Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polystyrene/Recycled Sbr Powder Compounds Produced in An Internal Batch Mixer

The properties of recycled styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) powder with polystyrene (PS) have been studied as a function of compounding conditions in an internal batch mixer. In particular, the effect of temperature (160–220°C), rotor speed (30–120 rpm), homogenization time (3–9 min), components introduction order, surface treatment of SBR powder with a PS/tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution, and addition of a coupling agent (styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene, SEBS) were studied. The compounds were then compression moulded and samples were prepared to measure their hardness, tensile properties (modulus, strength and elongation at break) and impact strength. Morphological analysis via scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) on selected samples was also performed to determine the interfacial state between the components. From all the results obtained, an optimisation procedure is proposed allowing the best compound to be determined as a function of final application.
A comparative study of flexural and shear behavior of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete beams

In this research, the flexural and shear behavior of five locally developed ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete beams was experimentally investigated. Four-point loading tests were carried out on concrete specimens which were further compared with five normal-strength concrete beams constructed at the laboratory. The objective of this study is to assess the flexural and shear behavior of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete beams and compare them with that of normal-strength beams and available equations in the literature. Results indicate underestimation of shear (up to 2.71 times) and moment capacities (minimum 1.27 times, maximum 3.55 times) by most of the equations in beams with low-reinforcement ratios. Finally, results reveal that the experimental flexural and shear capacities of ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete specimens are up to 3.5 times greater than their normal-strength counterpart specimens.
A Note on Chromatic Sum

The chromatic sum $\Sigma(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest sum of colors among of proper coloring with the natural number. In this paper, we introduce a necessary condition for the existence of graph homomorphisms. Also, we present $\Sigma(G)<\chi_f(G)|G|$ for every graph $G$.
Nesprin-2 Interacts with α-Catenin and Regulates Wnt Signaling at the Nuclear Envelope*

Nesprins and emerin are structural nuclear envelope proteins that tether nuclei to the cytoskeleton. In this work, we identified the cytoskeleton-associated α-N/E-catenins as novel nesprin-2-binding partners. The association involves the C termini of nesprin-2 giant and α-N/E-catenins. α-E/T/N-catenins are known primarily for their roles in cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion. Here, we show that, in addition, α-catenin forms complexes with nesprin-2 that include β-catenin and emerin. We demonstrate that the depletion of nesprin-2 reduces both the amount of active β-catenin inside the nucleus and T-cell factor/lymphoid-enhancing factor-dependent transcription. Taken together, these findings suggest novel nesprin-2 functions in cellular signaling. Moreover, we propose that, in contrast to emerin, nesprin-2 is a positive regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway.
Energy Efficiency of Mechanized Thinning in Broadleaf Stand

Introduction Efficiency of timber harvesting systems is traditionally expressed in time and/or monetary values per unit of a product. Unit cost of production is still regarded as a main factor for selecting harvesting systems in the planning phase and for the evaluation of their efficiency. Rapid development of the renewable energy sector, and bioenergy sector as its important part, raised a question of bioenergy competitiveness when compared to energy produced from fossil fuels as well as from other renewables. At this point, when timber harvesting systems had to be analysed as energy production systems, unit of a timber product could no longer be the sole denominator for calculating the efficiency and novel research methods had to be applied. EROI (Energy Return On Investment) is a ratio between energy obtained from energy production process and energy consumption during separation, growth, etc. into new forms of energy [1]. Basic concept relies on the laws of physics that energy cannot be produced without a portion of it being consumed. In this respect, levels of consumed energy are a key indicator of the efficiency of the production process [2]. The general criterion used in the current debate on EROI is the question whether energy that returns as fuel is greater than the energy invested in the process of production of that fuel, i.e. whether the EROI is greater than 1 [1]. For energy wood the ratio between energy obtained and energy consumed amounts to 30 [3], meaning that one liter of oil is needed in the energy wood production to gain energy equivalent to 30 liters of oil. The goal of this research was to determine the energy efficiency (expressed as EROI) of mechanized timber harvesting by a harvester–forwarder system in an 80-year old broadleaf harvesting site.
Expression of cell adhesion molecules in oesophageal carcinoma and its prognostic value

Oesophageal carcinoma remains a disease of poor prognosis. Surgical cure rates are compromised by the fact that most patients are diagnosed at a late stage of disease because of the delayed onset of symptoms, by which time metastases and organ infiltration may have already occurred. Thus, invasion and metastases play a key role in influencing patient survival, and the search for novel treatments may therefore hinge on gaining insight into the mechanisms controlling these processes. It has been established that the initial step in the metastatic cascade is the detachment of tumour cells from the primary tumour via dysregulation of normal cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions. Distinct proteins known as cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) mediate these interactions. In recent years, a plethora of information has contributed to the in depth understanding of these molecules. This review provides a brief description of five families of CAMs (cadherins, integrins, CD44, immunoglobulin superfamily, and selectins) and highlights their altered expression in relation both to prognosis and tumour behaviour in squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus.
Paired Activating and Inhibitory Immunoglobulin-like Receptors, MAIR-I and MAIR-II, Regulate Mast Cell and Macrophage Activation

