Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Simple Approach for Improving Bandwidth and Isolation of Wilkinson Power Divider

A simple approach to improve both the bandwidth and isolation of the Wilkinson power divider for using in L-band satellite communications is presented in this paper. To enhance the bandwidth, a multi-section method based on the Chebychev impedance transformation is employed. In order to improve the isolation performance between output ports, the values of isolation resistors are carefully determined by using the iterative approximation method combined with an investigation procedure. In order to validate the proposed design, a two-way and eight-way power divider prototypes were fabricated and tested on a Rogers RO4003C material. Good agreements between simulations and measurements are obtained in a frequency range from 0.8 GHz to 2.2 GHz. The two-way power divider had a fractional bandwidth of 106% with an isolation of better than 30 dB. The eight-way power divider achieved the bandwidth and isolation of 109% and better than 24 dB, respectively. Both the power dividers exhibit the phase imbalance of less than 3 degrees, and amplitude imbalance of less than 0.02 dB. Compared with the other works, the proposed power dividers deliver broader bandwidth and improved isolation while still retaining good insertion loss, low phase and amplitude imbalance in the operation frequency range.
Overview of Contemporary Low-cost sEMG Hardware for Applications in Human Factors and Ergonomics

For decades, surface electromyography (sEMG) has been one of the essential methods of Human Factors and Ergonomics. Although capturing sEMG data is relatively easy, proper interpretation of acquired data is possible only with sufficient background in electrophysiology, muscle mechanics and muscle functions. As the last decade has made biosignal acquisition more accessible, the current overview discusses the intrinsic properties of contemporary low-cost sEMG acquisition systems and proposes applications of sEMG for Human Factors and Ergonomics.
Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound, a Review for the Pediatric Intensivist

The use of transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) is increasing in frequency in the pediatric intensive care unit. This review highlights some of the pertinent TCD applications for the pediatric intensivist, including evaluation of cerebral hemodynamics, autoregulation, non-invasive cerebral perfusion pressure/intracranial pressure estimation, vasospasm screening, and cerebral emboli detection.
DQN-based Computation-Intensive Graph Task Offloading for Internet of Vehicles

A computation-intensive graph task comprises a set of tasks and corresponding data flows between adjacent tasks. In this paper, we consider a mobile edge computing (MEC) system based on vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication in which each task initiator (TI) generates and offloads a set of correlated tasks to different task executors (TEs). We formulate the graph task assignment problem as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem (MINLP) to minimize the weighted sum of time-energy consumption (WETC). Due to the data-flow dependency and time-varying characteristics of the operating environment including channel gain, communication distance between TIs and TEs, available computing resources of TEs, traditional numerical optimization algorithms cannot solve such optimization problem efficiently, especially when the scale of the MEC system is quite large. To this end, we propose a graph task offloading mechanism named GT-DQN by integrating deep Q-Network (DQN) with breadth-first search technique. Firstly, DQN is trained to generate a near-optimal offloading strategy, through numerous interactions with the time-varying operating environment. Secondly, a breadth-first search algorithm is adopted to traverse the graph task, which can significantly reducing the computational complexity. Compared with existing algorithms, simulation results verify the superiority of GT-DQN.
Theoretical and experimental investigations of the surge response of a vertical conductor

This paper describes the theoretical, simulation and experimental investigations of the surge response of a vertical conductor, including the effects of ground surface and without ground surface. One of the authors of this paper derived the formula of the surge impedance in case with ground surface and without ground surface. In this research, these theoretical formulas are examined by the simulation analysis of the vertical conductor using the Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC-2) as well as the experimental basis. The arrangement of the current lead wire in the vertical conductor model to be analyzed here is verified with the simulation result of the equivalent circuit model by the EMTP.
Simulation Of Indeterminate Multiple, Simultaneous Impact And Contact For A Flexible Multibody System

