Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lessons Learned Regarding Recruitment to the National African American Alzheimer Disease Health Literacy Program

It has been shown that patients with poor health literacy generally do not fare as well from a health perspective because they lack understanding of health information and are unaware of the steps involved in preventative health care. There are also unique issues with regard to the recruitment of minority participants into research. The National African American Alzheimer Disease Health Literacy Program was a research project whose purpose was to increase the health literacy of African American adults by providing objective scientific and educational information to the African American community of patients, families, and caregivers about dementia and Alzheimer disease. The target audience was the African American communities of Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Newark, and Washington D.C. Reaching into these communities for participants was challenging for a variety of reasons and provided insight into potential strategies for working with the population of elderly African Americans. This article discusses the successes and challenges of the work conducted in Indianapolis.
Study and implementation of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm for Photovoltaic systems

This paper deals with the design, simulation and experimentation of a simple but efficient Photovoltaic system. It provides theoretical and experimental studies of Photovoltaic array consist of 36 cells, which provide a maximum power to the load at Maximum Power Point. However, Photovoltaic generators exhibit nonlinear I-V characteristics and Maximum Power Point that vary with solar insolation. An intermediate converter can therefore increase efficiency by matching the Photovoltaic system to the load and by operating the solar cell arrays at their Maximum Power Point. In this paper, an Maximum Point tracking algorithm using Perturb and Observe method with array voltage (Vpv) and array current (Ipv) is developed and verified in simulation for water pumping system. The simulated and experimental result of I-V & P-V characteristics with varying Temperature and Insolation are presented. From the results, it is observed that simulation and experimental results are exactly matching. The simulation results for MPPT with cuk converter are also presented.
TATA-Binding Protein (TBP)-Like Factor (TLF) Is a Functional Regulator of Transcription: Reciprocal Regulation of the Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and c-fos Genes by TLF/TRF2 and TBP

ABSTRACT The lack of direct targets for TATA-binding protein (TBP)-like factors (TLFs) confounds the understanding of their role in gene expression. Here we report that human TLF (also called TBP-related factor 2 [TRF2]) activates a number of different genes, including the neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) gene. The overexpression of TLF increases the amount of NF1 mRNA in cells. In vivo, TLF binds to and upregulates transcription from a fragment of the NF1 promoter. In vitro, purified TLF-TFIIA binds directly to the same NF1 promoter fragment that is required for TLF responsiveness in cells. Furthermore, targeted deletion of TLF in mice reduces NF1 levels. In contrast, TLF inhibits transcription driven by a fragment from the TATA-containing c-fos promoter by sequestering TFIIA. TBP affects the NF1 and c-fos promoters in a manner reciprocal to that of TLF, stimulating the c-fos promoter and inhibiting NF1 transcription. We conclude that TLF is a functional regulator of transcription with targets distinct from those of TBP.
Economic load dispatch including wind power using plant growth simulation algorithm

The economic load dispatch (ELD) to meet the system load demand in an optimal manner is discussed in this paper by considering wind power in power system. The generation scheduling for overall system comprising coal based units and wind farm is derived by solving an objective function using plant growth simulation algorithm (PGSA). Uncertain nature of wind power is included in study by using weibull probability distribution function. The errors in wind forecasting are taken in to account by adding costs such as overestimation cost and under estimation cost. The economic load dispatch problem solved for three test cases considers different constraints like valve point loading effect, ramp rates, power loss and prohibited zones. The results obtained without wind are compared with those presented in previous literature to validate feasibility of PGSA. It is shown that PGSA provides better results for fuel cost compared to Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) and Variable Scaling Hybrid Differential Evolution (VSHDE).
A vascular endothelial growth factor activating transcription factor increases the endothelial progenitor cells population and induces therapeutic angiogenesis in a type 1 diabetic mouse with hindlimb ischemia