Immune responses are regulated by opposing positive and negative signals triggered by the interaction of activating and inhibitory cell surface receptors with their ligands. Here, we describe novel paired activating and inhibitory immunoglobulin-like receptors, designated myeloid-associated immunoglobulin-like receptor (MAIR) I and MAIR-II, whose extracellular domains are highly conserved by each other. MAIR-I, expressed on the majority of myeloid cells, including macrophages, granulocytes, mast cells, and dendritic cells, contains the tyrosine-based sorting motif and the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif-like sequences in the cytoplasmic domain and mediates endocytosis of the receptor and inhibition of IgE-mediated degranulation from mast cells. On the other hand, MAIR-II, expressed on subsets of peritoneal macrophages and B cells, associates with the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif-bearing adaptor DAP12 and stimulates proinflammatory cytokines and chemokine secretions from macrophages. Thus, MAIR-I and MAIR-II play important regulatory roles in cell signaling and immune responses.
Fractional exhaled nitric oxide exchange parameters among 9‐year‐old inner‐city children

To determine the feasibility of using a multiple flow offline fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) collection method in an inner‐city cohort and determine this population's alveolar and conducting airway contributions of NO. We hypothesized that the flow independent NO parameters would be associated differentially with wheeze and seroatopy.
Lacosamide Serum Concentrations in Adult Patients With Epilepsy: The Influence of Gender, Age, Dose, and Concomitant Antiepileptic Drugs

Objective: Lacosamide (LCM), a new antiepileptic drug (AED) approved as adjunctive therapy for the treatment of patients with partial-onset seizures, has limited pharmacokinetic and drug interaction data. The main objectives of the present study were to investigate the effects of dose, age, gender, and hepatic enzyme-inducing AEDs on the pharmacokinetics of LCM as assessed by steady state serum LCM values. Methods: An LCM AED therapeutic drug monitoring database was analyzed with regard to LCM serum concentrations and other relevant patient and AED drug information. One hundred twenty eight sera were identified. These were collected from 68 women and 61 men aged 19–66 years, who were prescribed a median LCM dose of 300 mg (range 50–600 mg). Results: Serum LCM concentrations were observed in the following main groupings: LCM monotherapy (n = 5), LCM with nonenzyme-inducing AEDs (n = 50), LCM with enzyme-inducing AEDs (n = 49), LCM with valproic acid (n = 20), and LCM with enzyme-inducing AEDs plus valproic acid (n = 4). Analysis of variance showed a correlation of dose with LCM concentrations (r = 0.53, P < 0.001), and women had statistically higher mean LCM concentration than did men, 37.2 ± 23.6 versus 26.8 ± 12.9 &mgr;mol/L (P = 0.001). Serum LCM concentrations were significantly lower (P = 0.002) in the enzyme-inducing AED group (carbamazepine and phenytoin) compared with the LCM monotherapy group and the nonenzyme-inducing group, 23.5 ± 11.0, 34.5 ± 7.7, and 32.7 ± 17.9 &mgr;mol/L, respectively. Conclusions: Serum LCM concentrations increased dose dependently, were age independent, and were higher in women compared with men. Carbamazepine and phenytoin can significantly decrease serum LCM concentrations, probably via induction of LCM metabolism.
A Practical Fault Attack on Square and Multiply

In order to provide security for a device, cryptographic algorithms are implemented on them. Even devices using a cryptographically secure algorithm may be vulnerable to implementation attacks like side channel analysis or fault attacks. Most fault attacks on RSA concentrate on the vulnerability of the Chinese Remainder Theorem to fault injections. A few other attacks on RSA which do not use this speed-up technique have been published. Nevertheless, these attacks require a quite precise fault injection like a bit flip or target a special operation without any possibility to check if the fault was injected in the intended way, like in safe-error attacks.In this paper we propose a new attack on square and multiply, based on a manipulation of the control flow. Furthermore, we show how to realize this attack in practice using non-invasive spike attacks and discuss impacts of different side channel analysis countermeasures on our attack. The attack was performed using low cost equipment.
Dynamical effects of a cosmological constant

