Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Dehydrated Culture Modulates Fecal Microbiota and Improves Innate Immunity of Adult Dogs

Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast culture can be dehydrated, and it has a potential prebiotic effect. This study evaluated the effects of supplementing increasing levels of dehydrated yeast culture (DYC) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Original XPC™, Diamond V, Cedar Rapids, IA, USA) on fecal microbiota, nutrient digestibility, and fermentative and immunological parameters of healthy adult dogs. Eighteen adult male and female dogs with a mean body weight of 15.8 ± 7.37 kg were randomly assigned to three experimental treatments: CD (control diet), DYC 0.3 (control diet with 0.3% DYC) and DYC 0.6 (control diet with 0.6% DYC). After 21 days of acclimation, fecal samples were collected for analysis of nutrient digestibility, microbiota and fecal fermentation products. On the last day, the blood samples were collected for the analysis of immunological parameters. The microbiome profile was assessed by the Illumina sequencing method, which allowed identifying the population of each bacterial phylum and genus. The statistical analyses were performed using the SAS software and the Tukey test for multiple comparison (p < 0.05). Our results suggest that the addition of DYC increased the percentage of the phyla Actinobacteria and Firmicutes (p = 0.0048 and p < 0.0001, respectively) and reduced that of the phylum Fusobacteria (p = 0.0008). Regardless of the inclusion level, the yeast addition promoted reduction of the genera Allobaculum and Fusobacterium (p = 0.0265 and p = 0.0006, respectively) and increased (p = 0.0059) that of the genus Clostridium. At the highest prebiotic inclusion level (DYC 0.6), an increase (p = 0.0052) in the genus Collinsella and decrease (p = 0.0003) in Prevotella were observed. Besides that, the inclusion of the additive improved the apparent digestibility of the crude fiber and decreased the digestibility of crude protein, nitrogen-free extract and metabolizable energy (p < 0.05). There were no significant changes in the production of volatile organic compounds. However, an increase in propionate production was observed (p = 0.05). In addition, the inclusion of yeast resulted in an increased phagocytosis index in both treatments (p = 0.01). The addition of 0.3 and 0.6% DYC to the diet of dogs wase able to modulate the proportions of some phyla and genera in healthy dogs, in addition to yielding changes in nutrient digestibility, fermentative products and immunity in healthy adult dogs, indicating that this additive can modulate fecal microbiota and be included in dog nutrition.
Factors Affecting Bicycling Demand

The levels of bicycling in the United States, particularly for nonrecreation purposes and among adults, are low. Only about 1% of the trips that people make in the United States are on bicycles, and less than 5% of trips under 1/2 mi are made on bicycles. Factors influencing the rates of cycling include demographics and environmental factors. Environmental factors can be measured both objectively (e.g., number of miles of bike lanes, average temperature, and street connectivity) and subjectively (e.g., people's ratings or perceptions of the bicycling environment). People's attitudes about travel and mobility likely play a role. This paper uses the results from a random phone survey of adults in the Portland, Oregon, region to explore the relationships between levels of cycling and demographics, objective environmental factors, perceptions of the environment, and attitudes. The survey revealed several significant differences, although additional analysis is necessary. Objective measures of proximity to off-street trails and bike lanes was not associated with higher levels of cycling. However, positive perceptions of the availability of bike lanes was associated with more cycling and the desire to cycle more. Higher levels of street connectivity were associated with more cycling for utilitarian trips.
Self-assembly of photonic crystals by controlling the nucleation and growth of DNA-coated colloids

Significance Assembling optical metamaterials from DNA-coated colloids has been a central goal of programmable self-assembly for decades. Despite significant advances in expanding the structural diversity of colloidal crystals, a lack of understanding of the crystallization pathways has hindered the realization of programmable metamaterials. In this paper, we combine experiments and theory to develop a complete understanding of the crystallization dynamics. We show that the nucleation and growth kinetics of DNA-coated colloids are fundamentally different from those of atoms or small molecules, owing to an effective friction that arises from transient DNA hybridization. By incorporating this effective friction into classical theories, we predict the absolute rates of nucleation and growth with quantitative accuracy, enabling the design of protocols for making photonic crystals. DNA-coated colloids can self-assemble into an incredible diversity of crystal structures, but their applications have been limited by poor understanding and control over the crystallization dynamics. To address this challenge, we use microfluidics to quantify the kinetics of DNA-programmed self-assembly along the entire crystallization pathway, from thermally activated nucleation through reaction-limited and diffusion-limited phases of crystal growth. Our detailed measurements of the temperature and concentration dependence of the kinetics at all stages of crystallization provide a stringent test of classical theories of nucleation and growth. After accounting for the finite rolling and sliding rates of micrometer-sized DNA-coated colloids, we show that modified versions of these classical theories predict the absolute nucleation and growth rates with quantitative accuracy. We conclude by applying our model to design and demonstrate protocols for assembling large single crystals with pronounced structural coloration, an essential step in creating next-generation optical metamaterials from colloids.
Comparação de Serviços em Nuvem para Transcrição de Fala na Língua Portuguesa em áudios com Sotaques Regionais Brasileiros