Background Therapeutic angiogenesis has been shown to promote blood vessel growth and improve tissue perfusion. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays an important role in angiogenesis. However, it has side effects that limit its therapeutic utility in vivo, especially at high concentrations. This study aimed to investigate whether an intramuscular injection of a genetically engineered zinc finger VEGF‐activating transcription factor modulates the endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) and promotes therapeutic angiogenesis in a hindlimb ischemia model with type 1 diabetes. Methods Alloxan (intravenous injection) was used to induce type I diabetes in C57BL/6 mice (n=58). The ischemic limb received ZFP‐VEGF (125 &mgr;g ZFP‐VEGF plasmid in 1% poloxamer) or placebo (1% poloxamer) intramuscularly. Mice were sacrificed 3, 5, 10, or 20 days post‐injection. Limb blood flow was monitored using laser Doppler perfusion imaging. VEGF mRNA and protein expression were examined using real‐time PCR and ELISA, respectively. Capillary density, proliferation, and apoptosis were examined using immunohistochemistry techniques. Flow cytometry was used to detect the EPC population in bone marrow. Two‐tailed Student's paired t test and repeated‐measures analysis of variance were used for statistical analysis. Results ZFP‐VEGF increased VEGF mRNA and protein expression at 3 and 10 days post‐injection, and increased EPC in bone marrow at day 5 and 20 post‐injection compared with controls (P<0.05). ZFP‐VEGF treatment resulted in better perfusion recovery, a higher capillary density and proliferation, and less apoptosis compared with controls (P<0.05). Conclusions Intramuscular ZFP‐VEGF injection promotes therapeutic angiogenesis in an ischemic hindlimb model with type 1 diabetes. This might be due to the effects of VEGF on cell survival and EPC recruitment.
Periodontal pathogens on polytetrafluoroethylene membrane for guided tissue regeneration inhibit healing.

This study determined the microbial composition of the apical parts of the expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane surfaces facing the gingiva and the tooth in guided tissue regeneration. Microbial and clinical features of 2-to-3 wall periodontal bony defects treated with membranes with and without concomitant use of systemic Augmentin therapy were also determined. 18 patients with 18 study sites participated. 9 patients received systemic 500 mg Augmentin 1 h prior to surgery, and 500 mg TID for 8 days thereafter. 9 patients received no systemic antimicrobial therapy. Microbiological examination was performed 1 h prior to surgery, at the time of membrane removal at week 6, and at 6 months post-surgery. Microbial morphotypes, total viable counts, and the occurrence of selected microbial species were determined by phase-contrast microscopy, selective and non-selective culture, and DNA probes. Study sites were examined for probing pocket depths and attachment levels. At baseline, no microbial or clinical parameter showed statistical differences between groups. At 6 months, the Augmentin group demonstrated a significantly higher (P = 0.032; Student t-test) mean probing attachment gain (36.5% of potential gain to the cemento-enamel junction) than the 9 control patients (22.4% of potential gain). At the time of removal, membranes in the Augmentin group showed significantly fewer organisms than membranes in the control group (52.2 x 10(6) versus 488.6 x 10(6)). Sites free of pathogens on the membrane surface toward the tooth gained the most clinical attachment, even in the presence of various pathogens on the gingiva-facing membrane surface. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The Fault Detection and Diagnosis for Fractionating Tower Based on Correlation Coefficient

The fault detection and diagnosis is very important for a security of control systems. In this paper, the author presents a fault diagnosis technique of process based on the correlation coefficient in process variables. The process diagnosis function is defined for interrelated variables based on the correlation coefficient(multiply correlation coefficient, generalized correlation coefficient), whether the involved devices and instruments are fault is estimated according to the correlation coefficient variety. If the fault occurs, the fault location and the failure equipment are determined by logic analysis for diagnosis function value. Finally, the validity of the the method is verified with a practical engineering case.
Are pleural plaques an appropriate endpoint for risk analyses?

Abstract This review summarizes the literature on the relation between the development of pleural plaques and non-malignant and malignant disease in cohorts exposed to asbestos and other fibers. The available evidence indicates that, absent any other pleural disease, the presence of pleural plaques does not result in respiratory symptoms or clinically significant impacts on lung function. For certain types of asbestos, the development of pleural plaques is statistically correlated with malignant disease, but the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that pleural plaques without other pleural disease are a marker of exposure, rather than an independent risk factor. Pleural plaques have also developed in cohorts exposed to other fibers that have not proven to be carcinogenic. Risk analyses should be based on the avoidance of known adverse conditions, rather than pleural plaques per se.
Donor and acceptor substrate selectivity among plant glycoside hydrolase family 32 enzymes

Plant family 32 glycoside hydrolase enzymes include hydrolases (cell wall invertases, fructan exohydrolases, vacuolar invertases) and fructosyltransferases. These enzymes are very similar at the molecular and structural levels but are functionally different. Understanding the basis of the functional diversity in this family is a challenging task. By combining structural and site‐directed mutagenesis data, Asp239 in AtcwINV1 was identified as an amino acid critical for binding and stabilizing sucrose. Plant fructan exohydrolases lack such an Asp239 equivalent. Substitution of Asp239 led to the loss of invertase activity, while its introduction in fructan exohydrolases increased invertase activity. Some fructan exohydrolases are inhibited by sucrose. The difference between the inhibitor (fructan exohydrolase) and the substrate (invertase) binding configurations of sucrose can be explained by the different orientation of Trp82. Furthermore, the evolutionary hydrolase/transferase transition could be mimicked and the difference between S‐type fructosyltransferases (sucrose as donor) and F‐type fructosyltransferases (fructan as donor) could be unravelled.
Discrete Strategy Game-theoretic Topology Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