The observational evidence for the existence of a non-zero cosmological constant is getting stronger. It is therefore timely to address the question of its eventual effect on the dynamics of galaxies, clusters and larger structures in the Universe. We find, contrary to a recent claim, that the influence of the cosmological constant has to be negligible for, e.g., the rotation curves of galaxies. On larger scales, starting with large galaxy clusters, there are potentially measurable effects from the repulsive addition to the Newtonian gravitational force caused by the cosmological constant.
Revisiting the characteristics of the spectral lags in short gamma-ray bursts

In this paper, we restudy the spectral lag features of short bright gamma-ray bursts (T-90 < 2.6 s) with a BATSE time-tagged event sample including 65 single pulse bursts. The cross-correlation technique is adopted to measure the lags between two different energy channels. Meanwhile, we also make an investigation of the characteristics of the ratios between the spectral lag and the full width at half-maximum of the pulses, called relative spectral lags. We conclude that spectral lags of short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) are normally distributed and concentrated around the value of 0.014, with 40 per cent of them having negative lags. With Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, we find that the lag distribution is identical to a normal one caused by white noises, which indicates that the lags of the vast majority of SGRBs are so small that they are negligible or non-measurable, as Norris & Bonnell have suggested.
Amide-based glutathione peroxidase mimics: effect of secondary and tertiary amide substituents on antioxidant activity.

A series of secondary and tertiary amide-substituted diselenides were synthesized and studied for their GPx-like antioxidant activities using H(2)O(2), Cum-OOH, and tBuOOH as substrates and PhSH as thiol co-substrate. The effect of substitution at the free -NH group of the amide moiety in the sec-amide-based diselenides on GPx activity was analyzed by detailed experimental and theoretical methods. It is observed that substitution at the free -NH group significantly enhances the GPx-like activities of the sec-amide-based diselenides, mainly by reducing the Se.O nonbonded interactions. The reduction in strength of the Se.O interaction upon introduction of N,N-dialkyl substituents not only prevents the undesired thiol exchange reactions, but also reduces the stability of selenenyl sulfide intermediates. This leads to a facile disproportionation of the selenenyl sulfide to the corresponding diselenide, which enhances the catalytic activity. The mechanistic investigations indicate that the reactivity of diselenides having sec- or tert-amide moieties with PhSH is extremely slow; indicating that the first step of the catalytic cycle involves the reaction between the diselenides and peroxide to produce the corresponding selenenic and seleninic acids.
Restoration of Adenosine Deaminase-Deficient Human Thymocyte Development In Vitro by Inhibition of Deoxynucleoside Kinases12

Mutations in the gene encoding adenosine deaminase (ADA), a purine salvage enzyme, lead to immunodeficiency in humans. Although ADA deficiency has been analyzed in cell culture and murine models, information is lacking concerning its impact on the development of human thymocytes. We have used chimeric human/mouse fetal thymic organ culture to study ADA-deficient human thymocyte development in an “in vivo-like” environment where toxic metabolites accumulate in situ. Inhibition of ADA during human thymocyte development resulted in a severe reduction in cellular expansion as well as impaired differentiation, largely affecting mature thymocyte populations. Thymocyte differentiation was not blocked at a discrete stage; rather, the paucity of mature thymocytes was due to the induction of apoptosis as evidenced by activation of caspases and was accompanied by the accumulation of intracellular dATP. Inhibition of adenosine kinase and deoxycytidine kinase prevented the accumulation of dATP and restored thymocyte differentiation and proliferation. Our work reveals that multiple deoxynucleoside kinases are involved in the phosphorylation of deoxyadenosine when ADA is absent, and suggests an alternate therapeutic strategy for treatment of ADA-deficient patients.
Design of a 6-DOF collaborative robot arm with counterbalance mechanisms

Most collaborative robots use high-power motors for a good weight-to-payload ratio, thus leading to not only an increase in manufacturing cost but also possibility of injury at a collision between a human and a robot. To maintain high-performance with low-power driving units, a spring-based counterbalance mechanism (CBM) and a robot arm based on these CBMs were developed in our previous study. In this study, a 6-DOF collaborative robot equipped with a multi-DOF CBM is proposed. A double parallelogram linkage and a slider-crank mechanism are employed for a compact and durable design of a multi-DOF CBM. Unlike the previous prototypes in which some portions of CBMs were protruded out of the robot body due to their large volume, the proposed CBMs can be embedded inside the robot links. The performance of the developed CBM and collaborative robot were verified based on simulations using dynamic simulation software. Simulation results show that the proposed CBMs can effectively reduce the joint torques required to operate the robot. This reduction in the torque enables low-power motors to be used in a collaborative robot, thus significantly improving collision safety and energy efficiency.
Hydrogen Desorption Properties of Bulk and Nanoconfined LiBH4-NaAlH4

