Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel non invasive failure detection system for power converters based on SCR rectifiers

In modern high power industrial processes, multipulse cycloconverters are fundamental to feed synchronous motors. Given the importance of these critical processes, especially for mining industry, the reliability of the high power drive is critical. Having a non-invasive system capable of detecting and isolating faults in the thyristors is quite valuable and it will reduce the economic losses caused by long repair times of the converter. Currently it is difficult and in some cases almost impossible to determine which of the SCRs experience an over-current or those which do not trigger properly causing a malfunction. In this paper, we present a new method of online detection which is capable of delivering information about the SCR involved in a failure and the nature of it. This new method takes only a few input and output measurements (non-invasive feature) already available in the most of industrial cycloconverters and performs a timing analysis of these measurements. The algorithms of the method estimate and analyze the switching states of all thyristors, providing an impressive way of detecting the cause and consequences of the failure in the cycloconverter.
Psychosocial work aspects, stress and musculoskeletal pain among musicians. A systematic review in search of correlates and predictors of playing-related pain.

BACKGROUND Musicians face numerous psychosocial and physical demands at work resulting in high prevalence of musculoskeletal problems. Unlike physical risks, little is known about psychosocial work factors influencing such health problems in this particular group. OBJECTIVE The paper aimed to identify psychosocial work demands resulting in musculoskeletal problems among musicians. METHODS A systematic review was undertaken to find data linking psychosocial work demands or stress with musculoskeletal disorders among musicians. RESULTS The exploration of databases resulted in nine research studies linking psychosocial aspects of work or stress with musculoskeletal problems among musicians. The analyzed studies linked psychosocial aspects with musculoskeletal problems in three ways - showing proportions of people indicating particular causes of pain, indicating correlations between these variables or performing regression analysis showing psychosocial predictors of musculoskeletal pain. CONCLUSIONS Only a few studies have undertaken the issue of psychosocial risk factors for musculoskeletal problems among musicians. The results revealed that some psychosocial aspects of work, e.g. long hours at work, work content, high job demands, low control/influence, lack of social support, were related to musculoskeletal pain, however, the methods and results were inconsistent. The extant studies employed variety of definitions of psychosocial aspects that hindered the possibility for consistent conclusions. Basing on those conclusions, future directions were offered.
Secure charging and payment protocol (SCPP) for roaming plug-in electric vehicles

Users of plug-in-electric vehicles (PEV) often need to charge outside their home power grid networks i.e. outside their supplier. This basically constitutes a roaming charging case. Hence, users should be protected from possible security and privacy attacks. Moreover, remote authorization and payment transaction mechanism is required between the different power suppliers. In this paper, we propose a secure charging and payment transaction protocol for roaming PEV charging. Our protocol is developed based on the principles of the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol. The protocol protects user's privacy not only from external suppliers but also from their own suppliers. Moreover, our protocol is designed in such a way that it is robust against the known security attacks. Our proposed work provides anonymous authorization and payment simultaneously not only between the roaming user and an external supplier but also between suppliers.
Hallux Valgus Correction Comparing Percutaneous Chevron/Akin (PECA) and Open Scarf/Akin Osteotomies

Background: Minimally invasive surgery is being used increasingly, including for hallux valgus surgery. Despite the growing interest in minimally invasive procedures, there have been few publications on percutaneous chevron/akin (PECA) procedures, and no studies have been published comparing PECA to open scarf/akin osteotomies (SA). Methods: This was a prospective, randomized study of 50 patients undergoing operative correction of hallux valgus using one of 2 techniques (PECA vs open SA). Data were collected preoperatively and on 1 day, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, and 6 months postoperatively. Outcome measures include the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society Hallux-Metatarsophalangeal-Interphalangeal (AOFAS-HMI) Score, visual analog pain score, hallux valgus angle (HVA), and 1-2 intermetatarsal angle (IMA). Twenty-five patients underwent PECA procedures and 25 patients received SA procedures. Results: Both groups showed significantly improved AOFAS-HMI scores after surgery (PECA group: 61.8 to 88.9, SA group: 57.3 to 84.1, P = .560) with comparable final scores. HVA and IMA also presented similar outcomes at final follow-up (P = .520 and P = .270, respectively). However, the PECA group showed significantly lower pain level (VAS) in the early postoperative phase (postoperative day 1 to postoperative week 6, P < .001 and P = .004, respectively). No serious complications were observed in either group. Conclusion: Both groups showed comparable good to excellent clinical and radiologic outcomes at final follow-up. However, the PECA group had significantly less pain in the first 6 weeks following surgery. Level of Evidence Level II, prospective comparative study.
Dynamic Exercise Discloses Different Time-Related Responses in Stress Hormones

