Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of sagittal spinopelvic parameters in different types of double-level degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis: a retrospective study

Background Degenerative lumber spondylolisthesis (DLS), a common orthopaedic disease causing low back pain, seriously affects daily life and work. Although sagittal spinopelvic parameters have been studied in single-level DLS patients, investigations into different types of double-level DLS are scarce. This study aims to analyse the demographic and radiological parameters of patients with different types of double-level DLS and compare their differences to provide a reference for guiding surgical treatment and restoring sagittal balance of DLS patients. Methods From January 2014 to January 2020, double-level DLS patients’ records were retrospectively reviewed and divided into three types: anterior, posterior, and combined; the anterior and combined types were studied. Two spin surgeons measured the sagittal spinopelvic parameters: C7 tilt, maximal thoracic kyphosis (TKmax), maximal lumbar lordosis (LLmax), pelvic incidence (PI), pelvic tilt (PT), and sacral slope (SS). Following descriptive analysis, demographic and radiographic data were compared between the anterior and combined types. Results Patients in the anterior type group (n = 40) were older (67.68 ± 6.66 vs. 61.72 ± 10.06 years, P = 0.031), and the proportion of females were significantly higher (90% vs. 50%, P = 0.001) than the combined group (n = 18). Both groups had different levels of chronic lower back pain, but the incidence of radiating leg pain and neurogenic claudication was significantly higher in the anterior type. Owestry disability index and visual analogue scale lower back scores were also higher in the anterior type. In the anterior type, C7 tilt (7.14 ± 2.15 vs. 5.41 ± 2.28, P = 0.007), LLmax (50.02 ± 14.76 vs. 36.96 ± 14.56, P = 0.003), PI (68.28 ± 9.16 vs. 55.53 ± 14.19, P < 0.001), PT (28.68 ± 7.31 vs. 19.38 ± 4.70, P < 0.001), and PT/PI (42.45 ± 11.22 vs. 36.04 ± 9.87, P = 0.041) were significantly higher. In the anterior type, PI correlated significantly positively with LLmax (r = 0.59) and SS (r = 0.71). LLmax and SS (r = 0.65) had a positive correlation. PT/PI and SS (r = -0.77) had a negative correlation. In the combined type, PI correlated positively with LLmax (r = 0.61) and SS (r = 0.88), and PT/PI correlated negatively with SS (r = -0.81). Conclusions In patients with double-level DLS, the sagittal spinopelvic parameters differ between the anterior and combined types. PI and LLmax were significantly higher in the anterior type, resulting in compensation by forward flexion and pelvic retroversion. Spinal surgeons should focus on correcting sagittal deformities, relieving postoperative clinical symptoms, and improving quality of life during fusion surgery, which is proven to guarantee long-term surgical results.
EUROSENSORS 2014, the XXVIII edition of the conference series New nanostructured Schottky diode gamma-ray radiation sensor

This paper reports on a new fabricated sensor for rapid and ultrahigh sensing of gamma-ray (�-ray) radiation based on a new nanostructure of columnar graphene oxide grown on Platinum/n-type Silicon (Pt/n-Si) substrate which gives a Schottky rectifier response with different threshold voltages. The diodes were exposed to a range of �-ray irradiations (5 − 35 KG) and a change in terminal voltages before and after radiation were measured accordingly. The sensitivity was predicted to be (2 mA/KG) over a wide detection range, which is higher than the state-of-the-art radiation sensor devices. Moreover, the proposed sensor operates on low power, isotropic (i.e., independent of the radiation exposure angle), easy to fabricate, can operate wirelessly, and can be seamlessly integrated in wearable detection devices for ultrahigh sensitivity online monitoring of �-ray radiations. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of Eurosensors 2014.
Lifestyles and Cancer: A Brief Review

