Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A note on prediction bias for state space models with estimated parameters

This paper aims to discuss some problems on state space models with estimated parameters. While existing research focus on the prediction mean squared error, this work presents some results on bias propagation into forecast and filter predictions when the mean vector of the state is taking with an estimation bias, namely, non recursive analytical expression for them. In particular, it is discussed the impact of mean bias in invariant state space models.
Elastic Moduli of Breast and Prostate Tissues under Compression

To evaluate the dynamic range of tissue imaged by elastography, the mechanical behavior of breast and prostate tissue samples subject to compression loading has been investigated. A model for the loading was validated and used to guide the experimental design for data collection. The model allowed the use of small samples that could be considered homogeneous; this assumption was confirmed by histological analysis. The samples were tested at three strain rates to evaluate the viscoelastic nature of the material and determine the validity of modeling the tissue as an elastic material for the strain rates of interest. For loading frequencies above 1 Hz, the storage modulus accounted for over 93 percent of the complex modulus. The data show that breast fat tissue has a constant modulus over the strain range tested while the other tissues have a modulus that is dependent on the strain level. The fibrous tissue samples from the breast were found to be 1 to 2 orders of magnitude stiffer than fat tissue. Normal glandular breast tissue was found to have an elastic modulus similar to that of fat at low strain levels, but the modulus of the glandular tissue increased by an order of magnitude above fat at high strain levels. Carcinomas from the breast were stiffer than the other tissues at the higher strain level; intraductal in situ carcinomas were like fat at the low strain level and much stiffer than glandular tissue at the high strain level. Infiltrating ductal carcinomas were much stiffer than any of the other breast tissues. Normal prostate tissue has a modulus that is lower than the modulus of the prostate cancers tested. Tissue from prostate with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) had modulus values significantly lower than normal tissue. There was a constant but not significant difference in the modulus of tissues taken from the anterior and posterior portions of the gland.
A multi-view API impact analysis for open SPL platform

Open platform is introduced and has become popular in the domain of consumer electronics. One of the main issues dominating the field of platform-based development concerns how to better maintain platforms to secure intended productivity and quality. A platform provides its service functions by means of APIs. Therefore, the key to successful development of a platform lies in sucessful development of relevant APIs. In this context, evolution of APIs, which accompanies that of platforms, is a factor that enevitablly occurs and requires our constat attention. This study proposes a multi-view impact analysis model for platform maintenance. This model traces APIs and their correspondent work products such as implementations, test cases and applications that use APIs. In addition, tools and ideas have been proposed as well to address the migrating nature of applications.
The digital twin of an industrial production line within the industry 4.0 concept

This article presents the digital twin concept, which is an augmented manufacturing project created in close collaboration by SOVA Digital and the Institute of Automation, Measurement and Applied Informatics (ÚAMAI), of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava with the support of SIEMENS. The project is a technological concept focusing on the continuous optimization of production processes, proactive maintenance, and continuous processing of process data. This project is the basis for further work to promote the concept of Industry 4.0. for the needs of the industry subjects within Slovakia. Its basic goal is to support the existing production structures within the automotive industry and the most efficient use of resources by augmented production and planning strategies, such as the digital twin presented here.
Human Age Estimation via Geometric and Textural Features

Aging progress of a person is influenced by many factors such as genetics, health, lifestyle, and even weather conditions. Therefore human age estimation from a face image is a challenging problem. Aging causes significant variations in facial shape and texture across years. In order to construct a general age classifier, shape and texture information of human face should be used together. In this paper, we propose a new age estimation system that uses a number of overlapping age groups and a classifier that combine geometric and textural facial features. The classifier scoring results are interpolated to produce the estimated age. We tested many geometric and textural facial features with age group classifiers. Comparative experiments show that the best performance is obtained using the fusion of Local Gabor Binary Patterns and Geometric features.
A reconfigurable series resonant DC-DC converter for wide-input and wide-output voltages

This paper proposes a dual-bridge based LC series resonant dc-dc converter. The input inverter unit incorporates two bridge structures, i.e., a full-bridge inverter and a half-bridge inverter. For the output rectifier, it can be a full-bridge rectifier or an asymmetric half-bridge rectifier. Different from the conventional resonant converter, a fixed-frequency PWM control is employed which makes the optimization of magnetic components easier. The primary-side switches can achieve ZVS and the secondary-side diodes turn off with ZCS. In addition, the root-mean-square (RMS) values of the transformer currents do not significantly vary with respect to the voltage variation. Therefore, this converter can maintain high efficiency over a wide voltage range. The topology and operating principle are firstly described. Then the dc voltage gain and the RMS current characteristics are detailed. Finally, experimental results from a 500-W converter prototype verify the effectiveness of analysis, and the advantages of the proposed converter.
Atomic layer deposition: A versatile technique for plasmonics and nanobiotechnology

