Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of texture on stress-induced martensite formation in nickel–titanium

An experimental study was performed to investigate the effect of texture on stress-induced martensitic phase transformation in the shape memory alloy (SMA) nickel–titanium (Nitinol). Thin sheet specimens of Nitinol were examined under uniaxial tensile loading using three-dimensional digital image correlation in order to spatially and temporally track strain localization indicative of martensitic transformation. Tensile specimens were fabricated along directions oriented 0° (RD), 45°, and 90° (TD) to the rolling direction of the sheet and subjected to 50 cycles at prescribed strain rates of ϵ ̇ g = 1 0 − 4 , 1 0 − 3 ? > , and 10−2 s−1. It was found that upon loading, specimens unfavorably oriented for transformation (TD specimens) nucleated a greater number of deformation bands due to a smaller difference between nucleation and propagation stresses, and also accommodated less axial strain inside the band and more axial strain outside the band. The unfavorable (TD) specimens also exhibited a stronger cycle-to-cycle similarity in the strain accommodated inside the deformation band, which has important implications for the design of SMA structures for fatigue applications. Finally, the (primarily martensite) region of the deformation band(s) consistently showed significantly stronger cycle-to-cycle similarity than the (primarily austenite) region outside the band(s), regardless of specimen texture.
The tegument of Schistosoma mansoni: observations on the formation, structure and composition of cytoplasmic inclusions in relation to tegument function

Two major cytoplasmic inclusions, multilaminate vesicles and discoid granules, are present in the tegument of Schistosoma mansoni. These are produced at separate Golgi apparatuses in the tegument cell bodies and move up to the surface by a combination of diffusion and fluid flow. The discoid granules contain neutral mucopolysaccharide and are believed to break down to form the ground substance of the tegument. The multilaminate vesicles are rich in phospholipid and the contents, at least superficially, resemble unit membranes. The multilaminate vesicles are believed to contribute their contents to the multilaminate surface of the worm which appears to be continually replaced. These observations are related to current ideas on membrane turnover and the ability of the worm to acquire a disguise of host erythrocyte glycolipid.
Processing and characterization of hydroxyapatite coatings on titanium produced by magnetron sputtering

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings with different thicknesses were produced on Ti and Si substrates using the radio frequency magnetron sputtering method. The mechanical properties, for example, modulus and hardness, of the coatings were measured using nanoindentation. The measured values of modulus and hardness were close to the upper limit of that reported for bulk HA, indicating a fully dense structure. Interfacial strengths between the HA coatings and substrates were also evaluated using a nanoscratch technique. The HA–Ti interface appeared to be stronger than the HA–Si interface. The microstructures of the HA coating and the HA–Ti interface were examined using high-resolution electron microscopy. Chemical compositions of the HA coating and the HA–Ti interface were also analyzed using x-ray energy dispersive spectrometer and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The results indicated that the strong HA–Ti bonding is associated with an outward diffusion of Ti into HA layer and concomitant formation of TiO_2 at or near the interface.
Suspension arrays for high throughput, multiplexed single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping.

BACKGROUND Genetic diversity can help explain disease susceptibility and differential drug response. The most common type of variant is the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). We present a low-cost, high throughput assay for SNP genotyping. METHODS The assay uses oligonucleotide probes covalently attached to fluorescently encoded microspheres. These probes are hybridized directly to fluorescently labeled polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products and the results are analyzed in a standard flow cytometer. RESULTS The genotypes determined with our assay are in good agreement with those determined by TaqMan. The range of G/C content for oligonucleotide probes was 23.5-65% in the 17 bases surrounding the SNP. Further optimization of probe length and target concentration is shown to dramatically enhance the assay performance for certain SNPs. Using microspheres which have unique fluorescent signatures, we performed a 32-plex assay where we simultaneously determined the genotypes of eight different polymorphic genes. CONCLUSIONS We demonstrate, for the first time, the feasibility of multiplexed genotyping with suspension arrays using direct hybridization analyses. Our approach enables probes to be removed from or added to an array, enhancing flexibility over conventional chips. The ability to multiplex both the PCR preparation and the hybridization should enhance the throughput, cost, and speed of the assay.
The effect of stretching conditions on properties of amorphous polyethylene terephthalate film

