Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the lightning risk profile of different types of structures with incoming power services

A risk assessment calculator was developed based on the IEC 62305-2 Risk management document. Risk analyses were performed on two different structures types found in South Africa. A suburban structure which is similar in nature to many urban structures found around the world. The second structure is an informal structure which could almost be classified as unique to South Africa. By providing power services to such a structure the risk profile dramatically changes. The total risk for the risk of loss of life (R1) was assessed for each structure type, and the risk for the informal structure was dramatically greater then that of the suburban structure. Influences that have an effect on the informal structures risk of loss of life is the risk of fire (rf), the length of the service (lc) and the topography of the structure. The risk of economic loss is touched upon and though it is usually considered more for affluent household, there can be significant consequential losses associated with economic loss in the case of informal structures.
Restos de anfibios en la costa de la Araucanía: problematización y perspectivas

Los restos de anfibios no han sido mayormente considerados en los trabajos arqueologicos publicados sobre la zona costera que se extiende entre el rio Bio Bio y el canal de Chacao, existiendo solo minimas menciones en los conjuntos faunisticos analizados. El hallazgo recurrente de restos de anfibios en una serie de sitios arqueologicos, tanto continentales como insulares de las costas de Arauco, nos conduce a investigar la naturaleza de las causas que explican su presencia o ausencia en los sitios arqueologicos estudiados, en relacion con las poblaciones humanas en la Araucania. Este trabajo se enfoca en la presentacion de los diversos problemas zooarqueologicos, asociados tanto con la identificacion anatomica y taxonomica de restos de anfibios, como con la naturaleza de los agentes tafonomicos que actuan sobre dichos restos.
GANP suppresses DNA recombination, measured by direct‐repeat β‐galactosidase gene construct, but does not suppress the type of recombination applying to immunoglobulin genes in mammalian cells

Immunoglobulin V‐region somatic hypermutation and C‐region class‐switch recombination are initiated by activation‐induced cytidine deaminase (AID) in B‐cells. AID‐induced DNA damage at the immunoglobulin S‐region is known to be repaired by non‐homologous end‐joining, but repair mechanisms at the V‐region remain to be elucidated. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, DNA homologous recombination is regulated by the expression of Sac3, involved in actin assembly, cell cycle transition and mRNA metabolism. Here, we demonstrate that the Sac3‐homologue GANP suppresses DNA recombination in a direct‐repeat β‐galactosidase gene construct in mammalian cells. Homozygous ganp gene knockout is embryonic lethal in mice. Embryonic fibroblasts immortalized from hetero‐deficient ganp+/– mice showed more DNA recombination than wild‐type. In contrast, over‐expression of GANP suppressed either spontaneous DNA recombination or that caused by the introduction of aid cDNA into NIH3T3 cells (susceptible to I‐sceI restriction enzyme cleavage but not to RAG‐mediated immunoglobulin gene recombination). GANP suppresses the DNA recombination not only on the extrachromosomal DNA construct but also on the integrated DNA. The Sac3‐homology portion is necessary for the suppressive activity, but the truncated carboxyl terminal MCM3‐binding/acetylating region adversely augmented DNA recombination, acting as a dominant negative form. Expression of full‐length GANP is critical for suppression of DNA hyper‐recombination in mammalian cells.
Minocycline for Huntington’s disease: An open label study

Despite advances in understanding the pathogenesis of Huntington’s disease (HD), there is no effective treatment. In the HD transgenic mouse, expression of a dominant-negative caspase-1 mutant extended survival and delayed the onset of symptoms, suggesting that caspase-1 is crucial in HD pathogenesis.1 In fact, the caspase inhibitor minocycline delayed disease progression and extended survival by 14% in the HD mouse model.2 Minocycline is a second-generation tetracycline commonly used for a prolonged period to treat acne. Minocycline crosses the blood–brain barrier and inhibits caspase-1 in acute stroke and decreases infarct size in a mouse stroke model.2 Minocycline protects neurons in mixed spinal cord cultures …
Postoperative Lumbar Epidural Hematoma: Does Size Really Matter?

