This paper presents an online event location estimating process in a wide-area power system using the phasor measurement unit (PMU). For real-world applications of PMU-based event location estimation ...(ELE), it is necessary to consider the insufficiency of PMU data caused by a lack of PMUs, communication failure, PMU malfunction, etc., because insufficient PMU data cannot guarantee event observability over the entire network. To ensure possible event locations in a real-world system, an estimation method is developed by combining offline zonal analysis and an online ELE algorithm. The K-mean clustering method is utilized for electrical-bus clustering, which enables us to recognize separate electrical zones (EZs). Then, we propose a two-stage ELE algorithm by estimating the event EZ and localizing the specified event section within the estimated EZ. Proposed ELE algorithm is applied to a real-world PMU data collected from southwestern part of the United States. Finally, successful results from a real-world PMU data application are presented at the end of this paper.
Brain disorders are gradually becoming the leading cause of death worldwide. However, the lack of knowledge of brain disease's underlying mechanisms and ineffective neuropharmacological therapy have ...led to further exploration of optimal treatments and brain monitoring techniques.
This study aims to review the current state of brain disorders, which utilize transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) and daily usable noninvasive neuroimaging techniques. Furthermore, the second goal of this study is to highlight available gaps and provide a comprehensive guideline for further investigation.
A systematic search was conducted of the PubMed and Web of Science databases from January 2000 to October 2020 using relevant keywords. Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy were selected as noninvasive neuroimaging modalities. Nine brain disorders were investigated in this study, including Alzheimer's disease, depression, autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, stroke, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury.
Sixty-seven studies (1,385 participants) were included for quantitative analysis. Most of the articles (82.6%) employed transcranial direct current stimulation as an intervention method with modulation parameters of 1 mA intensity (47.2%) for 16-20 min (69.0%) duration of stimulation in a single session (36.8%). The frontal cortex (46.4%) and the cerebral cortex (47.8%) were used as a neuroimaging modality, with the power spectrum (45.7%) commonly extracted as a quantitative EEG feature.
An appropriate stimulation protocol applying tES as a therapy could be an effective treatment for cognitive and neurological brain disorders. However, the optimal tES criteria have not been defined; they vary across persons and disease types. Therefore, future work needs to investigate a closed-loop tES with monitoring by neuroimaging techniques to achieve personalized therapy for brain disorders.
Fault localization is one of the most significant aspects in the maintenance of high-voltage direct current (HVdc) submarine cables that have unconventional installation characteristics, such as long ...cable lengths and underwater installation locations. In order to protect and diagnose the cable, an improved fault localization technique, that is, time-frequency domain reflectometry (TFDR) and tangent distance pattern recognition are proposed in this paper. The fault location information of the HVdc submarine cables can be obtained from the tangent distance, to support the results of TFDR. To verify the performance of the proposed method, a commercial HVdc submarine cable is used in the experiments. A test bed is constructed for creating a similar environment with that of the submarine cable and filled with sea water. Both low- and high-impedance faults are emulated in this experiment by local insulation faults with iron, sea water, and air. The theoretical concepts and experimental results of the proposed method are presented. It is expected that the proposed method can improve the reliability of real-world HVdc power systems.
Time-series representation is the most important task in time-series analysis. One of the most widely employed time-series representation method is symbolic aggregate approximation (SAX), which ...converts the results from piecewise aggregate approximation to a symbol sequence. SAX is a simple and effective method; however, it only focuses on the mean value of each segment in the time-series. Here, we propose a novel time-series representation method—distance- and momentum-based symbolic aggregate approximation (DM-SAX)—that can secure time-series distributions by calculating the perpendicular distance from the time-axis to each data point and consider the time-series trend by adding a momentum factor reflecting the direction of previous data points. Experimental results for 29 highly imbalanced classification problems on the UCR datasets revealed that DM-SAX affords the optimal area under the curve (AUC) among competing time-series representation methods (SAX, extreme-SAX, overlap-SAX, and distance-based SAX). We statistically verified that performance improvements resulted in significant differences in the rankings. In addition, DM-SAX yielded the optimal AUC for real-world wire cutting and crimping process dataset. Meaningful data points such as outliers could be identified in a time-series outlier detection framework via the proposed method.
