Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A broadband half mode substrate integrated waveguide balun using composite right/left‐handed transmission line

A broadband half mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) balun using composite right/left‐handed transmission line is proposed. The proposed structure is consisted of a broadband microstrip Wilkinson power divider and two phase adjusted‐HMSIWs, new CRLH‐HMSIW and HMSIW thru. The broadband microstrip Wilkinson power divider is bridged with the HMSIW in/outputs. The new CRLH‐HMSIW is designed with surface mounted capacitors and printed circuit board (PCB) embedded inductors on the open edge of the HMSIW. The measured prototype shows a 1 dB amplitude imbalance and 180° ± 5° phase difference in a frequency band of 8–13.3 GHz, which has 50% fractional bandwidth. The simulation shows a good agreement with the measurement.
HDAC4 Mediates Smoking-Induced Pancreatic Cancer Metastasis

Objective Cigarette smoking is an established risk factor for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). In this project, we investigated the effect of smoking and the role of histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) in PDAC invasion and metastasis. Methods Cells were treated with 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone and cigarette smoke extract and the mRNA levels of HDACs were measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Invasion was measured using the Matrigel Invasion Assay. Syngeneic PDAC mice were treated with 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone and metastasis measured. Human PDAC primary and metastatic tissues were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Results Levels of HDAC4 mRNA were increased by smoking. Smoking compounds significantly promoted invasion of cancer cells and promoted metastasis of PDAC cells to different organs, including the liver and the lung, whereas inhibition of HDAC4 prevented this effect. The effect of HDAC4 inhibition on preventing smoking-induced metastasis was greater in the liver compared with the lung. We found that HDAC4 is highly expressed in primary and metastatic PDAC tumors. Conclusions We found that HDAC4 is the only HDAC induced by smoking among all HDACs analyzed. We found that smoking promotes invasion and metastasis of PDAC cells through a mechanism that involves HDAC4 and that HDAC4 is a promising target for preventing PDAC metastasis.
Resection Prolongs Overall Survival for Nonmetastatic Midgut Small Bowel Neuroendocrine Tumors

Objectives This study aimed to understand if resection (RS) for nonmetastatic small bowel neuroendocrine tumors (SBNETs) prolongs 5-year overall survival. Methods Patients from National Cancer Data Base with primary histologically confirmed SBNETs from 2007 to 2016 were included. Patients younger than 18 years, with the disease in the duodenum/Meckel diverticulum or metastatic disease were excluded. We assessed 5-year survival rates using Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression after RS, nonresection surgical management (NRS), or no resection (NR). Multivariate models were adjusted with age, sex, race, insurance, Charlson-Deyo comorbidity score, academic facility, primary tumor location, clinical T, clinical N, stage, and grade. Results We identified 4180 patients. On average, patients were 64 years old (standard deviation, 12 years), male (53%), and White (84%). The majority received RS (91.8%) as opposed to NRS (4.0%) or NR (4.2%). Patients who received RS versus NR had increased survival rates (84.2% vs 73.9%; univariate log-rank, P < 0.0001; multivariate hazard ratio, 0.73; 95% confidence interval, 0.53–0.99; P = 0.04). No statistical difference in survival was observed for NRS versus NR. Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first national study to evaluate survival after RS for nonmetastatic SBNETs. Results suggest that RS of SBNETs may prolong 5-year survival.
Adjustable Block Analysis: Actor-based Creation of Block Summaries for Scaling Formal Veriﬁcation

