Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The scattering parameters and directional coupler analysis of characteristically terminated asymmetric coupled transmission lines in an inhomogeneous medium

The scattering matrix of asymmetric coupled two-line structures in an inhomogeneous medium terminated in a set of impedances that are equal to the characteristic impedances of the individual, uncoupled lines is derived in terms of the coupled-mode parameters. It is shown that the structures can compose an ideal backward-coupling directional coupler, perfectly matched and isolated at all frequencies, if the inductive k/sub L/ and capacitive k/sub C/ coupling coefficients of the coupled lines are equal. The effect of the nonideal equalization of the coupling coefficients on the coupler critical parameters is investigated. The normal-mode parameters (mode numbers and mode impedances) in the proximity of the point when k/sub L/=k/sub C/ and at that point are also examined. Numerical results confirm the validity of the analysis and prove the possibility of an asymmetrical coupler design with very high directivity. >
Using 3D Terrestial Laser Scanning (TLS) for Surveying Hydrotechnical Structures when Preparing Flood Hazard Maps

Directive 2007/60/WE of the European Parliament regarding flood risk assessment and management (The Floods Directive) obliges member states to achieve certain aims within given timeframes. The member states are to prepare planning policies, i.e. flood hazard and flood risk maps, by December 2013. The maps should be based on hydraulic models. Preparing the input data includes compiling hydraulic data (the shape of and material from which a river bed and a river valley are made) and data on the hydrotechnical infrastructure and communication. A detailed survey includes bridges and other hydrotechnical structures. The article presents possible use of 3D terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) in the survey of structures where measurement using classical methods may be hazardous. And also, where the level of the structure’s complexity for some of the elements is so high, that the classical survey will not deliver eligible results. As an output, there appears to be an entirely measurable 3D model, ready to be used by experts in the field of hydrology and construction.
A neat idea [photonic crystal fibre]

Photonic crystal fibre could mark the start of a new era in optical communications. The author describes the work of Philip Russell in the development of this technology which is based on the photonic bandgap of crystals. The physics involved is explained and the development and manufacture of the photonic crystal fibre is described. The need to reduce losses is mentioned. The advantages of photonic crystal fibres and some potential applications are briefly outlined.
Efeito de diferentes doses de nandrolona associado ao treinamento de força sobre o perfil fenotípico e área de secção transversa do músculo de ratos

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of different doses of nandrolone decanoate (ND) associated with Strength Training (ST) on the phenotype of fibers and cross-sectional area (CSA) of the extensor digitorum longus (EDL) in Wistar rats. The animals were divided into seven groups: control (CG) and the groups according to the dose of ND administered (0,1, 1, 2, 5, 10 e 20 mg/kg). The ST consisted of water jumping with loads of 50-70% of their body mass, three times per week during five weeks. The association of ST with ND promoted a modulatory role on the muscle fiber types. There was a hypertrophy of fast twitch fibers (type II) as compared with slow twitch (type I). In conclusion, although the association of ST with ND increased muscle CSA and modified fiber phenotype, there was no additional effect of higher doses.
Inference for epidemic models with time varying infection rates: tracking the dynamics of oak processionary moth in the UK

Invasive pests pose a great threat to forest, woodland and urban tree ecosystems. The oak processionary moth (OPM) is a destructive pest of oak trees, first reported in the UK in 2006. Despite great efforts to contain the outbreak within the original infested area of South-East England, OPM continues to spread. Here we analyse data of the numbers of OPM nests removed each year from two parks in London between 2013 and 2020. Using a state-of-the-art Bayesian inference scheme we estimate the parameters for a stochastic compartmental SIR (susceptible, infested, removed) model with a time varying infestation rate to describe the spread of OPM. We find that the infestation rate and subsequent basic reproduction number have remained constant since 2013 (with R0 between one and two). This shows further controls must be taken to reduce R0 below one and stop the advance of OPM into other areas of England. Synthesis. Our findings demonstrate the applicability of the SIR model to describing OPM spread and show that further controls are needed to reduce the infestation rate. The proposed statistical methodology is a powerful tool to explore the nature of a time varying infestation rate, applicable to other partially observed time series epidemic data.
Computer Mediated Automatic Detection of Pain-Related Behavior: Prospect, Progress, Perils