Although atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been used for many years as an industrial manufacturing method for microprocessors and displays, this versatile technique is finding increased use in the emerging fields of plasmonics and nanobiotechnology. In particular, ALD coatings can modify metallic surfaces to tune their optical and plasmonic properties, to protect them against unwanted oxidation and contamination, or to create biocompatible surfaces. Furthermore, ALD is unique among thin film deposition techniques in its ability to meet the processing demands for engineering nanoplasmonic devices, offering conformal deposition of dense and ultrathin films on high-aspect-ratio nanostructures at temperatures below 100 °C. In this review, we present key features of ALD and describe how it could benefit future applications in plasmonics, nanosciences, and biotechnology.
Increased mutation frequency after herpes simplex virus type 2 infection in non-permissive XC cells.

The effect of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection on the frequency of mutations at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (HGPRT) locus was studied in the non-permissive XC cell line. When the cells were infected with 20 to 800 p.f. u. /cell, there was initially a lag in cell growth and cell death, but after 4 days there was no difference in growth rate between infected and control cultures. However, the mutation frequency, as determined by the number of 6-thioguanine-resistant colonies, was increased in infected cultures by factors ranging from 2.5 to 10.3. This effect was found to be dependent on the multiplicity of infection. The maximum effect was obtained between 20 and 100 p.f. u. /cell while further increase in the amount of virus resulted in a drop in the yield of mutants. The optimum multiplicity of infection was a reproducible characteristic but was variable between viral stocks. When a number of mutant clones were examined they were found to have HGPRT activities ranging from undetectable to 6.9% of wild-type, indicating that the mutations were in the HGPRT gene. These results show that, in a non-productive infection, HSV-2 particles can increase the mutation frequency. The possible mechanisms by which this effect is brought about in the host genome are discussed.
“ Mahila Sanatkar : a women empowerment case study in India

Abstract: This study will present and analyse the case of Mahila Sanatkar, a craftswomen cooperative located in Hyderabad (India). Issues regarding women’s empowerment and the internal relations of different stakeholders in the cooperatvie will be focused in order to depict the social and economic background of the experience. After that, it will be discussed problems and potential solutions to turn the cooperative into a self sustainable enterprise.
Large-scale physical response of the tidal system to energy extraction and its significance for informing environmental and ecological impact assessment

The impact of harvesting tidal energy on the underlying tidal hydrodynamics is examined. Understanding of both the near-and far-field physical response of the tidal system is necessary in order to inform environmental and ecological impact assessment. A number of numerical model test cases are presented which provide first stage indications of the potential response of the system.
Heat shock and salicylic acid on postharvest preservation of organic strawberries

Heat shock and salicylic acid have been studied on shelf-life extension of fruits. The benefits of these techniques have been related to their effect on inducing physiological defense responses against the oxidative stress and pathogen development. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of heat shock and salicylic acid on the postharvest preservation and contents of total phenolics, anthocyanins, ascorbic acid, fresh weight loss and microbiological quality of organic strawberries cv. Dover. Strawberries produced organically and stored at 5 °C were subjected to heat shock (45 °C ± 3 °C for 3 h), application of salicylic acid (soaking in 2.0 mmol L -1 solution), heat shock in combination with salicylic acid and control. After treatment, the fruits were packed and stored in a climatic chamber at 5 oC ± 2 oC. At 1, 7 and 14 days, the experimental units were removed from refrigeration and kept at room temperature of approximately 20 oC for two days. There was no effect of treatments on fresh weight loss, incidence of pathogens or chemical variations in strawberry fruits during the storage period. In natural conditions, organically grown strawberries remained in good condition for sale up to seven days of storage in all treatments.
Identification of Wiener nonlinear systems using the key-term separation principle and the filtering approach

A Wiener finite impulse response moving average (FIR-MA) model is rewritten as a standard regression controlled moving average form by applying the key-term separation principle. A filtering based recursive least squares estimation algorithm and a maximum likelihood recursive least squares estimation algorithm are developed for the parameter identification of Wiener FIR-MA model. Both of the proposed algorithms could reduce the influence of colored noise in parameters estimation through the data filtering approach; further improve the accuracy of parameters estimation. The simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of two proposed algorithms.
MATERNAL SMOKING DURING PREGNANCY AND CHILDHOOD CANCER. † 623

