Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide-Fed MMW Aperture-Coupled Patch Antenna for 5G Applications.

This paper introduces a microstrip square patch antenna with a novel low-cost and efficient feeding mechanism for millimetre-wave frequencies targeting at 28 GHz. The radiating patch is excited by the technique of empty substrate integrated waveguide, and two different slot configurations have been examined in this regard. It has been observed that the antenna gain profile and radiation efficiency is significantly improved in both configurations as compared to the microstrip square patch antenna provided with conventional feeding.
Effects of Dietary Antimicrobial Growth Promoters on Performance Parameters and Abundance and Diversity of Broiler Chicken Gut Microbiome and Selection of Antibiotic Resistance Genes

Antimicrobial growth promoters (AGPs) are commonly used in broiler production. There is a huge societal concern around their use and their contribution to the proliferation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in food-producing animals and dissemination to humans or the environment. However, there is a paucity of comprehensive experimental data on their impact on poultry production and the AMR resistome. Here, we investigated the effect of five antimicrobial growth promoters (virginiamycin, chlortetracycline, bacitracin methyl disalicylate, lincomycin, and tylosin) used in the commercial broiler production in the Indian subcontinent and in the different parts of the world for three consecutive production cycles on performance variables and also the impact on gut bacteria, bacteriophage, and resistome profile using culture-independent approaches. There was no significant effect of AGPs on the cumulative growth or feed efficiency parameters at the end of the production cycles and cumulative mortality rates were also similar across groups. Many antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) were ubiquitous in the chicken gut irrespective of AGP supplementation. In total, 62 ARGs from 15 antimicrobial classes were detected. Supplementation of AGPs influenced the selection of several classes of ARGs; however, this was not correlated necessarily with genes relevant to the AGP drug class; some AGPs favored the selection of ARGs related to antimicrobials not structurally related to the AGP. AGPs did not impact the gut bacterial community structure, including alpha or beta diversity significantly, with only 16–20 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of bacteria being altered significantly. However, several AGPs significantly reduced the population density of some of the potential pathogenic genera of bacteria, such as Escherichia coli. Chlortetracycline increased the abundance of Escherichia phage, whereas other AGPs did not influence the abundance of bacteriophage significantly. Considering the evidence that AGPs used in poultry production can select for resistance to more than one class of antimicrobial resistance, and the fact that their effect on performance is not significant, their use needs to be reduced and there is a need to monitor the spread of ARGs in broiler chicken farms.
Co-Inhibitory Molecules – Their Role in Health and Autoimmunity; Highlighted by Immune Related Adverse Events

Immune checkpoint receptors are key players in regulating the immune response. They are responsible for both generating an immune response sufficient to kill invading pathogens, balancing the same response, and protecting against tissue destruction or the development of autoimmune events. The central role of the co-inhibitory receptors also referred to as inhibitory immune checkpoints, including PD-1 and CTLA-4 has become especially evident with the cancer treatments targeting these receptors. Blocking these pathways enhances the immune activity, resulting in both an increased chance of cancer clearance, at the same time induction of immune-related adverse events (irAE). Some of these irAE progress into actual autoimmune diseases with autoantibodies and symptoms, undistinguished from the naturally occurring diseases. This review will take advantage of the lessons learned from immune checkpoint blockade and relate this knowledge to our understanding of the same pathways in naturally occurring autoimmune diseases, mainly focusing on rheumatic diseases.
Calipers: a criticality-aware framework for modeling processor performance

Computer architecture design space is vast and complex. Tools are needed to explore new ideas and gain insights quickly, at low effort and desired accuracy. Cycle Accurate Simulators (CAS), commonly used to explore computer designs, can be slow and cumbersome to develop. We propose a complementary approach, Calipers, a criticality-based framework, to model key abstractions of complex architectures and a program's execution using dynamic event-dependence graphs. By applying graph algorithms, Calipers can track instruction and event dependencies, compute critical paths, and analyze architecture bottlenecks. By manipulating the graph, Calipers enables investigation of a wide range of Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and microarchitecture design choices/"what-if" scenarios during both early- and late-stage design space exploration without recompiling and rerunning the program. Calipers can model in-order and out-of-order microarchitectures, structural hazards, and different types of ISAs, and can evaluate multiple ideas in a single run. Related modeling algorithms are described in detail. We apply Calipers to explore and gain insights in a variety of complex microarchitectural and ISA ideas for RISC and EDGE processors, at lower effort than CAS and with comparable accuracy. For example, experiments show that targeting only a fraction of critical loads can help realize most benefits of value prediction.
Deep Learning Based Speaker Recognition System with CNN and LSTM Techniques