The effect of stretching condition on stress-induced crystallization of amorphous polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film has been studied. Cast PET film was stretched at 85°C with stretching rates ranging from 100% per minute to 600% per minute for various stretching ratios. The stretched film samples were annealed at 140°C both under tension as well as under relaxed conditions. Tensile properties were determined using Instron Tensile Tester and results were compared. Tenacity, yield stress, and initial modulus were found to increase while elongation at break decreased with the increase in stretching rate. The degree of crystallinity was measured by x-ray diffraction as well as density methods. Birefringence and crystalline orientation factor values were determined experimentally and using these, amorphous orientation factor values were calculated. Birefringence, crystalline orientation and amorphous orientation values were found to increase with the increase in stretching rate. These studies showed that at low stretching rates a significant amount of relaxation takes place, resulting in lower orientation and strength. On the other hand, at higher stretching rates relaxation is minimized thus providing high orientation and strength. Upon annealing the crystallinity values increased as expected, however the trend of orientation and mechanical properties with respect to stretching rate was similar to those of unannealed films.
Reconfigurable Parallel Coupled Band Notch Resonator With Wide Tuning Range

This paper presents a new form of reconfigurable band notch resonator with a wide tuning range. The whole structure consists of a through line and two parallel coupled resonators. This paper presents an accurate lumped element equivalent circuit for the parallel coupled resonator. The mechanism giving rise to the wide tuning range is also investigated. The first harmonic of the fundamental stop-band is analyzed and compared with that of the varactor-coupled resonator. Measurement results show that the stop-band of the filter can be tuned from 0.6 to 4.0 GHz. This is achieved by varying the capacitance of two pairs of varactor diodes. The stop-band tuning range is restricted by the capacitance variation which can be achieved using the varactor diode. The potential tuning range of a filter based on this resonator is greater than one decade.
Insider Trading and Corporate Governance - the Case of Germany

We analyse transactions by corporate insiders in Germany. We find that insider trades are associated with significant abnormal returns. Insider trades that occur prior to an earnings announcement have a larger impact on prices. This result provides a rationale for the UK regulation that prohibits insiders from trading prior to earnings announcements. Both the ownership structure and the accounting standards used by the firm affect the magnitude of the price reaction. The position of the insider within the firm has no effect, which is inconsistent with the informational hierarchy hypothesis.
Singing-voice separation from monaural recordings using robust principal component analysis

Separating singing voices from music accompaniment is an important task in many applications, such as music information retrieval, lyric recognition and alignment. Music accompaniment can be assumed to be in a low-rank subspace, because of its repetition structure; on the other hand, singing voices can be regarded as relatively sparse within songs. In this paper, based on this assumption, we propose using robust principal component analysis for singing-voice separation from music accompaniment. Moreover, we examine the separation result by using a binary time-frequency masking method. Evaluations on the MIR-1K dataset show that this method can achieve around 1~1.4 dB higher GNSDR compared with two state-of-the-art approaches without using prior training or requiring particular features.
Prevalence and Associations of Incomplete Posterior Vitreous Detachment in Adult Chinese: The Beijing Eye Study

