Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DC–DC Converter With Digital Adaptive Slope Control in Auxiliary Phase for Optimal Transient Response and Improved Efficiency

In this paper, a digital adaptive slope control technique is presented to improve the dynamic response of a current-programmed mode (CPM) buck converter employing a low-cost auxiliary phase. The advantages and drawbacks of the existing analog and digital nonlinear control techniques are discussed in detail. The benefits of the proposed control scheme include superior voltage drop and settling time, adaptive slope control to accommodate a range of auxiliary phase inductor values, and on-line calibration to compensate for tolerance in the main phase and auxiliary phase inductance. The proposed technique is experimentally verified on a 500-kHz, 10-2.5 V CPM buck converter prototype. Charge balancing and optimal transient response are achieved for a range of positive and negative load steps. Operating the auxiliary phase under light-load condition is also demonstrated to further justify the use of the auxiliary phase. Compared to a representative single-phase converter, the proposed system not only has over two times improvement on the voltage drop and three times lower steady-state voltage ripple but also achieves approximately 2% heavy-load and 10% light-load efficiency improvement. The impact of the auxiliary phase operation on the converter's dynamic efficiency is also evaluated at different load step amplitudes and frequencies.
CTIN: Robust Contextual Transformer Network for Inertial Navigation

Recently, data-driven inertial navigation approaches have demonstrated their capability of using well-trained neural networks to obtain accurate position estimates from inertial measurement units (IMUs) measurements. In this paper, we propose a novel robust Contextual Transformer-based network for Inertial Navigation (CTIN) to accurately predict velocity and trajectory. To this end, we first design a ResNet-based encoder enhanced by local and global multi-head self-attention to capture spatial contextual information from IMU measurements. Then we fuse these spatial representations with temporal knowledge by leveraging multi-head attention in the Transformer decoder. Finally, multi-task learning with uncertainty reduction is leveraged to improve learning efficiency and prediction accuracy of velocity and trajectory. Through extensive experiments over a wide range of inertial datasets (e.g., RIDI, OxIOD, RoNIN, IDOL, and our own), CTIN is very robust and outperforms state-of-the-art models.
Vascular cognitive impairment in patients with late-onset seizures after an ischemic stroke.

BACKGROUND Cognitive impairment and seizures are both common conditions in patients with cerebrovascular disease. PURPOSE The present study investigates whether the occurrence of late-onset seizures, following an ischemic stroke, contributes to vascular cognitive impairment. PATIENTS AND METHODS The mean Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the median modified Rankin (mR) scores were compared between 125 patients who developed late-onset seizures (66 with a single seizure and 59 with repeated seizures or epilepsy) following an ischemic stroke and 125 patients who did not during, at least, a 2-year follow-up. RESULTS There were no differences in age, gender, etiology and degree of neurological impairment on admission for their stroke between the groups with and without seizures. Although the mean MMSE score was similar between both groups the median mR score was significantly higher in the seizure patients. Comparing the patients with a single seizure to the non-seizure ones showed the same results. On the other hand, comparison of the patients with epilepsy to the non-seizure group revealed, in addition to the higher median mR score, a significantly lower mean MMSE score in the former group. CONCLUSION Repeated seizures following an ischemic stroke promote vascular cognitive impairment.
Treatment of Nonunions of Long Bone Fractures With Shock Waves

A prospective clinical study investigated the effectiveness of shock waves in the treatment of 72 patients with 72 nonunions of long bone fractures (41 femurs, 19 tibias, seven humeri, one radius, three ulnas and one metatarsal). The doses of shock waves were 6000 impulses at 28 kV for the femur and tibia, 3000 impulses at 28 kV for the humerus, 2000 impulses at 24 kV for the radius and ulna, and 1000 impulses at 20 kV for the metatarsal. The results of treatment were assessed clinically, and fracture healing was assessed with plain radiographs and tomography. The rate of bony union was 40% at 3 months, 60.9% at 6 months, and 80% at 12 months followup. Shock wave treatment was most successful in hypertrophic nonunions and nonunions with a defect and was least effective in atrophic nonunions. There were no systemic complications or device-related problems. Local complications included petechiae and hematoma formation that resolved spontaneously. In the authors’ experience, the results of shock wave treatment were similar to the results of surgical treatment for chronic nonunions with no surgical risks. Shock wave treatment is a safe and effective alternative method in the treatment of chronic nonunions of long bones.
Histone lysine methyltransferase SUV39H1 is a potent target for epigenetic therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma

Histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation (H3K9me3) is associated with transcriptional repression and regulated by histone lysine methyltransferases such as SUV39H1 and ESET. However, the functional roles of these enzymes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain uncertain. In this study, we conducted loss‐of‐function assays for HCC cells. SUV39H1 knockdown but not ESET knockdown reduced H3K9me3 levels and impaired HCC cell growth and sphere formation. The pharmacological inhibition of SUV39H1 by chaetocin resulted in cell growth inhibition and inducing cellular apoptosis in culture and xenograft subcutaneous tumors. Real‐time polymerase chain reaction analysis indicated high levels of SUV39H1 expression in 24 of 42 (57.1%) HCC surgical samples compared with corresponding nontumor tissues. Immunohistochemistry identified high levels of H3K9me3 and ESET proteins in 23 (54.8%) and 29 (69.0%) tumor tissues, respectively. However, these proteins' expressions were only observed in biliary epithelial cells and periportal hepatocytes of nontumor tissues. Expression levels of SUV39H1 but not those of ESET were significantly correlated with H3K9me3 levels. The cumulative HCC recurrence rate was significantly higher for patients with elevated SUV39H1 expression and H3K9me3 levels. In conclusion, our data indicate that elevated SUV39H1 expression and high levels of H3K9me3 have important roles in HCC development and progression. Therefore, the pharmacological inhibition of SUV39H1 may be a promising therapeutic approach for HCC treatment.
Developing Resource Use Scenarios for Europe. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 25

We suggest four scenarios for European resource use up to the year 2050, aligning with the global resource use scenarios developed by UNEP's International Resource Panel (2011). A "trend scenario" prolonging Europe's resource use into the future proves to be very close to the "freezing" scenario proposed by UNEP for high income industrial countries, and leads to an average per-capita resource use in Europe on the same level as in the early 2000's. A "best practice scenario" generalises the past success of some European countries in downsizing their resource use to all European countries up to 2050. The fourth scenario, the "radical transformation scenario", follows UNEP's "moderate contraction and convergence scenario" in halving the per-capita annual resource use of European countries, leading to what is commonly called "absolute decoupling". As a conclusion we show that a successful scenario exercise requires an intimate collaboration between macroeconomic modellers and scientists contributing from the environmental and socio-ecological angle. There will be place for such collaboration in the further course of the WWWforEurope project.
Detection and Prevalence of Verotoxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157 and Non-O157 Serotypes in a Canadian Watershed

ABSTRACT Verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) strains are the cause of food-borne and waterborne illnesses around the world. Traditionally, surveillance of the human population as well as the environment has focused on the detection of E. coli O157:H7. Recently, increasing recognition of non-O157 VTEC strains as human pathogens and the German O104:H4 food-borne outbreak have illustrated the importance of considering the broader group of VTEC organisms from a public health perspective. This study presents the results of a comparison of three methods for the detection of VTEC in surface water, highlighting the efficacy of a direct VT immunoblotting method without broth enrichment for detection and isolation of O157 and non-O157 VTEC strains. The direct immunoblot method eliminates the need for an enrichment step or the use of immunomagnetic separation. This method was developed after 4 years of detecting low frequencies (1%) of E. coli O157:H7 in surface water in a Canadian watershed, situated within one of the FoodNet Canada integrated surveillance sites. By the direct immunoblot method, VTEC prevalence estimates ranged from 11 to 35% for this watershed, and E. coli O157:H7 prevalence increased to 4% (due to improved method sensitivity). This direct testing method provides an efficient means to enhance our understanding of the prevalence and types of VTEC in the environment. This study employed a rapid evidence assessment (REA) approach to frame the watershed findings with watershed E. coli O157:H7 prevalences reported in the literature since 1990 and the knowledge gap with respect to VTEC detection in surface waters.
Performance analysis of a multi-hop power line communication system over log-normal fading in presence of impulsive noise