Cancer is a devastating disease. It results in significant physical and mental suffering and gravely affects the financial status of the affected individuals and their families. Practicing healthy lifestyles can prevent many cancers and greatly ameliorate several adverse effects of ten imparted by the disease and its treatment. Healthy lifestyles can also improve the patients’ quality of life and significantly improve outcomes. This brief review looks at the published data on the persuasive benefits of healthy lifestyles on cancer.
Dynamic driving/braking force distribution in electric vehicles with independently driven four wheels

A novel algorithm for the dynamic driving/braking force distribution is proposed for electric vehicles (EV) with four in‐wheel motors. In such EVs, the vehicle lateral motion can be controlled by a yaw moment, generated by the torque difference between wheels. This method is known as DYC (Direct Yaw moment Control) in ordinary engine vehicle engineering; however, the torque difference can be generated more directly with in‐wheel motors. One problem of DYC is its instability on slippery roads, such as wet or snowy asphalt. To achieve high stability, the loads of wheels are preferably equal. The load on each wheel can be evaluated as the square root of the sum of squares of driving/braking force and side force. Therefore, the driving/braking forces, or motor torques, should be distributed depending on the side forces of the wheels, to minimize the load imbalance between wheels. The proposed algorithm can solve this optimization problem approximately with little calculation cost, and thus this method can be applied for real‐time calculation within a control period. Approximate solutions obtained with the proposed method are evaluated by comparison with numerical solutions that require much calculation time. The difference between these solutions is shown to be negligible, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 138(1): 79–89, 2002
Shear strengthening of reinforced concrete T‐beams with fully or partially bonded fibre‐reinforced polymer composites

A series of 10 reinforced concrete T‐beams, designed deficient in shear, were tested in order to investigate the shear performance achieved through externally applied U‐shaped FRP composite strips. Key variables of the study were: type of FRP composite, type of surface bonding and type of end anchorage for the strips. Carbon fibre‐reinforced polymer (CFRP), glass fibre‐reinforced polymer (GFRP) and high modulus of elasticity carbon fibre‐reinforced polymer (Hi‐CFRP) strips were the special composite types with different elastic moduli, full or partial bonding of the strips to the beam surface were the variables for the type of surface bonding. All partially bonded FRP strips were free from surface bonding, whereas epoxy‐bonded FRP anchors were used at their ends close to the slab‐to‐beam connection. Those strips with full surface bonding have either epoxy‐bonded FRP anchors at their ends or the strip ends were without anchorage. The test results revealed that shear‐deficient beams may well be strengthened by the externally applied FRP strips. However, the level of strength enhancement and the failure pattern is closely influenced by the composite's elastic modulus, the type of surface bonding and the type of end anchorage for the FRP strip itself. The enhancement of the Hi‐CFRP strips did not live up to expectations. The use of unbonded FRP for shear strengthening yielded promising results.
Influence of modification of dental porcelains with hybrid nanomaterial on surface characteristics, antimicrobial, chemical, and mechanical properties

Evaluated the effect of incorporation of the nanostructured silver vanadate decorated with silver nanoparticles (β-AgVO3) into dental porcelains on surface characteristics, antimicrobial, chemical, and mechanical properties. The percentages of 2.5% and 5% of β-AgVO3 were incorporated into commercial dental porcelains IPS Inline and Ex-3 Noritake. Surface characteristics were evaluated by SEM/EDS. Antimicrobial activity were investigated against Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sobrinus, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, by colony counts (CFU/mL), metabolic activity, and multiphoton microscopy. The chemical and mechanical behavior was evaluated by silver (Ag+) and vanadium (V4+/V5+) ions release, microhardness, roughness, and fracture toughness. Statistical tests Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn’s post-hoc were applied for antimicrobial analysis and ions release, and ANOVA and Bonferroni's post-hoc, for mechanical analysis. The nanomaterial interferes in the material’s morphology but does not alter the porcelain’s components. IPS Inline 5% reduced S. mutans and S. sobrinus (p<0.05), and Ex-3 Noritake 5% reduced S. sobrinus (p<0.05). The IPS Inline 2.5% reduced A. actinomycetemcomitans (p<0.05). IPS Inline 5% released more Ag+ (p<0.05), and Ex-3 Noritake 2.5% released more V4+/V5+ (p<0.05). The β-AgVO3 increased the fracture toughness of IPS Inline, the roughness for all groups, and decreased the microhardness of 2.5% group (p<0.05). β-AgVO3 incorporation influenced on morphology but not altered the porcelain’s components, promoted antimicrobial activity against S. mutans, S. sobrinus, and A. actinomycetemcomitans, due to the Ag+ and V4+/V5+ released and influenced the porcelain’s mechanical properties.
The Design Research of Inductance Sensor in the AMB Rotor System