Software quality assurance becomes more and more popular in modern software development. Fixing bugs early, reduces the cost and increases the quality of the product. Since a great portion of time is needed for debugging, assisting techniques are integrated. Many techniques use formal veriﬁcation as a basis. Although formal veriﬁcation is applied with great success to many software development pipelines, the scalability is still a big challenge. In this work, we introduce the concept of distributed CPAs (conﬁgurable program analyses). The core idea is to partition the control ﬂow automaton (CFA) of a given input program in coherent blocks with one entry and one exit node. Workers analyze every block parallely and broadcast new information to every other worker. If a block contains an error location, the block is ana-lyzed backwards from the error location. Whenever the analysis reaches the top of the block, we ask whether other blocks can prove the error location (un)reachable. For this, we reuse the results of previous veriﬁcation runs on other blocks. Our approach is easily extensible to support any existing conﬁgurable program analysis and additionally allows an easy integration of other concepts, e.g., fault localization. This work shows and explains the implementation of a framework for distributed CPAs in CPAchecker . Fur-thermore, we perform a thorough evaluation of the approach, showing that our implementation is sound and matches the results of the existing predicate analysis. Distributing the work to many workers improves the speed of the analysis compared to running the complete analysis on only one worker. How-ever, the great amount of transferred data between workers and additional SAT-checks slow down the veriﬁcation process causing more out-of-memory errors and timeouts compared to the predicate analysis. Nonetheless, the evaluation reveals the current bottle-necks and points us to potentially useful and eﬀective improvements for the future.
Does Cutting Child Benefits Reduce Fertility in Larger Families? Evidence from the UkS Two-Child Limit

We study the impact of restricting child-related social assistance to the first two children in the family on the fertility of third and subsequent births. As of April 2017, all third and subsequent born children to low-income families in the UK did not receive means-tested child benefits, amounting to a reduction in income relative to the previous system of approximately 3000 GBP a year per child. We use administrative births microdata and household survey data to estimate the impact of the two-child limit on higher-order births with a triple differences approach, exploiting variation over date of birth, socio-economic status, and birth order. We find some evidence that the policy led to a small decline in higher-order fertility among lowincome families. However, compared to earlier research in the UK and elsewhere, largely based on benefit increases, the impact is small. This may be due to informational barriers or to other economic and social constraints affecting low income families. Our results imply that the main impact of cuts to child benefits is not to reduce fertility but to withdraw income from low-income families, with potential implications for child poverty.
ME DICINAL PLANTS CULTIVATED IN BAPEDI TRADITIONAL HEALERS HOMEGARDENS, LIMPOPO PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

Background: Plants used for medicinal purposes are very common feature in Bapedi traditional healer’s home-gardens, but information about their diversity and application is not available. Materials and methods: To investigate medicinal plants found in Bapedi healer’s home-gardens, 51 traditional health practitioners were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in 17 municipalities of the Limpopo Province of South Africa, during the first half of 2013. Results: A total of 43 plant species (67.4% indigenous and 32.5% exotics) from 32 families, mostly from the Asteraceae and Apocynaceae (9.3% each) were documented. Species cultivated in home-gardens were used to treat three major groups of ailments that include sexually transmitted infections (44.1%), chronic diseases of life style (44.1%) and reproductive ailments (32.5%). The exotics Catharanthus roseus (54.9%) and Carica papaya (15.6%) was the most cultivated. Threatened (11.6%) and protected (6.9%) species are also present in home-gardens, mostly due to their unavailability in natural areas. Conclusion: This study concludes that the practice of cultivating medicinal plant species in home-gardens is a positive development that in the long term will sustain both species and accompanying indigenous knowledge, as well as preserve the cultural identity of the Bapedi. elata (female infertility, gonorrhoea, impotence, HIV/AIDS and hypertension), E. pallidiflora subsp. pole-evansii (chlamydia and impotence), H. hemerocallidea (gonorrhoea and HIV/AIDS), Hypoxis iridifolia Baker (chlamydia and diabetes mellitus) and Persea americana Mill. (Diabetes mellitus and Hypertension). Amongst the 43 plant species documented in this study; Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don. (54.9%) and Carica papaya L. (15.6%) were the most cultivated species.
Membership Inference Attacks on Machine Learning Models: Analysis and Mitigation