Neste trabalho, foi realizada uma análise de dois serviços em nuvem, Google Cloud e Wit.ai, que realizam a transcrição de áudio em língua portuguesa, com o objetivo de determinar qual é a melhor ferramenta quando submetida aos diferentes sotaques brasileiros. Foi utilizada a base de dados Braccent, em um conjunto de 1.648 áudios, com sete sotaques: nortista, baiano, fluminense, mineiro, carioca, nordestino e sulista. A média da métrica de Levenshtein Normalizado para o Wit.ai é de 0,96, e para o Google Cloud é de 0,89, e em ambas as ferramentas os piores resultados foram para o sotaque carioca. Ao final, o Wit.ai apresentou resultados melhores em todos os cenários, além de transcrever os símbolos de pontuação.
Modeling and constructing the microstrip notch-loaded rectangular S-shaped patch antennas using L-strip feeding for multi-band frequency performances in the recent wireless telecommunication systems

In this article, the interesting constructions of the notch-loaded rectangular patch S-shaped antennas with L-strip feeding for multiband operations are presented. Implementing the L-strip feeding leads to creation of good benefits including several resonating frequencies, no cross-sectional area, simplicity in designing and constructing, stable gains and efficiencies, and the impedance matching. The proposed antennas are realized on the different substrate materials and the dramatic changes in characteristics are reported. These antennas are simulated, tooled, fabricated, and tested to provide the better performances in terms of return loss and bandwidth. Through the proper selection of the dimensions as well as the arrangement of the L-strip, the desired resonant modes of the antennas are excited in between 6–45, 3–20, and 2–16 GHz. Results of the radiation patterns, gains, and efficiencies of the constructed antenna on the foam substrate are studied and discussed. The maximum and minimum values of the gains and radiation efficiencies of this antenna are 10 dBi and 93%, and 1 dBi and 30%, respectively. The simulation results are obtained using method of moment based on the electromagnetic solver IE3D and are in good agreements with the experimental results, which were obtained from the spectrum analyzer.
A 1 V built-in intermediate voltage sensor

In this paper, a novel circuit design that can detect faults resulting in intermediate voltage values is presented. This design can also be used to detect slow transition faults and the metastability of a circuit under test. The power supply of this circuit is only 1 V. Thus it can be used for not only conventional circuits but also the low voltage (LV) circuits.
Life-Cycle Assessment of Office Buildings in Europe and the United States

Office buildings are thought to be significant sources of energy use and emissions in industrialized countries, but quantitative assessments of all of the phases of the service life of office buildings are still quite rare. In order to enable environmentally conscious design and management, this paper presents life-cycle assessments of newly constructed European and U.S. office buildings from materials production through construction, use, and maintenance to end-of-life treatment. The significant environmental aspects indicate the dominance of the use phase in the quantified environmental categories, but draw attention to the importance of embedded materials and expected maintenance investments throughout the assumed 50-year service life, especially for particulate matter emissions. The relevance of the materials, construction, maintenance, and end-of-life phases relative to the use of buildings is expected to increase considerably as functional obsolescence of office buildings becomes more rapid, and complete reconstruction and reconfiguration become more frequent. By quantifying the energy use and environmental emissions of each life-cycle phase in more detail, the elements that cause significant emissions can be identified and targeted for improvement.
Dietary Habits among Undergraduate Medical Students in Tamil Nadu; A Before and After Intervention Study

Introduction: In a developing country like India, people suffer from poverty and hunger on one hand and other lifestyle related diseases on the other hand. Unhealthy lifestyle is especially common among affluent society. Non communicable diseases has a multifactorial causation and key modifiable risk factor for NCDs is obesity. Adolescent population tends to suffer from ill effects of obesity because of unhealthy eating habits and social factor like stress. This study aims to evaluate the life style pattern especially eating habits among undergraduate medical students and possible outcome of interventional program in the form of health education. Methods: A Before and After Intervention study was conducted among 100 undergraduate medical students in a private medical college of Tamil Nadu. Universal sampling method was used to select the study participants. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the study participants and Mc Nemar chi-square test was used for analysis. Results: The Percentage of students who were overweight was 23% and obese was 5%. It was estimated that 94% of the participants had habit of consuming outside food before intervention and when enquired about the frequency 13% consumed daily, 48% consumed twice or thrice per week, 28% monthly once and 11% had rare consumption of outside food. Mc Nemar test was done to compare consumption of healthy food among study participants before and after intervention and this association was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: This study concluded that consumption of healthy food among study participants before and after intervention improved and association was statistically significant.
Disparity between Perceptual Fall Risk and Physiological Fall Risk in Older Cannabis Users: A Pilot Study