Objective Responses to stressful events are generally regarded as reactions of the organism to accommodate to or compensate for stress. This reaction is classically described as an activation of the sympathoadrenal system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Activation of the release of growth hormone and prolactin in blood also occurs during various types of stress. Assuming that the stress response is a neuroendocrine mechanism that occurs in anticipation of physical exercise, we investigated whether an incremental exercise protocol can be used as a model stressor to disclose a distinct pattern of activation in these hormonal systems, which would support the notion that these systems have different roles in preparing the organism for physical activity and recovery. Moreover, such a model may help improve our understanding of the endocrine expressions of psychological stress. Methods After an overnight fast, 8 healthy men (age, 19–26 years) cycled at 40, 60, 80, and 100% of the power output at &OV0312;o2max in successive time blocks of 10 minutes each up to exhaustion. Venous blood was sampled immediately before exercise, at the end of each block, and during the recovery phase 5 and 30 minutes after exercise. Plasma adrenalin and noradrenalin were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography; plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone, &bgr;-endorphin, cortisol, growth hormone, and prolactin were measured by specific immunoassays. Heart rate and levels of blood lactate and adrenalin were measured as markers of workload-related responses. Results Results showed that increases in heart rate, lactate, adrenalin, noradrenalin, and growth hormone reflected the relative workload, in contrast to increases in adrenocorticotropic hormone, &bgr; endorphin, and prolactin, which were observed only after exercise reached an intensity of 80% &OV0312;o2max. Increases in cortisol were found just after exhaustion. The delayed response of cortisol may be initiated by a drop in blood glucose levels but may also be considered preparatory to vigorous muscular effort and protective against tissue damage. Conclusions Measurement of the cumulative response to exercise shows that activation of stress hormones occurs at different time points, supporting the notion that these hormones have different roles in preparing the organism for physical activity and recovery: ie, workload- and effort-related adaptation on one hand and protection against disturbed homeostasis on the other. The delayed response of the HPA axis during incremental exercise contrasts with the nondelayed HPA axis response observed during psychological stress and points to involvement of different neurobiological and cognitive emotional mechanisms.
A review on multi-agent systems in microgrid applications

The application of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) in electrical power systems are becoming popular due to their inherent benefits such as increased autonomy, reactivity, proactivity and social ability. This paper reviews current research on the application of multi-agent systems in microgrid schemes. The paper is mainly focused on recent developments of multi-agent systems in different aspects of microgrids such as control, market modeling, optimization and power restoration. The future directions of multi-agent systems in microgrid applications are also discussed briefly. Furthermore, this review is concluded by discussing the development of an enhanced multi-agent based distributed control framework for microgrids.
Multifrequency interpolation for fast off‐resonance correction

Field inhomogeneities or susceptibility variations produce blurring in images acquired using non‐2DFT k‐space readout trajectories. This problem is more pronounced for sequences with long readout times such as spiral imaging. Theoretical and practical correction methods based on an acquired field map have been reported in the past. This paper introduces a new correction method based on the existing concept of frequency segmented correction but which is faster and the‐oretically more accurate. It consists of reconstructing the data at several frequencies to form a set of base images that are then added together with spatially varying linear coefficients derived from the field map. The new algorithm is applied to phantom and in vivo images acquired with projection reconstruction and spiral sequences, yielding sharply focused images.
Characteristics and Outcome of Chinese Patients with Both Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody and Antiglomerular Basement Membrane Antibodies

Background: Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated systemic vasculitis (AASV) is a systemic autoimmune disease. A number of cases have been found to have antiglomerular basement membrane (GBM) antibody-positive serum. The purpose of the current article is to investigate the prevalence of anti-GBM antibodies in sera from a large cohort of Chinese patients with AASV and to characterize the clinical and pathological features of the ‘double positive’ patients. Methods: Sera from 652 patients with AASV were screened by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and confirmed by Western blot analysis using purified human α(IV)NC1 as antigen. Antigen specificity of anti-GBM antibodies was determined by ELISA using recombinant human α3(IV)NC1 as solid phase ligand. Clinical and pathological data of patients with both ANCA and anti-GBM antibodies were analyzed retrospectively. Results: 61/652 (9.36%) sera from patients with AASV were serum anti-GBM antibody positive and all recognized recombinant human α3(IV)NC1. All the cases had renal involvement, 37/48 (77.1%) cases had pulmonary involvement, non-specific symptoms and other multisystem involvements were common. The renal survival was 14.6% (7/48) and patient survival was 37.5% (18/48) respectively at the end of 1 year. The following factors predicted poor prognosis: (1) serum creatinine >700 µmol/l (p = 0.034); (2) oliguria or anuria on diagnosis (p = 0.001); (3) high percentage (>85%) of glomeruli with crescents (p = 0.011); (4) high titer anti-GBM antibodies (p = 0.003), and (5) hemoptysis (p = 0.049). Conclusion: Patients with double antibodies were not rare in AASV. They had multisystem involvement but poor short-term prognosis.Anti-GBM antibodies should be detected on diagnosis of AASV, especially for old ages.
Financial Development and Source of Growth: New Evidence

