Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coupled full core neutron transport/cfd simulations of pressurized water reactors

Recently as part of the CASL project, a capability to perform 3D whole-core coupled neutron transport and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations was demonstrated. This work uses the 2D/1D transport code DeCART and the commercial CFD code STAR-CCM+. It builds on previous CASL work demonstrating coupling for smaller spatial domains. The coupling methodology is described along with the problem simulated and results are presented for fresh hot full power conditions. An additional comparison is made to an equivalent model that uses lower order T/H feedback to assess the importance and cost of high fidelity feedback to the neutronics problem. A simulation of a quarter core Combustion Engineering (CE) PWR core was performed with the coupled codes using a Fixed Point Gauss-Seidel iteration technique. The total approximate calculation requirements are nearly 10,000 CPU hours and 1 TB of memory. The problem took 6 coupled iterations to converge. The CFD coupled model and low order T/H feedback model compared well for global solution parameters, with a difference in the critical boron concentration and average outlet temperature of 14 ppm B and 0.94 deg. C, respectively. Differences in the power distribution were more significant with maximum relative differences in the core-wide pin peakingmore » factor (Fq) of 5.37% and average relative differences in flat flux region power of 11.54%. Future work will focus on analyzing problems more relevant to CASL using models with less approximations. (authors)« less
The Economic Burden and Determinant Factors of Parents/Caregivers of Children with Cerebral Palsy in Malaysia: A Mixed Methods Study

The economic burden is a major concern for parents/caregivers of children with cerebral palsy (CP). This study used the sequential explanatory mixed-method approach to explorethe economic burden on parents/caregivers with a CP child in Malaysia and the factors associated with the economic burden. The study period spanned April 2020 and December 2020. A total of 106 questionnaire respondents were selected for the quantitative part, and 15 were interviewed to obtain qualitative input. A retrospective costing analysis was conducted based on the cost data obtained from the questionnaire. The majority of the children were GrossMotor Function Classification System (GMFCS) Level 5 (71%), quadriplegic (63%), and aged >4 years (90%). The estimated annual median total economic burden on the parents/caregivers per child in 2020 was RM52,540.00 (~USD12,515.03), with indirect cost being the greatest cost (RM28,800.00, ~USD6860.16), followed by developmental cost (RM16,200.00, ~USD3858.84), direct healthcare cost (RM4540.00, ~USD1081.43) and direct non-healthcare cost (RM3000.00, ~USD714.60). The annual household income was identified as a significant determinant factor (p=0.019, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.40) of the economic burden. The participants’ responses during the in-depth interview in the qualitative part of the study supported the premise that socioeconomic factors play a substantial role in determining the total economic burden. Our findings may aid local policymakers when planning the greater provision of support to the affected families in the future, especially for the parents/caregivers of children with CP, who are facing socioeconomic challenges.
Concurrent Imaging for TerraSAR-X: Wide-Area Imaging Paired With High-Resolution Capabilities

The concurrent imaging technique enables parallel acquisitions with different beams or modes, e.g., a wide area Stripmap mode with a High-Resolution Spotlight mode. Such a concurrent Stripmap/Spotlight imaging technique is investigated for TerraSAR-X. This technique employs a pulse-to-pulse interleaving scheme to acquire two acquisitions-even of disjunctive areas-at the same time, offering products with different resolution and coverage portfolios. This capability is especially interesting for customers interested in an overview of a larger area but at the same time observing an area of interest with higher resolution, e.g., for infrastructure monitoring or reconnaissance applications. The basic concepts, as well as the driving system parameters, are discussed in detail, together with a coverage analysis revealing the high availability rate of the mode combinations on a global scale. A processing approach re-using a substantial part of the existing infrastructure is described and exemplary acquisitions are shown, together with a detailed performance analysis with respect to resolution and ambiguities.
A Neural Network Based Intelligent System for Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Intelligent automated decision support systems have been attempted with varying accuracies for early detection of breast cancer. One of the important tools in this context is neural network. Various feature selection techniques have been deployed as prerequisite. For taking final decision by the physicians, these features play vital roles. Two important feature selection techniques, namely, correlation-based feature selection (CFS), and rough set based feature selection have been considered in this work. For classification, incremental back propagation learning network ( IBPLN), and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) classification tested on UCI data base have been used here. Classification results are presented in terms of classification accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, and receiver-operating characteristics curve area
Differential Discontinuation Profiles between Pirfenidone and Nintedanib in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Antifibrotic agents have been widely used in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Long-term continuation of antifibrotic therapy is required for IPF treatment to prevent disease progression. However, antifibrotic treatment has considerable adverse events, and the continuation of treatment is uncertain in many cases. Therefore, we examined and compared the continuity of treatment between pirfenidone and nintedanib in patients with IPF. We retrospectively enrolled 261 consecutive IPF patients who received antifibrotic treatment from six core facilities in Gunma Prefecture from 2009 to 2018. Among them, 77 patients were excluded if the antifibrotic agent was switched or if the observation period was less than a year. In this study, 134 patients treated with pirfenidone and 50 treated with nintedanib were analyzed. There was no significant difference in patient background, discontinuation rate of antifibrotic treatment over time, and survival rate between the two groups. However, the discontinuation rate due to adverse events within one year of antifibrotic treatment was significantly higher in the nintedanib group than in the pirfenidone group (76% vs. 37%, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the discontinuation rate due to adverse events in nintedanib was higher than that of pirfenidone treatment throughout the observation period (70.6% vs. 31.2%, p = 0.016). The pirfenidone group tended to be discontinued due to acute exacerbation or transfer to another facility. The results of this study suggest that better management of adverse events with nintedanib leads to more continuous treatment that prevents disease progression and acute exacerbations, thus improving prognosis in patients with IPF.
Moringa oleifera : Nutritional and Medicinal Properties for preventive health care