Purpose To determine prevalence and associations of incomplete posterior vitreous detachment (PVD). Methods The population-based cross-sectional Beijing Eye Study 2011 included 3468 individuals with a mean age of 64.6±9.8 years (range: 50–93 years). A detailed ophthalmic examination was performed including spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Incomplete PVD was differentiated into type 1 (shallow PVD with circular perifoveal vitreous attachment), type 2 (PVD reaching fovea but not foveola), type 3 (shallow PVD with pinpoint vitreous attachment at the foveola), and type 4 (PVD completely detached from the macula, attached to the optic disc). Results An incomplete PVD was detected in 3948 eyes (prevalence: 60.5±0.6%; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 59.3%,61.7%) of 2198 subjects (67.1±0.8%;95%CI: 65.6%,68.7%). Type 1 PVD was seen in 3090 (78.3%) eyes, type 2 PVD in 504 (12.8%) eyes, type 3 PVD in 70 (1.8%) eyes, and type 4 PVD in 284 (7.2%) eyes. Prevalence of incomplete PVD was associated with younger age (P<0.001;OR:0.91), male gender (P<0.001;OR:0.64), rural region of habitation (P<0.001;OR:0.49), larger corneal diameter (P = 0.04;OR:0.91), better best corrected visual acuity (P = 0.02;OR:0.41), and hyperopic refractive error (P<0.001;OR:1.15). The type of incomplete PVD was associated with higher age (P<0.001), urban region of habitation (P<0.001), myopic refractive error (P = 0.001), thinner cornea (P = 0.005), and better best corrected visual acuity (P = 0.056). Conclusions In adult Chinese in Greater Beijing, prevalence of an incomplete PVD (detected in 67.1% subjects) was associated with younger age, male gender, rural region of habitation, larger corneal diameter, better best corrected visual acuity and hyperopic refractive error.
Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis Incidence Is Higher Than Previously Thought: A Retrospective Population-Based Study

Background and Purpose— The incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) varies between studies, but it is estimated to be between 2 and 5 per million per year. A recent study in the Netherlands with comprehensive ascertainment suggested a much higher incidence. It is uncertain whether these differing estimates reflect the quality of ascertainment or true variation. The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence of CVT in Adelaide, using a novel clinical and radiological methodology. Methods— We retrospectively identified CVT International Classification of Diseases-coded cases from all Adelaide public hospitals from 2005 to 2011. We also searched all neuroimaging studies (259 101) from these hospitals for text variations containing venous thromb. All potential cases were reviewed, and cases of incident CVT ascertained. Associations and outcomes were determined. Results— Of 169 possible cases, 105 cases of CVT were confirmed (59 cases by both coding and neuroimaging, 40 from neuroimaging alone, and 6 from coding alone). In our population of 953 390 adults, this represented an incidence of 15.7 million per year (95% confidence interval, 12.9–19.0), the highest incidence reported. Of these cases, a possible procoagulant predisposition was identified in 48%. Fifty-five of 105 cases occurred in females. Relative risk of CVT in females of reproductive age was insignificantly higher than in males (1.18 [95% confidence interval, 0.94–1.48]). Conclusions— Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in our study was more common than previously reported, perhaps because of more complete ascertainment. Future CVT incidence studies should include comprehensive capture and review of neuroimaging.
CANDS: Continuous Optimal Navigation via Distributed Stream Processing

Shortest path query over a dynamic road network is a prominent problem for the optimization of real-time traffic systems. Existing solutions rely either on a centralized index system with tremendous pre-computation overhead, or on a distributed graph processing system such as Pregel that requires much synchronization effort. However, the performance of these systems degenerates with frequent route path updates caused by continuous traffic condition change. In this paper, we build CANDS, a distributed stream processing platform for continuous optimal shortest path queries. It provides an asynchronous solution to answering a large quantity of shortest path queries. It is able to efficiently detect affected paths and adjust their paths in the face of traffic updates. Moreover, the affected paths can be quickly updated to the optimal solutions throughout the whole navigation process. Experimental results demonstrate that the performance for answering shortest path queries by CANDS is two orders of magnitude better than that of GPS, an open-source implementation of Pregel. In addition, CANDS provides fast response to traffic updates to guarantee the optimality of answering shortest path queries.
Measurement-Based Probabilistic Timing Analysis and Its Impact on Processor Architecture

