Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SVG using open-winding transformer and two inverters

The static Var compensator (SVG) is a practically used method for supplying reactive power to a power system. In a typical SVG system, a multiple inverter or a PWM (pulse width modulation) inverter with high carrier frequency is usually used. Certain drawbacks are associated with these methods, such as complex configuration of transformer or high switching losses. To overcome these problems, we propose a new high efficiency SVG system using an open-winding transformer and two space vector modulated inverters. This configuration consists of a 3-level inverter with switching at once every cycle and a 2-level inverter of about 1 kHz switching frequency, connected respectively to the opposite terminals of the open-winding transformer. With the proposed configuration, good current waveforms, high efficiency and low acoustic noise can be obtained.
Sexual behaviour in travellers abroad attending an inner-city genitourinary medicine clinic.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate frequency of sexual encounters with new partners abroad in patients attending a genitourinary clinic (GUM). METHODS: In a case series 464 attenders at a genitourinary medicine clinic completed an anonymous self-administered questionnaire, if they had been abroad recently, enquiring about sexual behaviour abroad. RESULTS: 28.4% of subjects admitted to sex with a new partner abroad with only 41.7 per cent consistently using condoms. There were no significant differences in condom use for gender, ethnicity or type of visit and relationship. Twenty-nine per cent of those admitting to sex abroad had more than one partner. The risk of multiple partners was not associated with gender, ethnicity, type of visit (holiday or business) or type of relationship (heterosexual or homosexual). The first partner abroad for 63% of men and 62.5% of women was of a nationality other than that of United Kingdom residents. Non-Caucasians and homosexuals were significantly more likely to have first partners abroad from outside the UK than Caucasians and heterosexuals respectively. CONCLUSION: The occurrence of casual sex abroad in GUM attenders suggests that further research is needed to establish targetable risk factors for this type of behaviour amendable to change through health promotion.
Acupuncture in haemodialysis patients at the Quchi (LI11) acupoint for refractory uraemic pruritus.

BACKGROUND Uraemic pruritus is a common problem in end-stage renal failure patients. Traditional therapies produce marginal or no results. Acupuncture has been reported to be effective. The aim of this randomized, controlled study was to validate a single acupoint for relieving uraemic pruritus. METHODS We randomized 40 patients with refractory uraemic pruritus into two groups. In group 1 (n = 20), acupuncture was applied unilaterally at the Quchi (LI11) acupoint thrice weekly for 1 month. In group 2 (controls, n = 20), acupuncture was applied at a non-acupoint 2 cm lateral to Quchi (LI11) thrice weekly for 1 month. Subjects responded to a pruritus score questionnaire given before and at the end of the 1 month treatment and at a 3 months follow-up. The results of the pruritus scores were analysed with the repeated measures general linear model to examine the effect of acupuncture on pruritus scores. RESULTS In group 1, pruritus scores before and after acupuncture and at the 3 month follow-up were 38.3+/-4.3, 17.3+/-5.5 and 16.5+/-4.9, and in group 2 (controls) they were 38.3+/-4.3, 37.5+/-3.2 and 37.1+/-5, respectively. Laboratory tests showed no significant differences between the two groups. Pruritus scores were significantly lower after acupuncture and at the 3 month follow-up, P<0.001. CONCLUSIONS Acupuncture at the Quchi (LI11) acupoint is an easy, safe and effective means of relieving uraemic pruritus.
NeuroAIDS: Mechanisms, Causes, Prevalence, Diagnostics and Social Issues

Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) engulfs 33 millions of life as per the latest UN AIDS report [Saxena, Tiwari. , et al., 2012] and the effect worsens up when it causes dementia with alarming occurrence worldwide but the mechanism through which it happens is still not well understood, and is in the embryonic stages. The estimated overall prevalence of nervous system disorders among patients receiving highly active antiretrovi‐ ral therapy but also requiring neurological care is over 25% (Singh et al., 2011). Accord‐ ing to WHO there are ~ 34 million people in the world infected with HIV. Out of that 95 percent of these cases as well as deaths from AIDS occur in the developing world. Dementia (HIV-associated dementia) is becoming common in HIV infected adults having prevalence up to 40% in western countries where clade B prevails (Sacktor et al., 2007). Dementia cannot be considered as a disease by itself but it is the term used to describe a set of symptoms resulting from damages and disorders affecting the brain. These symp‐ toms can be caused by a multitude of diseases and depend upon the specific brain regions affected. These symptoms appear as a variety of cognitive, behavioural, affective, motor, and psychiatric disorders. Dementia can be caused by a variety of diseases, known as neurodegenerative diseases resulting from protein aggregation in the brain. Many studies related to this area are been carried out in respect to this, to provide new insights (Saxena et al., 2012). HIV-1 infects macrophages and microglia, and there is an indirect pathway to neuronal injury which happens due to release of macrophage, microglial and astrocytes toxins and viral proteins. The toxins which are released over stimulate neurons, form free radicals, finally leading to neurodegenerative diseases. The cognitive and motor dysfunc‐ tion which is observed in HIV patients is termed as HIV associated dementia (HAD). The
Investigation into Modelling of a Fuel Cell Stack System