Aging is associated with cognitive decline and increased fall risk. Cognitive impairment is associated with cannabis use, which is increasing among older adults. Perceptual and physiological fall risk are discordant in some older adults, but whether cannabis use influences this association is unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible disparities between perceptual and physiological fall risk in older cannabis users. Eight older medical cannabis users and eight sex- and age-matched non-users provided data on perceptual and physiological fall risk. Group differences were assessed, and perceptual fall risk was correlated with physiological fall risk. Perceptual risk and most of the physiological fall risk variables were equivalent between the groups. However, cannabis users performed significantly worse on unipedal stance than non-users. In addition, perceptual fall risk had weak correlations with physiological fall risk in the users (Spearman’s rho = 0.17–0.41) and moderate-strong correlations in non-users (rho = −0.18–0.67). Cannabis users might have a discrepancy between perceptual and physiological fall risk. Because both concepts play a role in quality of life, identifying strategies to improve them may have significant benefits. Future studies investigating additional perceptual (e.g., cognition, fear of falling, depression, anxiety), physiological (e.g., more challenging static and dynamic balance conditions), and general fall risk are warranted.
Investigation of a 3D-Magnetic Flux PMSM With High Torque Density for Electric Vehicles

This paper presentsan investigation of a 3D-magnetic flux permanent magnet synchronous motor (3D-MF PMSM) used for electric vehicle applications. The investigated 3D-MF PMSM consists of an integrated radial-flux and axial-flux structure. It has two radial-flux air-gaps and two axial-flux air-gaps, as well as a toroidal winding wound stator. The integrated structure helps to concentrate all the flux within the motor to maximize torque production. Moreover, there are no end-windings in this motor and all the stator windings effectively are used in torque production. A comprehensive performance evaluation, in terms of the back-electromotive force, average output torque, cogging torque, torque ripple, flux-weakening capability, etc., of the investigated 3D-MF PMSM is conducted. An interior PMSM is purposely included as a benchmark for comparison. The results show that compared to the benchmark interior PMSM, the original 3D-MF PMSM exhibits significantly improved torque density, higher power factor, and higher efficiency, but suffers from serious cogging torque and torque ripple. Accordingly, a skewed arrangement is introduced to the 3D-MF PMSM. As a result, the cogging torque and torque ripple are significantly reduced.
REMOTELY SENSED IMAGE FAST CLASSIFICATION AND SMART THEMATIC MAP PRODUCTION

Abstract. Apps available for Smartphone, as well as software for GNSS/GIS devices, permit to easily mapping the localization and shape of an area by acquiring the vertices coordinates of its contour. This option is useful for remote sensing classification, supporting the detection of representative sample sites of a known cover type to use for algorithm training or to test classification results. This article aims to analyse the possibility to produce smart maps from remotely sensed image classification in rapid way: the attention is focalized on different methods that are compared to identify fast and accurate procedure for producing up-to-date and reliable maps. Landsat 8 OLI multispectral images of northern Sicily (Italy) are submitted to various classification algorithms to distinguish water, bare soil and vegetation. The resulting map is useful for many purposes: appropriately inserted in a larger database aimed at representing the situation in a space-time evolutionary scenario, it is suitable whenever you want to capture the variation induced in a scene, e.g. burnt areas identification, vegetated areas definition for tourist-recreational purposes, etc. Particularly, pixel-based classification approaches are preferred, and experiments are carried out using unsupervised (k-means), vegetation index (NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), supervised (minimum distance, maximum likelihood) methods. Using test sites, confusion matrix is built for each method, and quality indices are calculated to compare the results. Experiments demonstrate that NDVI submitted to k-means algorithm allows the best performance for distinguishing not only vegetation areas but also water bodies and bare soils. The resulting thematic map is converted for web publishing.
Continuous monitoring of vital signs with the Everion biosensor on the surgical ward: a clinical validation study

