Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Condition monitoring of wind-power units using the Derivative-free nonlinear Kalman Filter

The article proposes a method for diagnosing faults and cyberattacks in electric power generation units that consist of a wind-turbine and of an asynchronous (DFIG) generator. The method relies on a differential flatness theory-based implementation of the nonlinear Kalman Filter, known as Derivative-free nonlinear Kalman Filter. The estimated outputs provided by the Kalman filter are subtracted from the real outputs measured from the power unit, thus generating the residuals sequence. It is proven that the sum of the squares of the residuals vectors, weighted by the inverse of the residuals covariance matrix, stands for a stochastic variable that follows the χ2 distribution. By exploiting the statistical properties of the χ2 distribution one can define confidence intervals which allow for deciding at a high certainty level about the appearance of a fault or cyberattack in the wind-power system.
How Focusing on Superordinate Goals Motivates Broad, Long-Term Goal Pursuit: A Theoretical Perspective

Goal-setting theory states that challenging, specific, and concrete goals (i.e., subordinate goals) are powerful motivators and boost performance in goal pursuit more than vague or abstract goals (i.e., superordinate goals). Goal-setting theory predominantly focuses on single, short-term goals and less on broad, long-term challenges. This review article extends goal-setting theory and argues that superordinate goals also fulfill a crucial role in motivating behavior, particularly when addressing broad, long-term challenges. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the benefits of superordinate goals, which have received less attention in research, and to show theoretically that people pursue long-term goals more successfully when they focus on subordinate as well as superordinate goals than when they focus on either subordinate or superordinate goals alone.
Automated Gait Generation for Simulated Bodies Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

A popular problem to solve these days is to propose an algorithm such that a body autonomously learns locomotion. Some of the most efficient and popular contemporary algorithms are Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithms. In this paper, we study three such algorithms from recent times, namely - Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient, Advantage Actor Critic, and Proximal Policy Optimization. We implement and compare the algorithms on the performance metric of average reward per epoch. Given our implementations, we then draw our conclusions on the efficiency of the algorithms proposed and rank the algorithms based on the same.
Monitoring Intent for Optical Channel Defragmentation in Software-Defined Elastic Optical Networks

As optical networks become more and more elastic to adapt to data traffic demands, knowing the health of the network is of key interest. We propose a monitoring intent framework to facilitate the development of control functions exploiting the monitored optical parameters. We then demonstrate an optical channel defragmentation control function deployed as an SDN application taking advantages of a centralized view of SDN controller to optimize the spectrum utilization.
Investigation of the Effects of Purpose in Life, Grit, Gratitude, and School Belonging on Mental Distress among Chinese Emerging Adults

Given the high prevalence of mental distress indicators, such as depression, among emerging adults, it is imperative to identify not only factors that place them at risk for mental distress, but also those that protect against it. This study tested the direct and indirect effects (via purpose in life) of gratitude, two aspects of grit (i.e., consistency of interest and perseverance of effort), and school belonging on three indicators of mental distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress). A total of 468 Chinese university students (58.3% female), aged 18 to 27, in Macao, China responded to an anonymous questionnaire between April to May, 2016. As expected, all psychosocial factors were negatively associated with all three indicators of mental distress (r = −0.15 to −0.42, p < 0.05), with the exception of perseverance of effort, which had a significant, negative association with depression only. The results of path analysis showed that purpose in life significantly mediated the effect of school belonging and perseverance of effort on depression, whereas school belonging, gratitude, and consistency of interest all had direct effects on all three indicators of mental distress (p < 0.05). Our results also suggested that the two components of grit may have differential effects on mental distress among Chinese emerging adults. School-based programs should consider positive psychology interventions in Chinese populations.
ACUTE EFFECT OF LOW-INTENSITY ECCENTRIC EXERCISE ON ANGLE OF PEAK TORQUE IN SUBJECTS WITH DECREASED HAMSTRING FLEXIBILITY.