Speaker recognition is an advanced method to identify a person from the biometric characteristics of speaking voice samples. Speaker recognition has become a vastly popular and useful research subject with countless essential applications in security, assistance, replication, authentication, automation, and verification. Many techniques are implemented using deep learning and neural network concepts and various datasets for speaker verification and identification. The primary goal of this work is to create improved robust techniques of speaker recognition to identify audio and enhance accuracy to human levels of comprehension. TIMIT and LibriSpeech datasets are used in this paper to develop an efficient automatic speaker recognition system. This work focuses on using MFCC to transform audio to spectrograms without losing the essential features of the audio file in question. We have used a closed set and an open set implementation procedure on these datasets. The closed set implementation uses a standard machine learning convention of utilizing the same datasets for training and testing, leading to higher accuracy. On the other hand, the open set implementation uses one dataset to train and another to test on each occasion. The accuracy, in this case, turned out to be relatively lower. On each dataset, CNN and LSTM deep learning techniques have been used to identify the sound, leading to the observation that implementing CNN resulted in a more significant accuracy.
CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES FOR CRACK CONTROL OF CAST-IN-PLACE CONCRETE SLABS AND WALLS

The paper presents recommended construction techniques for crack control of cast-inplace concrete slabs and walls. The crack control in this paper refers to controlling or preventing crack formation during the placing, stiffening and shrinking of fresh concrete. These cracks are influenced by means and methods of construction as opposed to structural cracks due to imposed loads. The techniques affecting construction crack formation involve details regarding volume and length of concrete pour, casting sequence, concrete curing and mix design. These strategies are related directly to concrete joints. Various joint types: saw cut, contraction, expansion and construction joints are discussed. The paper emphasizes that saw cut joint is a dummy or fake joint and has no use for crack control. The suggested techniques recommend the use of full-face construction joints to limit the length of each pour segment to 5m to 10m maximum, followed by water curing of concrete for a minimum elapsed time before placing the adjacent pour. For large projects, several alternate slab panels may be poured simultaneously. The closure pours between the first pour panels can then be cast after the minimum elapsed time. It is noted that continuous wet water curing of concrete is recommended over membrane curing method for better quality control. Lastly, concrete mix which includes 15% to 20% of fly ash is recommended for lower heat of hydration and concrete shrinkage. Several proven examples of successful projects using the recommended techniques, within the past 50 years, are given to confirm the effectiveness of the methods.
Three-Compton telescope: theory, simulations, and performance

The advent of highly segmented gamma ray detectors with good energy resolution has made a new class of gamma ray detectors possible. These instruments record the positions and energies of each individual gamma-ray interaction with high precision. Analysis of the individual interactions can provide energy and directional information, even for events with only partial energy deposition. Advantages over traditional gamma ray detectors include enhanced efficiency, background rejection, gamma ray imaging, and sensitivity to polarization. Consider those gamma rays that interact three or more times in the detector. The energy of the gamma ray that initiated one of these events is uniquely determined by measuring the energies of the first two interactions, and the scatter angle of the second interaction. The precision of this measurement is limited by the energy and position resolution of the detector, but also from Doppler broadening that results from the scattering off of bound electrons in the detector. It is also essential to correctly sequence the first three interactions. The importance of Doppler broadening is greater in higher Z-materials, thus silicon becomes a good choice for the detector material. We discuss performance and simulations of the multiple Compton telescope.
Point cloud plane visualization by using level image

This paper presents the point cloud plane visualization by using the level image. A created level image indicates the point presence in a space at a specific level. By knowledge its origin position in a space, the physical pixelsize and the detected rotation angle we can easily visualize planes in an analyzed point cloud. The connection of image processing methods with the physical measurement pointsoffers besides the visualization also obtaining important properties about a scanned space. The described algorithm includes also a color point cloud visualization. Presented results showing the level images advantages for point clouds processing. Keywords: Plane visualization, Level image, Point cloud
Antibiofilm and Antimicrobial Activities of Chloroindoles Against Uropathogenic Escherichia coli