Noticing the rise in the electricity prices, worrying about the CO2 emissions and global warming and not sure about living with nuclear power stations, makes everyone think from where energy will come in the coming years. What is needed is a zero-emission distribution generation technology or combination of technologies that allows clean, cost effective supply of energy, on demand on a large scale and in any location. In response a momentous energy revolution is taking place, renewable energy generation or decentralized power systems like wind, photovoltaic, as well as new hydrogen and fuel cells technologies are developing nowadays to take over from fossil hydrocarbons combustion. This paper proposes a model for the simulation and performance evaluation of a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell generation system. Although other models (Ro and Rahman, 1998) have been produced, the proposed model strength is modularizing the fundamental thermal-physical behaviour of a fuel cell stack to develop a modular block that can be used as a part of any other schematic solution required for fuel cells' study. The developed modular block (prototype) makes the model easy to modify to allow the simulation of any PEMFC with different cell parameters and allows investigation of its behaviour for any operating or design configuration. It is also useful for the study of integration of fuel cells in distribution power systems (which is promising especially to systems with variable output renewable sources as it can store their excess power thus improving the overall system stability). The proposed model exhibits most of the basic fuel cell properties and incorporates essential physical and electrochemical processes that happen along its operation, thus it can be moderated to model any other fuel cell' type. The proposed model prototype was verified and compared to another simplified model [2] by generating sample results for a Ballard V Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) stack. Results indicate that the developed prototype is more accurate in simulating the fuel cell stack and predicting its performance especially for high operating current densities.
Novel Antifungal Activity for the Lectin Scytovirin: Inhibition of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii

Pathogenic cryptococci are encapsulated yeast that can cause severe meningoencephalitis. Existing therapeutic options are dated and there is a growing need for new alternative antifungal agents for these fungi. Here we report novel inhibition of pathogenic cryptococci by the antimicrobial lectin Scytovirin. Inhibition was most potent against Cryptococcus neoformans var neoformans and C. gattii, with MFC values of 500 nM. Scytovirin binding was localized to the cell wall and shown to affect capsule size and release. No effect was observed on melanization or with cells grown in the presence the cell wall stressor Congo red. Synergy with existing antifungals was indicated, most strongly for amphotericin B. Overall, Scytovirin serves as a much needed new avenue for anticryptococcal development.
Multidimensional Business to Business E-Commerce Maturity Application: Assessment on Its Practicality

In most countries, Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) are known as main players in generating domestic-led investment and stimulate economic expansion. They are vital for economic growth and innovation, poverty reduction, local employment and development, and social cohesion. However, in the current digitally-connected trading economy, SMEs have face many new challenges that change the way SMEs business-to-business (B2B) trading operates. Among these challenges ARE the level of B2B e-commerce implementation and utilization that able to facilitate B2B trading process. However, the implementation of B2B e-commerce is being categorized as a system with high degree of difficulty since it involves complexity of the multiple relationships and interactions between trading partners. The interactions are not just complicated by their volume and variation in processes, but also by the complexity inherent in the dependencies exist between different trading parties. Based on this, for SMEs to partake in the B2B e-commerce activities, they need to have attained some reasonable level of maturity or readiness measurement in order to participate in B2B e-commerce initiatives. To overcome this, the robust multidimensional B2B e-commerce maturity application to assess the e-readiness level is needed. This paper describes the development of B2B e-Commerce Maturity Application (BeMA) which involves several distinct sequential exploratory stages. In order to ensure its validity and practicality, the application was evaluated by 35 selected SMEs. Based on the evaluation results, all respondents were agreed on the model usefulness and its practicality. The research believes that the model will provide practical guidance for SMEs to clearly define appropriate method of measuring e-readiness and the recommendation approaches to improve their B2B e-commerce maturity level.
Dense matching of two views with large displacement

This paper describes a method of establishing dense matching of two views with large displacements. The problem addressed is formulated as the minimization of an energy functional that combines a similarity term and a smoothness term. The minimization of the energy functional reduces to solving a large system of nonlinear equations which is a discretized version of the Euler-Lagrange equation for the energy minimization problem at each image point. A dense displacement map is computed by solving the system of equations using a coarse-to-fine approach. The method has been successfully experimented with two applications: (1) computing binocular disparities from stereo pair images and (2) computing a dense displacement vector field (optical flow) from two views in a time-varying image sequence. <<ETX>>
Big Data and Strategy: A research Framework