Background Decreased hamstring flexibility and the angle of peak torque (APT) occurring at a shorter muscle length are considered risk factors for hamstring strain injury. Subjects with decreased hamstring flexibility have an APT that occurs at a shorter muscle length; hence, the susceptibility to hamstring strain injury could be associated with the APT occurring at a shorter muscle length. Low-intensity eccentric exercise (ECC-Ex) may reduce hamstring strain injury risk in the subjects with decreased hamstring flexibility by allowing the APT to occur a longer muscle length. However, the acute effect of low-intensity ECC-Ex on the subjects with decreased hamstring flexibility has not been established. Hypothesis/Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the acute effect of low-intensity ECC-Ex on the peak torque, APT, and hip flexion angle in the subjects with decreased hamstring flexibility. The authors hypothesized that low-intensity ECC-Ex would shift the APT, allowing it to occur at a longer muscle length with a minimum decrease of peak torque and hip flexion angle in the subjects with decreased hamstring flexibility. Study design Case-control study. Methods Twelve male college students were categorized into normal group [n = 6 (12 legs)] and decreased hamstring flexibility group [n = 6 (12 legs)] based on the median value of the baseline hip flexion angle (i.e., 80.8 °) measured by passive straight leg raise test. Peak torque and APT during maximal voluntary eccentric knee flexion (via isokinetic dynamometer) and hip flexion angle were evaluated before and after the low-intensity ECC-Ex in both groups. Results Low-intensity ECC-Ex shifted the APT, causing it to occur at a longer muscle length in the decreased hamstring flexibility group. Low-intensity ECC-Ex increased the hip flexion angle and did not change the peak torque in both groups. Conclusion The results of the present study demonstrated that low-intensity ECC-Ex shifts the APT to occur at a longer muscle length and increases the hip flexion angle without a decrease in peak torque in the subjects with the decreased hamstring flexibility. Level of Evidence 3b.
Active Learning of Formal Plant Models For Cyber-Physical Systems

As the world becomes more and more automated, the degree of cyber-physical systems involvement cannot be overestimated. A large part of them are safety-critical, thus, it is especially important to ensure their correctness before start of operation or reconfiguration. For this purpose the model checking approach should be used since it allows rigorously proving system correctness by checking all possible states. To ensure the compliance of controller-plant properties with system requirements, the closed-loop verification approach should be chosen, which requires not only a formal model of the controller, but also a formal model of the plant. In this paper we propose an approach for constructing formal models of context-free deterministic plants automatically using active learning algorithms. The case study shows its successful application to plant model generation for the elevator cyber-physical system.
Cross Layer Approach for Neighbor Node Selection in VANET Routing

The Internet of Vehicles is an upcoming prototype, one which has introduced cutting edge applications and facilities which require the fulfillment of a certain Quality of Service (QoS). Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are the backbone for IoV, providing the support for autonomous inter-vehicle communication and road safety management. The communication in VANETS is challenging as they suffer from several issues due to their intrinsic features such as higher vehicle mobility, rapidly changing topology, etc. Hence the strategies adopted in the routing layer play an important role in the overall application performance. Conventionally, in VANETs routing protocol design, each layer of the model is optimized individually, which does not satisfy dynamic system conditions in VANETs and lags behind the acceptable Quality of Service (QoS) standards. In this paper, we propose to design a novel cross layer based reliable vehicular routing model (CL-RVR), to facilitate reliable routing in VANETs, that would cater to QoS requirements for desired applications by combining the parameters from physical and network layers. Extensive experimental simulations are used to analyze the key performance metrics.
An Innovative Algorithmic Safety Strategy for Networked Electrical Drive Systems

In this paper we address the safety strategies for networked electrical drive systems, in the context of industrial automation. Specifically, it is considered the handling of errors and faults that may occur during the execution of safety related functions, on a set of electrical drives. Such devices, which operate in a coordinated way, are connected via an industrial communication network and use a safety industrial protocol. In this respect, a novel approach that exploits a distributed consensus algorithm to identify and possibly recover the aforementioned errors is devised and discussed in comparison with a traditional safe shut-down strategy. The theoretical performance figures and the effectiveness of the proposed approach are evaluated in a real industrial case study considering two different widespread network topologies.
A Real Multitechnology Microgrid in Venice: A Design Review

A microgrid currently under construction in Venice, Italy, is part of a plant for testing quasi-zero-emission processes. It has a 400-V ac bus and works islanded and connected. It includes three renewable-source generators and five energy storage (ES) systems (ESSs), based on lithium (Li), lead (Pb), sodium (Na), vanadium, and hydrogen. The hierarchical control uses a master system (Li battery) and slave systems. An energy management system (EMS) with a supervisory-control-and-data-acquisition-like architecture controls the microgrid, providing such features as anti-islanding, lowvoltage ride through, and black start. The EMS performs acquisition, processing, and storage of the data produced by power network analyzers. An advanced human interface ensures flexible operation management and performance analyses. This article presents the design of this multitechnology microgrid, which is part of an industrial pilot plant aimed at promoting a number of decarbonized technologies.
Cryptanalysis of an Image Encryption Scheme using Reverse 2-dimensional Chaotic Map and Dependent Diffusion

With increasing data transmission, image encryption schemes have also developed in recent years. Recently, an image encryption scheme has been proposed to overcome the flaws of fridrich architecture. In this paper, partial cryptanalysis of image encryption scheme has been performed in which combined confusion and diffusion is effectively separated as the crypto-system is independent of plain image. With chosen plain text attack, diffusion keys and permutation sequences can be generated. The encryption scheme is entirely dependent on external secret keys and has been found vulnerable.
The Role of Methionine Sulfoxide Reductases in Oxidative Stress Tolerance and Virulence of Staphylococcus aureus and Other Bacteria