ABSTRACT Background Wearable sensors enable continuous vital sign monitoring, although information about their performance on nursing wards is scarce. Vital signs measured by telemonitoring and nurse measurements on a surgical ward were compared to assess validity and reliability. Methods In a prospective observational study, surgical patients wore a wearable sensor (Everion, Biovotion AG, Zürich, Switzerland) that continuously measured heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), oxygen saturation (SpO2), and temperature during their admittance on the ward. Validity was evaluated using repeated-measures correlation and reliability using Bland-Altman plots, mean difference, and 95% limits of agreement (LoA). Results Validity analyses of 19 patients (median age, 68; interquartile range, 62.5–72.5 years) showed a moderate relationship between telemonitoring and nurse measurements for HR (r = 0.53; 95% confidence interval, 0.44–0.61) and a poor relationship for RR, SpO2, and temperature. Reliability analyses showed that Everion measured HR close to nurse measurements (mean difference, 1 bpm; LoA, −16.7 to 18.7 bpm). Everion overestimated RR at higher values, whereas SpO2 and temperature were underestimated. Conclusions A moderate relationship was determined between Everion and nurse measurements at a surgical ward in this study. Validity and reliability of telemonitoring should also be assessed with gold standard devices in future clinical trials.
Mechanisms of interface trap-induced drain leakage current in off-state n-MOSFET's

An interface trap-assisted tunneling and thermionic emission model has been developed to study an increased drain leakage current in off-state n-MOSFET's after hot carrier stress. In the model, a complete band-trap-band leakage path is formed at the Si/SiO/sub 2/ interface by hole emission from interface traps to a valence band and electron emission from interface traps to a conduction band. Both hole and electron emissions are carried out via quantum tunneling or thermal excitation. In this experiment, a 0.5 /spl mu/m n-MOSFET was subjected to a dc voltage stress to generate interface traps. The drain leakage current was characterized to compare with the model. Our study reveals that the interface trap-assisted two-step tunneling, hole tunneling followed by electron tunneling, holds responsibility for the leakage current at a large drain-to-gate bias (V/sub dg/). The lateral field plays a major role in the two-step tunneling process. The additional drain leakage current due to band-trap-band tunneling is adequately described by an analytical expression /spl Delta/I/sub d/=Aexp(B/sub it//F). The value of B/sub it/ about 13 mV/cm was obtained in a stressed MOSFET, which is significantly lower than in the GIDL current attributed to direct band-to-band tunneling. As V/sub dg/ decreases, a thermionic-field emission mechanism, hole thermionic emission and electron tunneling, becomes a primary leakage path. At a sufficiently low V/sub dg/, our model reduces to the Shockley-Read-Hall theory and thermal generation of electron-hole pairs through traps is dominant. >
Have the continuous improvement (CI) efforts at Absa Bank's Horizon Medium Business Banking Unit, in the Gauteng West Region successfully addressed the key concepts of continuous improvement as set out by Trollip, 2008?

Have the Continuous Improvement (Cl) efforts at Absa Bank’s Horizon Medium Business Banking unit, in the Gauteng West region successfully addressed the key concepts of Continuous Improvement as set out by Trollip, 2008? By Sinqobile Khobotho Ndlovu {20625261} Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration At the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Business School
Potential of RC-IGBT in Full Size Converters for Wind Energy Application

Bi-Mode Insulated Gate Transistors (BIGTs) are a new class of power semiconductors, which integrate the functionality of IGBT and free-wheeling diode in one chip [1]; [2]. The advantage of the BIGT concerning output power and power cycling stress depends strongly on the application [3]; [4]; [5]; [6]. The BIGT has the main advantage in applications with low fundamental frequency and high modulation degree [5]; [6]. An application where the BIGT is advantageous is the full size converter for wind energy especially the generator side converter due to the low output frequencies of the generator in combination with the rectifier operation mode. In this paper the advantage of the BIGT in this application will be demonstrated. The total number of cycles including mission profile and fundamental frequency cycles were counted using the Rainflow algorithm. To count the fundamental frequency cycles only the maximum and minimum temperature within one period of the fundamental frequency were extracted. The investigation was done for a real wind speed over time profile.
Review on the Traditional and Integrated Passives: State-of-the-Art Design and Technologies

With the increased necessity of a high power density and efficient system in aerospace and marine industries, integrated motor drives provide an excellent solution in the modern era. Therefore, a close structural and functional integration of passive components has become a prerequisite task to make a compact overall system. This article reviews the existing motor drives system with integrated passive technologies. To start, the design aspect of the traditional and integrated filter inductors, using the area product approach, is discussed. Subsequently, layouts of traditional and integrated inductors are presented. The available capacitor technologies, suitable for integration, are also discussed with pros and cons of each capacitor type.