Given a machine learning model and a record, membership attacks determine whether this record was used as a part of the model’s training dataset. Membership inference attack can present a risk to private datasets if these datasets are used to train machine learning models and access to the resulting models is open to the public. For example, knowing that a certain patient’s record was used to train a model associ-ated with a disease can reveal that the patient has this disease. To construct attack models, multiple shadow models are created that imitate the behavior of the target model, but for which we know the training datasets and thus the ground truth about membership in these datasets. Attack models are then trained on the labeled inputs and outputs of the shadow models. There is a desideratum to conduct more analysis about this attack and accordingly to provide robust mitigation techniques that will not aﬀect the target model’s utility. In this thesis, we discussed new combinations of parameters and settings, which were not explored in the literature to provide useful insights about the behavior of the membership inference attack. We also proposed and evaluated diﬀerent mitigation techniques against this type of attack considering diﬀerent training algorithms of the target model. Our experiments showed that, the defense strategies mitigate the membership inference attack considerably while preserving the utility of the target model. Finally, we summarized and compared the existing mitigation techniques with our results.
WIRELESS MOISTURE SENSOR USING MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA

- This document gives insight to the process of moisture determination. Moisture content is essential for assessing agricultural as well as food quality. Since moisture content plays an important role in processing, stability, and quality, moisture content becomes a fundamental feature. Freshness of a product is a measure of its quality thereby, becoming one of the key aspects of a consumer while buying a product. Moreover, it becomes essential to preserve the natural moisture quantity of the freshly produced products. The price of latex is inversely proportional to the amount of moisture content found in the fresh material. For the purpose of achieving maximum head rice and minimum broken rice, the percentage of ideal moisture content during milling is 14%. While rice grain is harvested when the amount of moisture present is around 19% to 25% to have maximum grain yield, it is dried till the moisture content lowers to 14% or less. Thereby, we have proposed to build a moisture sensor based on wireless technology using microstrip patch antenna as a sensor. This sensor works on the backscatter property. By collecting the backscattered power, we can compare the powers and sense moisture.
Live-Cell Imaging of the Contractile Velocity and Transient Intracellular Ca2+ Fluctuations in Human Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes

Live-cell imaging techniques are essential for acquiring vital physiological and pathophysiological knowledge to understand and treat heart disease. For live-cell imaging of transient alterations of [Ca2+]i in human cardiomyocytes, we engineered human-induced pluripotent stem cells carrying a genetically-encoded Ca2+-indicator (GECI). To monitor sarcomere shortening and relaxation in cardiomyocytes in real-time, we generated a α-cardiac actinin (ACTN2)-copepod (cop) green fluorescent protein (GFP+)-human-induced pluripotent stem cell line by using the CRISPR-Cas9 and a homology directed recombination approach. The engineered human-induced pluripotent stem cells were differentiated in transgenic GECI-enhanced GFP+-cardiomyocytes and ACTN2-copGFP+-cardiomyocytes, allowing real-time imaging of [Ca2+]i transients and live recordings of the sarcomere shortening velocity of ACTN2-copGFP+-cardiomyocytes. We developed a video analysis software tool to quantify various parameters of sarcoplasmic Ca2+ fluctuations recorded during contraction of cardiomyocytes and to calculate the contraction velocity of cardiomyocytes in the presence and absence of different drugs affecting cardiac function. Our cellular and software tool not only proved the positive and negative inotropic and lusitropic effects of the tested cardioactive drugs but also quantified the expected effects precisely. Our platform will offer a human-relevant in vitro alternative for high-throughput drug screenings, as well as a model to explore the underlying mechanisms of cardiac diseases.
Design of a Transfer Chute for Multiple Operating Conditions

The kinematic and dynamic flow behavior of granular material on a transfer chute whose main feature is that it can adapt to different operating conditions while maintaining its configuration is studied. As a result, a geometry is obtained that can fulfill some design criteria such as minimum wear of the linings; easy change of the geometry for different configurations, minimize the probability of plugging; fast return to normal operating conditions after a jam; prevent spillage loss of material; and minimum dimensions. The design is obtained by a simulation based on the discrete element method (DEM), considering the mechanical properties of all the materials involved, with a particle size distribution in line with normal operating conditions, incorporating the distribution of the material’s size and moisture related to friction, cohesion and adhesion phenomena. The LIGGGHTS open source program is used to calculate the movement of the material, and the ParaView program to process the results.Copyright © 2014 by ASME
Relevance of β-Glucan Molecular Properties on Its Suitability as Health Promoting Bread Ingredient