Methionine sulfoxide reductases (MSRA1 and MSRB) are proteins overproduced in Staphylococcus aureus during exposure with cell wall-active antibiotics. Later studies identified the presence of two additional MSRA proteins (MSRA2 and MSRA3) in S. aureus. These MSR proteins have been characterized in many other bacteria as well. This review provides the current knowledge about the conditions and regulatory network that mimic the expression of these MSR encoding genes and their role in defense from oxidative stress and virulence.
Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1α Regulates the Transforming Growth Factor β1/SMAD Family Member 3 Pathway to Promote Breast Cancer Progression

Purpose The transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1)/SMAD family member 3 (SMAD3) pathway, and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) are two key players in various types of malignancies including breast cancer. The TGF-β1/SMAD3 pathway can interact with HIF-1α in some diseases; however, their interaction in breast cancer is still unknown. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the interactions between the TGF-β1/SMAD3 pathway and HIF-1α in breast cancer. Methods Expression of HIF-1α in serum of breast cancer patients and healthy controls was detected by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and the diagnostic value of HIF-1α for breast cancer was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Breast cancer cell lines overexpressing SMAD3 and HIF-1α were established. Cell apoptosis and proliferation following different treatments were detected by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide, and cell counting kit-8, respectively. Expression of related proteins was detected by western blot. Results Serum levels of HIF-1α were higher in breast cancer patients than in normal controls. Both SMAD3 and HIF-1α overexpression inhibited cell apoptosis and promoted cell proliferation. Treatment with inhibitors of HIF-1α and SMAD3 promoted apoptosis in breast cancer cells and inhibited their proliferation. Overexpression of HIF-1α promoted the expression of TGF-β1 and SMAD3, while SMAD3 overexpression did not significantly affect expression of HIF-1α or TGF-β1. Conclusion HIF-1α serves as an upstream regulator of the TGF-β1/SMAD3 pathway and promotes the growth of breast cancer.
Few-Shot Goal Inference for Visuomotor Learning and Planning

Reinforcement learning and planning methods require an objective or reward function that encodes the desired behavior. Yet, in practice, there is a wide range of scenarios where an objective is difficult to provide programmatically, such as tasks with visual observations involving unknown object positions or deformable objects. In these cases, prior methods use engineered problem-specific solutions, e.g., by instrumenting the environment with additional sensors to measure a proxy for the objective. Such solutions require a significant engineering effort on a per-task basis, and make it impractical for robots to continuously learn complex skills outside of laboratory settings. We aim to find a more general and scalable solution for specifying goals for robot learning in unconstrained environments. To that end, we formulate the few-shot objective learning problem, where the goal is to learn a task objective from only a few example images of successful end states for that task. We propose a simple solution to this problem: meta-learn a classifier that can recognize new goals from a few examples. We show how this approach can be used with both model-free reinforcement learning and visual model-based planning and show results in three domains: rope manipulation from images in simulation, visual navigation in a simulated 3D environment, and object arrangement into user-specified configurations on a real robot.
Single Phase Isolated Converter for Light Electric Vehicle Charging with PFC and Battery Protection

An isolated converter is developed for light electric vehicle charging application. Primary side of the high-frequency (HF) transformer is coupled with the half bridge converter on AC side and the secondary side with the full bridge converter on the DC side. On secondary side the full bridge converter is interfaced with battery through a filter. The AC side current is modulated to achieve the Power Factor Correction (PFC). A novel modulation and control strategy is introduced here for achieving PFC. Compared with a simple AC-DC rectifier, main advantages of the proposed converter is higher efficiency, improved THD, reduced ripple, PFC and battery protection. Specifications of components are selected on the basis of design equations.
Monozygotic twins with non-Down syndrome associated MLL-rearranged hematologic malignancy and megakaryoblastic differentiation

Jennifer H. Foster, Chris L. Williams, Mohamed Tarek Elghetany, Pengfei Liu, Robert A. Krance, Alison A. Bertuch and Maria Monica Gramatges Department of Pediatrics, Section of Hematology and Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; Texas Children’s Hospital, Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers, Houston, TX, USA; Department of Pathology, Division of Anatomic Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
Field Enhancement in a Terahertz Plasmonic Structure and It's Sensing Applications

In this paper, we investigate the plasmonic response and electric field enhancement in a periodic array of InSb bowtie antenna with different gap distances and different carrier concentrations in the THz range, theoretically. We demonstrate the electric field intensity enhances by decreasing the gap distance and increment of InSb carrier concentration. We demonstrate the structure with the lowest gap distance and the highest carrier concentration, strongly enhances the electric field magnitude $(\vert \boldsymbol{E}\vert ^{2}\vert \boldsymbol{E}_{0}\vert ^{2}=79\times 10^{3})$. Also, our results show that by increasing the carrier concentration, the sensitivity and figure of merit (FOM) are improved. Finally, we propose a THz plasmonic sensor with higher sensitivity of 0.64 THz/RIU that can be utilized in important applications such as molecular detection, bio(chemical) and medical sensing in the THz range.
Humanizar la asistencia sanitaria en los cuidados al final de la vida