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is a nosocomial pathogen associated with urinary tract infections and expresses several virulence factors that cause recurring infections and cystitis of the bladder, which can lead to pyelonephritis. UPEC uses different types of extracellular appendages like fimbriae and pili that aid colonization and adherence to bladder epithelium and can form persistent biofilm-like bacterial communities that aid its survival after the deployment of host immune responses. We investigated the antibiofilm, antimicrobial, and antivirulence properties of three indole derivatives namely, 4-chloroindole, 5-chloroindole, and 5-chloro 2-methyl indole. All the three chloroindoles had MICs of 75 μg/ml and inhibited biofilm formation by an average of 67% at 20 μg/ml. In addition, they inhibited swarming and swimming motilities, which are essential for dissemination from bacterial communities and colonization, reduced cell surface hydrophobicity, and inhibited indole production and curli formation. Gene expression analysis showed all three chloroindoles significantly downregulated the expressions of virulence genes associated with adhesion, stress regulation, and toxin production. A 3D-QSAR analysis revealed substitutions at the fourth and fifth positions of the indole moiety favored antimicrobial activity. Furthermore, these chloroindoles potently inhibited biofilm formation in other nosocomial pathogens and polymicrobial consortia.
A Deep Learning Approach to Optimal Sampling Problems

Time-triggered and event-triggered sampling methods have been widely adopted in control systems. Optimal sampling problems of the two mechanisms have also received great attentions. However, for high-dimensional systems, analytical methods have some limitations. In this study, we propose a model-free method, called soft greedy policy for neural network fitting, to calculate the optimal sampling period of the time-triggered impulse control and the optimal threshold of the event-triggered impulse control. A neural network is used to approximate the objective function and then is trained. This approach is more widely applicable than the analytical method. At the same time, compared with different ways of generating data, the algorithm can carry out real-time update with greater flexibility and higher accuracy. Simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
A Parameter Estimation Based MPPT Method for a PV System Using Lyapunov Control Scheme

There are two types of external variations that change the operating point of a photovoltaic (PV) system: one is environmental change caused by variation in temperature and/or irradiance and the other is load change. The variation in environmental condition changes the PV array characteristic itself, whereas the load variation changes the operating point within the same curve. Each type of change can be uniquely identified using history of PV voltage and current measurements. Using the above fact, this paper proposes a fast maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique for a PV array coupled with boost converter. The proposed method determines MPP in a single step by finding out temperature and irradiance at which the PV array is operating. Furthermore, based on the measured values of PV voltage and current, inductor current and load voltage are also calculated, eliminating the need for additional sensors. Lyapunov-based controller is implemented to track inductor current to its desired value and find the desired duty cycle to reach MPP. The proposed method is validated by both simulation and experimental results under varying temperature, irradiance, and load condition. A comparison with the existing MPPT method is also presented in order to show the efficacy of the proposed method.
Current Status of Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells for Treatment of Neurological Diseases

Neurological disorders include a wide spectrum of clinical conditions affecting the central and peripheral nervous systems. For these conditions, which affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, generally limited or no treatments are available, and cell-based therapies have been intensively investigated in preclinical and clinical studies. Among the available cell types, mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) have been widely studied but as yet no cell-based treatment exists for neurological disease. We review current knowledge of the therapeutic potential of MSC-based therapies for neurological diseases, as well as possible mechanisms of action that may be explored to hasten the development of new and effective treatments. We also discuss the challenges for culture conditions, quality control, and the development of potency tests, aiming to generate more efficient cell therapy products for neurological disorders.
Improving the Healthy Family Index to Prevent Stunting among Children aged 0–59 Months in Indonesia

BACKGROUND: In Indonesia, the prevalence of stunting which is still above the limit set by WHO, requires all parties to be involved in preventing stunting. To overcome this problem, the government is strengthening basic health efforts through the Healthy Indonesia Program with a Family Approach. AIM: This study aims to determine the relationship between the index of healthy families and the incidence of stunting among toddlers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The design of this study was cross-sectional. The population in this study were all families with children aged 0–59 months who were in the working area of the Korobono Health Center. Based on the preliminary study, the number of children aged 0–59 months was 544 people. The number of sample was 202 selected by simple random sampling. Chi-square tests were used to examine the association between stunting and health family index and other related factors. RESULTS: The prevalence of stunting was 36.1%. Hypothesis test results show a relationship between the index of healthy families and the incidence of stunting (p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: Increasing the healthy family index can reduce the risk of stunting in the family. This research is expected to be an input for the public health center to improve the implementation and evaluation of the Healthy Indonesia Program with a Family Approach.
ROS and miRNA Dysregulation in Ovarian Cancer Development, Angiogenesis and Therapeutic Resistance