Study Design. Prospective clinical series with comparison to retrospectively collected data. Objective. To compare direct measures of postoperative hematoma volume against a new measure of hematoma effect on the thecal sac: the critical ratio. Summary of Background Data. Asymptomatic epidural hematoma is common after lumbar surgery. Symptomatic patients demonstrate a typical progression from sharp peri-incisional pain to bilateral neurologic deficits. Little is known about what differentiates symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of hematoma size or mass effect may correlate with postoperative symptoms. Methods. The study population consisted of 3 patient groups evaluated by MRI 2 to 5 days after lumbar decompression with or without fusion. Fifty-seven consecutive prospectively enrolled patients comprised the asymptomatic group. No patient developed severe postoperative pain or neurologic deficit. Search of our institutional database identified 4978 surgical patients within the last 24 months. Seventeen developed new postoperative symptoms. The painful group included 12 patients with severe peri-incisional pain without neurologic deficit. The cauda equina (CE) group included 5 patients with postoperative CE syndrome. Digital imaging software was used to calculate thecal sac cross sectional area on pre- and postoperative MRI at each level, hematoma volume, volume per level decompressed, and critical ratio for each patient. Critical ratio was defined as the smallest ratio of postoperative to preoperative cross sectional area within the lumbar spine. Results. The critical ratio was the only measure found to differ significantly (P < 0.05) among all 3 groups. Mean critical ratios were asymptomatic (0.8), painful (0.5), and CE (0.2). Conclusion. The critical ratio correlates more closely with the presence or absence of postoperative symptoms than measures of hematoma volume, and is consistent with the clinical expectation that greater thecal sac compression may result in more severe symptoms. Few guidelines exist for postoperative lumbar MRI interpretation. The critical ratio is an important contribution.
Performance and alertness effects of caffeine, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil during sleep deprivation

Stimulants may provide short‐term performance and alertness enhancement during sleep loss. Caffeine 600 mg, d‐amphetamine 20 mg, and modafinil 400 mg were compared during 85 h of total sleep deprivation to determine the extent to which the three agents restored performance on simple psychomotor tasks, objective alertness and tasks of executive functions. Forty‐eight healthy young adults remained awake for 85 h. Performance and alertness tests were administered bi‐hourly from 8:00 hours day 2 to 19:00 hours day 5. At 23:50 hours on day 4 (after 64 h awake), subjects ingested placebo, caffeine 600 mg, dextroamphetamine 20 mg, or modafinil 400 mg (n = 12 per group). Performance and alertness testing continued, and probe tasks of executive function were administered intermittently until the recovery sleep period (20:00 hours day 5 to 8:00 hours day 5). Bi‐hourly postrecovery sleep testing occurred from 10:00 hours to 16:00 hours day 6. All three agents improved psychomotor vigilance speed and objectively measured alertness relative to placebo. Drugs did not affect recovery sleep, and postrecovery sleep performance for all drug groups was at presleep deprivation levels. Effects on executive function tasks were mixed, with improvement on some tasks with caffeine and modafinil, and apparent decrements with dextroamphetamine on others. At the doses tested, caffeine, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil are equally effective for approximately 2–4 h in restoring simple psychomotor performance and objective alertness. The duration of these benefits vary in accordance with the different elimination rates of the drugs. Whether caffeine, dextroamphetamine, and modafinil differentially restore executive functions during sleep deprivation remains unclear.
Increasing the Efficiency of K-Means Clustering using Careful Seeding on Hadoop Environment