This paper examines how financial development affects the sources of growth—productivity and investment—using a sample of 145 countries for the period 1960-2011. We employ a range of econometric approaches, focusing on the CCA and MENA countries. The analysis looks beyond financial depth to capture the access, efficiency, stability, and openness dimensions of financial development. Yet even in this broad interpretation, financial development does not appear to be a magic bullet for economic growth. We cannot confirm earlier findings of an unambiguously positive relationship between financial development, investment, and productivity. The relationship is more complex. The influence of the different dimensions of financial development on the sources of growth varies across income levels and regions.
Total quality management and performance management systems: team players or lonely riders?

The paper investigates the joint effects of using total quality management (TQM) and performance management systems (PMSs) on the importance managers place on five different performance perspectives. Our study extends the current knowledge on the simultaneous use of multiple managerial concepts. Contrary to other studies of TQM and PMSs, we take into account that their effects are not independent from the use of other managerial concepts. Controlling for contextual variables and the use of other managerial concepts, we test the effects of joint TQM-PMS use on cross-section data from a sample of 264 companies. We find that the joint use is associated with a decrease in the perceived importance of customer perspective. This implies that only the importance of the customer measures changes for managers because they use TQM and PMS. One possible explanation for this result is that TQM companies over-emphasise the customer perspective which is ‘counter-balanced’ if PMS is jointly used. For other perspectives (employee, operational, return, and financial), we find only weak evidence of interdependencies between TQM and PMSs.
Corticosterone decreases nonshivering thermogenesis and increases lipid storage in brown adipose tissue.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) contains glucocorticoid receptors; glucocorticoids are required for maintaining differentiated BAT in culture. These studies were performed to determine the effects of corticosterone on BAT thermogenic function and lipid storage. Rats were adrenalectomized and given subcutaneous corticosterone pellets in concentrations that maintained plasma corticosterone constant across the range of 0-20 micrograms/dl or were sham adrenalectomized. All variables were examined 5 days after surgery and corticosterone replacement. Measures of BAT function-thermogenic capacity [guanosine 5'-diphosphate (GDP) binding and uncoupling protein (UCP; a BAT-specific thermogenic protein)] and storage (BAT wet wt, protein, and DNA levels) were made. Plasma hormones (corticosterone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, insulin, 3,3',5-triiodothyronine, and thyroxine were measured. Corticosterone significantly affected BAT thermogenic measures: UCP content and binding of GDP to BAT mitochondria decreased with increasing corticosterone; GDP binding characteristics in BAT from similarly prepared rats examined by Scatchard analysis showed that maximum binding (Bmax) and dissociation constant (Kd) decreased with increasing corticosterone dose. BAT DNA was increased by adrenalectomy and maintained at intact levels with all doses of corticosterone; BAT lipid storage increased dramatically at corticosterone values higher than the daily mean level in intact rats. Histologically, the number and size of lipid droplets within BAT adipocytes increased markedly with increased corticosterone. White adipose depots were more sensitive to circulating corticosterone concentrations than were BAT depots and increased in weight at levels of corticosterone that were at or below the daily mean level of intact rats. We conclude that, within its diurnal range of concentration corticosterone acts to inhibit nonshivering thermogenesis and increase lipid storage. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA-DR

On August 5, 2004, the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic signed the Dominican Republic- Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, or the DR-CAFTA. The DR-CAFTA was negotiated as a regional agreement in which all parties would be subject to the “the same set of obligations and commitments,” but with each country defining its own separate schedules for market access. It is a comprehensive and reciprocal trade agreement, which distinguishes it from the unilateral preferential trade arrangement between the United States and these countries as part of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), as amended. It liberalizes trade in goods, services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment, and addresses labor and environment issues.
Tumor hypoxia has independent predictor impact only in patients with node-negative cervix cancer.