Título: Humanizar la asistencia sanitaria en los cuidados al final de la vida. Resumen Algo tan humano como debe de ser la asistencia sanitaria, sufre un proceso de deshumanización. El propósito del presente Trabajo es realizar una revisión bibliografíca narrativa para conocer los motivos de esta deshumanización. Se ha centralizado la atención en los cuidados al final de la vida, analizando las principales necesidades de los pacientes y familiares con respecto al cómo, dónde, con quién y cuándo va a ser el final de su vida. Se ha de comprender globalmente al enfermo para poder otorgar desde la enfermería, unos cuidados holísticos y de calidad que vayan más allá de lo puramente visible. Palabras clave: humanización de la asistencia, cuidados de enfermería hospitalarios, muerte, tecnología biomédica.
The Story of RNA Folding, as Told in Epochs.

SUMMARYThe past decades have witnessed tremendous developments in our understanding of RNA biology. At the core of these advances have been studies aimed at discerning RNA structure and at understanding the forces that influence the RNA folding process. It is easy to take the present state of understanding for granted, but there is much to be learned by considering the path to our current understanding, which has been tortuous, with the birth and death of models, the adaptation of experimental tools originally developed for characterization of protein structure and catalysis, and the development of novel tools for probing RNA. In this review we tour the stages of RNA folding studies, considering them as "epochs" that can be generalized across scientific disciplines. These epochs span from the discovery of catalytic RNA, through biophysical insights into the putative primordial RNA World, to characterization of structured RNAs, the building and testing of models, and, finally, to the development of models with the potential to yield generalizable predictive and quantitative models for RNA conformational, thermodynamic, and kinetic behavior. We hope that this accounting will aid others as they navigate the many fascinating questions about RNA and its roles in biology, in the past, present, and future.
Measurement of bend sprinting kinematics with three-dimensional motion capture: a test–retest reliability study

ABSTRACT Sprint velocity decreases on the bend when compared with the straight, therefore understanding technique during bend sprinting could have important implications for aiding race performance. Few bend sprinting studies have used optoelectronic cameras to investigate kinematic variables. Limited published evidence regarding the reliability of marker sets in conditions representative of elite bend sprinting makes model selection difficult. Therefore, a test-retest protocol was conducted to establish the reliability and minimum detectable difference of a lower limb and trunk marker set during bend sprinting (radius: 36.5 m). Six participants completed five, 60 m trials at maximum effort, with data collected at 38–45 m. This was repeated 2–7 days later. Spatio-temporal (e.g., contact time) and kinematic variables (e.g., peak joint angles) were evaluated. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to determine the between- and within-day reliability. Between-day reliability (ICC 3, k) was fair to excellent for all variables. Compared to between-day, within-day reliability demonstrated stronger agreement for the majority of variables. Thus, same-day data collection is preferable. It has been established that the marker set is reliable for future use. In addition, the minimal detectable difference was calculated which serves as useful reference for future research in bend sprinting
Increased oxidative stress and coenzyme Q10 deficiency in centenarians

Aging populations are expanding worldwide, and the increasing requirement for nursing care has become a serious problem. Furthermore, successful aging is one of the highest priorities for individuals and societies. Centenarians are an informative cohort to study and inflammation has been found to be a key factor in predicting cognition and physical capabilities. Inflammation scores have been determined based on the levels of cytokines and C-reactive protein, however, serum antioxidants and lipid profiles have not been carefully examined. We found that the redox balance of coenzyme Q10 significantly shifted to the oxidized form and levels of strong antioxidants, such as ascorbic acid and unconjugated bilirubin, decreased significantly compared to 76-year-old controls, indicating an increased oxidative stress in centenarians. Levels of uric acid, an endogenous peroxynitrite scavenger, remained unchanged, suggesting that centenarians were experiencing moderate, chronic inflammatory conditions. Centenarians exhibited a hypocholesterolemic condition, while an increase in the ratio of free cholesterol to cholesterol esters suggests some impairment of liver function. Serum free fatty acids and monoenoic acid composition, markers of tissue oxidative damage, were significantly decreased in centenarians, indicating an impairment in the tissue repair system. Despite an elevation of the coenzyme Q10 binding protein Psap, serum total coenzyme Q10 levels decreased in centenarians. This suggests a serious deficiency of coenzyme Q10 in tissues, since tissue levels of coenzyme Q10 significantly decrease with age. Therefore, coenzyme Q10 supplementation could be beneficial for centenarians.