Cluster is a collection of data objects having similar characteristics. The method of deriving information from raw data by performing some operations on the data set like clustering is known as data mining. The K-means algorithm is one of the most well-known clustering algorithms that has been frequently used to variety of problems. However, its processing power has usually encountered a bottleneck if used to deal with immense data. Since MapReduce as the most popular cloud computing parallel framework it is effective to handle massive data. In this work, an improved parallel Kmeans clustering algorithm is suggested based on MapReduce which improve the performance of traditional ones by decreasing the number of iterations and accelerating processing the speed per iteration. Parallel K-Means algorithm needs one kind of MapReduce job. The map function performs the procedure of assigning each sample to the closest center while the reduce function performs the procedure of updating the new centers through the distance measure by comparing the Euclidean distance. The seeding method to select the initial centroids based on independent component analysis (ICA) is adapted to increase the existing performance of K-Means++. A combiner function is developed to deal with partial combination of the intermediate values with the same key within the same map task. According to simulation, the ICA Parallel Kmeans++ algorithm based on MapReduce can achieve higher processing speed and stability than the traditional ones. Keywords— K-means, K-means++, Independent Component Analysis, Seeding, MapReduce
Overhead minimization techniques for digital phase-locked loop frequency synthesizer

One emerging trend of implementing phase locked loop (PLL) based frequency synthesizers is to leverage digital signal processing in the loop filtering for more flexibility, scalability and smaller silicon area. This paper examines the pros and cons of such digital-intensive PLL architecture, and discusses techniques to minimize its overhead in terms of implementation cost and performance degradation. A hardware prototype in 65nm CMOS that synthesizes frequencies over 600-800 MHz is shown to prove the effectiveness the proposed overhead minimization techniques.
An Effective Interwoven Loop Design Application for Two-Channel Microarray Experiments

Microarray technology is widely applied to address complex scientific questions. However, there remain fundamental issues of how to design experiments to ensure that the resulting data enables robust statistical analysis. Interwoven loop design has several advantages over other designs. However it suffers in the complexity of design. We have implemented an online web application which allows users to find optimal loop designs for two-color microarray experiments. Given a number of conditions (such as treatments or time points) and replicates, the application will find the best possible design of the experiment and output experimental parameters. It is freely available from http://mcbc.usm. edu/iloop.
Grating-coupled surface plasmons at microwave frequencies

This work presents a detailed investigation of electromagnetic coupling to the surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) at microwave frequencies. We have recorded the wavelength-dependent reflectivity from a metallic sinusoidal diffraction grating of pitch 15 mm. In order to minimize the problems associated with nonplanar incident wavefronts, we have developed an apparatus that collimates the incident beam. We illustrate resonant coupling to the SPP at wavelengths of the order of 10 mm. The wavelength-dependent reflectivities recorded have been successfully fitted using a differential formalism of conical diffraction with a single set of grating parameters describing the grating profile and metal permittivity.
Proposition d'une arithmétique rationnelle paresseuse et d'un outil d'aide à la saisie d'objets en synthèse d'images. (Proposal for a Lazy Rational Arithmetic and a Tool for the Simplification of the input of Objects in Computer Graphics)

The most common solution to solve imprecision problems introduced by the arithmetic of computers is to use exact arithmetic. In the first part of this thesis, we suggest an extremely efficient optimization of rational arithmetic : the lazy rational arithmetic. The originality of this arithmetic is to postpone exact computations until they are either useless or inevitable. In that way, unnecessary exact computations are never made. Lazy arithmetic is an autonomous library which solves imprecision problems by itself, independently of computer programs using it. The second part of this thesis describes a modelling tool using photographs of objects to model them in a constructive solid geometry description. It is an interactive tool with which the user may build what he needs with the most adapted detail level for his own application. Proposed extensions for image synthesis may be used to solve image incrustation consistently with shadows, lights and environment reflections.
Psychosocial Issues in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Report of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition

ABSTRACT Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can affect many areas of psychosocial functioning, and comprehensive medical care includes consideration of psychosocial issues as well as disease factors. The purpose of this clinical report is to review research on psychosocial functioning in pediatric IBD and to provide recommendations for care providers in the areas of psychopathology, health-related quality of life, and social, family, and school functioning. Youth with IBD are at increased risk for difficulty in all areas reviewed, and many psychosocial factors are associated with disease activity, which highlights the importance of monitoring psychosocial functioning as part of clinical care. Several interventions have empirical support or show promise for addressing psychosocial difficulty, and recommendations for monitoring and treating these issues are provided.
Synaptic connections of callosal projection neurons in the vibrissal region of mouse primary motor cortex: An electron microscopic/horseradish peroxidase study