The association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and childhood cancer was investigated using prospectively collected data from 54,795 liveborn children in the Collaborative Perinatal Project (1959-1966). Cases of cancer had a histologic diagnosis and/or a compatible clinical course. There were 51 children with cancer, for a cumulative incidence of cancer of 1.1 per 1,000 by 96 months of age. Maternal smoking was determined at each prenatal visit; 52% of mothers reported smoking at one or more visits. By age 8 years, cancer had occurred in 1.4 per 1,000 children whose mothers did not smoke during pregnancy, compared with 0.9 per 1,000 children whose mothers smoked (p = 0.15 by log rank test); the hazard ratio was 0.67 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.38-1.17). There was no dose-response effect of smoking compared with nonsmokers (hazard ratio for one to 10 cigarettes/day = 0.45, more than 10 cigarettes/day = 0.83). The hazard ratio for leukemia among children whose mothers smoked was 0.82 (95% CI 0.31-2.11); the hazard ratio for cancers other than leukemia was 0.60 (95% CI 0.30-1.20). Adjustment did not change the hazard ratio substantially. Although the relatively small number of cases precluded extensive study of individual types of cancer, the authors conclude that maternal smoking during pregnancy is not associated with an increased risk of childhood cancer in this cohort.
A hybrid of particle swarm and ant colony optimization algorithms for reactive power market simulation

In Particle Swarm Optimization PSO algorithm, although taking an active role to guide particles moving toward optimal solution, the most-fit candidate does not have a guide itself and only moves along its velocity vector in every iteration. This may yield a noticeable number of agents converge into local optima if the guide i.e. the most fit candidate agent cannot explore the best solution. In this paper, an attempt is made to get the advantage of the Ant Colony Optimization ACO methodology to assist the PSO algorithm for choosing a proper guide for each particle. This will strengthen the PSO abilities for not getting involved in local optima. As a result, we present a promising new hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm, called ACPSO. The capability of the presented algorithm to solve a nonlinear optimization problem is demonstrated using different case studies carried out for optimal reactive power procurement. The IEEE 14-bus and 118-bus systems are adopted for reactive power market simulation. The main objective of the market is to minimize total generation costs of reactive power and transmission losses at different voltage stability margins. Based on the GAMS modeling language and the CONOPT solver, solutions are obtained for different models using a conventional non-linear optimization technique. Compared with the solutions found by the GAMS, Genetic Algorithm GA and the original PSO, the proposed ACPSO algorithm can provide promising results in terms of robustness and overall efficiency when it is applied to the reactive power market.
Cytokine pathways and joint inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a common chronic inflammatory and destructive arthropathy that cannot be cured and that has substantial personal, social, and economic costs. The long-term prognosis is poor: 80 percent of affected patients are disabled after 20 years,1 and life expectancy is reduced by an average of 3 to 18 years.2 The medical cost of rheumatoid arthritis averages $5,919 per case per year in the United States3 and approximately £2,600 per case per year in the United Kingdom.4 Current slow-acting antirheumatic drugs have limited efficacy and many side effects. Moreover, they do not improve the long-term prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
Traversable Ground Surface Segmentation and Modeling for Real-Time Mobile Mapping

Remote vehicle operator must quickly decide on the motion and path. Thus, rapid and intuitive feedback of the real environment is vital for effective control. This paper presents a real-time traversable ground surface segmentation and intuitive representation system for remote operation of mobile robot. Firstly, a terrain model using voxel-based flag map is proposed for incrementally registering large-scale point clouds in real time. Subsequently, a ground segmentation method with Gibbs-Markov random field (Gibbs-MRF) model is applied to detect ground data in the reconstructed terrain. Finally, we generate a texture mesh for ground surface representation by mapping the triangles in the terrain mesh onto the captured video images. To speed up the computation, we program a graphics processing unit (GPU) to implement the proposed system for large-scale datasets in parallel. Our proposed methods were tested in an outdoor environment. The results show that ground data is segmented effectively and the ground surface is represented intuitively.
Predictive attitude controller for under-actuated reentry vehicle

Using only two body flaps to control the attitude of the reentry vehicle, belonging to under-actuated system, probably lead to unstable internal dynamics in lateral movement. In order to solve the problem, based on using output-redefinition to stabilize internal dynamic, a predictive controller is put forward to make the tracking error between next states and next standard command to be minimum, so as to achieve the optimal controller. The simulation result shows that controller performances very well, and the precision of the predictive algorithm is superior to the inverse dynamic controller.
Some microbiological and histopathological features of periodontal disease in man.