Nanoconfinement of 2LiBH4-NaAlH4 into a mesoporous carbon aerogel scaffold with a pore size, BET surface area and total pore volume of Dmax = 30 nm, SBET = 689 m2/g and Vtot = 1.21 mL/g, respectively is investigated. Nanoconfinement of 2LiBH4-NaAlH4 facilitates a reduction in the temperature of the hydrogen release by 132 °C, compared to that of bulk 2LiBH4-NaAlH4 and the onset of hydrogen release is below 100 °C. The reversible hydrogen storage capacity is also significantly improved for the nanoconfined sample, maintaining 83% of the initial hydrogen content after three cycles compared to 47% for that of the bulk sample. During nanoconfinement, LiBH4 and NaAlH4 reacts to form LiAlH4 and NaBH4 and the final dehydrogenation products, obtained at 481 °C are LiH, LiAl, AlB2 and Al. After rehydrogenation of the nanoconfined sample at T = 400 °C and p(H2) = 126 bar, amorphous NaBH4 is recovered along with unreacted LiH, AlB2 and Al and suggests that NaBH4 is the main compound that can reversibly release and uptake hydrogen.
Oncogenic and tumor suppressive roles of polo‐like kinases in human hepatocellular carcinoma

Polo‐like kinase (PLK) proteins play critical roles in the control of cell cycle progression, either favoring or inhibiting cell proliferation, and in DNA damage response. Although either overexpression or down‐regulation of PLK proteins occurs frequently in various cancer types, no comprehensive analysis on their function in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been performed to date. In the present study, we define roles for PLK1, PLK2, PLK3, and PLK4 during hepatocarcinogenesis. Levels of PLK1, as assessed by means of real‐time reverse‐transcription PCR and western blot analysis, were progressively increased from nonneoplastic surrounding liver tissues to HCC, reaching the highest expression in tumors with poorer outcome (as defined by the length of patients' survival) compared with normal livers. In sharp contrast, PLK2, PLK3, and PLK4 messenger RNA and protein expression gradually declined from nontumorous liver to HCC, with the lowest levels being detected in HCC with shorter survival. In liver tumors, PLK2‐4 down‐regulation was paralleled by promoter hypermethylation and/or loss of heterozygosity at the PLK2‐4 loci. Subsequent functional studies revealed that PLK1 inhibition led to suppression of cell growth in vitro, whereas opposite effects followed PLK2‐4 silencing in HCC cell lines. In particular, suppression of PLK1 resulted in a block in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle and in massive apoptosis of HCC cells in vitro regardless of p53 status. Conclusion: PLK1‐4 proteins are aberrantly regulated and possess different roles in human HCC, with PLK1 acting as an oncogene and PLK2‐4 being presumably tumor suppressor genes. Thus, therapeutic approaches aimed at inactivating PLK1 and/or reactivating PLK2‐4 might be highly useful in the treatment of human liver cancer. (HEPATOLOGY 2010.)
A Study of Serological Markers of Hepatitis B and C Viruses in Istanbul, Turkey

Objective: This study was undertaken to investigate the prevalence of HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HCV positivity in Istanbul, Turkey. Subjects and Methods: The frequencies of HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HCV positivity were determined in 1,157 randomly selected patients attending the outpatient clinic of Istanbul University Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, during the years 1998 and 2001. All patients underwent complete physical and various routine laboratory examinations. Results: Of the 1,157 patients, the prevalence of HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HCV was 6.6, 28.1 and 2.4%, respectively. It appeared that having dental and surgical procedures formed the risk factors for HBV infection. HBsAg positivity in the health care workers was not different from that of the other professions, but anti-HBs was significantly higher in this group. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that HBV infection occurs more frequently than HCV in Istanbul, and this poses an important health problem in the community.
Rethinking volitional control over task choice in multitask environments: Use of a stimulus set selection strategy in voluntary task switching

Under conditions of volitional control in multitask environments, subjects may engage in a variety of strategies to guide task selection. The current research examines whether subjects may sometimes use a top-down control strategy of selecting a task-irrelevant stimulus dimension, such as location, to guide task selection. We term this approach a stimulus set selection strategy. Using a voluntary task switching procedure, subjects voluntarily switched between categorizing letter and number stimuli that appeared in two, four, or eight possible target locations. Effects of stimulus availability, manipulated by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony between the two target stimuli, and location repetition were analysed to assess the use of a stimulus set selection strategy. Considered across position condition, Experiment 1 showed effects of both stimulus availability and location repetition on task choice suggesting that only in the 2-position condition, where selection based on location always results in a target at the selected location, subjects may have been using a stimulus set selection strategy on some trials. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these findings in a visually more cluttered environment. These results indicate that, contrary to current models of task selection in voluntary task switching, the top-down control of task selection may occur in the absence of the formation of an intention to perform a particular task.