Reciprocal axonal projections between homotypic areas of the vibrissal region of mouse primary motor cortex (MsI) (Porter and White: Neurosci. Lett. 47:37–40, '84) suggested the existence of reciprocal synaptic connections between callosal projection neurons and callosal afferents. In the present study, the retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was combined with lesion‐induced degeneration to identify synapses between callosal afferents and callosal neurons in the corresponding region of the contralateral cortex. The procedure was as follows: MsI was injected with HRP and aspirated on the following day. After 4 days, the animals were perfused and motor cortex was processed for HRP according to a variation of the Adams (Brain Res. 176:33–47,'77) technique, and, postfixed in OsO4. The methods used consistently filled fine dendritic branches and spines with dense reaction product, thus allowing examination of synaptic contacts with these processes.
Solitary Nasal Schwannoma Clinically Presenting as an Angiofibroma of the Nasopharynx

Benign schwannomas of the nasal cavity are rare. When they do occur, their clinical presentation is variable, and some are fairly vascular. We report the case of a 17-year-old boy who presented with epistaxis associated with a unilateral nasal mass that extended into the nasopharynx. The tumor was removed via a transpalatal approach. In most such cases, a clinical diagnosis of angiofibroma is made. In this case, however, histopathologic examination identified the lesion as a schwannoma.
FDTD simulation of very large domains applied to radar propagation over the ocean

A domain decomposition method for analyzing very large FDTD domains, tens of thousands of wavelengths long, is demonstrated by application to the problem of RADAR scattering in the maritime environment. Success depends on the elimination of artificial scattering from the “sky” boundary and this is ensured by an ultra-high performance absorbing termination that eliminates this reflection at angles of incidence from normal down to less than 0.2 degrees off grazing. The results are cross-validated at S-Band by comparison to Method of Moments over a 3.6 km flat conducting plane with an inhomogeneous atmosphere, and at X-Band by comparing to another parabolic equation method on propagation through an inhomogeneous atmosphere over a 4km long sea surface. Details of the method are given for the two-dimensional problem (2D). The same techniques used in 2D are being applied to three dimensions (3D).
Das (unheimliche und) unsichere Tal der Assistenz und Automation – Beschreibung und Absicherungsmöglichkeiten

Zusammenfassung Fortschritte in der Automatisierungstechnik ermöglichen es technischen Systemen immer mehr Aufgaben zu übernehmen. Für die Gestaltung der Interaktion und Kooperation von Mensch und Maschine ist die Einschätzung des Menschen bzgl. der Fähigkeiten der Maschine sicherheitsrelevant. Das Uncanny Valley der Robotik beschreibt, wie Roboter mit hoher, aber nicht perfekter Menschenähnlichkeit als unheimlich wahrgenommen werden. Bestehende Studien, z. B. für Luft- und Bodenfahrzeuge, deuten an, dass es einen ähnlichen Zusammenhang zwischen Automationsgrad und Sicherheit geben könnte, da sich zwischen gut funktionierenden teil- und hochautomatisierten Modi ein unsicheres Tal bildet, in welcher die Sicherheit des Systems stark reduziert ist. Es werden Gestaltungsoptionen beschrieben, um diesen Bereich abzusichern.
Maximum power interference alignment scheme for less computational cost in MIMO interference channel

Maximum power interference alignment (IA) algorithm is typically used to find interference mitigation solution for MIMO interference channels (MIMO-IC). However, this iterative IA scheme brings tremendous computational cost. In this paper, we propose a new iterative IA algorithm that designed to finding the IA solution maximizes the power with less computational cost. The proposed algorithm combines the modified GramSchmidt sorted QR decomposition method and the steepest descent method on the Grassmann manifold to not only minimize the distances between the interference subspace and the subspace spanned by interference, but also further reduce the complexity of the whole system with each iteration. Simulation results show that it not only is the same basically in the system capacity, but also obviously decreases the system computational complexity.
Coffee consumption and decreased serum gamma-glutamyltransferase and aminotransferase activities among male alcohol drinkers.