Moringa oleifera, commonly known as ―drum stick‖ or the ―horse radish‖ is cultivated all over the country as it can withstand both severe drought and mild frost conditions. It is a good source of protein, vitamins, fatty acids, micro-macro minerals and other essential phytochemicals. Due to its high nutritional content, the extract of leaves of Moringa oleifera is used to treat malnutrition and supplement breast milk in lactating mothers. Because of its medicinal value, it is also used as anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, cardiovascular hepatoprotective, anti-ulcer, antimicrobial agent. The pharmaceutical effects of Moringa oleifera makes it useful in therapeutic remedy in traditional medicinal system. Each part of the tree is useful in one form or another due to high nutritional and medicinal value. This paper reports the results of the study made on how these can help boosting the immunity level in individuals.
Influence of Embedded HVDC Transmission on AC Network Performance

An embedded HVDC system is a dc link with at least two ends being physically connected within a single synchronous ac network. The thesis reviews previous works on embedded HVDC, proposes a dynamic embedded HVDC model by PSCAD program, and compares the transient stability performance among AC, DC and embedded HVDC. The test results indicate that by installing the embedded HVDC, AC network transient stability performance has been largely improved. Therefore the thesis designs a novel frequency control topology for embedded HVDC. According to the dynamic performance test results, when the embedded HVDC system equipped with a frequency control, the system transient stability will be improved further.
Expression of miR-29a in whole Blood of Patients with Colorectal Neoplasm

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is major cancer with high incidence and mortality worldwide. It is known that most CRCs arise from precursor adenomatous polyps (APs). Recently, microRNA (miRNA) has been proposed as a biomarker for various cancers including CRC. In this study, the expression patterns of miR-29a in the whole blood (WB) of CRC, AP, and control groups were analyzed by reverse transcriptase-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to evaluate the expression level of miR-29a in patients with colorectal neoplasm (CRN) including CRC and AP. As a result, the relative expression of miR-29a was significantly decreased in the patients with CRN compared to the control group (P<0.001). The results were in agreement with previous in vitro cell studies and studies that used tissue and feces samples, suggesting that miR-29a in WB may be useful in demonstrating the status of colorectal tissue. Additionally, we divided the control group into healthy control (HC) without any colorectal symptoms and non-tumor control (NTC) with colorectal symptoms but without any CRN. And then the relative expression of miR-29a was also significantly decreased in the NTC group compared to the HC group (P<0.001). Therefore, our study revealed that miR-29a can differentiate patients with CRN from HC group, but they are also involved in the early stage of inflammatory response and cannot be specific biomarkers for CRN.
LETR: An End-to-End Detector of Reconstruction Area in Blades Adaptive Machining with Transformer

In the leading/trailing edge’s adaptive machining of the near-net-shaped blade, a small portion of the theoretical part is retained for securing aerodynamic performance by manual work. However, this procedure is time-consuming and depends on the human experience. In this paper, we defined retained theoretical leading/trailing edge as the reconstruction area. To accelerate the reconstruction process, an anchor-free neural network model based on Transformer was proposed, named LETR (Leading/trailing Edge Transformer). LETR extracts image features from an aspect of mixed frequency and channel domain. We also integrated LETR with the newest meta-Acon activation function. We tested our model on the self-made dataset LDEG2021 on a single GPU and got an mAP of 91.9\%, which surpassed our baseline model, Deformable DETR by 1.1\%. Furthermore, we modified LETR’s convolution layer and named the new model after GLETR (Ghost Leading/trailing Edge Transformer) as a lightweight model for real-time detection. It is proved that GLETR has fewer weight parameters and converges faster than LETR with an acceptable decrease in mAP (0.1\%) by test results.
Work simulation of the sprayer field beam with the use of R program Symulacja pracy belki polowej opryskiwacza z wykorzystaniem programu R

