Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implication of MPPT on converter reliability for PV systems

With the increasing use of renewable energies around the world, particularly photovoltaic (PV) systems, considerable research efforts have been dedicated to achieving maximum efficiency. Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) techniques are proposed for PV systems to increase the energy capture. The type of MPPT method utilized in a system can directly influence the energy capture positively, however may also have an unwanted side effect in causing voltage stresses in the converter components which may effect the overall reliability of the system. This paper provides a preliminary investigation of the impact of the choice of MPPT method on the voltage fluctuations in the DC-link and PV-side capacitor of a PV system. The investigation is a first step in working towards a method for assessing the impact of the choice of MPPT method on the reliability of the converter.
Effects of a Lifestyle Intervention During Pregnancy and First Postpartum Year: Findings From the RADIEL Study

Context Women with a history of gestational diabetes (GDM) have a sevenfold risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Objective To assess the effects of a lifestyle intervention during pregnancy and first postpartum year on glucose regulation, weight retention, and metabolic characteristics among women at high GDM risk. Design In the Finnish Gestational Diabetes Prevention study, trained study nurses provided lifestyle counseling in each trimester and 6 weeks, 6 months, and 12 months postpartum. Setting Three maternity hospitals in the Helsinki area and one in Lappeenranta. Patients In total, 269 women with previous GDM and/or a prepregnancy body mass index ≥30 kg/m2 were enrolled before 20 gestational weeks and allocated to either a control or an intervention group. This study includes the 200 participants who attended study visits 6 weeks and/or 12 months postpartum. Intervention The lifestyle intervention followed Nordic diet recommendations and at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise was recommended weekly. Main Outcome Measure The incidence of impaired glucose regulation (impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, or type 2 diabetes) during the first postpartum year. Results Impaired glucose regulation was present in 13.3% of the women in the control and in 2.7% in the intervention group [age-adjusted odds ratio, 0.18 (95% confidence interval, 0.05 to 0.65), P = 0.009] during the first postpartum year. There were no differences between the groups in weight retention, physical activity, or diet at 12 months postpartum. Conclusions A lifestyle intervention during pregnancy and the first postpartum year successfully reduced the incidence of postpartum impairment in glucose regulation.
Daily distribution of episodes of acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema.

Many fatal or potentially fatal cardio-cerebrovascular diseases present a definite circadian distribution in their onset. In order to verify if episodes of acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema have a significant daily periodicity in their occurrence, a retrospective analysis of 1,204 episodes has been conducted. In all cases, the hour of the day of onset has been identified with certainty; all episodes occurred in hospitalized patients. The rhythmometric circadian inferential statistical analysis by means of the single cosinor method demonstrates that the episodes of acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema present a significant (p < 0.002) circadian distribution, with a peak at 1:00 a.m. (from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m.). No significant differences (p > 0.05) were found in the circadian distribution regarding sex, age (less or more than 60 years), absence or presence of arterial hypertension and coronary artery disease. Several factors may contribute to this behavior, especially the relationships between several endogenous circadian rhythms, sleep and disease. The knowledge that acute pulmonary edema is a high chronorisk disease could be of interest for the better understanding of its pathophysiology and for a better causative control and prevention.
Management of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Site Gastric Ulcer in a Patient with an Esophageal Stricture and Hiatus Hernia

Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is commonly performed for feeding difficulties, in patients suffering from complications of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and its treatment, namely radiotherapy and surgery. This case report describes the challenges in hemostasis and subsequent re-establishment of enteral access for feeding, in an elderly patient with a history of NPC, treated surgically, followed by radiotherapy, who presented with massive hematemesis following reinsertion of her PEG shortly after an accidental dislodgement. Her previous nasopharyngectomy, wide field radiation therapy, and radical neck dissection precluded nasogastric tube feeding, and the presence of a large hiatus hernia made reinsertion of a new PEG technically challenging. This case highlights the methods used to overcome the above challenges.
The Effect of the Repeated Administration of the Compound 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamineon the Response of Rats to the5-HT2A,C Receptor Agonist (±)-1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenyl)-2-aminopropane (DOI)