The sensor is an important part of the active magnetic bearing system, which directly affects the performance of the entire system. Compared with the eddy current sensor, inductive sensor has the advantages of low cost, high sensitivity, and is not sensitive to the electromagnetic environment; Influenced by the ambient temperature is small. In this paper, design research from two aspects of the sensor structure and circuit, and the sensor was simulation analysis, which laid the foundation in the application of magnetic bearing systems.
Unified quasi-static MOSFET capacitance model

An accurate calculation of MOSFET capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics has to account for the bulk charge which is affected by nonuniform doping profiles and short-channel effects. In an approach based on the unified charge control model (UCCM), the voltage dependencies of the bulk charge are related to the standard parameters of the body plots which are routinely measured during MOSFET characterization. The results of the C-V calculations based on this model are in good agreement with experimental data and calculations based on the standard BSIM model. Compared to the BSIM simulations, the present model more accurately describes capacitances related to the bulk charge and the device subthreshold behavior, and it is suitable for incorporation into circuit simulators. >
The Application of the Green Energy in HVAC

With the rapid development of Chinese economy, making the energy consumption of HVAC increase sharply, HVAC energy saving has been an increasingly urgent event. This paper points out that the development of green energy is the need of energy saving and environmental protection, this paper introduces the application of green energy in the HVAC, how to develop new technology in HVAC and puts forward some opinions.
Energy Efficient Cluster Based Clinical Decision Support System in IoT Environment

: Internet of Things (IoT) has become a major technological development which offers smart infrastructure for the cloud-edge services by the inter-connection of physical devices and virtual things among mobile applications and embedded devices. The e-healthcare application solely depends on the IoT and cloud computing environment, has provided several characteristics and applications. Prior research works reported that the energy consumption for transmission process is significantly higher compared to sensing and processing, which led to quick exhaustion of energy. In this view, this paper introduces a new energy efficient cluster enabled clinical decision support system (EEC-CDSS) for embedded IoT environment. The presented EEC-CDSS model aims to effectively transmit the medical data from IoT devices and perform accurate diagnostic process. The EEC-CDSS model incorporates particle swarm optimization with levy distribution (PSO-L) based clustering technique, which clusters the set of IoT devices and reduces the amount of data transmission. In addition, the IoT devices forward the data to the cloud where the actual classification procedure is performed. For classification process, variational autoencoder (VAE) is used to determine the existence of disease or not. In order to investigate the proficient results analysis of the EEC-CDSS model, a wide range of simulations was carried out on heart disease and diabetes dataset. The obtained simulation values pointed out the supremacy of the EEC-CDSS model interms of energy efficiency and classification accuracy.
Thermal Roof Insulation in Tropical Buildings

Model huts were constructed for tropical studies of the heat penetration of painted and unpainted galvanised steel roofs in combination with various commercial under-roof insulations. The results showed that a white painted roof and unpainted roofs with various insulations had similar resistances to heat penetration, but the white roof case allowed interior heat to escape faster and thus was superior for thermal comfort purposes. However, a combination of white paintedness and under-roof insulation was much better than either measure alone for overall insulating performance. It was concluded that dust buildup on upward facing, reflective under-roof insulating surfaces degrades their performance significantly compared to other cases. Measurements were made of the relative emittance and absorptance of weathered and unweathered steel roofs. The quotient of these surface optical properties was found to correlate with the heat penetration and thus provides a means of evaluating heat penetration of old roofs by.
Analysis and Design of Emitter Followers at High Frequencies