SIMULATION OF INDETERMINATE MULTIPLE, SIMULTANEOUS IMPACT AND CONTACT FOR A FLEXIBLE MULTIBODY SYSTEM ROHIT VIJAY KATTI, M.S. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2015 Supervising Professor: Alan P. Bowling This work presents a method for understanding the impact behaviour of a flexible body undergoing multiple, simultaneous contacts. A continuous model is used with an event-driven function in MATLAB, which detects the collisions. The flexible body is defined as a system of particles, having inter-particle forces in terms of spring, damper coefficients. Equations of motion for such a Flexible MultiBody system are determined and then solved for different phases. In the method presented, the indeterminate nature of equations of motion encountered, during impact, and contact for flexible body are examined. Constraint forces are determined during the different phases of an impact to address the equations. These techniques are applied to a planar model of an elliptical body, which is dropped freely under the effect of gravity and collision occurs at the ground determined. A simulation is presented demonstrating the behaviour of the body during impact, and contact with the ground with the proposed method.
Price Theory for Incomplete Markets

We provide a price theory for incomplete markets that extends the traditional Walrasian analysis. We derive formulas expressing the consumption response to current and future changes in interest rates and income. Our analysis provides a natural decomposition of these responses into substitution and income effects with structural interpretation, em-phasizing statistics such as the marginal propensity to save and local measures of prudence in utility. We handle general uncertainty in a compact and intuitive manner by ad-justing probability distributions: a risk-adjusted probability, commonly used in ﬁnance, and a novel prudence-adjusted probability, speciﬁcally useful for incomplete markets. Our formulas reveal various cross-restrictions implied by the theory on consumer behavior. Numerical explorations show that the new statistics we identify matter signiﬁcantly to understand aggregate demand in incomplete markets, beyond the impact of heterogeneous marginal propensities to consume or binding borrowing constraints.
Optimal peak-efficiency control of the CMOS interleaved multi-phase step-down DC-DC Converter with segmented power stage

This study presents concept of the power-efficiency optimisation of interleaved step-down DC/DC converter with segmented power stages. Use of segmented power stage is based on continuous adjusting of the size of power switches, and is currently exclusively employed in the single-phase topologies. The size control use accurate peak-efficiency detection method. Employed iterative algorithm allows to equilibrate the dissipated dynamic and Joule powers in wide range of operating parameters such as output current, input/output voltages, temperature, switching frequency, or variation of the process. By the balancing of dynamic and Joule power losses, peak efficiency is achieved in low and middle output power range. This allows to increase the power efficiency by several per cent, when compared with the phase shedding approach. Moreover, use of the segmented switches enables to maintain all power stages active during light-load operation. This allows to benefit from reduced AC input/output currents of the multi-phase topology. This study describes the efficiency optimisation of interleaved power converters, technique of the peak-efficiency detection, and shows comparison of results obtained by the presented peak-efficiency tracking and phase shedding approach.
Detailed FEM-based Analysis of Vibration in a 3-phase Switched Reluctance Motor and its Experimental Validation

This paper deals with FEM-based electro-magnetic and mechanical analysis on a 3 phase, 1 kW, 48 V, 3000 rpm switched reluctance motor laboratory prototype. At first the modal analysis of the individual parts of the motor namely, the stator, rotor, shaft and the frame has been done in order to obtain the dominant natural modes of vibration. Then the static structural analysis is done to determine deformation due to its self-weight. A coupled simulation of electro-magnetic and transient structural is finally performed to estimate the motor deformation during the usual operation. Experiments have been performed to validate the simulation results. A MEMS-based accelerometer has been used to measure the instantaneous acceleration of the motor. The recorded data has been processed to obtain the deformation amplitude which is found to be in good agreement with the FEM-based simulation results.
Myofunctional assessment for obstructive sleep apnea and the association with patterns of upper airway collapse: a preliminary study