The authors present a study on the end-to-end average bit error rate (BER), the average channel capacity and the outage performance of a multi-hop power line communication (PLC) system equipped with decode-and-forward (DF) relays. To combat the issue of distance dependent signal attenuation, multi-hop data transmission has recently been introduced for PLC systems. However, apart from the distance dependent signal attenuation, PLC systems also suffer from (i) the variation in signal amplitude (fading) because of reflections and (ii) impulsive noise. Thus, in this study, the channel for each hop of the multi-hop PLC system is modelled by a log-normal fading amplitude, which is clubbed to a distance dependent signal attenuation factor. To consider the effect of the impulsive noise along with the background noise, the additive noise at each node is modelled by a Bernoulli-Gaussian process. Analytical expressions for the end-to-end average BER for binary phase-shift keying, the average channel capacity and the outage probability are obtained. The merit of the multi-hop PLC system over a conventional direct transmission PLC system for fixed transmission power is shown through numerical results. The authors' results show that with increasing number of DF relays, the end-to-end average BER, the average channel capacity and the outage performance improve.
Recurrence of "cured" dural arteriovenous fistulas after Onyx embolization.

Endovascular embolization with Onyx has been increasingly used to treat intracranial and spinal dural arteriovenous fistulas (DAVFs). Several case series have been published in recent years reporting high DAVF cure rates with this technique. Although it is seldom reported, DAVF recurrence may occur despite initial "cure. " The authors present 3 separate cases of a recurrent DAVF after successful transarterial Onyx embolization. Despite adequate Onyx penetration into the fistula and draining vein, these cases demonstrate that DAVF recanalization may reappear with filling from previous or newly recruited arterial feeders. Other published reports of DAVF recurrence are examined, and potential contributory factors are discussed. These cases highlight the need for awareness of this possible phenomenon and suggest that follow-up angiography should be considered in patients treated with catheter embolization.
Smoking and age related macular degeneration: the number of pack years of cigarette smoking is a major determinant of risk for both geographic atrophy and choroidal neovascularisation

Background/aims: There is evidence that smoking is a risk factor for age related macular degeneration (AMD). However, not all studies have demonstrated this association and several key questions about the role of smoking in AMD have still to be determined. The aim of this study was to further investigate this relation for both choroidal neovascularisation (CNV) and geographic atrophy (GA). Methods: To investigate the relation between smoking and the risk of developing age related macular degeneration (AMD) in white people, 435 cases with end stage AMD were compared with 280 controls. All subjects had graded stereoscopic colour fundus photography and AMD was defined as the presence of GA or CNV. Smoking history was assessed using multiple parameters in a detailed questionnaire. Results: Comparison of current and former smokers with non-smokers was consistent with smoking being a risk factor for AMD but did not reach statistical significance. There was a strong association between AMD and pack years of cigarette smoking (p = 0.002), the odds ratio increasing with the amount smoked; for subjects with more than 40 pack years of smoking the odds ratio was 2.75 (95% CI 1.22 to 6.20) compared with non-smokers. Both types of AMD showed a similar relation; smoking more than 40 pack years of cigarettes was associated with an odds ratio of 3.43 (95% CI 1.28 to 9.20) for GA and 2.49 (95% CI 1.06 to 5.82) for CNV. Stopping smoking was associated with reduced odds of AMD and the risk in those who had not smoked for over 20 years was comparable to non-smokers. The risk profile was similar for males and females. Passive smoking exposure was associated with an increased risk of AMD (OR 1.87; 95% CI 1.03 to 3.40) in non-smokers. Conclusions: The authors have demonstrated a strong association between the risk of both GA and CNV and pack years of cigarette smoking. This provides support for a causal relation between smoking and AMD. They also show an increased risk for AMD in non-smokers exposed to passive smoking. Stopping smoking appears to reduce the risk of developing AMD.
Importin-mediated retrograde transport of CREB2 from distal processes to the nucleus in neurons