The present investigation was designed to study the microbial flora of periodontal pockets and certain histopathological features of adjacent tissues from healthy and diseased sites in humans. Twenty-two individuals, aged 21 to 28 years, participated in the study. They were selected on the basis of advanced periodontal disease in at least 2 areas of the dentition where pockets could be probed to 8 mm or more and where 50% of the alveolar bone had been lost. In other areas of the dentition sites were found where no bone loss was discernible and where the gingiva was either “healthy” or showed signs of “established gingivitis. ” In each patient six sites were selected; two sites with “advanced disease,” two sites with “established gingivitis” and two sites with “healthy gingiva. ” From these sites bacterial samples were obtained and subjected to an examination by darkfield microscopy involving the identification of coccoid cells, straight, motile and curved rods, filaments, fusiforms and spirochetes. Biopsies.
Biofilm characteristics of globular biofilter in the ecological spur-dike and water quality improvement effect on Wangyu River

To improve the water quality of Wangyu River, which is the important diversion channel for Water Transfer from Yangtze River to Lake Taihu, a ecological spur-dike was constructed in Wangyu River, This project combined the traditional water conservancy engineering with the biofilm technology, which can not only slow velocity and settle down sediment but also degrade organic pollutants and absorption nutrients in river water by organisms in biofilm. After 39 days of the construction, biofilm characters on the surface of globular biofilter were performed five times to analyze the changing process of microbial community. In addition, 3 sites of water samples were also observed before and behind the spur-dike, and in the background of Wangyu River. it was found that spur-dike has good effect on water purification. Results show that 70 taxa of attaching organism were identified on the biofilter, and major divisions were Bacillariopyta 37, Chlorophyta 20 and Cyanophyta 7. Compared with the background values, the purification efficiency of SS, TP, TN and CODMn were at the range of 5.1%–61.2%, 16.4%–57.2%, 8.2%–17.7%, 1.6%–34.5%, respectively. This study provided support for the development of river ecosystem restoration projects of in the future.
Biochemistry and immunology of infectious bursal disease virus.

Introduction. The aetiological agent of infectious bursal disease (IBD), IBD virus (IBDV), belongs to a new group of viruses referred to as ‘birnaviruses’ (Dobos et al., 1979), which has been characterized only recently (Brown, 1986). There are excellent reviews dealing with the clinical, pathological, serological and epidemiological aspects of IBDV infection (Faragher, 1972; Becht, 1980; Okoye, 1984; Cummings et al., 1986). The molecular biology of birnaviruses has also been reviewed (Dobos & Roberts, 1983) but with an emphasis on infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV), the birnavirus genus prototype. The purpose of the present review is to compile information on structural and immunological aspects of IBDV. These are subjects of much recent interest, and have great relevance to the control of IBD in chickens. IBD is a highly contagious viral disease of young chickens which is characterized by destruction of the lymphoid cells in the bursa of Fabricius; other lymphoid organs are also affected but to a lesser degree (Cheville, 1967).
Phenotypic Heterogeneity of the m.14459G>A Mutation

The authors read with interest the article by Kurt et al about 2 unrelated, pediatric patients carrying the mutation m.14459G>A in the ND6 gene, which manifested clinically as Leigh-like syndrome with generalized dystonia. The authors have the following comments and concerns. The authors do not agree with the statement in the Introduction that most of the mutations affecting subunits of complex I of the respiratory chain are maternally inherited. Only 7 of the 44 subunits of complex I are mtDNA-encoded. Thus, it is much more likely that genes located on the nDNA are mutated in case of complex I defects. Were reduced tendon reflexes in patient 2 attributable to myopathy or neuropathy? Since myopathy is more frequent than neuropathy in mitochondrial disorders and since bilateral ptosis was present, myopathy is much more likely. Were there other indications for myopathy, such as myalgia, cramps, fasciculations, easy fatigability, exercise intolerance, or creatine kinase elevation? The readers should be informed about the results of nerve conduction studies and electromyography in this patient. Mitochondrial disorders frequently present with elevated cerebral lactate. Did the 2 patients undergo magnetic resonance spectroscopy or lumbar puncture to see whether lactate in the cerebrospinal fluid was elevated or not? Was lactate elevated in the serum or was the lactate stress test abnormal? The authors mention “stroke” as clinical manifestation of a m.14458G>A mutation. Do they mean ischemic stroke or a stroke-like episode, frequently found in mitochondrial disorders? Were cardiovascular risk factors, such diabetes, arterial hypertension, hyperlipidemia, smoking, or atrial fibrillation, positive in this particular patient? Were imaging findings indicative of an ischemic stroke or a stroke-like lesion? Which therapy did this patient receive for the “stroke”? Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy is more frequently due to homoplasmic than heteroplasmic mtDNA mutations. The authors describe 3 patients with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy in Table 1 in whom the mutation was heteroplasmic. How to explain heteroplasmy in these 3 Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy patients? Did visual impairment recover in these 3 patients? Due to marked phenotypic heterogeneity of heteroplasmic mtDNA mutations and high intrafamilial heterogeneity, family members of both index cases should be extensively investigated for subclinical involvement of organs frequently affected in mitochondrial disorders, such as the brain, endocrine, organs, muscle, nerve, heart, intestines, or the kidney. Heteroplasmy rate in the mothers may go undetected if very low. Overall, this interesting case study could be more meaningful by providing more clinical data, by providing explanations for some unusual findings, and by a more extensive investigation of first-degree family members.