Critical Real-Time Embedded Systems (CRTES) industry needs increasingly complex hardware to attain the performance/cost ratio required to keep competitive edge in the market. Worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis is central to CRTES development. Whereas current timing analysis techniques are sound, their viability is hampered by the soaring cost of acquiring detailed knowledge of the internal operation and state of the system, at both software and hardware level. This is a major hurdle to using them for increasingly complex hardware platforms. Measurement-Based Probabilistic Timing Analysis (PTA) reduces the cost of acquiring the knowledge needed for computing trustworthy WCET bounds. This paper presents the changes required to hardware design to facilitate the use of the PTA techniques.
Robust Speaker Recognition in Noisy Conditions

This paper investigates the problem of speaker identification and verification in noisy conditions, assuming that speech signals are corrupted by environmental noise, but knowledge about the noise characteristics is not available. This research is motivated in part by the potential application of speaker recognition technologies on handheld devices or the Internet. While the technologies promise an additional biometric layer of security to protect the user, the practical implementation of such systems faces many challenges. One of these is environmental noise. Due to the mobile nature of such systems, the noise sources can be highly time-varying and potentially unknown. This raises the requirement for noise robustness in the absence of information about the noise. This paper describes a method that combines multicondition model training and missing-feature theory to model noise with unknown temporal-spectral characteristics. Multicondition training is conducted using simulated noisy data with limited noise variation, providing a ldquocoarserdquo compensation for the noise, and missing-feature theory is applied to refine the compensation by ignoring noise variation outside the given training conditions, thereby reducing the training and testing mismatch. This paper is focused on several issues relating to the implementation of the new model for real-world applications. These include the generation of multicondition training data to model noisy speech, the combination of different training data to optimize the recognition performance, and the reduction of the model's complexity. The new algorithm was tested using two databases with simulated and realistic noisy speech data. The first database is a redevelopment of the TIMIT database by rerecording the data in the presence of various noise types, used to test the model for speaker identification with a focus on the varieties of noise. The second database is a handheld-device database collected in realistic noisy conditions, used to further validate the model for real-world speaker verification. The new model is compared to baseline systems and is found to achieve lower error rates.
Characterization of Changes in Gene Expression and Biochemical Pathways at Low Levels of Benzene Exposure

Benzene, a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, causes acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Recently, through transcriptome profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), we reported dose-dependent effects of benzene exposure on gene expression and biochemical pathways in 83 workers exposed across four airborne concentration ranges (from <1 ppm to >10 ppm) compared with 42 subjects with non-workplace ambient exposure levels. Here, we further characterize these dose-dependent effects with continuous benzene exposure in all 125 study subjects. We estimated air benzene exposure levels in the 42 environmentally-exposed subjects from their unmetabolized urinary benzene levels. We used a novel non-parametric, data-adaptive model selection method to estimate the change with dose in the expression of each gene. We describe non-parametric approaches to model pathway responses and used these to estimate the dose responses of the AML pathway and 4 other pathways of interest. The response patterns of majority of genes as captured by mean estimates of the first and second principal components of the dose-response for the five pathways and the profiles of 6 AML pathway response-representative genes (identified by clustering) exhibited similar apparent supra-linear responses. Responses at or below 0.1 ppm benzene were observed for altered expression of AML pathway genes and CYP2E1. Together, these data show that benzene alters disease-relevant pathways and genes in a dose-dependent manner, with effects apparent at doses as low as 100 ppb in air. Studies with extensive exposure assessment of subjects exposed in the low-dose range between 10 ppb and 1 ppm are needed to confirm these findings.
Aberrant Expression of Critical Genes during Secondary Cell Wall Biogenesis in a Cotton Mutant, Ligon Lintless-1 (L i-1)

