Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Active Disturbance Rejection With Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Control for a Lower Limb Exoskeleton in Swing Phase

In this paper, a control strategy is proposed to improve the tracking performance of the lower limb exoskeleton (LLE). The proposed active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) with fast terminal sliding mode control (FTSMC) can not only alleviate the disturbance but also converge to a bounded region fast. Based on the robotics analysis, a dynamic model for the LLE was established. To achieve decoupling control for a coupled system, the virtual control input was introduced, where the system uncertainty and external disturbances were regarded as lumped disturbances. To validate the feasibility of the proposed control strategy, the simulations and experiments were both carried out. The numerical simulation results were shown that the proposed control strategy and ADRC can remarkably reduce the chattering phenomena, which is owing to the estimation ability of extended state observer (ESO). Both the simulations and the experiments results were shown that this strategy was better than the conventional proportional–integral–derivative (PID) and ADRC in terms of tracking performance. With the proposed ADRC-FTSMC, the LLE system can achieve higher tracking precision and faster response.
Human iPSC gene signatures and X chromosome dosage impact response to WNT inhibition and cardiac differentiation fate

Non-genetic variability in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines impacts their differentiation outcome, limiting their utility for genetic studies and clinical applications. Despite the importance of understanding how non-genetic molecular variability influences iPSC differentiation outcome, large-scale studies capable of addressing this question have not yet been conducted. Here, we performed 258 directed differentiations of 191 iPSC lines using established protocols to generate iPSC-derived cardiovascular progenitor cells (iPSC-CVPCs). We observed cellular heterogeneity across the iPSC-CVPC samples due to varying fractions of two cell types: cardiomyocytes (CMs) and epicardium-derived cells (EPDCs). Analyzing the transcriptomes of CM-fated and EPDC-fated iPSCs discovered that 91 signature genes and X chromosome dosage differences influence WNT inhibition response during differentiation and are associated with cardiac fate. Analysis of an independent set of 39 iPSCs differentiated to the cardiac lineage confirmed shared sex and transcriptional differences that impact cardiac fate outcome. The scale and systematic approach of our study enabled novel insights into how iPSC transcriptional and X chromosome gene dosage differences influence WNT signaling during differentiation and hence cardiac cell fate.
Nil Whey Protein Effect on Glycemic Control after Intense Mixed-Mode Training in Type 2 Diabetes.

Although intense endurance and resistance exercise training and whey protein supplementation have both been shown to independently improve glycemic control, no known studies have examined the effect of high-intensity mixed-mode interval training (MMIT) and whey supplementation in adults with Type 2 diabetes (T2D). PURPOSE This study aimed to determine if peritraining whey protein supplementation combined with MMIT can improve glycemic control. METHODS In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, 24 men (55.7 ± 5.6 yr) with T2D performed MMIT with whey (20 g) or placebo control for 10 wk. Glycemic control was assessed via glucose disposal rate during a euglycemic insulin clamp, fasting blood glucose concentration, and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance. Changes in peak oxygen consumption, 1-repetition maximum strength, vastus lateralis muscle, and subcutaneous adipose thicknesses, and waist circumference were also assessed. RESULTS Ten weeks of MMIT substantially improved glucose disposal rate by 27.5% (90% confidence interval, 1.2%-60.7%) and 24.8% (-5.4% to 64.8%) in the whey and control groups, respectively. There were likely and possible reductions in fasting blood glucose by -17.4% (-30.6% to -1.6%) and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance by -14.1% (-25.3% to 1.08%) in the whey group; however, whey effects were not clearly beneficial to glycemic outcomes relative to the control. MMIT also clearly substantially improved 1-repetition maximum by 20.6% (16.3%-24.9%) and 22.7% (18.4%-27.2%), peak oxygen consumption by 22.6% (12.0%-26.2%) and 18.5% (10.5%-27.4%), and vastus lateralis muscle thickness by 18.9% (12.0%-26.2%) and 18.6% (10.5%-27.4%) and possibly reduced waist circumference by -2.1% (-3.1% to -1.0%) and -1.9% (-3.7% to -0.1%) in the control and whey groups, respectively, but the whey-control outcome was trivial or unclear. CONCLUSIONS A clinically meaningful enhancement in glycemic control after 10 wk of MMIT was not clearly advanced with peritraining whey protein supplementation in middle-age men with T2D.
Unpacking the climatic drivers of US agricultural yields

