Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Running Speed, Fatigue, and Bracing on Motor Control of Chronically Unstable Ankles

Ankle sprains are among the most common injuries for participants in running and jumping sports. Following an initial sprain injury, many (30-40%) will develop chronic ankle instability (CAI), characterized by a perception of instability and repeated sprain injuries. Quasi-static test methods indicate poor postural stability and joint position sense (JPS) as associated motor control deficits. Little research, though, has investigated ankle motor control under dynamic (simulated sport) or fatigue conditions. To better understand factors contributing to the increased sprain rate in adults with CAI, three studies were completed investigating the roles of running speed, fatigue, and ankle bracing on motor control in adults with CAI. First, two groups with and without ankle instability performed dynamic athletic maneuvers at each of two running speeds. Joint kinematics and kinetics were measured to identify differences in motor control strategies. Participants also completed two quasi-static tests (JPS and single leg drop landings). The level of correspondence between quasi-static and dynamic test methods was of particular interest. A second study compared fatigue development and fatigue adaptations when executing single leg drop landings. Strength loss and ratings of perceived exertion measured fatigue development, and joint kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activation quantified drop landing performance. A final study examined whether ankle braces, a common treatment for ankle sprains, retained their effectiveness when an athlete was fatigued. JPS and ankle stiffness were measured before and after a fatigue protocol while using each of three brace conditions. Overall, results indicated that adults with CAI exhibit distinct adaptations to changes in speed and to fatigue that may increase their risk for ankle reinjury. Specific changes, however, depended on the particular activity being performed. Single leg drop landing kinematics may be a good representation of kinematics during dynamic athletic performance. Neither test brace improved JPS following fatigue, but each may be effective in providing mechanical stiffness compared to an unbraced condition. The effectiveness of a particular test brace, however, may be gender-specific. Future work should focus on identifying the benefits of different braces under broader conditions to help inform brace selection.
Evaluation of nuts morphology and composition of fatty acids in certain Iranian Pistacia vera L. (Anacardiaceae) cultivars

Fruits of various Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) cultivars are widely used in food industries for its inimitable color, taste and nutrient value. We elevated fruit morphology and kernel fatty acids composition of eleven Iranian cultivars of pistachio. Oils of kernels were extracted using cold press method, and composition of the oil fatty acids in the methyl ester form was detected using gas chromatography (GC). For morphological study, nine qualitative and quantitative traits were evaluated. The quantitative ones widely differed among the studied cultivars, and ANOVA test revealed the significant variations (p = 0.00) for all of them. Moreover, the qualitative traits varied among the cultivars. We characterized 11 fatty acid components representing about 99.56 to 100 % of the total oil composition. The principal fatty acids for all the cultivars were: oleic, linoleic and palmitic acids, while their amounts differed among the cultivars. In this regard, unsaturated fatty acids comprised the major oil part, 87.46 to 88.89 %. Oleic acid (53.11-70.99 %) and palmitic acid (9.09 to 10.55 %) were detected as the unsaturated and saturated fatty acids in all the evaluated cultivars. The quality index of oils were determined according to oleic/ linoleic acids ratio, which highly varied among the cultivars. According to UPGMA tree and PCO plot, we divided the investigated cultivars into four chemotypes, and each of them was characterized by the certain oil composition.
Influence of different tillage systems on yield and energy requirement in pumpkin seed production

Na temelju terenskog mjerenja razlicitih sustava obrade tla pri uzgoju uljne bundeve sorte „Gleissdorf“, odabran je optimalan sustav obrade tla pri kojem se dobiju sjemenke golice najbolje kakvoce uz minimalan utrosak energije. Tako je kod konvencionalnog sustava obrade tla postignut prinos vlažnih sjemenki od 1.345 kg/ha, u reduciranom sustavu 1.316 kg/ha, konzervacijskom 927 kg/ha, a najmanji prinos kod izravne sjetve, svega 848 kg/ha svježih sjemenki. Utrosak energije pri uzgoju uljne bundeve kod konvencionalnog sustava 1.919 MJ/ha, reduciranog 1.998 MJ/ha, konzervacijskog 1.550 MJ/ha, a najmanji kod nultog sustava (izravna sjetva) svega, 453 MJ/ha.
Implementing SAP R/3

From the Publisher: This book deals with technical, business, and change management issues of implementing SAP's R/3. The author presents a methodology to manage the challenges inherent in all large system change projects. She identifies approaches that have been effective in a variety of business settings, providing many real-life examples. Implementing SAP R/3 is based on an independent and exhaustive study by the author of 20 companies in North America that have adopted R/3. This book's unique focus on implementation approaches that work will be indispensible reading for management and team members considering or in the process of implementing R/3, as well as consultants who want to become knowledgeable about SAP.
Active vibration control of rotating machines