PURPOSE This prospective clinical study was begun in 1994 to validate the independent prognostic impact of tumor hypoxia in patients with cervix cancer treated with definitive radiation therapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between May 1994 and January 1999, 106 eligible patients with epithelial cervix cancer had tumor oxygen pressure (PO(2)) measured using the Eppendorf probe. Oxygenation data are presented as the hypoxic proportion, defined as the percentage of PO(2) readings less than 5 mm/Hg (abbreviated as HP(5)) and the median PO(2). RESULTS The median HP(5) in individual patients was 48%, and the median PO(2) was HP(5). Progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with hypoxic tumors (HP(5) > 50%) was 37% at 3 years versus 67% in those patients with better oxygenated tumors (P =.004). In multivariate analysis, only tumor size (risk ratio [RR], 1.33; P =.0003) and evidence of pelvic nodal metastases on imaging studies (RR, 2.52; P =.0065) were predictive of PFS. However, an interaction between nodal status and oxygenation was observed (P =.006), and further analysis indicated that HP(5) was an independent predictor of outcome in patients with negative nodes on imaging (P =.007). There was a significant increase in the 3-year cumulative incidence of distant metastases in the hypoxic group (41% v 15% in those with HP(5) < 50%; P =. 0023), but not in pelvic relapse (37% v 27%; P =.12). CONCLUSION Tumor hypoxia is an independent predictor of poor PFS only in patients with node-negative cervix cancer, in addition to tumor size. Its impact appears to be related to an increased risk of distant metastases rather than to an effect on pelvic control.
Reconstruction of damaged corneas by transplantation of autologous limbal epithelial cells.

BACKGROUND Stevens-Johnson syndrome, ocular pemphigoid, and thermal or chemical burns can cause scarring and opacification of the cornea and loss of vision. Transplantation of epithelial cells from the limbus of the contralateral cornea can restore useful vision. However, this procedure requires a large limbal graft from the healthy eye and is not possible in patients who have bilateral lesions. METHODS We took specimens of limbal epithelial cells from the healthy contralateral eyes of six patients with severe unilateral corneal disease. The epithelial cells were cultured and expanded on amniotic membrane. The amniotic membrane, together with the sheet of limbal epithelial cells, was transplanted to the denuded corneal surface of the damaged eye after superficial keratectomy to remove fibrovascular ingrowth. The mean (+/-SD) follow-up period was 15+/-2 months. RESULTS Complete reepithelialization of the corneal surface occurred within two to four days of transplantation in all six eyes receiving transplants. By one month, the ocular surface was covered with corneal epithelium, and the clarity of the cornea was improved. In five of the six eyes receiving transplants (83 percent), the mean visual acuity improved from 20/112 to 20/45. In one patient with a chemical burn who had total opacification of the cornea, the acuity improved from the ability to count fingers at 40 cm to 20/200. No patient had recurrent neovascularization or inflammation in the transplanted area during the follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS Transplantation of autologous limbal epithelial cells cultured on amniotic membrane is a simple and effective method of reconstructing the corneal surface and restoring useful vision in patients with unilateral deficiency of limbal epithelial cells.
Stiching large images by enhancing SURF and RANSAC Algorithm

Coordinating of large images through coupled decomposition are considered in this paper. Include based strategy set up a correspondence between various particularly unmistakable focuses in images. At the point when actualizing coupled decomposition with the component based coordinating method, the issue of quick and exact extraction of focuses that compares to a similar area from a couple of huge estimated images can be tended to. Initially, we direct a hypothetical examination of the execution of the full-image coordinating methodology, showing its restrictions when connected to substantial images. Thusly, we familiarize a novel technique with compel spatial goals on the organizing methodology without using sub tried delineations of the alluded image with that of the goal image. This technique parts images into looking at sub images through a method that is theoretically like quantifiable changes, included substance commotion, and overall radiometric complexities, and also being intense to neighborhood change. Consequent to displaying it, we indicate how coupled image rot can be used both for image selection and for customized estimation of well known geometry. Finally, coupled image rot is attempted on a data set containing a couple of planetary images of different size, varying from shy of what one megapixel to a couple of numerous uber pixels. The coupled image decomposition methodology powers spatial objectives on organizing technique without using sub-analyzed versions of reference and target images. Here a definite investigation of the execution of coupled decay procedure with the Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF), Random example agreement (RANSAC), and the results of simulation are introduced.