Pain is often characterized as a fundamentally subjective phenomenon; however, all pain assessment reduces the experience to observables, with strengths and limitations. Most evidence about pain derives from observations of pain-related behavior. There has been considerable progress in articulating the properties of behavioral indices of pain; especially, but not exclusively those based on facial expression. An abundant literature shows that a limited subset of facial actions, with homologs in several non-human species, encode pain intensity across the lifespan. Unfortunately, acquiring such measures remains prohibitively impractical in many settings because it requires trained human observers and is laborious. The advent of the field of affective computing, which applies computer vision and machine learning (CVML) techniques to the recognition of behavior, raised the prospect that advanced technology might overcome some of the constraints limiting behavioral pain assessment in clinical and research settings. Studies have shown that it is indeed possible, through CVML, to develop systems that track facial expressions of pain. There has since been an explosion of research testing models for automated pain assessment. More recently, researchers have explored the feasibility of multimodal measurement of pain-related behaviors. Commercial products that purport to enable automatic, real-time measurement of pain expression have also appeared. Though progress has been made, this field remains in its infancy and there is risk of overpromising on what can be delivered. Insufficient adherence to conventional principles for developing valid measures and drawing appropriate generalizations to identifiable populations could lead to scientifically dubious and clinically risky claims. There is a particular need for the development of databases containing samples from various settings in which pain may or may not occur, meticulously annotated according to standards that would permit sharing, subject to international privacy standards. Researchers and users need to be sensitive to the limitations of the technology (for e.g., the potential reification of biases that are irrelevant to the assessment of pain) and its potentially problematic social implications.
Using Virtual AChE Homology Screening to Identify Small Molecules With the Ability to Inhibit Marine Biofouling

The search for effective yet environmentally friendly strategies to prevent marine biofouling is hampered by the large taxonomic diversity amongst fouling organisms and a lack of well-defined conserved molecular targets. The acetylcholinesterase enzyme catalyses the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and several natural antifouling allelochemicals have been reported to display acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity. Our study is focussed on establishing if acetylcholinesterase can be used as a well-defined molecular target to accelerate discovery and development of novel antifoulants via sequential high-throughput in silico screening, in vitro enzymatic studies of identified compound libraries, and in vivo assessment of the most promising lead compounds. Using this approach, we identified potent cholinesterase inhibitors with inhibitory concentrations down to 3 μM from a 10,000 compound library. The most potent inhibitors were screened against five microfouling marine bacteria and marine microalgae and the macrofouling tunicate Ciona savignyi. No activity was seen against the microfoulers but a potent novel inhibitor of tunicate settlement and metamorphosis was discovered. Although only one of the identified active cholinesterase inhibitors displayed antifouling activity suggesting the link between cholinesterase inhibition and antifouling is limited to certain compound classes, the study highlights how in silico screening employed regularly for drug discovery can also facilitate discovery of antifouling leads.
New Perspectives on the Neurobiology of Sign Languages

The first 40 years of research on the neurobiology of sign languages (1960–2000) established that the same key left hemisphere brain regions support both signed and spoken languages, based primarily on evidence from signers with brain injury and at the end of the 20th century, based on evidence from emerging functional neuroimaging technologies (positron emission tomography and fMRI). Building on this earlier work, this review focuses on what we have learned about the neurobiology of sign languages in the last 15–20 years, what controversies remain unresolved, and directions for future research. Production and comprehension processes are addressed separately in order to capture whether and how output and input differences between sign and speech impact the neural substrates supporting language. In addition, the review includes aspects of language that are unique to sign languages, such as pervasive lexical iconicity, fingerspelling, linguistic facial expressions, and depictive classifier constructions. Summary sketches of the neural networks supporting sign language production and comprehension are provided with the hope that these will inspire future research as we begin to develop a more complete neurobiological model of sign language processing.
Parasexuality of Candida Species

While most fungi have the ability to reproduce sexually, multiple independent lineages have lost meiosis and developed parasexual cycles in its place. Emergence of parasexual cycles is particularly prominent in medically relevant fungi from the CUG paraphyletic group of Candida species. Since the discovery of parasex in C. albicans roughly two decades ago, it has served as the model for Candida species. Importantly, parasex in C. albicans retains hallmarks of meiosis including genetic recombination and chromosome segregation, making it a potential driver of genetic diversity. Furthermore, key meiotic genes play similar roles in C. albicans parasex and highlights parallels between these processes. Yet, the evolutionary role of parasex in Candida adaptation and the extent of resulting genotypic and phenotypic diversity remain as key knowledge gaps in this facultative reproductive program. Here, we present our current understanding of parasex, the mechanisms governing its regulation, and its relevance to Candida biology.
Electric capacity expansion under uncertain demand: decomposition approaches

