Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inverse optimal control for redundant systems of biological motion

This thesis addresses inverse optimal control problems (IOCP) to find the cost functions for which the human motions are optimal. Assuming that the human motion observations are perfect, while the human motor control process is imperfect, we propose an approximately optimal control algorithm. By applying our algorithm to the human motion observations collected for: the human arm trajectories during an industrial screwing task, a postural coordination in a visual tracking task and a walking gait initialization task, we performed an open loop analysis. For the three cases, our algorithm returned the cost functions which better fit these data, while approximately satisfying the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality conditions. Our algorithm offers a nice computational time for all cases, providing an opportunity for its use in online applications. For the visual tracking task, we investigated a closed loop modeling with two PD feedback loops. With artificial data, we obtained consistent results in terms of feedback gains’ trends and criteria exhibited by our algorithm for the visual tracking task. In the second part of our work, we proposed a new approach to solving the IOCP, in a bounded error framework. In this approach, we assume that the human motor control process is perfect while the observations have errors and uncertainties acting on them, being imperfect. The errors are bounded with known bounds, otherwise unknown. Our approach finds the convex hull of the set of feasible cost function with a certainty that it includes the true solution. We numerically guaranteed this using interval analysis tools.
A Game-Theoretic Approach for the Effective Distributed Coordination of STATCOMs

The increasing integration of utility-scale wind/photovoltaic farms in transmission networks is posing new technological challenges that must be faced to ensure grid stability. Voltage control is one of the issues that must be tackled. Making use of the available voltage controllers in the grid, it is possible to design sophisticated and robust coordination algorithms for a more efficient performance. The intention of this work is to show the feasibility of applying non-cooperative game-theory to distributed voltage compensator controls in AC transmission networks, in which no evident efforts can be found in the related literature. In contrast to previous works, we define sets of STATCOMs that participate in the game without any centralized entity. The identification of sets is based on sensitivity coefficients, which model the impact that the variation of the setpoint on an element has on other nodes. With the use of sets, the approach is more robust and scalable. Another relevant advantage of the proposal is the use of minimum and non-sensitive data exchange, with which the local controllers reach the optimal solution with an iterative procedure in a fast way. The effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated for the IEEE 14-bus test system with three STATCOM units. Each STATCOM may be associated to a PV or a wind large-scale farm. The simulation output reveals that the proposed algorithm is close to the solution provided by a centralised control. When compared with consensus-based algorithms, our proposal converges faster and thus it proves the feasibility.
Wideband Polarization Independent Resonant Cavity Antenna for 6G Applications

In this paper, a planar polarization independent resonant cavity antenna (RCA) is proposed to achieve higher gain with a single patch connection instead of using antenna arrays with additional feeding losses. The planar metasurface is based on sub-wavelength complementary circular metallic patches, which provide the same magnitude and phase response for both TE and TM polarized waves. In order to excite the metasurface, an aperture coupled antenna with a circular patch is used to make its integration easier with the metasurface. The proposed antenna design works from 8.97 GHz to 13.1 GHz with a measured 3dB gain bandwidth of 24.2% and it is used to increase the antenna’s gain from 8 dBi up to 14.67 dBi. The RCA achieves the measured bandwidths (input matching ¡-10 dB) above 4 GHz or 37.4%, among the highest reported in the literature with 2 layers.
Design methodology of portable upper limb exoskeletons for people with strokes

COPYRIGHT © 2023 Zhao, Wu, Zhang, Mao and Todoh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Design methodology of portable upper limb exoskeletons for people with strokes
Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Properties of Chemically Analyzed Essential Oil of Artemisia annua L. (Asteraceae) Native to Mediterranean Area

Artemisia annua (AA) is an aromatic plant belonging to the Asteraceae family, which has long been known for its several medicinal virtues. In addition, essential oils (EOs) extracted from AA have a wide range of therapeutic properties. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the phytochemical composition, anti-microbial, and anti-oxidant properties of Artemisia annua essential oil (EOAA). EO was extracted, and its chemical constituents were ascertained by the use of GC-MS analysis. EOAA shows remarkable antioxidant capacities of DPPH free radical scavenging with an IC50 value of 29 ± 5.3 μg/mL and ferric reducing antioxidant power with an EC50 value of 9.21 ± 0.3 µg/mL, and it also has a good total antioxidant capacity of 911.59 ± 115.71 milligrams of ascorbic acid equivalence per gram of EO (mg AAE/g EO). Moreover, the in vitro antimicrobial screening results indicate that EOAA has shown promising antibacterial activity, especially against the Escherichia coli strain, and it also shows significant antifungal activity against Fusarium oxysporum and Candida albicans yeasts. Taken together, our findings highlight the importance of EOAA as a source of strong antioxidant and antimicrobial agents, which could be used as an alternative form to control free radicals and combat drug-resistant microbes.
Impacts of shrubs on soil quality in the native Monte rangelands of Southwestern Buenos Aires, Argentina