In this study, we examined the effect of the 5-HT2A,C receptor agonist (±)-1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenyl)-2-aminopropane (DOI) on locomotor activity and the head twitch response in rats by the repeated (twice daily for 4 days) subcutaneous administration of 0.9% saline (1 ml/kg) or (±)-3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) (20 mg/kg), a compound that selectively destroys serotonergic nerve terminals. There was no difference between the MDMA- and saline-treated rats regarding the (±)-DOI-induced (0.625, 1.25 or 2.5 mg/kg, i.p.) increase and decrease in the head twitch response and horizontal locomotor activity, respectively. Overall, repeated MDMA does not alter the behavioral response of rats to (±)-DOI.
Manöverprädiktion an innerstädtischen Knotenpunkten durch Exklusion alternativer Manöveroptionen

unterliegen allgemein der Problematik der unbekannten Fahrerhandlung. In diesem Beitrag wird eine Methode vorgestellt, die das vom Fahrer beabsichtigte Manöver anhand des Ausschlusses alternativer Manöver prädiziert. Vorteile dieser Vorgehensweise sind die Unabhängigkeit von der Qualität der Ortung und der Detaillierung des genutzten Kartenmaterials. Die mit dem gewählten Ansatz erreichbare Prädiktionsqualität wird anhand der Messdaten einer Probandenstudie im realen Straßenverkehr evaluiert und die Detektionsqualität analysiert.
Growth hormone-releasing hormone-synthesizing neurons are a subpopulation of somatostatin receptor-labelled cells in the rat arcuate nucleus: a combined in situ hybridization and receptor light-microscopic radioautographic study.

Distribution of growth-hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) cell bodies and somatostatin binding sites were compared in the mediobasal hypothalamus of the rat. GHRH-synthesizing neurons were visualized by in situ hybridization, using as 35S-labelled synthetic oligonucleotide (45 mere), and 125I-Tyr0-DTrp8-somatostatin (125I-SRIH) binding sites by light-microscopic radioautography on adjacent 20-microns-thick frozen mirror sections. GHRH mRNA hybridizing cells were detected mostly in the ventrolateral portion of the arcuate nucleus (ARC) and around the perimeter of the ventromedial nucleus (VMN). Comparison with the distribution of pericellular 125I-SRIH binding sites allowed to differentiate three types of cells: (1) GHRH perikarya not associated with pericellular 125I-SRIH binding sites around the perimeter of the VMN, (2) 125I-SRIH-labelled cells, not associated with GHRH perikarya in the periventricular zone along the dorsal part of the third ventricle, and (3) in the ventrolateral portion of the ARC, GHRH mRNA-labelled neurons had the same distribution as 125I-SRIH-labelled cells. Furthermore, on adjacent sections, the number of both labelled cells were correlated (r = 0.68; p less than 0.001). In this last population, the extent of colocalization of 125I-SRIH binding sites on GHRH mRNA-labelled neurons was further investigated in adjacent 5-microns-thick sections. The proportions of cells GHRH mRNA and 125I-SRIH allowed to differentiate three subdivisions of the arcuate: the periventricular (PV), ventrobasal (VB) and lateral portions. In the PV-ARC, 27% of GHRH-synthesizing cells were coidentified as 125I-labelled while only 6% of 125I-labelled cells contained GHRH mRNA. In the VB-ARC the proportion of double-labelled cells was equivalent (31 and 26%, respectively for GHRH mRNA and 125I-SRIH). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Dimensionality reduction for sentiment analysis using pre-processing techniques