Second order matrix equations arise in the description of real dynamical systems. Traditional modal control approaches utilise the eigenvectors of the undamped system to diagonalise the system matrices. Any remaining off-diagonal terms in the modal damping matrix are discarded. A regrettable automatic consequence of this action is the destruction of any notion of the skew-symmetry in the damping. The methods presented in this thesis use the `Lancaster Augmented Matrices' (LAMs) allowing state space representations of the second order systems. `Structure preserving transformations' (SPTs) are used to manipulate the system matrices whilst preserving the structure within the LAMs. Utilisation of the SPTs permits the diagonalisation of the system mass, damping and stiffness matrices for non-classically damped systems. Thus a modal control method is presented in this thesis which exploits this diagonalisation. The method introduces independent modal control in which a separate modal controller is designed in modal space for each individual mode or pair of modes. The modal displacements and velocities for the diagonalised systems are extracted from the physical quantities using first order SPT-based filters. Similarly the first order filters are used to translate the modal force into the physical domain. Derivation of the SPT-filters is presented together with a method by which one exploits the non-uniqueness of the diagonalising filters such that initially unstable filters are stabilised. In the context of active control of rotating machines, standard optimal controller methods enable a trade-off to be made between (weighted) mean-square vibrations and (weighted) mean-square control forces, or in the case of a machines controlled using magnetic bearings the currents injected into the magnetic bearings. One shortcoming of such controllers for magnetic bearings is that no concern is devoted to the voltages required. In practice, the voltage available imposes a strict limitation on the maximum possible rate of change of control force (force slew rate). This thesis presents a method which removes the aforementioned existing shortcomings of traditional optimal control. Case studies of realistic rotor systems are presented to illustrate the modal control and control force rate penalisation methods. The system damping matrices of the case studies contain skew-symmetric components due to gyroscopic forces typical of rotating machines. The SPT-based modal control method is used to decouple the non-classically damped equations of motion into n single degree of freedom systems. Optimal modal controllers are designed independently in the modal space such that the modal state, modal forces and modal force rates are weighted as required. The SPT-based modal control method is shown to yield superior results to the conventional notion of independent modal space control according to reasonable assessment.
Automated reconstruction of all gene histories in large bacterial pangenome datasets and search for co-evolved gene modules with Pantagruel

The availability of bacterial pangenome data grows exponentially, requiring efficient new methods of analysis. Currently popular approaches for the fast comparison of genomes have the drawback of not being based on explicit evolutionary models of diversification. Making sense of bacterial genome evolution, and notably in the accessory genome, requires however to take into account the complex processes by which the genomes evolve. Here we present the Pantagruel bioinformatic software pipeline, which enables the construction of a complete bacterial pangenome database geared towards the inference of gene evolution scenarios using gene tree/species tree reconciliation. Pantagruel is a modular pipeline that combines state-of-the-art external software with unique new methods. It can be executed with no supervision to perform a standard pangenome analysis, or be configured by advanced users to integrate methods of choice. A relational database underlies its data structure, allowing efficient retrieval of the large-scale data generated by integrative analyses of pangenome evolutionary history. From the reconstructed gene evolution scenarios, two main outputs are derived: firstly the gene tree-aware assignation of orthology, allowing the fine analysis of gene gain and loss history over the species phylogeny, and secondly a network of gene-to-gene association based on correlated events in scenarios of gene evolution, leading to the definition of co-evolved gene modules. Pantagruel is available as an open source software package at https://github.com/flass/pantagruel.
Knowledge Organization Systems: A Network for AI with Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering

Abstract Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) as networks of knowledge have the potential to inform AI operations. This paper explores natural language processing and machine learning in the context of KOS and Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering (HIVE) technology. The paper presents three use cases: HIVE and Historical Knowledge Networks, HIVE for Materials Science (HIVE-4-MAT), and Using HIVE to Enhance and Explore Medical Ontologies. The background section reviews AI foundations, while the use cases provide a frame of reference for discussing current progress and implications of connecting KOS to AI in digital resource collections.
The design and optimization of a power supply for a one-meter electromagnetic railgun

