, approaching two specific dynamical brain phenomena: sleep and seizures. In the context of sleep, we develop a probabilistic method for mapping human sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) signals onto a state space based on a biologically plausible mathematical model of the cortex. From a noninvasive EEG signal, this method produces physiologically meaningful pathways of the cortical state over a night of sleep. We propose ways in which these pathways offer insights into sleep-related conditions, functions, and complex pathologies. To address explicitly the noisiness of the EEG signal and the stochastic nature of the mathematical model, we use a probabilistic Bayesian framework to map each EEG epoch to a distribution of likelihoods over all model sleep states. A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is incorporated to improve the path results using the prior knowledge that cortical physiology has temporal continuity. Next we adapt our probabilistic methodology to infer the parameter region in the mathematical model of the cortex most likely to be producing seizures observed in an electrocorticogram (ECoG) signal. This method produces a probabilistic pathway of the temporal evolution of physiological state in the cortex over the course of individual seizures. We describe ways in which these methods and results offer insights into seizure etiology and suggest potential new treatment options. Once again, a probabilistic Bayesian framework is used to map features of EEG or ECoG segments onto a distribution of likelihoods over physiological parameter states. And again, a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is introduced to incorporate the belief that cortical physiology has both temporal continuity and also a degree of reproducibility between individual seizures. However, for seizures, we additionally inspect the ratio of likelihoods between HMMs run under two possible parameter regions, both of which produce seizures in the model, to determine which physiological parameter regions are more likely to be causing the observed seizures. We show that between individual seizures, there is consistency in these likelihood ratios between hypothesized regions, in the temporal pathways calculated, and in the separation of seizure from non-seizure time segment likelihood maps. We also improve upon several of the underlying techniques for sampling the parameter state space, feature selection, and probability density estimation.
Lowest-degree robust finite element scheme for a fourth-order elliptic singular perturbation problem on rectangular grids

In this paper, a piecewise quadratic nonconforming finite element method on rectangular grids for a fourth-order elliptic singular perturbation problem is presented. This proposed method is robustly convergent with respect to the perturbation parameter. Numerical results are presented to verify the theoretical findings. The new method uses piecewise quadratic polynomials, and is of the lowest degree possible. Optimal order approximation property of the finite element space is proved by means of a locally-averaged interpolation operator newly constructed. This interpolator, however, is not a projection. Indeed, we establish a general theory and show that no locally defined interpolation associated with the locally supported basis functions can be projective for the finite element space in use. Particularly, the general theory gives an answer to a long-standing open problem presented in [Demko, J. Approx. Theory, $\bf{43}$(2):151--156, 1985].
INNOVATION AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN ROMANIAN SMES FAMILY BUSINESS

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Romanian SME family business innovation and change. We discover that so far only a few theoretical contribution and research has been offered in the field of innovation within the context of small family businesses. The findings suggest that innovation and change are decisive to the long-term survival and performance of family SMEs.