Understanding the climatic drivers of present-day agricultural yields is critical for prioritizing adaptation strategies to climate change. However, unpacking the contribution of different environmental stressors remains elusive in large-scale observational settings in part because of the lack of an extensive long-term network of soil moisture measurements and the common seasonal concurrence of droughts and heat waves. In this study, we link state-of-the-art land surface model data and fine-scale weather information with a long panel of county-level yields for six major US crops (1981–2017) to unpack their historical and future climatic drivers. To this end, we develop a statistical approach that flexibly characterizes the distinct intra-seasonal yield sensitivities to high-frequency fluctuations of soil moisture and temperature. In contrast with previous statistical evidence, we directly elicit an important role of water stress in explaining historical yields. However, our models project the direct effect of temperature—which we interpret as heat stress—remains the primary climatic driver of future yields under climate change.
Seasonal variation in phytoplankton density of Bhagirathi River at Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) India

Phytoplanktonic study is very important because they act as primary producers, food for variety of aquatic organisms and an efficient bio-indicator for water quality. Large population of phytoplankton is thriving in this wetland which enhances its productivity. A Total of 36 phytoplanktonic genera were identified in the present study. Bacillariophyceae include 15 genera, chlorophyceae include 10 genera, myxophyceae include 7 genera and desmidiaceae include 4 genera. In River Bhagirathi the overall total density fluctuates from 4.0 ± 1.41 Unit l-1 (October) to 179.0 ± 26.87 Unit l-1 (November). Seasonal total density ranged from minimum 77.67 ± 6.81 Unit l-1 (monsoon) at site S1 to maximum 168.6 ± 53.29 Unit l-1 (winter) at site S2.
The Impact of Property Management System Practical Training on Graduates’ Skills Development: An Analytical study on Faculties of Tourism and Hotels in Egypt

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of front office practical training on graduates’ skills development. The research objectives are to examine the effect of instructor competency, training environment and training content on graduates’ skills development. The current study adopted the quantitative method using the questionnaire as a tool for data collection to test the research hypotheses and achieve its aim and objectives. The questionnaire form was distributed to 389 undergraduate from the targeted five governmental faculties, and 168 forms were included in this study. It is revealed that the independent variable (training content) have significant positive effect on the dependent variable (developing graduates’ skills), meanwhile the training content has the greatest effect on graduates’ skills development, while the other two independent variable (instructor competency and training environment) were found insignificantly effecting the graduates’ skills development. There is a shortage of studies that evaluated the relationship between the training usages of specific IT software (e.g. front office modules) and the universities graduates’ specifications ( Law & Jogaratnam, 2005; Nthebe, 2016 ). This study consider from the few studies deep search with the PMS training in faculties of tourism and hotels in Egypt. The researcher recommends continue developing the training on (IT) skills to enhance the specifications of graduates from the faculty of tourism and hotels in Egypt to be easily able to join the labor market. Keywords: PMS, IT training, ICT, Front Office, Graduates skills, Hospitality curriculum
Prediction and Prevention of Preeclampsia and Other Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

7 Aim . 7 Methods . 7 Results . 7 Conclusion . 8 List of Tables . 13 List of Figures . 15 List of Abbreviations . 18 Chapter 1: Introduction . 21 Section 1.1 Aims of thesis . 28 Chapter 2: Methodology . 32 Systematic Reviews . 32 Section 2.1 Systematic reviews of Effectiveness (Lipid Lowering agents, Biomarkers) . 32 Section 2.2 Systematic Reviews of Test Accuracy (Stillbirth and Doppler review) . 34 Section 2.3 Primary Study . 35 Section 2.4 Validation Section . 38 Chapter 3: Abnormal blood biomarkers in early pregnancy are associated with PE: A systematic review of effectiveness . 40 10 3.1 Abstract . 40 3.2 Introduction . 42 3.3 Methods . 43 3.4 Results . 45 3.5 Discussion . 54 Chapter 4: Predictive accuracy of UAD indices for stillbirth: a systematic review and meta-analysis . 58 4.1 Abstract . 58 4.2 Introduction . 60 4.3 Methods . 61 4.4 Results . 62 4.5 Discussion . 72 Chapter 5: Prospective observational study to determine the accuracy of 1st trimester serum biomarkers and UADs in combination with maternal characteristics and arteriography for the prediction of women at risk of PE and other adverse pregnancy outcomes . 76 5.1 Abstract . 76 5.2 Introduction . 79 5.3 Materials and Methods . 80 5.4 Results . 83 5.4.1 PE . 83 5.4.2 PIH . 85
The Degree of Smoking for Out Patient with COPD in Padang