The fate of β-glucan (BG) health promoting properties during food production is crucial, but not predictable yet. Therefore, high molar mass BG (hBG) and control BG (cBG) were extracted from two barley varieties, characterized and added to wheat breads at levels of 3% and 6%. Bread quality criteria, carbohydrate contents and BG content and structural properties were determined. Additionally, breads were subjected to an in vitro digestion. The BG content in the chyme, molar mass, molar ratio, viscosity and bile acid retention were determined. The hBG and the cBG decreased loaf volume and increased crumb hardness with increasing BG content. The reduction in BG content during bread making was similar for hBG and cBG, but the molar mass of cBG decreased to a greater extent. As a result, only 10% of cBG entering in vitro digestion were found in the chyme afterwards, while 40% of the ingested hBG were detected. Molar mass reduction was much more severe for cBG compared to hBG. The use of hBG showed higher viscosity and better bile acid retention, indicating cholesterol lowering properties, compared to similar or higher amounts of cBG. These results provide valuable knowledge on the criteria to select BG-rich raw materials for ideal health promoting properties.
Methods of Microencapsulation of Vegetable Oil: Principles, Stability and Applications - A Minireview

SUMMARY In addition to being used in food, fuel and lubricants, vegetable oils are promising in many other applications such as food additives, nutritional supplements, cosmetics and biomedicine; however, their low oxidative stability can limit their use. Microencapsulation is a well-established method for the preservation of oil against degradation, controlled release of active ingredients, protection against external factors during storage, and enhanced durability. In this article, microencapsulation methods for vegetable oil are reviewed, including physical methods (spray-drying and freeze-drying), physicochemical methods (complex coacervation, ionic gelation and electrostatic layer-by-layer deposition), and chemical methods (interfacial/in situ polymerization). This article also provides information on the principles, parameters, advantages, disadvantages and applications of these methods.
Simulation von Augmented Reality Brillen auf Virtual Reality Brillen in Unity

Augmented Reality has many areas of application. It can be used to simplify everyday life as well as working processes. However, since there are many manufacturers that offer greatly varying systems, choosing the correct system according to application as well as cross-platform development are dfficult. This thesis attempts to develop an application which can be used to simulate Augmented Reality devices on Virtual Reality systems. This should simplify the processes of choosing a system as well as cross-platform development. Since the simulation will be designed to run on mobile devices, it should be possible to render high quality, realistic environments in advance, using a panoramic image. On a Virtual Reality device, they need to be displayed as a stereoscopic image. To achieve this, several methods are presented that can be used to perform this conversion. An editor will be created which will allow the creation of scenes, configuration of Augmented Reality devices and displaying them on a Virtual Reality system. For closing this thesis a test will be performed, to check the quality of the simulation as well as improvements that can be made.
Rupture Models of the 2016 Central Italy Earthquake Sequence from Joint Inversion of Strong-Motion and InSAR Datasets: Implications for Fault Behavior

We derived the joint slip models of the three major events in the 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence by inverting strong-motion and InSAR datasets. b-values and the historic earthquake scarp offset were also investigated after processing the earthquake catalog and near-field digital elevation model data. The three major events gradually released seismic moments of 1.6 × 1018 Nm (Mw 6.1), 1.5 × 1018 Nm (Mw 6.1), and 1.1 × 1019 Nm (Mw 6.7), respectively. All the ruptures exhibit both updip and along-strike directivity, but differ in the along-strike propagation direction. The high b-value found beneath three mainshock hypocenters suggests possible fluid intrusions, explaining the cascading earthquake behavior. The cumulative surface scarp from past earthquakes shows rupturing features that are consistent with the 2016 earthquake sequence, suggesting a characteristic fault behavior. Under the assumption of the Gutenberg–Richter law, the slip budget closure test gives a maximum magnitude of Mw 6.7 and implies the seismic hazard from the largest event has been released in this sequence.
Electrochemical Sensor for Detection of Mifepristone and Cinnamic acid for Treatment of Uterine Fibroids using Immobilized Double-Stranded DNA on the AuNPs modified glassy carbon electrode