This paper deals with the performance of emitter followers at high frequencies. Under the assumption of a linear current gain of the form \beta(s) = \beta_0/(1 + s\tau) , equivalent circuits are derived for the resistive and capacitive loaded emitter follower, and the effect of the collector-to-base capacity is shown to be equivalent to a modified load. An explanation of feedback in the emitter follower is presented which is helpful in understanding the reason for instability in certain cases. The particular case of inductive drive and capacitive load is analyzed, and a simplified stability expression is derived which is useful at high frequencies. Compensation, in the form of a base RC network, is discussed, and design curves for this type of compensation are presented.
Investigation of charge accumulation in the dielectric for robust RF MEMS switches

For higher-power-handling RF MEMS switches, the design of the switch is based on fixed-fixed beam capacitive structure with electrostatic actuation. Such RF MEMS switches are perceived to be unreliable because of the stiction and screening of the beam caused by charge accumulation in the dielectric layer. The research effort for a robust RF MEMS solution has been made for more than a decade. In this paper the models for stiction and screening caused by charge accumulation have been reviewed. As the first part of this paper, the possible charging mechanisms will be described, such as, 1) the dielectric charging arises from charges distributed throughout the dielectric material, 2) the presence of charges at the dielectric interface. In order to avoid the charge accumulation, trapped charges in the dielectric layer have to quickly vanish. Relaxing mechanisms of short time must be created inside of the dielectric for quick charge recombination. The second part of this paper will report the recent effort to create relaxing mechanisms of short time by using, such as doping dielectric, nano-composite dielectrics, or multi-layer stack of dielectric. Actuation wave form dependence of the charge accumulation will be also presented.
Grid connection of large offshore wind farms using HVDC

This article describes the use of high-voltage DC (HVDC) transmission systems for connection of large offshore wind farms using doubly fed induction generators (DFIGs) to the main grid. HVDC systems based on voltage source converters (VSC transmission) and on linecommutated converters (LCC HVDC) are discussed. The article describes proposed system configurations, operating principles and controls for the two technologies. PSCAD/EMTDC simulations are presented to demonstrate the robust performance of the proposed systems during variation of generation and onshore AC fault conditions.
Embedded System Implementation on FPGA System With μCLinux OS

Embedded systems are taking on more complicated tasks as the processors involved become more powerful. The embedded systems have been widely used in many areas such as in industries, automotives, medical imaging, communications, speech recognition and computer vision. The complexity requirements in hardware and software nowadays need a flexibility system for further enhancement in any design without adding new hardware. Therefore, any changes in the design system will affect the processor that need to be changed. To overcome this problem, a System On Programmable Chip (SOPC) has been designed and developed using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). A softcore processor, NIOS II 32-bit RISC, which is the microprocessor core was utilized in FPGA system together with the embedded operating system(OS), μClinux. In this paper, an example of web server is explained and demonstrated
The influence of manufacturing flexibility on the interplay between exploration and exploitation: the effects of organisational learning and the environment

This paper analyses whether the firm can combine exploration and exploitation and seeks to determine whether implementing manufacturing flexibility will facilitate the development of either of these two terms or both simultaneously. This relationship was measured in 231 Spanish production firms. The results obtained show that: (1) firms develop exploration of new knowledge at the same time as they exploit their abilities; (2) manufacturing flexibility encourages the development of both exploration and exploitation; (3) this relationship is even more significant if we take into account dynamism of the environment and organisational learning.
A study of the operation of a class E amplifier at 13.56 MHz

The performance of a single transistor class E amplifier operating at 13.56 MHz has been studied. Based on the operating data, parallel operation of devices has been achieved. Both circuits use the output capacitance of the transistor as one of the circuit elements. The method of selecting a suitable switch is described. An output power of 160 W at an efficiency of 78.3% has been obtained from the single device and two devices operating in parallel produced 286 W at an efficiency of 70.0%.
Monolithic 1.58-micron InAs/InP quantum dash passively mode-locked lasers