Shrub cover in semiarid rangelands may induce changes in soil resources and ecosystem functioning. However, it is unknown the real influence that shrub vegetation has on soil quality in rangelands used for livestock purposes. We evaluated the shrub cover effect on 12 chemical and biochemical parameters of soil quality. In a semiarid Monte rangeland of Argentina, 6 paddocks were selected and 10 m transects were placed in a patch with (Sh) and without shrubs (WSh). Then, sites with grasses (Sh‐G and WSh‐G), bare ground‐litter (Sh‐BL and WSh‐BL), and under shrub cover (Sh‐S) were selected. In spring 2017 and 2018, a composite soil sample (0–10 cm in depth) was taken at each site (n = 6). Sh‐G and Sh‐S sites presented high values of soil organic matter, soil organic nitrogen, particulate organic matter (POM), and cellulase activity (CA); WSh‐BL and Sh‐BL sites were associated with the lowest contents of these variables. For the rest of the soil quality parameters, the soil sampling sites showed similar values. These results show that woody presence should not be directly linked to soil quality loss. Although we did not detect a shrub effect in all parameters studied, in the context of appropriate grazing management, the presence of plant species of different functional groups has a positive effect on organic matter and N content of soil close to them. Moreover, in these sites, high POM values represent an important reservoir of potentially available nutrients, and promote CA necessary for fresh litter decomposition improving the soil quality of semiarid rangelands.
On the geometry of higher-order ordinary differential equations and the Wuenschmann invariant

It appears that Wuenschmann discovered a method of associating with certain classes of 3rd-order differential equations a metric of Lorentz signature (+,−,−) on the 3dimensional solution space of the equation, determined up to conformal equivalence; the equations for which this construction is possible are those whose Wuenschmann invariant vanishes. This result, it is said, appeared in his PhD thesis of 1905. The study of 3rdorder differential equations, and their possible association with 3-dimensional conformal structures, was taken up again in the early 1940s by Chern [4] and Cartan [3]; Cartan mentions Wuenschmann and his result in a footnote in his paper, and this is so far as we are aware the only known reference to Wuenschmann’s scientific career. The subject then remained in comparative obscurity until the beginning of the present century, when Newman and his coworkers, in the course of their programme of formulating general relativity in terms of null surfaces, discovered an association between 4dimensional conformal Lorentzian structures and certain systems of partial differential
Design Narrow Slot Antenna for Dual Frequency

Abstract| The narrow slot loop antenna and linear slot antenna fed by microstrip line are designed for dual frequency at 2.44 GHz and 5.25 GHz on the standard of IEEE 802.11b/g (2.4{2.4835 GHz), IEEE 802.11j/a (5.15{5.35 GHz), and IEEE 802.16d (5.7{5.9 GHz).
Recurrent selection and reduction in recombination shape the genomic landscape of divergence across multiple population pairs of Green-backed Tit

Abstract Speciation is fundamental for building and maintaining biodiversity. The formation of the highly differentiated genomic regions between diverging taxa has been interpreted as a result of divergence with gene flow, linked selection, and reduction in recombination. It is challenging to unravel these nonexclusive processes in shaping genomic divergence. Here, we investigate the relative roles of these processes in shaping genomic differentiation in a montane bird, the Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus). Our genetic structure and demographic analyses identify that four genetic lineages diverge between 838 and 113 thousand years ago and there is evidence of secondary gene flow. The highly divergent genomic regions do not increase with the divergence time, as we found that the old lineages show relatively fewer numbers and smaller sizes of highly differentiated regions than the young divergent lineages (numbers, 118–138 vs. 156–289; sizes, 5.9–6.9 vs. 7.8–14.5 megabase). Across the genome, the outlier windows show a reduction in nucleotide diversity, absolute genetic divergence, and recombination rate, suggesting recurrent selection in regions with low recombination being the major driver of genomic divergence. Finally, we show that secondary gene flow tends to affect the highly differentiated genomic regions if these regions are less likely to be the targets of selection. Altogether, our study shows how common ancestry, recurrent selection, low recombination rate, and gene flow have contributed to the emergence of genomic islands at different stages of speciation.
Maternal opioids age-dependently impair neonatal respiratory control networks