BACKGROUND Attention has long been drawn to the potentially harmful effects of coffee on health, however recent epidemiological studies have suggested unexpected, possibly beneficial effects of coffee against the occurrence of alcoholic liver cirrhosis and upon serum liver enzyme levels. METHODS We examined the potential inverse association between coffee drinking and serum concentrations of gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and aminotransferases, with special reference to interaction with alcohol consumption, in a cross-sectional study involving 12687 health examinees (7398 men and 5289 women) aged 40-69 years from over 1000 workplaces in Nagano prefecture in central Japan. Those who had a history of liver disease and/or serum aminotransferases exceeding the normal range were excluded. Possible confounding effects of alcohol consumption, body mass index, cigarette smoking, and green tea consumption were controlled through multivariate analyses. RESULTS Increased coffee consumption was strongly and independently associated with decreased GGT activity among males (P trend < 0.0001); the inverse association between coffee and serum GGT was more evident among heavier alcohol consumers (P < 0.0001), and was absent among non-alcohol drinkers. Among females, however, coffee was only weakly related to lower GGT level. Similar inverse associations with coffee and interactions between coffee and alcohol intake were observed for serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase. Intake of green tea, another popular source of caffeine in Japan, did not materially influence the liver enzyme levels. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that coffee may inhibit the induction of GGT in the liver by alcohol consumption, and may possibly protect against liver cell damage due to alcohol.
Study of deep learning and CMU sphinx in automatic speech recognition

Machine learning has proven to be a very effective tool in automatic speech recognition. This paper is an attempt to give a broad overview of the applications of various approaches of machine learning in speech recognition with special reference to deep learning and CMU Sphinx. Deep learning in Speech recognition is a relatively recent development. On the other hand, CMU Sphinx, an open source software has been in use for this purpose for a relatively longer time. CNN, a Deep Learning algorithm learns the invariant features that help it to differentiate between different words and word sequences. CMU Sphinx uses GMM-HMM model to predict the phonemes in the utterance to determine the word or set of continuous words that were spoken.
Sicherheitsaspekte der Therapie mit Biologika bei entzündlich rheumatologischen Erkrankungen

Zusammenfassung Biologika haben zu einer rasanten Verbesserung der therapeutischen Optionen bei der medikamentösen Therapie rheumatologischer Erkrankungen geführt. Obgleich die Substanzen als sicher und gut verträglich gel-ten, ist eine abschließende Beurteilung des Sicherheitsprofils der einzelnen Substanzen noch nicht möglich. Dies liegt unter anderem daran, dass die zur Zulassung der Substanzen führenden kontrollierten Studien in der Regel nicht darauf ausgelegt sind, seltene Ereignisse zu erfassen und gerade für die neueren Substanzen noch kaum Daten aus der Analyse von Therapiekohorten vorliegen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden die wichtigsten Sicherheitsaspekte unter besonderer Berücksichtigung substanzspezifischer Besonderheiten zusammengefasst
Sentinel-1 mission overview

The ESA Sentinels constitute the first series of operational satellites responding to the Earth Observation needs of the EU-ESA Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme. The GMES space component relies on existing and planned space assets as well as on new complementary developments by ESA. This paper describes the Sentinel-1 mission, an imaging synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation at C-band. It provides an overview of the mission requirements, its applications and the technical concept for the system.
In situ detection of Epstein Barr virus in gastric carcinoma tissue in China high-risk area.

Epstein-Barr virus ( EBV ), a gammaherpesvirus, has been strongly associated with African Burkitt’s lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Recently it has been identified in lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of thymus, tonsil, lung and in some gastric carcinoma[1-4]. The development of very sensitive methods for detection of EBV infection in archival pathologic tumor sections has allowed us to study the association of EBV with gastric adenocarcinomas by using In situ hybridization with EBER-1 oligoprobes and immunohistochemistry with anti-LMP1 antibodies.