ABSTRACT Objectives: To organize an assessment instrument with questionnaires and myofunctional orofacial/oropharyngeal assessment for OSA patients and correlate it with the upper airway obstructive site detected during drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE). Material and Methods: 29 OSA patients aged 22-65 years with an indication to undergo DISE to evaluate an alternative treatment to PAP and signed the consent form. Patients over 65 years old with maxillofacial deficiency and BMI>30 were excluded. The subjects answered the Pittsburgh, Berlin (snore), and Epworth questionnaires. The myofunctional orofacial/oropharyngeal assessment comprised soft palate, palatine pillars, and uvula (structure and mobility), tonsils (size), mandible (bony bases), hard palate (depth and width), tongue (posture, volume, width, and height), floor of mouth (mylohyoid), tongue suction and sustaining (mobility), “lowering of the back of the tongue” (stimulus), which were scored by three speech-language pathologists with expertise. DISE was scored according to VOTE classification. The statistical analysis (t-test) compared groups without and with obstruction in VOTE with questionnaires and myofunctional orofacial/oropharyngeal assessment. Results: The following were significantly different: snoring frequency (p=0.03) with VOTE/velopharynx; intensity (p=0.02) and frequency of snoring (p=0.03) with VOTE/lateral wall of oropharynx; suction the tongue and sustain (p=0.02) with VOTE/velopharynx; hard palate depth (p=0.02) and width (p=0.05) with obstruction VOTE/epiglottis; tonsils volume (p=0.05) with VOTE/epiglottis; tongue posture (p=0.00) with obstruction VOTE/epiglottis; floor of the mouth (p=0.02) with VOTE/epiglottis. Conclusion: Higher snoring frequency and intensity was observed in patients with obstruction at the velopharynx and oropharyngeal lateral wall. Obstruction at the velopharynx was associated with poor tongue ability to suck the tongue against the hard palate. Obstruction at the epiglottis had structural and functional associations, including the oropharyngeal lateral wall, affected by the palatine tonsils size, depth and width of the hard palate, tongue position, and flaccidity of the floor of mouth. Considering that this is a preliminary study, the data should be carefully verified and not generalized.
General practitioners’ perceptions of using virtual primary care during the COVID-19 pandemic: An international cross-sectional survey study

With the onset of COVID-19, general practitioners (GPs) and patients worldwide swiftly transitioned from face-to-face to digital remote consultations. There is a need to evaluate how this global shift has impacted patient care, healthcare providers, patient and carer experience, and health systems. We explored GPs’ perspectives on the main benefits and challenges of using digital virtual care. GPs across 20 countries completed an online questionnaire between June–September 2020. GPs’ perceptions of main barriers and challenges were explored using free-text questions. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. A total of 1,605 respondents participated in our survey. The benefits identified included reducing COVID-19 transmission risks, guaranteeing access and continuity of care, improved efficiency, faster access to care, improved convenience and communication with patients, greater work flexibility for providers, and hastening the digital transformation of primary care and accompanying legal frameworks. Main challenges included patients’ preference for face-to-face consultations, digital exclusion, lack of physical examinations, clinical uncertainty, delays in diagnosis and treatment, overuse and misuse of digital virtual care, and unsuitability for certain types of consultations. Other challenges include the lack of formal guidance, higher workloads, remuneration issues, organisational culture, technical difficulties, implementation and financial issues, and regulatory weaknesses. At the frontline of care delivery, GPs can provide important insights on what worked well, why, and how during the pandemic. Lessons learned can be used to inform the adoption of improved virtual care solutions and support the long-term development of platforms that are more technologically robust and secure.
Involvement of Gut Microbial Metabolites Derived from Diet on Host Energy Homeostasis