Infants exposed to opioids in utero are an increasing clinical population and these infants are often diagnosed with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). Infants with NAS have diverse negative health consequences, including respiratory distress. However, many factors contribute to NAS, confounding the ability to understand how maternal opioids directly impact the neonatal respiratory system. Breathing is controlled centrally by respiratory networks in the brainstem and spinal cord, but the impact of maternal opioids on developing perinatal respiratory networks has not been studied. Using progressively more isolated respiratory network circuitry, we tested the hypothesis that maternal opioids directly impair neonatal central respiratory control networks. Fictive respiratory-related motor activity from isolated central respiratory networks was age-dependently impaired in neonates after maternal opioids within more complete respiratory networks (brainstem and spinal cords), but unaffected in more isolated networks (medullary slices containing the preBötzinger Complex). These deficits were due, in part, to lingering opioids within neonatal respiratory control networks immediately after birth and involved lasting impairments to respiratory pattern. Since opioids are routinely given to infants with NAS to curb withdrawal symptoms and our previous work demonstrated acute blunting of opioid-induced respiratory depression in neonatal breathing, we further tested the responses of isolated networks to exogenous opioids. Isolated respiratory control networks also demonstrated age-dependent blunted responses to exogenous opioids that correlated with changes in opioid receptor expression within a primary respiratory rhythm generating region, the preBötzinger Complex. Thus, maternal opioids age-dependently impair neonatal central respiratory control and responses to exogenous opioids, suggesting central respiratory impairments contribute to neonatal breathing destabilization after maternal opioids and likely contribute to respiratory distress in infants with NAS. These studies represent a significant advancement of our understanding of the complex effects of maternal opioids, even late in gestation, contributing to neonatal breathing deficits, necessary first steps in developing novel therapeutics to support breathing in infants with NAS.
Stokes flow past a sphere coated with a thin fluid film

The present study examines the steady, axisymmetric Stokes flow past a sphere coated with a thin, immiscible fluid layer. Inertial effects are neglected for both the outer fluid and the fluid film, and surface tension forces are assumed large compared with the viscous forces which deform the fluid film. Furthermore, the present analysis assumes that the mechanism driving the fluid circulation within the film is not too large. From force equilibrium on the film we find that a steady fluid film can only partially cover the sphere, i.e. the film must be held to the sphere by surface tension forces at the contact line. The extent of the sphere covered by the film is specified, in terms of the solid–fluid contact angle, by the condition of global force equilibrium on the fluid film. Using a perturbation scheme based on the thinness of the fluid layer the solution to the flow field is obtained analytically, except for the fluid-film profile (i.e. the fluid–fluid interface) which requires numerical calculations. One of the principal results is an expression for the drag force on the fluid-coated particle. In particular, we find that the drag on a sphere is reduced by the presence of a fluid coating when the ratio of the film fluid viscosity to the surrounding fluid viscosity is less than ¼. Detailed numerical computations are conducted for a few typical cases. The calculations show that a film of prescribed areal extent, i.e. specified contact angle, is only possible when the magnitude of the driving force on the film is below some maximum value. A simple experiment was also performed, and photographs, which qualitatively illustrate the fundamental fluid-film configurations predicted by the theory, are presented.
Metasurface enhanced infrared spectroscopy using vertical nanostructures

Vertical nanostructures have been studied extensively and been reported to induce unique responses in cells, including the formation of clathrin coating and accumulation of actin filament which leads to cell membrane curvature around the nanostructures. In our previous works, we have demonstrated that arrays of plasmonic nanoantenna can be used as effective label free biosensors to study live cells when combined with IR spectroscopy in the reflection mode, known as metasurface enhanced IR spectroscopy (MEIRS). By fabricating these plasmonic metasurfaces on top of silica nanopillars, we demonstrate that we can expand the potential of MEIRS: increased protein IR absorption in the amide band and increased sensitivity of our biosensor to processes involving cellular interaction with vertical nanostructures.
Sampling of closely‐spaced ordered set of uniformly distributed random variables

When the individual PDFs of closely‐spaced random variables such as natural frequencies of a structure overlap, generation of sample sets by assuming the frequencies to be independent random variables can lead to incorrect sets of frequencies in the sense that the frequencies do not remain as ordered sets. Rejection of such disordered sample sets results in individual density functions that are significantly different from the distributions initially assumed for sampling each random variable. One way to overcome this constraint in the simulation of an ordered set of random variables is to consider them in an implicit manner using a joint PDF. In this paper, we present a formulation for a joint density function that is developed using fundamental probability approaches. The formulation ensures that the sampled random variables always remain as ordered sets and maintain the individual density functions for each variable. Application of the proposed formulation is illustrated for cases with not just two closely‐spaced variables but also for a case with multiple closely‐spaced variables such that the PDFs of more than two random variables overlap with each other. An expression is presented to determine the exact number of terms needed in the formulation. However, it is also illustrated that only two terms are sufficient in most applications even when the exact number of terms needed is very high. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Novel Compact Lowpass Filter Using Dual-Layer Coupled Resonators