The authors present a stochastic model of electric capacity expansion planning under uncertainty in demand. The goal of this problem is to determine the most interesting investments (plants and capacity levels) over the considered planning time (up to several years). Periods are divided into smaller subperiods (e.g. weekly or monthly) for which demand is assumed uncertain and modeled as a continuous probability distribution function. This leads to consider the risk associated to each decision for the capacity to be used (electricity generation). A first approach as a nonlinear continuous model is presented. Benders decomposition and Lagrangean relaxation-decomposition are proposed as solution methods, where the structures of the related sub-problems are exploited to speed up the convergence. The authors provide a large computational experience and comparisons within these methods and other general purpose optimization packages, and focus the report on the advantages of each.
Morphine Exacerbates Experimental Colitis-Induced Depression of Nesting in Mice

Opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are excellent analgesics, but recent clinical evidence suggests that these drugs might worsen disease severity in Crohn's disease patients, limiting their clinical utility for treating Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). One indicator of change in well-being from conditions such as IBD is behavioral depression and disruption to activities of daily living. Preclinical measures of behavioral depression can provide an indicator of changes in quality of life and subsequent modification by candidate analgesics. In mice, nesting is an adaptive unconditioned behavior that is susceptible to disruption by noxious stimuli, and some types of pain related nesting depression are responsive to opioid and NSAID analgesics. Here we show that a 2, 4, 6-trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS) model of experimental colitis depresses nesting behavior in mice, and we evaluated effects of morphine, an opioid, and ketoprofen, a NSAID, on TNBS-induced nesting depression. In Swiss Webster mice, TNBS significantly reduced nesting that peaked on Day 3 and recovered in a time-dependent manner with complete recovery by Day 7. In the absence of colonic inflammation, daily treatment with morphine (1–10 mg/kg) did not decrease nesting except at 10mg/kg/day. However, in TNBS-treated mice 3.2 mg/kg/day morphine significantly exacerbated TNBS-induced nesting depression and delayed recovery. While 3.2 mg/kg/day morphine alone did not alter locomotor activity and TNBS-induced depression of locomotion recovered, the combination of TNBS and 3.2 mg/kg/day morphine significantly attenuated locomotion and prevented recovery. Daily treatment with 3.2 or 10 mg/kg ketoprofen in TNBS-treated mice did not prevent depression of nesting. These data suggest that opioid analgesics but not NSAIDS worsen colonic inflammation-induced behavioral depression. Furthermore, these findings highlight the importance of evaluating analgesic effects in models of colonic inflammation induced depression of behavior.
White Matter Hyperintensities as a Risk Factor for Ischemic Stroke in Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Objective: The occurrence of ischemic stroke in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can cause extended periods of reduced daily activities. However, the risk factors for ischemic stroke in SLE patients are not fully elucidated. Herein, we examined the effect of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on the occurrence of ischemic stroke in SLE patients. Methods: We analyzed the relationship between WMH burden and ischemic stroke using follow-up brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 79 patients with SLE. Of these patients, 16 developed stroke during the observation period. WMH on MRI were classified into periventricular hyperintensities and deep white matter hyperintensities (DWMH), while the lesion extent was graded using the Fazekas scale. Results: Kaplan–Meier curves showed that ischemic stroke events were significantly associated with age at initial brain MRI of ≥40 years (p = 0.015) and history of anti-phospholipid syndrome (p = 0.030). Additionally, ischemic stroke events were significantly associated with a one grade deterioration of periventricular hyperintensities (p = 0.003) and a one grade deterioration of DWMH (p = 0.002). Multivariate analysis using the logistic regression model showed that a one grade deterioration of DWMH was an independent risk factor for ischemic stroke (hazard ratio, 6.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.3–27.4). Conclusions: Although several factors affect the occurrence of ischemic stroke, SLE patients show increased risk of ischemic stroke via development of DWMH. An observation of DWMH deterioration on follow-up brain MRI may be useful for assessing the risk of ischemic stroke in SLE patients.
Essential Pattern and Sequence Sensitivity in Semiconductor Memories

Abstract : Pragmatic classification of errors linked to a study of Essential Pattern and Sequence Sensitivity leads to a new and credible strategy for the validation of individual chips and entire memories. Three categories or errors are recognized: hard, non-random soft and random soft errors. Progress in the verification of VLSI devices is predicated on the availability of diagnostic instrumentation. Three promising techniques are being developed: (1) Stroboscopic Scanning Electron Microscopy; (2) the Zero-Capacitance Probe; and (3) Pseudo Analog Testing. More attention must also be given to the matter of process statistics. Lastly, much remains to be done at the system level. We consider error correction of the Hamming-code variety as a particularly efficient technique of fault-tolerant design and we discuss chip and system architectures for reduction of the risk of burst errors. All in all we advocate (1) conventional testing for hard errors attributable typically to stuck-at-faults, (2) extensive analysis and diagnostics for non-random soft errors produced more often than not by crosstalk manifested as Pattern or Sequence Sensitivity, and (3) block-oriented error correction for random errors induced most often by alpha particles and cosmic rays.
New Insights Into Cancer Chronotherapies