Monolithic InAs quantum dash 1.58-micron passively mode-locked lasers grown on an InP substrate are reported. A repetition rate of up to 18.5 GHz has been realized. The dashes-in-a-well (DWELL) active region consists of 5 stacks of InAs quantum dashes embedded in compressively strained Al0.20Ga0. 16In0.64As quantum wells separated by 30-nm undoped tensile-strained Al0.28Ga0. 22In0.50As spacers on both sides of the DWELL. 4 micron-wide ridge waveguides with cavity lengths in the range of 2.3 to 4 mm were fabricated with multiple electrically-isolated anode contacts. The modal gain and loss spectra of the InAs active region were then measured through the improved segmented contact method, and the characteristics that make InAs quantum dash materials system desirable for semiconductor mode-locked lasers were identified. The segmented waveguides were then reconfigured into mode-locked lasers by wire bonding the segments together to form separate gain and absorber regions utilizing the same DWELL active region. A highly reflective coating (95%) was applied to the mirror facet next to the absorber while the other facet was cleaved. To assist in the cavity design and to determine the relative length of the absorber and gain sections, a model for the cavity geometry of the twosection passively mode-locked lasers was studied and is based on a microwave photonics perspective. A new set of theoretical equations was used to find the optimal device layout using the measured modal gain and loss characteristics as input data.
Dynamic characterization of a 2-DOF circular resonator-driven vibratory grating scanner with geometric nonlinearity

A micro-sized 2-DOF grating laser scanner which is made to vibrate in-plane by an electrical comb-driven circular resonator drive is fabricated and tested. The frequency response of the prototype scanner in atmosphere to different driving voltages and the variations of its natural frequency with scanning amplitude are measured. The results are compared with those from finite element simulations using a comprehensive dynamic model, including the effects of geometric nonlinearity of the flexural beams under large deformations. The comparison shows that the predictions made by the developed nonlinear model are generally valid.
What is Value-Adding? Contradictions in the Practice of Bpr in a Danish Social Service Administration

This article explores the implementation of BPR in the Social Service Administration in a Danish municipality. The technical rationality inherited in BPR marginalises broader conceptions of work-rationality represented by the social workers. This results in a 'clash' between rationalities in the Family Group, causing increased strain and lower job satisfaction.
Analytical and measured performance of the combined analogue locked loop universal modulator (CALLUM)

A novel technique for achieving very high efficiency frequency translation and RF amplification is described, termed the combined analogue locked loop universal modulator (CALLUM). Analytical, simulation and measured results for the system are presented which demonstrate the performance bounds of the CALLUM technique and demonstrate its application in portable radio designs for current and future cellular and private mobile radio networks.
Cultural Politics and Education

The idea of an identical and neutral role for all teachers could be accepted by someone who was either naive or very clever. Such a person might affirm the neutrality of education, thinking of school as merely a kind of parenthesis whose essential structure was immune to the influences of social class, of gender, or of race. It is impossible for me to believe that a history teacher who is racist or reactionary will carry out his or her task in the same way as another who is progressive and democratic. It is my basic conviction that a teacher must be fully cognizant of the political nature of his/her practice and assume responsibility for this rather than denying it.1
Mooring System Monitoring Using DGPS

Over the recent years, the need for active monitoring of offshore production facilities has increased. Due to significant amount of mooring line failures in the recent past, permanent mooring systems for Floating Production Units such as FPSO’s, FSO’s and future FLNG’s are typically required to have active monitoring systems to provide feedback of the mooring system’s status, performance and integrity.This paper will address some of the offered solutions with regards to active mooring system monitoring. Some pros and cons are given for several techniques within the industry currently available, and then a simple but elegant alternative is proposed. With the use of position monitoring, for instance with GPS signals, qualitative and quantitative feedback can be provided on the status of the permanent mooring system. A detailed explanation is given backed up by a few real life examples in which such a system was used to quickly assess the status of the mooring system.Copyright © 2014 by ASME