This article presents the synthesis and design of a novel compact lowpass filter (LPF) with low insertion loss and significant near-skirt selectivity. The LPF is designed based on a new structure called dual-layer coupled resonators (DLCRs) implemented with striplines embedded in air cavity, thus characterized with high quality factor and low insertion loss. To enhance band-edge selectivity and stopband attenuation, finite-position transmission zeros (TZs) are introduced with DLCRs to form pseudo-elliptical fitter functions. The equivalent circuit of DLCR is provided first, followed by detailed synthesis preconditions and procedures based on element extraction. With the elucidated synthesis process, TZs can be customized and arbitrarily placed at specified frequencies. The proposed synthesis theories are general and applicable to LPFs with arbitrary order and assigned TZs, thus providing effective guidelines for physical implementation. Besides, with smaller needed capacitances and avoided long-length high-impedance lines in TZ-producing resonant pairs, a more compact footprint is achieved with DLCRs. A 13th-order LPF with three TZs is synthesized and fabricated for navigation satellite applications, of which the good measurement results have validated the proposed theories.
A cross-sectional study of Canadian children's valuation of literacies across social contexts

Background Children, on average, do not engage in sufficient physical activity to reap the physical, mental, and social health benefits. Understanding the value that children place on movement across social contexts, and the relative ranking of this valuation, may help us to understand and intervene on activity levels. Method This exploratory study examined the valuation of reading/writing, math, and movement across three social contexts (school, home, with friends) among children 6–13 years of age (N = 7,845; 51.3% male). Subjective task values across contexts were assessed with the valuing literacies subscale of the PLAYself. One-way Kruskal-Wallis ANOVAs were performed to test for differences between contexts and between literacies, respectively. Results Sex differences and age-related variation were explored. Valuations of reading/writing (d = 1.16) and math (d = 1.33) decreased across context (school > family > friend), while the valuation of movement was relatively stable (d = 0.26). Valuations differed substantially with friends (p < 0.001, d = 1.03). Sex dependent effect sizes were minimal (d = 0.05–0.11). Conclusions Movement is highly valued by children across social contexts; thus, programming across contexts should be prioritized to align with their valuation.
Direct Test of T and CPT Symmetries with Entangled Neutral Mesons

In general any theoretical connection among the parameters describing T, CP or CPT violation, as given by the CPT theorem, does not imply a corresponding connection among the experimental results of the T, CP or CPT tests. In this paper the possibility to perform a direct test of time-reversal T symmetry in the neutral kaon system is discussed. It requires the exchange of in and out states of a transition process. The only existing result [1] for neutral kaons showing a non-zero asymmetry comparing the rates of a reference process (K → K) and its T conjugated one (K → K) cannot be considered a direct test, because the T and CP conjugated processes are identical in this case, and cannot be distinguished. In fact here direct test means a test whose outcome is independent of the result of any other discrete symmetry test, as discussed in detail in Refs. [3 7]. In order to implement such a direct test of the T symmetry, and also of the CPT symmetry which requires as well the inversion of in and out states, it has been suggested to exploit the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) entanglement of neutral mesons produced at a φ-factory (or B-factory) [4 7]. In fact in this case the initial state of the neutral kaon pair produced in φ → KK decay can be rewritten in terms of any pair of orthogonal states |K+〉 and |K−〉: |i〉 = 1 √ 2 {|K〉|K〉 − |K〉|K〉} =
Applications of Perilla frutescens Extracts in Clinical Practice

(1) Background: Perilla frutescens (L.) Britt. is an important pharmaceutical crop that remains a focus point for researchers worldwide due to its complex phytochemical constituents, medicinal effects, and nutraceutical properties. The literature data are based on animal and cell culture studies, so the clinical evidence for the therapeutic effects is poorly outlined. The aim of this review was to provide an updated and thorough understanding of Perilla frutescens applications in clinical practice using data derived from human studies, and to outline the potential directions and perspectives for further studies on this crop. (2) Methods: Medline, Embase, and Cochrane databases were used to find relevant studies. All interventional studies that evaluated the effect of Perilla frutescens in human subjects were assessed. (3) Results: The main perspectives that can be contoured from the presented literature evaluation are an important clinical effect of Perilla frutescens extracts on allergic rhinoconjuctivitis, especially in young populations, a potent hypolipemiant effect that, in conjunction with increased serum biological antioxidant potential, determines significant improvements in cognitive function and a wide variety of miscellaneous clinical effects that need further exploration. (4) Conclusions: Supplementary research is needed in order to demonstrate the therapeutic effects of Perilla frutescens in controlled clinical settings.