Abstract : A naval electromagnetic railgun would be a considerable asset against a littoral environment. By accelerating projectiles to 3 km/s, a naval railgun would be capable of reaching 300-400 nautical miles. Problem such as rail erosion, energy storage and fire control prevent the railgun from becoming a weapon to date, At the Naval Postgraduate School, the Physics Department continues to investigate and develop concepts to overcome these challenges. As part of the methodology, previous students built a one-meter railgun system for experimentation. The existing 1.6 mF power supply is insufficient to fire this railgun effectively. To design a sufficient power supply a MATLAB code was created to simulate a generated current pulse and to predict the subsequent railgun performance. Interrelated factors such as railgun geometry, muzzle velocity, current density and contact surface area were taken into consideration. Also, tradeoffs in capacitance, projectile mass and residual current were weighed against one another to achieve desired railgun performances. From numerous simulations, this study determined that the one-meter railgun with a 21.5 mF power supply could fire a 0.1 58-kg projectile at a velocity of 1 km/s, and leave a residual current of only 4% of the initial energy once the projectile exits the rails.
Signal and Noise

Signal and Noise (Azim Celik and Weili Lin, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina). This unit discusses the basic signal detection technique in magnetic resonance imaging based on quadrature (i.e., measured in two orthogonal channels) technique. The detected signal is demodulated with respect to the Larmor frequency and digitized. The measured MR signal also includes noise. The noise in MR generally derives from the random fluctuations in the receive coil electronics and from the sample. Even though there are other sources of signal fluctuations such as digitization noise and pseudo‐random ghosting due to moving spins, these sources are minimized in an ideal experiment. The effect of these noises in MRI image reconstruction is explained in this unit.
Authentic mobile learning in higher education

The ready availability and uptake of devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants and mobile music players, have permeated the manner and means of human communication, socializing and entertainment on a large scale. In this paper, we present a description of the shift in philosophical and theoretical underpinnings, and the practical developments in education over the last two decades that demand marked changes in the kind of learning environments we need to design. We argue that these changes have created justifiable conditions for the pedagogical use of mobile technologies based on authentic learning. A review of research in the authentic use of mobile technologies in higher education will be presented and implications for future research will be drawn.
Dynamic Lane Grouping at Isolated Intersections: Problem Formulation and Performance Analysis

This paper presents some fundamentals of the dynamic lane grouping (DLG) concept, the aim of which is to improve lane utilization under variations in traffic demand. The problem was formulated as a mathematical programming model to determine the optimal lane allocation of an isolated intersection in relation to minimizing the maximum lane flow ratio (defined as the assigned flow divided by the saturation rate). Shared lanes and user equilibrium status for lane use were also considered in the model. Numerical analyses were conducted for four cases with different numbers of lanes, saturation levels, and methods for setting signal timing (adaptive and fixed timing). The results indicated that DLG might provide significant performance improvement in reducing the maximum-flow ratio under the spatial variation in demand. The performance of DLG was also compared with real-time adaptive signal timing by means of the average delay; improvements to the average delay were also observed when the spatial variation was large. The maximum-flow ratio and the average delay of DLG remained almost unchanged for the full spectrum of spatial demand variation when total demand was constant. The results also implied that the more significantly the demand varied, the more benefits the dynamic lane grouping method could potentially provide.
Contemporary Physical Clone-Resistant Identity for IoTs and Emerging Technologies

Internet of things (IoT) technologies have recently gained much interest from numerous industries, where devices, machines, sensors, or simply things are linked with each other over open communication networks. However, such an operation environment brings new security threats and technology challenges in securing and stabilizing such large systems in the IoT world. Device identity in such an environment is an essential security requirement as a secure anchor for most applications towards clone-resistant resilient operational security. This paper analyzes different contemporary authenticated identification techniques and discusses possible future technologies for physically clone-resistant IoT units. Two categories of identification techniques to counteract cloning IoT units are discussed. The first category is inherently cloneable and includes the classical identification mechanisms based on secret and public key cryptography. Such techniques deploy mainly secret keys stored permanently somewhere in the IoT devices as classical means to make units clone-resistant. However, such techniques are inherently cloneable as the manufacturer or device personalizers can clone them by re-using the same secret key (which must be known to somebody) or reveal keys to third parties to create cloned entities. In contrast, the second, more resilient category is inherently unclonable because it deploys unknown and hard to predict born analog modules such as physical unclonable functions (PUFs) or mutated digital modules and so-called secret unknown ciphers (SUCs). Both techniques are DNA-like identities and hard to predict and clone even by the manufacturer itself. Born PUFs were introduced two decades ago; however, PUFs as analog functions failed to serve as practically usable unclonable electronic identities due to being costly, unstable/inconsistent, and non-practical for mass application. To overcome the drawbacks of analog PUFs, SUCs techniques were introduced a decade ago. SUCs, as mutated modules, are highly consistent, being digital modules. However, as self-mutated digital modules, they offer only clone-resistant identities. Therefore, the SUC technique is proposed as a promising clone-resistant technology embedded in emerging IoT units in non-volatile self-reconfiguring devices. The main threats and expected security requirements in the emerging IoT applications are postulated. Finally, the presented techniques are analyzed, classified, and compared considering security, performance, and complexity given future expected IoT security features and requirements.
Towards Autonomous Drone Racing without GPU Using an OAK-D Smart Camera