Sentiment analysis is the study of people's opinions, sentiments, attitudes and emotions, expressed in written language but this process is time consuming, inconsistent and costly in business context. Pre-processing the data will help to ease this difficulty. Pre-processing is the process of cleaning and preparing the text for its analysis using pre-processing techniques. The existing pre-processing techniques are Handling Expressive Lengthening, Emoticons Handling, HTML Tags Removal, Punctuations Handling, Slangs Handling, Stopwords Removal, Stemming and Lemmatization. In this paper, the effect of various pre-processing techniques and their combinations was analyzed on the dataset taken from Kaggle called Bag of Words Meets Bags of Popcorn. By taking every possible combination of pre-processing techniques, the aim was to find the one giving highest accuracy. Random Forest Classifier was used to predict sentiments as it is known to give good accuracy and the result was evaluated using 10 fold cross validation method. Accuracy increased from unprocessed data to pre-processed data. It was concluded that using pre-processing techniques gives a higher accuracy than the traditional approach i.e. no pre-processing.
Will Plain Packaging Reduce Cigarette Consumption

The Australian Parliament has passed legislation compelling tobacco products to be sold in “plain packaging. ” This article reviews this legislation and its likely effects on prices, market structure in the tobacco industry and on smoking behaviour. Industry changes following two previous sets of restrictions on advertising are examined for relevant empirical evidence. Without offsetting tax increases, the legislation will plausibly reduce prices but significant entry into the industry and greater consumption of counterfeit/illegal cigarettes are unlikely. Provided that tax increases offset any induced fall in prices, plain packaging will reduce cigarette consumption.
Prenatal Stress, Mood, and Gray Matter Volume in Young Adulthood

&NA; This study aimed to determine whether prenatal stress, measured by the number of stressful life events during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, might relate to mood dysregulation and altered brain structure in young adulthood. Participants included 93 young adults from a community‐based birth cohort from the Czech Republic. Information on prenatal stress exposure was collected from their mothers in 1990−1992. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and mood‐related data were collected from the young adults in 2015. MRI analyses focused on overall gray matter (GM) volume and GM volume of cortical regions previously associated with major depression. Higher prenatal stress predicted more mood dysregulation, lower overall GM volume, and lower GM volume in mid‐dorsolateral frontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus in young adulthood. We observed no prenatal stress by sex interactions for any of the relations. We conclude that prenatal stress is an important risk factor that relates to worse mood states and altered brain structure in young adulthood irrespective of sex. Our results point to the importance and long‐lasting effects of prenatal programming and suggest that offspring of mothers who went through substantial stress during pregnancy might benefit from early intervention that would reduce the odds of mental illness in later life.
Characterization of glycoengineered anti-HER2 monoclonal antibodies produced by using a silkworm–baculovirus expression system

Silkworm-baculovirus expression systems are efficient means for the production of recombinant proteins that provide high expression levels and post-translational modifications. Here, we characterized the stability, glycosylation pattern and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity activity of anti-HER2 monoclonal antibodies containing native or glycoengineered mammalian-like N-glycans that were produced by using a silkworm-baculovirus expression system. Compared with a monoclonal antibody produced by using a Chinese hamster ovary cell expression system, the glycoengineered monoclonal antibody had comparable thermal stability and a higher antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity activity. These results suggest that silkworm-baculovirus expression systems are next-generation expression systems potentially useful for the cost-effective production of therapeutic antibodies.
Ethological Concepts Revisited: Immediate Early Gene Induction in Response to Sexual Stimuli in Birds