With big data growing rapidly in importance over the past few years’, academics and practitioners have been considering the means through which they can incorporate the shifts these technologies bring into their competitive strategies. To date, there has been an emphasis on the technical aspects of big data with limited attention on the organizational changes they entail and how they should be leveraged strategically. As with any novel technology, it is important to understand the mechanisms and processes through which big data can add business value to companies and have a clear picture of the different elements and their interdependencies. To this end, the present paper aims to provide a theoretical discussion leading up to a research framework that can help explain the mechanisms through which big data lead to competitive performance gains. The research framework is grounded on past empirical work on IT-business, and builds on the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities view (DCV) of the firm. By identifying the main areas of focus for big data and explaining the mechanisms through which they should be leveraged, this paper attempts to add to literature on how big data should be examined as a source of a competitive advantage.
Somatic mutations and losses of expression of microRNA regulation‐related genes AGO2 and TNRC6A in gastric and colorectal cancers

Mounting evidence indicates that deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in development of many human diseases, including cancers. Regulation of miRNA is a complicated process and some components in the regulation are known to be altered in human cancers. Among the miRNA regulation‐related genes, we found that AGO1, AGO2, TNRC6A, TNRC6C, TARBP2 and EXPORTIN5 genes have mononucleotide repeats in their coding sequences. To see whether these genes are mutated in cancers with microsatellite instability (MSI), we analysed the mononucleotide repeats in 27 gastric cancers (GCs) with high MSI (MSI‐H), 18 GC with low MSI (MSI‐L), 45 GC with stable MSI (MSS), 41 colorectal cancers (CRCs) with MSI‐H, 14 CRCs with MSI‐L and 45 CRCs with stable MSI (MSS) by single‐strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis and DNA sequencing. We found AGO2, TNRC6A, TARBP2, TNRC6C and EXPORTIN5 mutations in 10, six, one, one and one cancer(s), respectively. They were detected in MSI‐H but not in MSI‐L or MSS cancers. The GCs and CRCs with MSI‐H harboured one or more mutations of the genes in 22% and 27%, respectively. We also analysed Ago2 and TNRC6A protein expressions in GCs and CRCs with MSI‐H. In cancers with MSI‐H, loss of Ago2 expression was observed in 40% of GCs and 35% of CRCs, while loss of TNRC6A was observed in 52% of the GCs and 54% of the CRCs. Our data indicate that frameshift mutations in AGO2 and TNRC6A and their losses of expression are common in GCs and CRCs with MSI‐H, and suggest that these alterations may contribute to the cancer development by deregulating miRNA regulation. Copyright © 2010 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sealer area associated with cold lateral condensation of gutta-percha and warm coated carrier filling systems in canals prepared with various rotary NiTi systems.

AIM To compare the area of sealer surrounding root fillings completed by two coated carrier systems (Thermafil Obturator and System GT Obturator) and the cold lateral compaction technique, following root canal preparation with two different NiTi rotary systems (Profile ISO and System GT). METHODOLOGY Sixty extracted human mandibular premolars were instrumented with ProFile ISO 0.06 taper and System GT instruments (n = 30 each). The teeth were divided into four subgroups (n = 15) for filling as following: group 1: ProFile + Thermafil Obturator, group 2: ProFile + Cold Lateral Compaction, group 3: System GT + GT Obturator, and group 4: System GT + Cold Lateral Compaction. In all groups the canals were prepared to a final size of 40, 0.06 taper in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions and Topseal was used as a sealer. Horizontal sections were obtained every 1 mm up to 12 mm from the apical foramen. Sections were digitally photographed under a stereomicroscope and the images were transferred to an IBM-compatible PC for image analysis. The cross-sectional area of the root canal and the area filled by sealer were calculated for each section and compared statistically both at all levels and by grouping the data as apical, middle and coronal segments; using the Kruskal-Wallis test with Bonferroni correction and chi-square tests (P = 0.05). RESULTS In the apical third (1-4 mm), the GT Obturator (group 3) had significantly less area of sealer (P < 0.05), while the difference between groups 1 and 2 was not significant (P > 0.05). For the middle and coronal thirds, both coated-carrier systems had significantly less area of sealer compared with their laterally compacted counterparts (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS With the combined use of ProFile + Thermafil Obturator and System GT + GT Obturator, significantly less area of sealer occurred than that achieved with both NiTi preparation systems followed by cold lateral compaction.
Self-Disclosure and Channel Difference in Online Health Support Groups