•New ammonia determination method for water samples using the separation of ammonia gas followed by the Berthelot’s reaction.•Involvement of water-assisted mechanism in the selective indophenol ...formation reaction between a solid sensing layer and gaseous ammonia.•Fabrication of solid-state colorimetric ammonia sensors on a paper substrate.
Continuous monitoring and rapid on-site determination of toxic ammonia in various aqueous systems are important for maintaining water quality and preserving the environment. Though several methods such as flow-based spectrophotometry are currently utilized for this purpose, there is still need for more selective ammonia determination. We present a new detection route for quantifying NH3 in water samples by means of the evaporation of dissolved ammonia into headspace, followed by selective detection using a colorimetric sensor. Gaseous NH3 detection is attained by the selective formation of blue indophenol dye through modified Berthelot’s reaction on porous paper. To optimize the sensing layer in terms of uniform and intense coloration, the water-soluble powder reagents were homogeneously dispersed in nonpolar cyclohexane and then deposited by a vacuum-assisted filtration on the paper substrate. The formation of indophenol blue was activated under highly humidified conditions through selective chemical reactions between solid-state Berthelot’s reagents and NH3. The colorimetric response of the low-cost paper sensors was saturated within 10min, and color change was observed by the naked eye for an ammonia solution of 10mg/L. Furthermore, the response magnitude was not affected by addition of 0.1wt% polar organic solvents (ethanol, acetone, dimethylformamide or acetic acid) or inorganic salts (NaCl, KCl, MgSO4 or CaSO4), suggesting a good detection cross-selectivity.
Degradation of the extracellular matrix (ECM), a critical step in cancer metastasis, is determined by the balance between MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases) and their inhibitors TIMPs (tissue ...inhibitors of metalloproteinases). In cancer cells, this balance is shifted towards MMPs, promoting ECM degradation. Here, we show that EZH2 plays an active role in this process by repressing the expression of TIMP2 and TIMP3 in prostate cancer cells. The TIMP genes are derepressed by knockdown of EZH2 expression in human prostate cancer cells but repressed by overexpression of EZH2 in benign human prostate epithelial cells. EZH2 catalyzes H3K27 trimethylation and subsequent DNA methylation of the TIMP gene promoters. Overexpression of EZH2 confers an invasive phenotype on benign prostate epithelial cells; however, this phenotype is suppressed by cooverexpression of TIMP3. EZH2 knockdown markedly reduces the proteolytic activity of MMP-9, thereby decreasing the invasive activity of prostate cancer cells. These results suggest that the transcriptional repression of the TIMP genes by EZH2 may be a major mechanism to shift the MMPs/TIMPs balance in favor of MMP activity and thus to promote ECM degradation and subsequent invasion of prostate cancer cells.
Dysbiosis is a hallmark of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but it is unclear which specific intestinal bacteria predispose to and which protect from IBD and how they are regulated. Peptidoglycan ...recognition proteins (Pglyrps) are antibacterial, participate in maintaining intestinal microflora, and modulate inflammatory responses. Mice deficient in any one of the four Pglyrp genes are more sensitive to dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis, and stools from Pglyrp-deficient mice transferred to wild type (WT) germ-free mice predispose them to much more severe colitis than stools from WT mice. However, the identities of these Pglyrp-regulated bacteria that predispose Pglyrp-deficient mice to colitis or protect WT mice from colitis are not known. Here we identified significant changes in β-diversity of stool bacteria in Pglyrp-deficient mice compared with WT mice. The most consistent changes in microbiome in all Pglyrp-deficient mice were in Bacteroidales, from which we selected four species, two with increased abundance (Prevotella falsenii and Parabacteroides distasonis) and two with decreased abundance (Bacteroides eggerthii and Alistipes finegoldii). We then gavaged WT mice with stock type strains of these species to test the hypothesis that they predispose to or protect from DSS-induced colitis. P. falsenii, P. distasonis, and B. eggerthii all enhanced DSS-induced colitis in both WT mice with otherwise undisturbed intestinal microflora and in WT mice with antibiotic-depleted intestinal microflora. By contrast, A. finegoldii (which is the most abundant species in WT mice) attenuated DSS-induced colitis both in WT mice with otherwise undisturbed intestinal microflora and in WT mice with antibiotic-depleted intestinal microflora, similar to the colitis protective effect of the entire normal microflora. These results identify P. falsenii, P. distasonis, and B. eggerthii as colitis-promoting species and A. finegoldii as colitis-protective species.