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an air flow inhibition disease that often occurs in cigarette exposure to active or passive smokers. Indonesia is one of the developing countries that have a high number of active smokers. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of smoking in COPD patients in the city of Padang. This observational descriptive study was conducted by interviewing COPD patients who were admitted to Dr. Rashidin Lung General Hospital and Reksosudiryo Army Hospital. Data is taken from May to September 2018. Data is processed manually and presented in the form of a frequency distribution table. A total of 53 subjects were included in this study after signing written informed consent and found the Brinkman index value was heavy at 47.2%, moderate at 22.6% and mild at 30.2%. In this study, it can be concluded that the highest percentage of COPD patients is heavy smokers.
DEIXIS IN THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES MOVIE SCRIPT

Pragmatics is the study of the relationship between language and context that forms the basis of determining understanding of utterance. This study was entitled “An Analysis of deixis in The spider wick chronicles script”. The problems of this study were what types of deixis are used in the spider wick chronicles script, and what is the dominant deixis used in The Spider wick Chronicles movie script. The objectives of this study were to find the types of deixis and to find the dominant of deixis in The spider wick Chronicles movie script. This study was purposed to find out the types and the dominant of deixis are used in The spider wick chronicles script. The script was get from internet. This study applied descriptive qualitative method. The following steps, it applied was the first, this study looked for the movie, the second, this study watched the movie, then, looked for the movie script of the movie “The spider wick chronicles”, the fourth, this study identified the sentence of the movie script based on four types of deixis. From the analysis, it is found that there are four types : personal deixis, time deixis, place deixis, and discourse deixis. Keywords: Pragmatic, deixis, the spider wick chronicles script.
Does variation in glucocorticoid regulation predict fitness? A phylogenetic meta-analysis

Glucocorticoid hormones (GCs) are central mediators of metabolism and the response to challenges. Because circulating levels of GCs increase in response to challenges, within-population variation in GCs could reflect individual variation in condition or experience. At the same time, individual variation in the degree to which GCs increase in response to challenges (which is relatively consistent within individuals over time) could have causal effects on stress coping capacity, and the ability to survive and reproduce. Although a number of studies in vertebrates have tested whether within-population variation in GCs predicts components of fitness, it is not clear whether there are consistent patterns across taxa. Here we present the first phylogenetic meta-analysis testing whether within-population variation in GCs is associated with components of fitness across vertebrates. At the same time, we introduce and test predictions about an overlooked but potentially important mediator of GC-fitness relationships: life history context. We suggest that strong context-dependence in the fitness benefit of maintaining elevated GCs could obscure consistent patterns between GCs and fitness across taxa. Meta-analyses revealed that across vertebrates, baseline and stress-induced GCs were consistently negatively correlated with reproductive success. This relationship did not differ depending on life history context. In contrast, the relationships between GCs and survival were highly context dependent, differing according to life history strategy. Both baseline and stress-induced GCs were more strongly negatively associated with survival in longer-lived populations and species. Stress-induced GCs were also more negatively associated with survival in organisms that engage in relatively more valuable reproductive attempts. Fecal GCs did not predict survival or reproductive success. We also used a meta-analytic approach to test whether experimental increases in GCs had consistent causal effects on fitness. Experimental increases in GCs reduced both survival and reproductive success, although the latter relationship was not significant when accounting for phylogeny. Overall, these results support the prediction that GC-fitness relationships can be strongly context dependent, and suggest that incorporating life history may be particularly important for understanding GC-survival relationships. Future studies that explore the role of other aspects of context (e.g., the nature and frequency of stressors, environmental variation) within and across species could provide important insights how and when variation in GC regulation predicts fitness.
UniWalk: Unidirectional Random Walk Based Scalable SimRank Computation over Large Graph

SimRank is an important measure of vertex-pair similarity according to the structure of graphs. Although progress has been achieved, existing methods still face challenges to handle large graphs. Besides huge index construction and maintenance cost, existing methods may require considerable search space and time overheads in the online SimRank query. In this paper, we design a Monte Carlo based method, UniWalk, to enable the fast top-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq1-2779126.gif"/> </alternatives></inline-formula> SimRank computation over large undirected graphs. UniWalk directly locates the top- <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq2-2779126.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> similar vertices for any single source vertex <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$u$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq3-2779126.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> via <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$R$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq4-2779126.gif"/> </alternatives></inline-formula> sampling paths originating from <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$u$ </tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq5-2779126.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, which avoids selecting candidate vertex set <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal{C}$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq6-2779126.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> and the following <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(|\mathcal{C}|R)$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="song-ieq7-2779126.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> bidirectional sampling paths. We also devise a path enumeration strategy to improve the SimRank precision by using path probabilities instead of path frequencies when sampling, a space-efficient method to reduce intermediate results, and a path-sharing strategy to lower the redundant path sampling cost for multiple source vertices. Furthermore, we extend UniWalk to existing distributed graph processing frameworks to improve its scalability. We conduct extensive experiments to illustrate that UniWalk has high scalability, and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by orders of magnitude.
Ankylosing Spondylitis and Axial Spondyloarthritis.