Courtship behaviors were interpreted by ethologists as being examples of ‘sign stimuli’ that would act as ‘releasers’ of stereotypic species-typical behaviors in conspecifics. A key component of the sign stimulus concept is that some form of stimulus filtering occurs that is responsible for the marked selective behavioral responsiveness. Studies of immediate early gene induction in the avian brain in response to conspecific stimuli associated with courtship and mating reveal that such gene induction is highly selective. In male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), studies of the immediate early gene c-fos or zenk have been conducted in birds engaging in both appetitive and consummatory aspects of male sexual behavior. High induction of immediate early genes occurs in hypothalamic and limbic areas such as the medial preoptic nucleus, bed nucleus striae terminalis and parts of the archistriatum in birds who had copulated and/or who had expressed a learned social proximity response, reflecting appetitive sexual behavior. Immediate early gene expression was also increased in telencephalic areas such as the hyperstriatum ventrale that presumably plays a role in the integration of sensory cues related to female recognition. In European starlings, studies of zenk induction have been conducted in females who hear male-typical courtship song. Clayton and Mello had shown that zenk is induced in the auditory telencephalon of canaries and zebra finches at high levels specifically in response to conspecific song. Immediate early genes such as fos and zenk are also expressed in song control nuclei specifically in association with song production. In starlings it was found that song was effective in rapidly inducing zenk expression in the auditory telencephalon in males and in females in the breeding as well as in the non-breeding season. Thus, the expression is not greater in females who use song to choose mates or during the breeding season when females are choosing mates. However, there is evidence that high levels of induction in certain areas of the auditory telencephalon in females are greater in response to songs organized in longer bouts that females prefer. Though immediate early gene induction in the brain does not exactly mimic selective behavioral responses to sign stimuli it may represent one important way in which stimulus selectivity of the sort hypothesized previously by Tinbergen and Lorenz is coded. Engaging in species-typical behaviors is also associated with motor-driven immediate early gene expression.
Redefining the Phenotype of Dental Caries

Dental caries is a multifactorial infectious disease and a major public health problem estimated to affect 60-90% of school children as well as a vast number of adults. The aim of this work was to define patterns of progression of the disease based on longitudinal data in contrast to using a cross-sectional assessment. dmft/DMFT scores were collected at ages 5, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 18 from 876 individuals. We tested our newly defined phenotypes for association with genetic variants in genes shown to be associated with caries. We generated genotyping data using Taqman chemistry in markers of genes involved in processes such as enamel formation and salivary contributions. Kallikrein 4 (KLK4) was found to show a significant association with the created phenotypes (p = 0.0008 in a recessive model for low caries experience in the primary dentition vs. high caries experience in the primary dentition, and p = 0.0004 in a recessive model for caries free primary dentition vs. high caries experience in the primary dentition).
The tumour microenvironment influences survival and time to transformation in follicular lymphoma in the rituximab era

The tumour microenvironment influences outcome in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL), but its impact on transformation is less studied. We investigated the prognostic significance of the tumour microenvironment on transformation and survival in FL patients treated in the rituximab era. We examined diagnostic and transformed biopsies from 52 FL patients using antibodies against CD3, CD4, CD8, CD21 (CR2), CD57 (B3GAT1), CD68, FOXP3, TIA1, PD‐1 (PDCD1), PD‐L1 (CD274) and PAX5. Results were compared with a second cohort of 40 FL patients without signs of transformation during a minimum of five years observation time. Cell numbers and localization were semi‐quantitatively assessed. Better developed CD21+ follicular dendritic cell (FDC) meshworks at diagnosis was a negative prognostic factor for overall survival (OS), progression‐free survival (PFS) and time to transformation (TTT) in patients with subsequently transformed FL. Remnants of FDC meshworks at transformation were associated with shorter OS and PFS from transformation. High degrees of intrafollicular CD68+ and PD‐L1+ macrophage infiltration, high total area scores and an extrafollicular/diffuse pattern of FOXP3+ T cells and high intrafollicular scores of CD4+ T cells at diagnosis were associated with shorter TTT. Scores of several T‐cell subset markers from the combined patient cohorts were predictive for transformation, especially CD4 and CD57.
TweetTracker: An Analysis Tool for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief

Social media is becoming popular as a key source of information on disasters and crisis situations. Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) respondents can gain valuable insights and situational awareness by monitoring social mediabased feeds. Specifically, the use of microblogs (i.e., Twitter) has been shown to provide new information not otherwise attainable. In this paper, we present a new application designed to help HADR relief organizations to track, analyze, and monitor tweets. The purpose of this tool is to help these first responders gain situational awareness immediately after a disaster or crisis. The tool is capable of monitoring and analyzing location and keyword specific Tweets with nearreal- time trending, data reduction, historical review, and integrated data mining tools. In this paper, we discuss the utility of this tool through a case study on tweets related to the Cholera crisis in Haiti.
Age Differences in Selective Memory of Goal-Relevant Stimuli Under Threat