The diverse repertoires of cellular mechanisms that progress certain cancer types are being uncovered by recent research and leading to more effective treatment options. Ovarian cancer (OC) is among the most difficult cancers to treat. OC has limited treatment options, especially for patients diagnosed with late-stage OC. The dysregulation of miRNAs in OC plays a significant role in tumorigenesis through the alteration of a multitude of molecular processes. The development of OC can also be due to the utilization of endogenously derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) by activating signaling pathways such as PI3K/AKT and MAPK. Both miRNAs and ROS are involved in regulating OC angiogenesis through mediating multiple angiogenic factors such as hypoxia-induced factor (HIF-1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The NAPDH oxidase subunit NOX4 plays an important role in inducing endogenous ROS production in OC. This review will discuss several important miRNAs, NOX4, and ROS, which contribute to therapeutic resistance in OC, highlighting the effective therapeutic potential of OC through these mechanisms.
Prolactin: The Third Hormone in Breast Cancer

Prolactin coordinates with the ovarian steroids to orchestrate mammary development and lactation, culminating in nourishment and an increasingly appreciated array of other benefits for neonates. Its central activities in mammary epithelial growth and differentiation suggest that it plays a role(s) in breast cancer, but it has been challenging to identify its contributions, essential for incorporation into prevention and treatment approaches. Large prospective epidemiologic studies have linked higher prolactin exposure to increased risk, particularly for ER+ breast cancer in postmenopausal women. However, it has been more difficult to determine its actions and clinical consequences in established tumors. Here we review experimental data implicating multiple mechanisms by which prolactin may increase the risk of breast cancer. We then consider the evidence for role(s) of prolactin and its downstream signaling cascades in disease progression and treatment responses, and discuss how new approaches are beginning to illuminate the biology behind the seemingly conflicting epidemiologic and experimental studies of prolactin actions across diverse breast cancers.
Relationships among body size components of three flightless New Zealand grasshopper species (Orthoptera, Acrididae) and their ecological applications

Body size is perhaps the most fundamental property of an organism and is central to ecology at multiple scales, yet obtaining accurate estimates of ecologically meaningful size metrics, such as body mass, is often impractical. Allometric scaling and mass-to-mass relationships have been used as alternative approaches to model the expected body mass of many species. However, models for predicting body size in key herbivorous insects, such as grasshoppers, exist only at the family level. To address this data gap, we collected empirical body size data (hind femur length and width, pronotum length, live fresh mass, ethanol-preserved mass, and dry mass) from 368 adult grasshoppers of three flightless species at Hamilton Peak, Southern Alps, New Zealand. We examined the relationships among body size components across all species using linear and non-linear regression models. Femur length and preserved mass were robust predictors of both fresh mass and dry mass across all species; however, regressions using preserved mass as a predictor always showed higher predictive power than those using femur length. Based on our results, we developed species-specific statistical linear mixed-effects models to estimate the fresh and dry masses of individual grasshoppers from their preserved mass and femur length. Including sex as an additional co-variate increased model fit in some cases but did not produce better estimates than traditional mass-to-mass and allometric scaling regressions. Overall, our results showed that two easy-to-measure, unambiguous, highly repeatable, and non-destructive size measures (i.e., preserved mass and femur length) can predict, to an informative level of accuracy, fresh and dry body mass across three flightless grasshopper species. Knowledge about the relationships between body dimensions and body mass estimates in these grasshoppers has several important ecological applications, which are discussed.
Molecular Detection of Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Ehrlichia Species in Ticks Removed from Humans in the Republic of Korea

Human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) and human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME) are zoonotic tick-borne diseases transmitted via tick bites. To determine the state of human Anaplasma and Ehrlichia infections caused by tick bites in the Republic of Korea (ROK), we conducted a nationwide investigation of human cases of tick bites in 2020. A total of 180 ticks were obtained, comprising Haemaphysalis longicornis (70.0%), Amblyomma testudinarium (17.8%), Ixodes nipponensis (6.1%), H. flava (4.4%), and I. persulcatus (1.7%). In three cases (1.7%; 95% CI: 0.3–4.9), A. phagocytophilum was detected in Ixodes ticks using primers for Anaplasma-specific genes (16s rRNA, ankA, and msp4). Conversely, Ehrlichia sp. was only detected in H. longicornis, in two cases (1.1%; 95% CI: 0.1–4.0). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first record of Ehrlichia sp. in ticks parasitizing humans in the ROK. As concerns remain about the possibility of HGA and HME transmission, continuous monitoring and management of the pathogens and vectors are necessary.