Uterine leiomyomas are benign tumors that can cause pain, bleeding, and infertility in some women. Mediator complex subunit 12 (MED12) exon 2 variants are associated with uterine leiomyomas; however, ...the causality of MED12 variants, their genetic mode of action, and their role in genomic instability have not been established. Here, we generated a mouse model that conditionally expresses a Med12 missense variant (c.131G>A) in the uterus and demonstrated that this alteration alone promotes uterine leiomyoma formation and hyperplasia in both WT mice and animals harboring a uterine mesenchymal cell-specific Med12 deletion. Compared with WT animals, expression of Med12 c.131G>A in conditional Med12-KO mice resulted in earlier onset of leiomyoma lesions that were also greater in size. Moreover, leiomyomatous, Med12 c.131G>A variant-expressing uteri developed chromosomal rearrangements. Together, our results show that the common human leiomyoma-associated MED12 variant can cause leiomyomas in mice via a gain of function that drives genomic instability, which is frequently observed in human leiomyomas.
A nuclear power plant (NPP) depends on instrumentation and control (I&C) systems to ensure its safe and efficient operation. In particular, I&C cables take on the pivotal role of measuring and ...controlling the critical equipment of the NPP. Thus, it is indubitable that the diagnostic technology of I&C cables for detecting faults and accurately assessing their health status is required for ensuring the safety and reliability of the NPP operation. We propose a diagnostic method that combines fault detection and evaluation algorithm for the I&C cables with stepped-frequency waveform reflectometry with signal propagation and reflection modeling. The signal modeling allows the assessment of the fault with an estimated reflection coefficient by separating the propagation and reflection effects of the measured signal. In short, cable faults are differentiated and quantified regardless of distance. The proposed algorithm is verified by characteristic impedance measurement, various fault detection/evaluation experiments, and the fault evaluation of local accelerated thermal aging cable.
In South Korea, there is currently no syndromic surveillance system using internet search data, including Google Flu Trends. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between ...national influenza surveillance data and Google Trends in South Korea.
Our study was based on a publicly available search engine database, Google Trends, using 12 influenza-related queries, from September 9, 2007 to September 8, 2012. National surveillance data were obtained from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) influenza-like illness (ILI) and virologic surveillance system. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated to compare the national surveillance and the Google Trends data for the overall period and for 5 influenza seasons.
The correlation coefficient between the KCDC ILI and virologic surveillance data was 0.72 (p<0.05). The highest correlation was between the Google Trends query of H1N1 and the ILI data, with a correlation coefficient of 0.53 (p<0.05), for the overall study period. When compared with the KCDC virologic data, the Google Trends query of bird flu had the highest correlation with a correlation coefficient of 0.93 (p<0.05) in the 2010-11 season. The following queries showed a statistically significant correlation coefficient compared with ILI data for three consecutive seasons: Tamiflu (r = 0.59, 0.86, 0.90, p<0.05), new flu (r = 0.64, 0.43, 0.70, p<0.05) and flu (r = 0.68, 0.43, 0.77, p<0.05).
In our study, we found that the Google Trends for certain queries using the survey on influenza correlated with national surveillance data in South Korea. The results of this study showed that Google Trends in the Korean language can be used as complementary data for influenza surveillance but was insufficient for the use of predictive models, such as Google Flu Trends.
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