When faced with threat, people often selectively focus on and remember the most pertinent information while simultaneously ignoring any irrelevant information. Filtering distractors under arousal requires inhibitory mechanisms, which take time to recruit and often decline in older age. Despite the adaptive nature of this ability, relatively little research has examined how both threat and time spent preparing these inhibitory mechanisms affect selective memory for goal-relevant information across the life span. In this study, 32 younger and 31 older adults were asked to encode task-relevant scenes, while ignoring transparent task-irrelevant objects superimposed onto them. Threat levels were increased on some trials by threatening participants with monetary deductions if they later forgot scenes that followed threat cues. We also varied the time between threat induction and a to-be-encoded scene (i.e., 2 s, 4 s, 6 s) to determine whether both threat and timing effects on memory selectivity differ by age. We found that age differences in memory selectivity only emerged after participants spent a long time (i.e., 6 s) preparing for selective encoding. Critically, this time-dependent age difference occurred under threatening, but not neutral, conditions. Under threat, longer preparation time led to enhanced memory for task-relevant scenes and greater memory suppression of task-irrelevant objects in younger adults. In contrast, increased preparation time after threat induction had no effect on older adults’ scene memory and actually worsened memory suppression of task-irrelevant objects. These findings suggest that increased time to prepare top-down encoding processes benefits younger, but not older, adults’ selective memory for goal-relevant information under threat.
Exploiting the Vulnerability of Flow Table Overflow in Software-Defined Network: Attack Model, Evaluation, and Defense

As the most competitive solution for next-generation network, SDN and its dominant implementation OpenFlow are attracting more and more interests. But besides convenience and flexibility, SDN/OpenFlow also introduces new kinds of limitations and security issues. Of these limitations, the most obvious and maybe the most neglected one is the flow table capacity of SDN/OpenFlow switches. In this paper, we proposed a novel inference attack targeting at SDN/OpenFlow network, which is motivated by the limited flow table capacities of SDN/OpenFlow switches and the following measurable network performance decrease resulting from frequent interactions between data and control plane when the flow table is full. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first proposed inference attack model of this kind for SDN/OpenFlow. We implemented an inference attack framework according to our model and examined its efficiency and accuracy. The evaluation results demonstrate that our framework can infer the network parameters (flow table capacity and usage) with an accuracy of 80% or higher. We also proposed two possible defense strategies for the discovered vulnerability, including routing aggregation algorithm and multilevel flow table architecture. These findings give us a deeper understanding of SDN/OpenFlow limitations and serve as guidelines to future improvements of SDN/OpenFlow.
Biofilm characteristics and evaluation of the sanitation procedures of thermophilic Aeribacillus pallidus E334 biofilms

Abstract The ability of Aeribacillus pallidus E334 to produce pellicle and form a biofilm was studied. Optimal biofilm formation occurred at 60 °C, pH 7.5 and 1.5% NaCl. Extra polymeric substances (EPS) were composed of proteins and eDNA (21.4 kb). E334 formed biofilm on many surfaces, but mostly preferred polypropylene and glass. Using CLSM analysis, the network-like structure of the EPS was observed. The A. pallidus biofilm had a novel eDNA content. DNaseI susceptibility (86.8% removal) of eDNA revealed its importance in mature biofilms, but the purified eDNA was resistant to DNaseI, probably due to its extended folding outside the matrix. Among 15 cleaning agents, biofilms could be removed with alkaline protease and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS). The removal of cells from polypropylene and biomass on glass was achieved with combined SDS/alkaline protease treatment. Strong A. pallidus biofilms could cause risks for industrial processes and abiotic surfaces must be taken into consideration in terms of sanitation procedures.