One of the most significant problems in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) deployment is the generation of topologies that maximize transmission reliability and guarantee network connectivity while also maximising the network’s lifetime. Transmission power settings have a large impact on the aforementioned factors. Increasing transmission power to provide coverage is the intuitive solution yet with it may come with lower packet reception and shorter network lifetime. However, decreasing the transmission power may result in the network being disconnected. To balance these trade-offs we propose a discrete strategy game-theoretic solution, which we call TopGame that aims to maximize the reliability between nodes while using the most appropriate level of transmission power that guarantees connectivity. In this paper, we provide the conditions for the convergence of our algorithm to a pure Nash equilibrium as well as experimental results. Here we show, using the Indriya WSN testbed, that TopGame is more energy-efficient and approaches a similar packet reception ratio with the current closest state of the art protocol ART.
Multiple triggers of cell death in sepsis: death receptor and mitochondrial‐mediated apoptosis

Lymphocyte apoptosis plays a central role in the pathophysiology of sepsis. Lymphocyte apoptosis was examined in mice with defective death receptor pathways due to transgenic expression of a dominant negative mutant of Fas‐associated death domain (FADD‐DN) or Bid−/− and in mice with defective mitochondrial‐mediated pathways due to loss of Bim−/−, Puma−/−, or Noxa−/−. FADD‐DN transgenic and Bid−/− mice had significant albeit incomplete protection, and this protection was associated with increased survival. Surprisingly, splenic B cells were also protected in FADD‐DN mice although transgene expression was confined to T cells, providing evidence for an indirect protective mechanism. Bim−/− provided virtually complete protection against lymphocyte apoptosis whereas Puma−/‐ and Noxa−/‐ mice had modest or no protection, respectively. Bim−/− mice had improved survival, and adoptive transfer of spleno‐cytes from Bim−/− mice into Rag 1−/− mice demonstrated that this was a lymphocyte intrinsic effect. The improved survival was associated with decreased inter‐leukin (IL) ‐10 and IL‐6 cytokines. Collectively, these data indicate that numerous death stimuli are generated during sepsis, and it therefore appears unlikely that blocking a single “trigger” can inhibit apoptosis. If siRNA becomes practical therapeutically, proapoptotic proteins would be potential targets. —Chang, K. C. , Unsinger, J., Davis, C. G. , Schwulst, S. J., Muenzer, J. T. , Strasser, A. , Hotchkiss, R. S. Multiple triggers of cell death in sepsis: death receptor and mitochondrialmediated apoptosis. FASEB J. 21, 708–719 (2007)
A Survey on Database Performance in Virtualized Cloud Environments

Cloud Computing emerged as a major paradigm over the years. Major challenges it poses to computer science are related to latency, scale, and reliability issues. It leverages strong economical aspects and provides sound answers to questions like energy consumption, high availability, elasticity, or efficient computing resource utilization. Many Cloud Computing platform and solution providers resort to virtualization as key underlying technology. Properties like isolation, multi-virtual machine parallelism, load balancing, efficient resource utilization, and dynamic pre-allocation besides economic factors make it attractive. It not only legitimates the spread of several types of data stores supporting a variety of data modes, but also inherently requires different types of load: i analytical; ii Transactional/Update-intensive; and iii mixed real-time feed processing. The authors survey how database systems can best leverage virtualization properties in cloud scenarios. The authors show that read mostly database systems and especially column stores profit from virtualization in analytical and search scenarios. Secondly, cloud analytics virtualized database systems are efficient in transactional scenarios such as Cloud CRM virtualized database systems lag. The authors also explore how the nature of mixed cloud loads can be best reflected by virtualization properties like load balancing, migration, and high availability.
Active Control of Near-Field Coupling in a Terahertz Metal-Graphene Metamaterial

We demonstrate an active control of near-field coupling between dark and bright eigenmodes in terahertz metamaterials. The metamaterial unit cell consists of two orthogonally twisted split-ring resonators, which are tightly coupled with each other through near field. The monolayer graphene is integrated into the unit cell and the coupling strength of the near field can be actively modulated by the manipulation of graphene conductivity via shifting its Fermi level. This letter presents a unique route toward the realization of ultrafast and active controlled near-field coupled metamaterial devices.
Alternative Control Laws for Automotive Active Suspensions

A two degree of freedom (1/4 car model) is used to evaluate alternative linear control laws. Control laws considered are full state feedback, sprung mass absolute velocity feedback and an LQG regulator using suspension defelection as the measurement. It is shown that all three can yield improvements to the sprung mass ride quality but that overall the LQG regulator using suspension deflection provides the best trade-off between ride quality, suspension packaging and road holding constraints.
Normal Dispersive Ultrafast Fiber Oscillators