Due to the excess energy intake, which is a result of a high fat and high carbohydrate diet, dysfunction of energy balance leads to metabolic disorders such as obesity and type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Since obesity can be a risk factor for various diseases, including T2DM, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and metabolic syndrome, novel prevention and treatment are expected. Moreover, host diseases linked to metabolic disorders are associated with changes in gut microbiota profile. Gut microbiota is affected by diet, and nutrients are used as substrates by gut microbiota for produced metabolites, such as short-chain and long-chain fatty acids, that may modulate host energy homeostasis. These free fatty acids are not only essential energy sources but also signaling molecules via G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Some GPCRs are critical for metabolic functions, such as hormone secretion and immune function in various types of cells and tissues and contribute to energy homeostasis. The current studies have shown that GPCRs for gut microbial metabolites improved host energy homeostasis and systemic metabolic disorders. Here, we will review the association between diet, gut microbiota, and host energy homeostasis.
The Likelihood Difference Heuristic and Binary Test Selection Given Situation-Specific Utilities

Consider the task of selecting a medical test to determine whether a patient has a particular disease. Normatively, this requires taking into account (i) the prior probability of the disease, (ii) the likelihood---for each available test---of obtaining a positive result if the medical condition is present or absent, respectively, and (iii) the utilities for both correct and incorrect treatment decisions based upon each possible test result. But these quantities may not be precisely known. Are there strategies that could help identify the test with the highest utility given incomplete information? Here we consider the Likelihood Difference Heuristic (LDH), a simple heuristic that selects the test with the highest difference between the likelihood of obtaining a true positive and a false positive test result, ignoring all other information. We prove that the LDH is optimal when the probability of the disease equals the therapeutic threshold, the probability for which treating the patient and not treating the patient have the same expected utility. By contrast, prominent models of the value of information from the literature, such as information gain, probability gain, and Bayesian diagnosticity, are not optimal under these circumstances. Further results show how, depending on the relationship of the therapeutic threshold and prior probability of the disease, it is possible to determine which likelihoods are more important for assessing tests' expected utilities. Finally, to illustrate the potential relevance for real-life contexts, we show how the LDH might be applied to choosing tests for screening of latent tuberculosis infection.
Bedtime procrastination during the second COVID-19 lockdown in Portugal

ABSTRACT Introduction: Bedtime procrastination is the deliberate delay of the time an individual goes to bed in the absence of external reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed families to establish new routines and ways of managing newfound roles and responsibilities. This scenario is likely to exacerbate bedtime procrastination due to, for example, a challenge in balancing professional and personal life. Objective: The aim is to present preliminary findings regarding bedtime procrastination and its relation to sociodemographic characteristics, sleep routines, perceived daily fatigue, dinnertime, and activities performed near bedtime, during the second lockdown in Portugal. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with a sample of 560 adults. Results: During home confinement, most people (79.46%) delayed their bedtime. However, this delay does not seem to be affecting the number of hours of sleep, as 88.60% were sleeping the recommended or appropriate number of hours. Nevertheless, most of the participants reported feeling tired throughout the day (53.04%), and individuals who reported to have procrastinated their sleep are those who reported more tiredness ( r pb =.33, p <.01). Additionally, bedtime procrastination is positively associated with findings related to dinnertime (e.g., dinner between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., r pb =.19, p<.01) and with engagement in activities near bedtime (e.g., studying/working, r pb =.39, p <.01). Conclusion: Current data shows relationships between bedtime procrastination and most of the studied variables. Specifically, findings indicate that lack of routines, especially scheduled nighttime routines (e.g., studying/working near bedtime), may have contributed to bedtime procrastination during the second lockdown in Portugal.
Towards a new semantic middleware for service description, discovery, selection, and composition in the Internet of Things