Circadian clocks participate in the coordination of various metabolic and biological activities to maintain homeostasis. Disturbances in the circadian rhythm and cancers are closely related. Circadian clock genes are differentially expressed in many tumors, and accelerate the development and progression of tumors. In addition, tumor tissues exert varying biological activities compared to normal tissues due to resetting of altered rhythms. Thus, chronotherapeutics used for cancer treatment should exploit the timing of circadian rhythms to achieve higher efficacy and mild toxicity. Due to interpatient differences in circadian functions, our findings advocate an individualized precision approach to chronotherapy. Herein, we review the specific association between circadian clocks and cancers. In addition, we focus on chronotherapies in cancers and personalized biomarkers for the development of precision chronotherapy. The understanding of circadian clocks in cancer will provide a rationale for more effective clinical treatment of tumors.
Sensorimotor Self-organization via Circular-Reactions

Newborns demonstrate innate abilities in coordinating their sensory and motor systems through reflexes. One notable characteristic is circular reactions consisting of self-generated motor actions that lead to correlated sensory and motor activities. This paper describes a model for goal-directed reaching based on circular reactions and exocentric reference-frames. The model is built using physiologically plausible visual processing modules and arm-control neural networks. The model incorporates map representations with ego- and exo-centric reference frames for sensory inputs, vector representations for motor systems, as well as local associative learning that result from arm explorations. The integration of these modules is simulated and tested in a three-dimensional spatial environment using Unity3D. The results show that, through self-generated activities, the model self-organizes to generate accurate arm movements that are tolerant with respect to various sources of noise.
Real-Time Rendering for Large-Scale Underground Mine Scene

A virtual mine system involves masses of laneways and machinery with great number of model data, which restricts rendering speed seriously. In this paper, a rendering algorithm specially developed for virtual underground scenes is proposed. This algorithm considered each laneway as a visible area and applies the cuboid bounding boxes of laneways for the cameras inside-outside testing to determine the cameras position, consequently determined the visible regions and exclude invisible laneways as rendering. To decrease the calculations of inside-outside testing, octree was employed to reduce the detection scope. The experiment results indicated this algorithm was capable of substantially reducing rendering objects and had the obviously faster rendering speed than the conventional rendering acceleration algorithms.
Epidemic Preparedness—Leishmania tarentolae as an Easy-to-Handle Tool to Produce Antigens for Viral Diagnosis: Application to COVID-19

To detect and prevent emerging epidemics, discovery platforms are urgently needed, for the rapid development of diagnostic assays. Molecular diagnostic tests for COVID-19 were developed shortly after the isolation of SARS-CoV-2. However, serological tests based on antiviral antibody detection, revealing previous exposure to the virus, required longer testing phases, due to the need to obtain correctly folded and glycosylated antigens. The delay between the identification of a new virus and the development of reliable serodiagnostic tools limits our readiness to tackle future epidemics. We suggest that the protozoan Leishmania tarentolae can be used as an easy-to-handle microfactory for the rapid production of viral antigens to face emerging epidemics. We engineered L. tarentolae to express the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) and we recorded the ability of the purified RBD antigen to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in human sera, with a sensitivity and reproducibility comparable to that of a reference antigen produced in human cells. This is the first application of an antigen produced in L. tarentolae for the serodiagnosis of a Coronaviridae infection. On the basis of our results, we propose L. tarentolae as an effective system for viral antigen production, even in countries that lack high-technology cell factories.
Management of Acute Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: A Review of the Literature

Traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) is a debilitating disease that poses significant functional and economic burden on both the individual and societal levels. Prognosis is dependent on the extent of the spinal injury and the severity of neurological dysfunction. If not treated rapidly, patients with TSCI can suffer further secondary damage and experience escalating disability and complications. It is important to quickly assess the patient to identify the location and severity of injury to make a decision to pursue a surgical and/or conservative management. However, there are many conditions that factor into the management of TSCI patients, ranging from the initial presentation of the patient to long-term care for optimal recovery. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of the etiologies of spinal cord injury and the complications that may arise, and present an algorithm to aid in the management of TSCI.