Signals received at distal synapses of neurons must be conveyed to the nucleus to initiate the changes in transcription that underlie long-lasting synaptic plasticity. The presence of importin nuclear transporters and of select transcription factors at synapses raises the possibility that importins directly transport transcription factors from synapse to nucleus to modulate gene expression. Here, we show that cyclic AMP response element binding protein 2 (CREB2)/activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), a transcriptional repressor that modulates long-term synaptic plasticity and memory, localizes to distal dendrites of rodent hippocampal neurons and neurites of Aplysia sensory neurons (SNs) and binds to specific importin α isoforms. Binding of CREB2 to importin α is required for its transport from distal dendrites to the soma and for its translocation into the nucleus. CREB2 accumulates in the nucleus during long-term depression (LTD) but not long-term potentiation of rodent hippocampal synapses, and during LTD but not long-term facilitation (LTF) of Aplysia sensory-motor synapses. Time-lapse microscopy of CREB2 tagged with a photoconvertible fluorescent protein further reveals retrograde transport of CREB2 from distal neurites to the nucleus of Aplysia SN during phenylalanine-methionine-arginine-phenylalanine-amide (FMRFamide)-induced LTD. Together, our findings indicate that CREB2 is a novel cargo of importin α that translocates from distal synaptic sites to the nucleus after stimuli that induce LTD of neuronal synapses.
Fluid shear‐induced activation and cleavage of CD18 during pseudopod retraction by human neutrophils

Surface membrane expression and conformational activation of CD18 integrins into an open molecular configuration play critical roles in neutrophil ligand binding, membrane attachment, spreading on the endothelium, and cell migration to sites of inflammation. Previously, we observed pseudopod retraction and concomitant cleavage of CD18 by human neutrophils upon exposure to fluid shear stress. But the underlying cellular mechanism(s) linking these phenomena remains unknown. We hypothesize here that activation of CD18 under the influence of fluid shear stress leads to its increased susceptibility to proteolytic cleavage by lysosomal proteases such as cathepsin B and is a requirement for CD18 cleavage and subsequent pseudopod retraction. Specifically, we report conformational changes in the CD18 extracellular domain on neutrophils exposed to physiological fluid shear stresses. Western blot analysis using a CD18 antibody targeted against the intracellular domain revealed reduced levels of full‐length CD18 after stimulation of neutrophils with either fluid shear stress or with the Ca2+ ionophore phorbol 12‐myristate 13‐acetate (PMA; 100 nM) in the presence of exogenous cathepsin B (0.5 U/ml). Moreover, we identified cathepsin B as one protease that may be released by neutrophils under flow and required for shear‐induced pseudopod retraction. These results suggest that a putative mechanotransduction mechanism involving shear‐induced changes in the conformation of CD18 and its subsequent cleavage from the cell surface serves to regulate pseudopod activity of neutrophils under physiologic shear stress. J. Cell. Physiol. 214: 528–536, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Integration of semiconductor carbon nanotubes for photonic applications in silicon photonics

This conference talk will sum up our recent contributions related to the integration of semiconductor carbon nanotubes (s-SWNTs) as an active material in silicon photonics. This work is motivated by the possible use of s-SWNTs for light emission, detection, and modulation relying on the same hybrid on-silicon integration platform. We will first describe experimental results carried out to prepare high quality thin polymer layers doped with purified s-SWNTs. Our efforts to integrate this effective active material in silicon photonic resonators and nanocavities will be then described. We report cavity enhanced near infrared emission from nanotubes accompanied with a spectral narrowing effect when increasing pumping power levels and a threshold-like behavior regarding device light emission.
Instance Semantic Segmentation Benefits from Generative Adversarial Networks