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) allows the integration of everyday devices such as tags, sensors, and actuators into the Internet. IoT also provides handy and automatic techniques to interoperate ad‐hoc, heterogeneous, and mobile networks and simplify data sharing among devices by abstracting their capabilities as services. Nevertheless, the large number and heterogeneity of encompassed networks/devices and the diversity of the offered resources/services make the IoT service description, discovery, selection, and composition a challenging task. To deal with these issues, we introduce, in this article, a semantic middleware for IoT applications based on service composition. Such a solution supports the semantic description of IoT resources, including services and user requests, and provides a modular, end‐to‐end, and loosely coupled request resolution process that comprises a context‐aware service discovery, a semantic service selection, and an automatic lightweight service composition. The proposal is illustrated and extensively evaluated on a restricted smart‐city scenario. Obtained results show that the proposed service discovery, selection, and composition sub‐processes improve the scalability of equivalent state‐of‐the‐art solutions by around 15 %$$ \% $$ , 20 %$$ \% $$ , and 40 %$$ \% $$ , respectively.
Therapeutic Potential of a Bioactive Flavonoids Glycitin from Glycine max: A Review on Medicinal Importance, Pharmacological Activities and Analytical Aspects

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr. ) is an important industrial crop and fourth major crop in the world which are the richest source of isofavones including glycitein in human diet. Soybean has been associated with beneficial effects in prevention of cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases and menopausal symptoms. Isoflavones class phytochemicals has been extensively studied in the scientific fields due to its estrogenic potential. Scientific information of glycitin for their biological potential and therapeutic effects has been collected and analyzed in the present work. Scientific data of glycitin has been collected from electronic databases such as Google, Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, and Scopus in the present work and analyzed for their therapeutic potential. Detailed pharmacological activities and analytical data of glycitin has been collected from these databases using term flavonoid and glycitin and analyzed. Scientific data analysis revealed the biological importance and therapeutic benefit of glycitin in the medicine. Glycitin also called 4′-hydroxy-6-methoxyisoflavone-7-D-glucoside have been found to present in the Soy products. Glycitin exhibit chemo-preventive, cardio-protective and anti-osteoporosis effects. Glycitin revealed their beneficial effects on diabetes, acute lung injury, bone, cognitive performance, breast cancer, skin, immune system, enzymes, prostaglandin and taste receptors. However its ligand binding assay, cytoprotective effect and pharmacokinetic parameters were also studied in the present work. Analytical data signified the importance of analytical tools for qualitative and quantitative analysis of glycitin in the medicine. Scientific data analysis revealed the therapeutic effectiveness of glycitin in the medicine.
Group graded rings with the nil-good property

Abstract In this article, we introduce and study the notion of graded nil-good ring graduated by a group. We prove that nil-good property of the component corresponding to the identity element of the grading group does not imply the graded nil-good property of the whole graded ring. We discuss the garded nil-good property in trivial ring extensions and graded group rings. We establish some sufficient conditions for a graded group ring to be graded nil-good. Furthermore, we give a sufficient condition for the graded matrix ring over a graded commutative nil-good ring to be graded nil-good.
Asymptomatic spinal subdural epiarachnoid hygroma after lumbar laminectomy for lumbar spinal canal stenosis: illustrative case

BACKGROUND Spinal subdural epiarachnoid hygroma (SSEH) after lumbar laminectomy is an extremely rare complication. OBSERVATIONS An 84-year-old man presented to the hospital with lower back pain, radicular pain, and numbness in the lateral aspect of the left leg. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed anterior lumbar spondylolisthesis at L3, severe disc herniation at L3–4, and severe lumbar spinal canal stenosis at L3–4 and L4–5. Lumbar laminectomy at L3–4 and L4–5 and discectomy at L3–4 were performed without complications such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage and durotomy intraoperatively. Although lower back pain and numbness at the lateral aspect of the left leg were resolved postoperatively, postoperative MRI showed spinal nerve deviation to the ventral side due to SSEH from T12 to S1. Conservative therapy was performed for asymptomatic SSEH, and MRI 1 week postoperatively indicated improved ventral spinal nerve deviation and reduced SSEH. LESSONS SSEHs after posterior decompression without durotomy are extremely rare. Asymptomatic SSEHs may resolve with conservative treatment. However, surgery should be performed to decompress hygroma in patients with symptomatic SSEH.