Recent advances have shown for the first time that it is possible to beat a human with an autonomous drone in a drone race. However, this solution relies heavily on external sensors, specifically on the use of a motion capture system. Thus, a truly autonomous solution demands performing computationally intensive tasks such as gate detection, drone localisation, and state estimation. To this end, other solutions rely on specialised hardware such as graphics processing units (GPUs) whose onboard hardware versions are not as powerful as those available for desktop and server computers. An alternative is to combine specialised hardware with smart sensors capable of processing specific tasks on the chip, alleviating the need for the onboard processor to perform these computations. Motivated by this, we present the initial results of adapting a novel smart camera, known as the OpenCV AI Kit or OAK-D, as part of a solution for the ADR running entirely on board. This smart camera performs neural inference on the chip that does not use a GPU. It can also perform depth estimation with a stereo rig and run neural network models using images from a 4K colour camera as the input. Additionally, seeking to limit the payload to 200 g, we present a new 3D-printed design of the camera’s back case, reducing the original weight 40%, thus enabling the drone to carry it in tandem with a host onboard computer, the Intel Stick compute, where we run a controller based on gate detection. The latter is performed with a neural model running on an OAK-D at an operation frequency of 40 Hz, enabling the drone to fly at a speed of 2 m/s. We deem these initial results promising toward the development of a truly autonomous solution that will run intensive computational tasks fully on board.
RIGHT ATRIAL STRAIN IN A NORMAL ADULT AFRICAN POPULATION AND ITS CORRELATION WITH AGE

Background The right atrial longitudinal strain (RALS) has been shown to be a useful parameter to define right atrial (RA) subclinical dysfunction in several cardiovascular disorders prior to changes in traditional RA two dimensional and volumetric parameters. There is a scarcity of data regarding normal values for RALS in a normal African population. Objectives We sought to establish normal values for RALS and its correlation with age, in a Sub-Saharan black African population. Methods This was a retrospective cross-sectional study of 100 normal individuals (recruited as controls for another study) performed at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (2017-2019). All echocardiographic measurements were done as per standard guidelines. RALS was measured using Philips QLAB 9 (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) speckle-tracking software. Results Median age was 37.5 years (IQR 26- 46, 60% females). The mean right atrial volume indexed to body surface area (RAVI) was 19.5 ± 5.7 mL/m and the mean RALS was 32.7 ± 10.5%. There was a trend towards decreasing RALS with age (r=-0.15, P=0.129) with no change in RAVI with age ( P=0.27). Males had a tendency towards higher RAVI and RALS measurements compared to females (20.8 ± 6.3 mL/m and 18.7 ± 5.2 mL/m , P=0.07: 34.6 ± 9.6% and 31.4 ± 10.9 %, P=0.141, respectively) . BMI was an independent predictor of RALS on multivariate analysis ( r= -0.43, P =0.003) Conclusion We have defined the normal reference values for RALS in a black population. RALS tended to decrease with age prior to change in RAVI and can serve as a marker of subclinical RA dysfunction . BMI was an important determinant of RALS.
Enhancer-promoter association determines Sox2 transcription regulation in mouse pluripotent cells

Distal enhancer-promoter associations are essential for transcription control and emerging as a common epigenetic way to determine gene expression in eukaryotes. However, it remains as an uncultivated land on how their diversity influences gene transcription during development. In this study, we select three defined Sox2 associated enhancers (E1, E2 and E3), representing different distal interaction categories, to further explore their biological effects. We construct three enhancer-knockout cells via CRISPR/Cas9 system in mouse embryonic stem cells. Results show that these associations carry out various biological features. Embryonic stem cell specific association (E1) speeds up cell cycle and involves in cardiac development, which has been validated in vivo. In contrast, the indirect one (E2) restrains nerve differentiation and has potential effect on lipid metabolism. The common one (E3) promotes nerve differentiation and inhibits oxidation-reduction process. Together, these different associations determine Sox2 transcription and function specificity in mouse embryonic stem cells. Our study will enable a way for exploring miscellaneous spatiotemporal gene transcription control and advancing quantitative knowledge by utilizing three-dimensional genomic information. Summary statement Sox2 transcription is complicated in mouse embryonic stem cells. It involves in heavily enhancer-promoter associations, which might make it a suitable model for phase-separation study. To decompose this cooperative regulation, diverse interactions are investigated. The biological effects have been explored in multiple perspectives. This may represent a quantitative way to explore and a potential new strategy to transcription control study.