In this work the possibility of using R program to stimulate transverse distribution of sprayed liquid deposition and coefficient of variation (CV) obtained on the virtual field beam. Agricultural flat fan nozzles were tested by testing equipment where individual influence from the nozzle with a constant pressure and transverse distribution of the sprayed liquid deposition were characterized. Deposition was collected on the patternator with grooves of 50 mm wide, deposition quantity was automatically measured in measuring vessels and obtained quantities were saved in the equipment database. Sprayed liquid deposition from a single nozzle with a definite influence is saved as a normal distribution. “R” computer program enables to set distributions obtained from single nozzles in such a way so that it was possible to stimulate the work of a field beam at 50cm agricultural nozzle spacing. In this way one can evaluate regularity of a sprayed liquid deposition and determine coefficient of variability for “virtual” field beam of the agricultural sprayer.
A fully on-chip three-terminal switched-capacitor DC–DC converter for low-voltage CMOS LSIs

In this paper, we present a fully on-chip switched-capacitor DC–DC converter for low-voltage CMOS LSIs. The converter has three terminals of input, ground, and output, by developing control circuits with fully on-chip configuration. We employ an ultra low-power nanoampere bias current and voltage reference circuit to achieve ultra low-power dissipation of control circuits. It enables us to realize a highly efficient power conversion circuit at light-load-current applications. The converter achieves highly efficient and robust voltage conversion using a pulse frequency modulation control circuit and a start-up/fail-safe circuit. Measurement results demonstrated that the converter can convert a 3.0 V input into 1.2 V output successfully. The start-up and fail-safe operations were confirmed through the measurement. The efficiency was more than 50% in the range of 2–6 µA load current.
A Broad-Spectrum Chemokine Inhibitor Blocks Inflammation-Induced Myometrial Myocyte–Macrophage Crosstalk and Myometrial Contraction

Prophylactic administration of the broad-spectrum chemokine inhibitor (BSCI) FX125L has been shown to suppress uterine contraction, prevent preterm birth (PTB) induced by Group B Streptococcus in nonhuman primates, and inhibit uterine cytokine/chemokine expression in a murine model of bacterial endotoxin (LPS)-induced PTB. This study aimed to determine the mechanism(s) of BSCI action on human myometrial smooth muscle cells. We hypothesized that BSCI prevents infection-induced contraction of uterine myocytes by inhibiting the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, the expression of contraction-associated proteins and disruption of myocyte interaction with tissue macrophages. Myometrial biopsies and peripheral blood were collected from women at term (not in labour) undergoing an elective caesarean section. Myocytes were isolated and treated with LPS with/out BSCI; conditioned media was collected; cytokine secretion was analyzed by ELISA; and protein expression was detected by immunoblotting and immunocytochemistry. Functional gap junction formation was assessed by parachute assay. Collagen lattices were used to examine myocyte contraction with/out blood-derived macrophages and BSCI. We found that BSCI inhibited (1) LPS-induced activation of transcription factor NF-kB; (2) secretion of chemokines (MCP-1/CCL2 and IL-8/CXCL8); (3) Connexin43-mediated intercellular connectivity, thereby preventing myocyte–macrophage crosstalk; and (4) myocyte contraction. BSCI represents novel therapeutics for prevention of inflammation-induced PTB in women.
Perceptual watersheds for cell segmentation in fluorescence microscopy images

PERCEPTUAL WATERSHEDS FOR CELL SEGMENTATION IN FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY IMAGES Salim Arslan M.S. in Computer Engineering Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Gündüz Demir August, 2012 High content screening aims to analyze complex biological systems and collect quantitative data via automated microscopy imaging to improve the quality of molecular cellular biology research in means of speed and accuracy. More rapid and accurate high-throughput screening becomes possible with advances in automated microscopy image analysis, for which cell segmentation commonly constitutes the core step. Since the performance of cell segmentation directly affects the output of the system, it is of great importance to develop effective segmentation algorithms. Although there exist several promising methods for segmenting monolayer isolated and less confluent cells, it still remains an open problem to segment more confluent cells that grow in aggregates on layers. In order to address this problem, we propose a new marker-controlled watershed algorithm that incorporates human perception into segmentation. This incorporation is in the form of how a human locates a cell by identifying its correct boundaries and piecing these boundaries together to form the cell. For this purpose, our proposed watershed algorithm defines four different types of primitives to represent different types of boundaries (left, right, top, and bottom) and constructs an attributed relational graph on these primitives to represent their spatial relations. Then, it reduces the marker identification problem to the problem of finding predefined structural patterns in the constructed graph. Moreover, it makes use of the boundary primitives to guide the flooding process in the watershed algorithm. Working with fluorescence microscopy images, our experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm results in locating better markers and obtaining better cell boundaries for both less and more confluent cells, compared to previous cell segmentation algorithms.
What are Digital Public Health Interventions? First Steps Toward a Definition and an Intervention Classification Framework