This paper addresses recent developments in ultrafast fiber oscillators achieved by the operation in the normal dispersion regime. Based on experimental and numerical results, key features of the pulse formation and stability in the resonator will be discussed. The sensitivity of the intracavity dynamics to dissipative effects offers several possibilities to design compact and even tunable femtosecond fiber oscillators with high pulse energy. Optimization of the output characteristic can be realized by adapting the overall dispersion slope and the mode-locking mechanism.
Heat-modifiable envelope proteins of Bordetella pertussis

Several envelope proteins of Bordetella pertussis demonstrated differences in electrophoretic mobility, depending upon solubilization temperature before sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. These proteins were exposed on the cell surface as judged by their accessibility to radiolabeling with 125I. Monoclonal antibodies to two of the heat-modifiable proteins (Mrs of 18,000 and 91,000) reacted with intact cells in immunofluorescence microscopy experiments, also indicating surface exposure of these two proteins. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis revealed that two heat-modifiable proteins (a major protein with an Mr of 38,000 and one with an Mr of 18,000) migrated as higher-Mr moieties when solubilized at low temperatures (25 degrees C). Three proteins (Mrs of 91,000, 32,000, and 30,000) and possibly a fourth (31,000) migrated as lower-Mr species when solubilized at 25 degrees C, as revealed in the two-dimensional gel system; these three proteins were found only in virulent B. pertussis and were not detected in a phase IV avirulent strain nor in a strain modulated to phenotypic avirulence by growth in nicotinic acid. The 38,000 molecular-weight protein (38K protein) and a 25K protein were found to be noncovalently associated with the underlying peptidoglycan. Small amounts of the 91K and 18K proteins were also found associated with peptidoglycan.
Dynamic Performance Indicators for Aged-Care Construction Projects

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used for post result evaluation in the construction industry, and they normally do not have provisions for changes. This paper proposes a set of dynamic key performance indicators (d-KPIs) which predicts the future performance of the activity being measured and presents the opportunity to change practice accordingly. Critical to the predictability of a construction project is the ability to achieve automated data collection. This paper proposes an effective way to collect the process and engineering management data from an integrated construction management system. The d-KPI matrix, consisting of various indicators under seven categories, developed from this study can be applied to close monitoring of the development projects of aged-care facilities. The d-KPI matrix also enables performance measurement and comparison at both project and organization levels. Keywords—Aged-care project, construction, dynamic KPI, healthcare system.
A wavelet method for numerical fractional derivative with noisy data

Numerical fractional differentiation is a classical ill-posed problem in the sense that a small perturbation in the data can cause a large change in the fractional derivative. In this paper, we consider a wavelet regularization method for solving a reconstruction problem for numerical fractional derivative with noise. A Meyer wavelet projection regularization method is given, and the Holder-type stability estimates under both apriori and aposteriori regularization parameter choice rules are obtained. Some numerical examples show that the method works well.
A theoretical calculation of the electric field induced by magnetic stimulation of a peripheral nerve

A mathematical model is presented that predicts the electric field induced in the arm during magnetic stimulation of a peripheral nerve. The arm is represented as a homogeneous, cylindrical volume conductor. The electric field arises from two sources: the time‐varying magnetic field and the accumulation of charge on the arm surface. In magnetic stimulation both of these contributions are significant. The magnitude of the electric field is greatest near the surface of the arm, and is well localized. Various coil orientations are examined; the smallest electric fields are induced when the coil is perpendicular to the arm surface, the largest when the coil is parallel. These results are consistent with many experimental observations in the literature, and aid in the basic understanding of magnetic stimulation of the peripheral nervous system.
In vivo Impact of Monocrotophos on Biochemical Parameters of a Freshwater Fish during Subacute Toxicity and Following Cessation of Exposure to the Insecticide

In vivo toxicity of monocrotophos on key metabolites and enzymes of the protein metabolism was investigated in important tissues of the freshwater fish Clarias batrachus. Fish were exposed to 1/10 and 1/20 of LC50 concentration for 28 days. After 28 days of exposure, some fish were transferred to monocrotophos-free water and kept in the same for 21 days (recovery period) in order to study the recovery response. Total protein, amino acid, and ammonia contents were decreased in gill, kidney, liver, and muscle tissues, and recovery was slight at the end of 21 days of transfer of fish into freshwater. Urea and glutamine levels were elevated, except in kidneys, and recovered at the end of the recovery period. The activities of protease, transaminase, and phosphatase enzymes were elevated in all tissues during 28 days of exposure and at both concentrations. Recovery of the activity of enzymes was more significant at the lower concentration as compared to the higher concentration.