This research was done to create immobilized dsDNA on Au/GCE for an electrochemical sensor of mifepristone and cinnamic acid (a component of guizhi fuling) as uterine fibroids medications. Deposition of Au nanoparticles (Au NPs) on GCE and immobilization of dsDNA on Au/GCE were accomplished using the electrodeposition approach. SEM and XRD structural investigations of electrodeposited Au NPs revealed that they were electrodeposited in a spherical shape with a fcc crystal structure. The CV and DPV electrochemical measurements indicated that Au NPs grew successfully on the GCE surface and that dsDNA was immobilized on Au/GCE in a stable manner. Further electrochemical investigations using DPV and ampermetery revealed that the simultaneous detection of mifepristone and cinnamic acid on dsDNA on Au/GCE was stable, selective, and sensitive. The linear range, detection limit, and sensitivity for determining mifepristone were 7.5 ng/ml and 0.40031 μA/mg ml -1 and 0-120 mg/ml, respectively, and for determining cinnamic acid, the linear range, detection limit, and sensitivity were 2.1 ng/ml and 1.42117 μA/mg ml -1 and 0-41.25 mg/ml, respectively. The practical capability and accuracy of dsDNA/Au/GCE were used for amperomtric determination of mifepristone and cinnamic acid in Mifeprex and Gui Zhi Fu Ling tablets, which indicated a high level of precision for practical ability in medicine sample analysis utilizing dsDNA/Au/GCE.
The Effective Capacitance of a Constant Phase Element with Resistors in Series and Parallel

The power of energy storage devices is characterized by capacitance and the internal resistance. The capacitance is measured on an assumption that the charges are stored at the electrode interface and the electric double layer behaves like an ideal capacitor. However, in most cases, the electric double layer is not ideal so a constant phase element (CPE) is used instead of a capacitor to describe the practical observations. Nevertheless, another problem with the use of the CPE is that CPE does not give capacitance directly. Fortunately, a few methods were suggested to evaluate the effective capacitance in the literature. However, those methods may not be suitable for supercapacitors which are modeled as an equivalent circuit of a CPE and resistor connected in series because the time constant of the equivalent circuit is not clearly studied. In this report, in order to study the time constant of the CPE and find its equivalent capacitor, AC and DC methods are utilized in a complementary manner. As a result, the time constants in the AC and DC domains are compared with digital simulation and a proper equation is presented to calculate the effective capacitance of a supercapacitor, which is extended to an electrochemical system where faradaic and ohmic processes are accompanied by imperfect charge accumulation process.
The impact of a player scoring system on cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes of players in a talent identification and development environment

Received: 16.04. 2021 Accepted: 11.10. 2021 Online: 24.03. 2022 Rule changes in sport are relatively common. They are typically instigated in response to concerns around player safety (e.g., tackle height in rugby), game flow and entertainment (e.g., shot clock in basketball), or to facilitate talent development processes (e.g., reduced team size in junior football). The purpose of this study was to monitor the impact of a modified scoring system created by the Rugby Football Union as a vehicle to shape desired cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes in a talent development setting. We asked players to describe their learning experiences of the scoring system preceding competition, their approach to the scoring system, and its impact on their decision-making. Key performance indicators (Total Carries, Total Points & Points Per Carry) were collected to monitor player effectiveness across three competitive games. Semi-structured interviews and psychometric scales were used to gain insight into the players learning experiences, feelings, decision making and declarative knowledge. Our findings indicated that players learning experiences affected how well-prepared players felt to perform (affective); the acquisition and use of task-specific declarative knowledge (cognitive); and the effectiveness of players carrying the ball into contact (behavioural).