Digital public health is an emerging field in population-based research and practice. The fast development of digital technologies provides a fundamentally new understanding of improving public health by using digitalization, especially in prevention and health promotion. The first step toward a better understanding of digital public health is to conceptualize the subject of the assessment by defining what digital public health interventions are. This is important, as one cannot evaluate tools if one does not know what precisely an intervention in this field can be. Therefore, this study aims to provide the first definition of digital public health interventions. We will merge leading models for public health functions by the World Health Organization, a framework for digital health technologies by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and a user-centered approach to intervention development. Together, they provide an overview of the functions and areas of use for digital public health interventions. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind that public health functions can differ among different health care systems, limiting our new framework’s universal validity. We conclude that a digital public health intervention should address essential public health functions through digital means. Furthermore, it should include members of the target group in the development process to improve social acceptance and achieve a population health impact.
Costs and benefits of energy efficiency improvements in ceiling fans

Ceiling fans contribute significantly to residential electricity consumption, especially in developing countries with warm climates. The paper provides analysis of costs and benefits of several options to improve the efficiency of ceiling fans to assess the global potential for electricity savings and green house gas (GHG) emission reductions. Ceiling fan efficiency can be cost-effectively improved by at least 50% using commercially available technology. If these efficiency improvements are implemented in all ceiling fans sold by 2020, 70 terawatt hours per year could be saved and 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) emissions per year could be avoided, globally. We assess how policies and programs such as standards, labels, and financial incentives can be used to accelerate the adoption of efficient ceiling fans in order to realize potential savings.
Caseous Calcification: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Caseous calcification of mitral annulus is a rare variant of mitral annulus calcification that can mimic infective endocarditis, myocardial abscess, valve myxoma, or papillary fibroelastoma. On transthoracic echocardiography, the mass appears as a large, round echodense structure with a large calcification and central echolucency. We present a case of a 72-year-old female with a past medical history significant for diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and end-stage renal disease who was noted to have caseous calcification of the mitral annulus on transthoracic echocardiography, which was done as part of a preoperative kidney transplantation evaluation. The mass spontaneously resolved before the planned mitral valve surgery. Caseous calcification of mitral annulus should be considered in the differential for a cardiac mass, particularly if it is attached to the posterior aspect of the mitral valve. Accurate identification of this rare cardiac mass is essential to avoid unnecessary surgical intervention as clinical course is usually benign.
Prioritising critical success factors of total quality management in autonomous driving business models: A comparison between Germany and China

Abstract As one of the most strategically relevant and financially promising developing industries, the requirements for autonomous driving (AD) systems´ reliability are dramatically higher than in the driver-based car industry. Using the analytic hierarchy process method, this study conducts a quantitative empirical study to prioritise the 15 critical success factors (CSFs) of total quality management (TQM) in the AD-ecosystem. The CSFs are derived from VDA and IATF 16949, two widely accepted TQM-frameworks in the car industry. Comparisons are made between Germany and China as two of the most important places in the world for strategic marketing for autonomous driving.
The first xiphydriid wood wasp in Cretaceous amber (Hymenoptera: Xiphydriidae) and a potential association with Cycadales

Abstract. A new genus and species of fossil wood wasp is described and figured from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber, representing the first occurrence of the family Xiphydriidae in the fossil record. Paraxiphydria resinata gen. et sp. nov. exhibits typical apomorphies of the family including a generally cylindrical body, elongate neck and dome-shaped head. Nonetheless, owing to a unique combination of traits including features hitherto unknown among species of the family, the genus is classified within a separate subfamily, Paraxiphydriinae subfam. nov. A key is presented to the suprageneric groups of Xiphydriidae. The newly described species is the first fossil xiphydriid wood wasp, extends the occurrence of Xiphydriidae into the mid-Cretaceous and adds to the known diversity of features in the family. Lastly, the simplification of wing venation and hypotheses of host-plant affiliations of early xiphydriids are discussed. We evaluate pollen associated with the wasp, assign it to the genus Cycadopites and conclude that an affiliation to the Cycadales is most likely. Article and nomenclatural acts are registered in ZooBank (http://zoobank.org/, last access: 15 December 2021), with the following life science identifier (LSID) (reference): urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:DA80920E-E94B-4A8E-A817-077FA7BD7D69.