Chronic back pain is common worldwide and is cared for by a variety of providers, but specific, satisfactory treatment is often lacking. Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disorder that in its extreme form can lead to the bony fusion of vertebral joints, is an uncommon but well-established cause of chronic back pain. During the past decade, ankylosing spondylitis has come to be considered as a subset of the broader and more prevalent diagnostic entity referred to as axial spondyloarthritis. The estimated prevalence of axial spondyloarthritis in the United States is 0.9 to 1.4% of the adult population, similar to that of rheumatoid arthritis.1 Axial spondyloarthritis is generally diagnosed and treated by rheumatologists, and there is specific treatment for it. However, prolonged delay in reaching the diagnosis is common and is usually the result of the failure of recognition by nonrheumatologists.2 This review is intended to enhance awareness and understanding of axial spondyloarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis — and the relationship between the two — in order to facilitate prompt and accurate diagnosis and proper treatment. Recent advances in our understanding and treatment of these conditions are discussed.
Distributed Estimation of Gaussian Correlations

We study a distributed estimation problem in which two remotely located parties, Alice and Bob, observe an unlimited number of i.i. d. samples corresponding to two different parts of a random vector. Alice can send <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$ </tex-math></inline-formula> bits on average to Bob, who in turn wants to estimate the cross-correlation matrix between the two parts of the vector. In the case where the parties observe jointly Gaussian scalar random variables with an unknown correlation <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\rho $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, we obtain two constructive and simple unbiased estimators attaining a variance of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(1-\rho ^{2})/(2k\ln 2)$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, which coincides with a known but non-constructive random coding result of Zhang and Berger. We extend our approach to the vector Gaussian case, which has not been treated before, and construct an estimator that is uniformly better than the scalar estimator applied separately to each of the correlations. We then show that the Gaussian performance can essentially be attained even when the distribution is completely unknown. This in particular implies that in the general problem of distributed correlation estimation, the variance can decay at least as <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(1/k)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with the number of transmitted bits. This behavior, however, is not tight: we give an example of a rich family of distributions for which local samples reveal essentially nothing about the correlations, and where a slightly modified estimator attains a variance of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2^{-\Omega (k)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>.
Association analysis of loci implied in “buffering” epistasis

The existence of buffering mechanisms is an emerging property of biological networks, and this results in the possible existence of “buffering” loci, that would allow buildup of robustness through evolution. So far, there are no explicit methods to find loci implied in buffering mechanisms. However, buffering can be seen as interaction with genetic background. Here we develop this idea into a tractable model for quantitative genetics, in which the buffering effect of one locus with many other loci is condensed into a single (statistical) effect, multiplicative on the total (statistical) additive genetic effect. This allows easier interpretation of the results, and it also simplifies the problem of detecting epistasis from quadratic to linear in the number of loci. Armed with this formulation, we construct a linear model for genome-wide association studies that estimates, and declares significance, of multiplicative epistatic effects at single loci. The model has the form of a variance components, norm reaction model and likelihood ratio tests are used for significance. This model is a generalization and explanation of previous ones. We then test our model using bovine data: Brahman and Tropical Composite animals, phenotyped for body weight at yearling and genotyped up to ∼770,000 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP). After association analysis and based on False Discovery Rate rules, we find a number of loci with buffering action in one, the other, or both breeds; these loci do not have significant statistical additive effect. Most of these loci have been reported in previous studies, either with an additive effect, or as footprints of selection. We identify epistatic SNPs present in or near genes encoding for proteins that are functionally enriched for peptide activity and transcription factors reported in the context of signatures of selection in multi-breed cattle population studies. These include loci known to be associated with coat color, fertility and adaptation to tropical environments. In these populations we found loci that have a non-significant statistical additive effect but a significant epistatic effect. We argue that the discovery and study of loci associated with buffering effects allows attacking the difficult problems, among others, of release of maintenance variance in artificial and natural selection, of quick adaptation to the environment, and of opposite signs of marker effects in different backgrounds. We conclude that our method and our results generate promising new perspectives for research in evolutionary and quantitative genetics based on the study of loci that buffer effect of other loci.