Over ninety percent of the value of cotton comes from its fiber; however, the genetic mechanisms governing fiber development are poorly understood. Due to their biochemical and morphological diversity in fiber cells cotton fiber mutants have been useful in examining fiber development; therefore, using the Ligon Lintless (L i-1) mutant, a monogenic dominant cotton mutant with very short fibers, we employed the high throughput approaches of microarray technology and real time PCR to gain insights into what genes were critical during the secondary cell wall synthesis stage. Comparative transcriptome analysis of the normal TM-1 genotype and the near isogenic L i-1 revealed that over 100 transcripts were differentially expressed at least 2-fold during secondary wall biogenesis, although the genetic profile of the expansion phase showed no significant differences in the isolines. Of particular note, we identified three candidate gene families-expansin, sucrose synthase, and tubulin—whose expression in L i-1 deviates from normal expression patterns of its parent, TM-1. These genes may contribute to retarded growth of fibers in L i-1 since they are fiber-expressed structural and metabolic genes. This work provides more details into the mechanisms of fiber development, and suggests the L i gene is active during the later stages of fiber development.
In Vivo Activation of Human Pregnane X Receptor Tightens the Blood-Brain Barrier to Methadone through P-Glycoprotein Up-Regulation

The ATP-driven drug export pump, P-glycoprotein, is a primary gatekeeper of the blood-brain barrier and a major impediment to central nervous system (CNS) pharmacotherapy. Reducing P-glycoprotein activity dramatically increases penetration of many therapeutic drugs into the CNS. Previous studies in rat showed that brain capillary P-glycoprotein was transcriptionally up-regulated by the pregnane X receptor (PXR), a xenobiotic-activated nuclear receptor. Here we used a transgenic mouse expressing human PXR (hPXR) to determine the consequences of increased blood-brain barrier P-glycoprotein activity. P-glycoprotein expression and transport activity in brain capillaries from transgenic mice was significantly increased when capillaries were exposed to the hPXR ligands, rifampin and hyperforin, in vitro and when the mice were dosed with rifampin in vivo. Plasma rifampin levels in induced mice were comparable with literature values for patients. We also administered methadone, a CNS-acting, P-glycoprotein substrate, to control and rifampin-induced transgenic mice and measured the drug's antinociceptive effect. In rifampin-induced mice, the methadone effect was reduced by approximately 70%, even though plasma methadone levels were similar to those found in transgenic controls not exposed to rifampin. Thus, hPXR activation in vivo increased P-glycoprotein activity and tightened the blood-brain barrier to methadone, reducing the drug's CNS efficacy. This is the first demonstration of the ability of blood-brain barrier PXR to alter the efficacy of a CNS-acting drug.
Non-asymptotic analysis of secrecy capacity in massive MIMO system

In this paper, we consider a massive MIMO wiretap system where the transmitter, the receiver and the eavesdropper are equipped with a large number of antennas. Being different from the previous works using asymptotic random matrix theory, our analysis relies on the concentration measure of non-asymptotic random matrix theory which allows us to obtain tight bounds for secrecy capacity of massive MIMO system with finite antenna number. The analytical and simulation results reveal the following, in the massive MIMO system employing equal power allocation at each transmit antenna: 1) the secrecy capacity falls within a bounds with a probability growing exponentially with the number of transmit antenna, while the ergodic secrecy capacity falls within a deterministic bounds; 2) the gap between the upper and the lower bound on secrecy rate is proportional to the square root of the SNR at legitimate receiver and the SNR at eavesdropper, respectively; 3) when the entry of legitimate channel matrix and eavesdropping channel matrix satisfies Gaussian distribution, the gap between the upper and the lower bound on secrecy rate is a linear reciprocal function of the number of transmit antennas.
Multipurpose Computer Model for Screw Processing of Plastics

The state-of-the-art has been presented for computer modeling of screw processing of plastics. A new generalized approach for modeling of this class of plastics processing techniques has been proposed. Single screw extrusion, twin screw extrusion, as well as injection molding are discussed. Various types of feeding machines, including flood feeding and starve feeding, are considered. An idea for a multipurpose computer system for comprehensive modeling of screw processing has been presented. A problem of optimization of screw processing has also been discussed.