In design of instance segmentation networks that reconstruct masks, segmentation is often taken as its literal definition -- assigning each pixel a label. This has led to thinking the problem as a template matching one with the goal of minimizing the loss between the reconstructed and the ground truth pixels. Rethinking reconstruction networks as a generator, we define the problem of predicting masks as a GANs game framework: A segmentation network generates the masks, and a discriminator network decides on the quality of the masks. To demonstrate this game, we show effective modifications on the general segmentation framework in Mask R-CNN. We find that playing the game in feature space is more effective than the pixel space leading to stable training between the discriminator and the generator, predicting object coordinates should be replaced by predicting contextual regions for objects, and overall the adversarial loss helps the performance and removes the need for any custom settings per different data domain. We test our framework in various domains and report on cellphone recycling, autonomous driving, large-scale object detection, and medical glands. We observe in general GANs yield masks that account for crispier boundaries, clutter, small objects, and details, being in domain of regular shapes or heterogeneous and coalescing shapes. Our code for reproducing the results is available publicly.
Patient-Controlled Intranasal Analgesia: A Method for Noninvasive Postoperative Pain Management

Recently, a new device for patient-controlled intranasal analgesia (PCINA) was described, and a pilot study demonstrated promising results with respect to efficacy and patient satisfaction. The present study compares PCINA with intravenous (IV) patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). Fifty orthopedic patients were prospectively studied over an 8-h period on the first day after surgery. The patients were randomly allocated to PCINA group (n = 25) or to an IV PCA group (n = 25). Pain intensity was evaluated at 30-min intervals using a 101-point numerical rating scale. With respect to initial pain intensity, there was no significant intergroup difference. At the 30- to 480-min measurement points pain intensity in the PCINA group (P < 0.0001) and the IV PCA group (P < 0.0001) was significantly less as compared to the initial value. There was no significant intergroup difference in pain intensity. No patient had problems using the PCINA device. The present study demonstrates, that PCINA provides relief of postoperative pain as effectively as IV PCA. (Anesth Analg 1996;83:548-51)
QUANTITATIVE COMPARISON OF RAPAMYCIN AND CYCLOSPORINE EFFECTS ON CYTOKINE GENE EXPRESSION STUDIED BY REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE‐COMPETITIVE POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION1

We developed and applied a quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction method to study the expression of various cytokine genes in Con A-stimulated murine splenocytes. This method relies on the use of competitive templates that differ from the target cytokine cDNA templates only by the introduction of a unique restriction endonuclease site in the center of each competitive template. After same-tube amplification using a single pair of oligonucleotide primers for both the target and competitive templates, restriction with the unique endonuclease yields 2 species that are readily resolved on agarose gel electrophoresis: full-length target and half-length competitor fragments. Using this method, we studied the time course and effects of CsA and rapamycin on IL-2, IFN-γ, IL-4, and IL-10 gene expression following Con A stimulation. IL-2, IFN-γ, and IL-10 share a common pattern of gene expression peaking at approximately 6 hr, while IL-4 gene expression peaks later, at approximately 20 hr. CsA very effectively inhibits expression of IL-2, IFN-γ, and IL-4, but it inhibits IL-10 expression only 65%. Rapamycin inhibits IL-10 gene expression 100% and is less effective inhibiting the other cytokines. This pattern of inhibition is consistent with a calcium and protein kinase C independent pathway for IL-10 gene regulation and supports the notion that CsA and rapamycin may be used together to advantage.
Income Inequality, Redistribution, and Poverty: Contrasting Rational Choice and Behavioral Perspectives

Based on the standard axiom of individual utility maximization, rational choice has postulated that higher income inequality translates into greater redistribution by shaping the median voter's preferences. While numerous papers have tested this proposition, the literature has remained divided over the appropriate measure for redistribution. Revisiting the original contribution by Meltzer and Richard in 1981, the present paper argues that the median voter hypothesis implies that relative redistribution should increase in line with inequality. However, an empirical test based on 110 observations from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) finds no support for the hypothesis. By contrast, voters' actual preferences offer a better guide to understanding redistributive outcomes. The findings challenge the narrow concept of human motivation that underpins rational choice, and point to the importance of fairness orientations that have been emphasized in behavioral economics.