Online health support groups are places for people to compare themselves with others and obtain informational and emotional support about their disease. To do so, they generally need to reveal private information about themselves and in many support sites, they can do this in public or private channels. However, we know little about how the publicness of the channels in health support groups influence the amount of self-disclosure people provide. Our work examines the extent members self-disclose in the private and public channels of an online cancer support group. We first built machine learning models to automatically identify the amount of positive and negative self-disclosure in messages exchanged in this community, with adequate validity (r>0.70). In contrast to findings from non-health-related sites, our results show that people generally self-disclose more in the public channel than the private one and are especially likely to reveal their negative thoughts and feelings publicly. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our work.
Larvae of related Diptera species from thermally contrasting habitats exhibit continuous up‐regulation of heat shock proteins and high thermotolerance

A population of Stratiomys japonica, a species belonging to the family Stratiomyidae (Diptera), common name ‘soldier flies’, occurs in a hot volcanic spring, which is apparently among the most inhospitable environments for animals because of chemical and thermal conditions. Larvae of this species, which naturally often experience temperatures more than 40 °C, have constitutively high concentrations of the normally inducible heat‐shock protein Hsp70, but very low level of corresponding mRNA. Larvae of three other species of the same family, Stratiomys singularior, Nemotelus bipunctatus and Oxycera pardalina, are confined to different type semi‐aquatic habitats with contrasting thermal regime. However, all of them shared the same pattern of Hsp70 expression. Interestingly, heat‐shock treatment of S. japonica larvae activates heat‐shock factor and significantly induces Hsp70 synthesis, whereas larvae of O. pardalina, a species from constant cold environment, produce significantly less Hsp70 in response to heat shock. Adults of the four species also exhibit lower, but detectable levels of Hsp70 without heat shock. Larvae of all species studied have very high tolerance to temperature stress in comparison with other Diptera species investigated, probably representing an inherent adaptive feature of all Stratiomyidae enabling successful colonization of highly variable and extreme habitats.
A Novel Approach to Trojan Horse Detection by Process Tracing

Nowdays we are more and more concerned with the security of networks for it is vulnerable for the Internet to be attacked. Trojan horses are dangerous tools to attack the Internet. Particularly, there are numerous Trojan horses for Windows system and some new Trojan horses are created almost everyday. In this paper, we address the problem of Trojan horse detection and present a new method to detect Trojan horses. By this method, we monitor the packages transmitted by a computer in real-time, identify the ports through which the packages are transmitted. With the port number known and the information provided by the operation system, we then find the process that sends the packages through a port, and the program file that creates the process is traced. In this way, we link the port being used to the corresponding process. By doing so, we can detect not only the known Trojan horses with more accuracy, but also detect new Trojans. This approach is implemented in Window system. Experiments have been carried out and results show the effectiveness of the method
Chemopreventive Effect of Dietary d-α-Tocopheryl Succinate Supplementation on Precancer Colon Aberrant Crypt Formation and Vitamin E Analogue Levels in Young and Old Rats

Abstract: This study examined the effects of dietary d-α tocopheryl succinate (αTS) in female rats, 20 mo (OLD) or 2 mo (YNG) of age, on azoxymethane (AOM)-induced colonic aberrant crypt foci (ACF) and tissue distribution of d-α-tocopherol (-αT), d-γ-tocopherol (γT), and -αTS. Rats were fed a commercial rodent chow supplemented with or without 1 (YNG) or 2 (OLD) g -αTS/kg diet for 1 week prior to ip administration of AOM to induce colon ACF. The animals were sacrificed after 49 days of exposure. The results showed that OLD rats had significantly fewer ACF than YNG animals, and the percent body fat and serum triglycerides were significantly higher in the OLD group compared with the YNG. However, only OLD animals receiving -αTS had significantly reduced numbers of larger ACF and significantly higher levels of colonic -αT, γT, and -αTS. These data support previous studies demonstrating that dietary -αTS administration is protective against intestinal cancer. Also, this is the first study to show that -αTS accumulates in most tissues following dietary exposure. We hypothesize that increased colon accumulation of fat-soluble vitamin E compounds and subsequent chemoprevention may be related to greater percent body fat and serum triglycerides in OLD animals receiving dietary TS.
Distributed estimation over fading macs with multiple antennas at the fusion center

We consider a distributed estimation problem over fading multiple-access channels. Several sensors transmit a parameter to a fusion center using an amplify-and-forward scheme. The fusion center has multiple antennas and uses the transmissions from the sensors to estimate the parameter. In this paper we will assume that the sensors have full channel state information and formulate an optimization problem that needs to be solved to select the best sensor gains. We also propose bounds on the performance and two practical methods that can be implemented in this scenario. By comparing the performance, it is shown that though there is benefit in having multiple antennas at the fusion center, when full channel information is available at the sensors, the gain in performance is at most a factor of 2.