Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Friction riveting of TI-6AL-4V and pultruded glass fiber reinforced thermoset polyester hybrid joints

Friction Riveting is an innovative spot joining technology for metal-polymer hybrid structures. This MSc thesis provided for the first time in the literature, a fundamental understanding on the Friction Riveting process for metal-thermoset composites joints. Joints of Ti-6Al-4V rivet and pultruded glass fiber reinforced thermoset polyester part were produced under three joining conditions with different heat input. Thorough analytical techniques were used to understand the physics of the process and the effect of the energy input on the final microstructure of the joined parts, the physico-chemical changes in the composite and the local and global mechanical properties of the joints. The process temperature reached values up to 761 ± 2°C indicating intrinsic degradation of the composite, formation of a softened/molten glass interlayer between the rivet and the composite and complex metallurgical transformations in the metallic rivet. Through monitoring of the process temperature and torque, an unstable friction regime was observed for FricRiveting of pultruded thermoset composites leading to distinguished extents of composite degradation. The microstructure of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy changed across the length of the rivet, from the equiaxed morphology to acicular structures in the rivet tip, where plastic deformation occurred. Three microstructural zones were proposed for each joint part including two thermo-mechanically affected zones and a heat affected zone. Microhardness mapping was performed in the metallic rivet evidencing an increase from the center to the tip of the rivet, with a hardness increment of over 20% compared to the base material (HVTi6Al4V= 300320 HV). The glass interphase consolidated in the metallic surface reached values of up to 974 HV followed by a drastic decrease to 24 HV in the polyester matrix located out of the joint area. The ultimate bearing strength ranged between 60 MPa and 166 MPa. Lesser composite degraded areas led to stronger joints. Two failure modes were observed combining initial composite bearing followed by final failure through shear of the rivet with partial rivet pullout or by full rivet pull-out. Complex failure micro-mechanisms were observed including the combination of cohesive and adhesive failures through the glass layer and the damaged composite interface. Friction-riveted joints achieved an ultimate lap shear strength of up to 80% to that of a similar bolted joint. A case study for a presumptive truss bridge application of friction-riveted joints showed a necessary of 92 rivets per truss node, 43% less than previous studies and with potential for further optimization.
Use of DNA–Damaging Agents and RNA Pooling to Assess Expression Profiles Associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Status in Familial Breast Cancer Patients

A large number of rare sequence variants of unknown clinical significance have been identified in the breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. Laboratory-based methods that can distinguish between carriers of pathogenic mutations and non-carriers are likely to have utility for the classification of these sequence variants. To identify predictors of pathogenic mutation status in familial breast cancer patients, we explored the use of gene expression arrays to assess the effect of two DNA–damaging agents (irradiation and mitomycin C) on cellular response in relation to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status. A range of regimes was used to treat 27 lymphoblastoid cell-lines (LCLs) derived from affected women in high-risk breast cancer families (nine BRCA1, nine BRCA2, and nine non-BRCA1/2 or BRCAX individuals) and nine LCLs from healthy individuals. Using an RNA–pooling strategy, we found that treating LCLs with 1.2 µM mitomycin C and measuring the gene expression profiles 1 hour post-treatment had the greatest potential to discriminate BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX mutation status. A classifier was built using the expression profile of nine QRT–PCR validated genes that were associated with BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX status in RNA pools. These nine genes could distinguish BRCA1 from BRCA2 carriers with 83% accuracy in individual samples, but three-way analysis for BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX had a maximum of 59% prediction accuracy. Our results suggest that, compared to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, non-BRCA1/2 (BRCAX) individuals are genetically heterogeneous. This study also demonstrates the effectiveness of RNA pools to compare the expression profiles of cell-lines from BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX cases after treatment with irradiation and mitomycin C as a method to prioritize treatment regimes for detailed downstream expression analysis.
The Power of Testing Memory Basic Research and Implications for Educational Practice

— A powerful way of improving one’s memory for material is to be tested on that material. Tests enhance later retention more than additional study of the material, even when tests are given without feedback. This surprising phenomenon is called the testing effect, and although it has been studied by cognitive psychologists sporadically over the years, today there is a renewed effort to learn why testing is effective and to apply testing in educational settings. In this article, we selectively review laboratory studies that reveal the power of testing in improving retention and then turn to studies that demonstrate the basic effects in educational settings. We also consider the related concepts of dynamic testing and formative assessment as other means of using tests to improve learning. Finally, we consider some negative consequences of testing that may occur in certain circumstances, though these negative effects are often small and do not cancel out the large positive effects of testing. Frequent testing in the classroom may boost educational achievement at all levels of education.
Ostra: Leveraging Trust to Thwart Unwanted Communication

Online communication media such as email, instant messaging, bulletin boards, voice-over-IP, and social networking sites allow any sender to reach potentially millions of users at near zero marginal cost. This property enables information to be exchanged freely: anyone with Internet access can publish content. Unfortunately, the same property opens the door to unwanted communication, marketing, and propaganda. Examples include email spam, Web search engine spam, inappropriately labeled content on YouTube, and unwanted contact invitations in Skype. Unwanted communication wastes one of the most valuable resources in the information age: human attention. In this paper, we explore the use of trust relationships, such as social links, to thwart unwanted communication. Such relationships already exist in many application settings today. Our system, Ostra, bounds the total amount of unwanted communication a user can produce based on the number of trust relationships the user has, and relies on the fact that it is difficult for a user to create arbitrarily many trust relationships. Ostra is applicable to both messaging systems such as email and content-sharing systems such as YouTube. It does not rely on automatic classification of content, does not require global user authentication, respects each recipient's idea of unwanted communication, and permits legitimate communication among parties who have not had prior contact. An evaluation based on data gathered from an online social networking site shows that Ostra effectively thwarts unwanted communication while not impeding legitimate communication.
Ceramide and Reactive Oxygen Species Generated by H2O2 Induce Caspase-3-independent Degradation of Akt/Protein Kinase B*

This study was designed to elucidate the mechanisms leading to down-regulation of the Akt/protein kinase B (PKB) survival pathway during H2O2-induced cell death. H2O2 produced early activation of Akt/PKB and also DNA damage that was followed by stabilization of p53 levels, formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and generation of ceramide through activation of a glutathione-sensitive neutral sphingomyelinase. These events correlated with long term dephosphorylation and subsequent degradation of Akt. A membrane-targeted active Akt version attenuated apoptosis but not necrosis induced by H2O2 and was more resistant to dephosphorylation and proteolysis induced by apoptotic concentrations of H2O2. Proteolysis of Akt was prevented by exogenous addition of glutathione, indicating a role of ROS and ceramide in Akt degradation. However, Akt was degraded similarly in cells transfected with wild type and dominant negative p53 mutant, indicating that degradation of Akt under oxidative injury may be p53-independent. Specific inhibitors of caspase groups I and III prevented proteolysis of Akt/PKB and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase in cells submitted to apoptotic but not necrotic H2O2 concentrations. Surprisingly, in caspase-3-deficient MCF-7 cells Akt was more sensitive to H2O2-induced degradation than the caspase-3 substrate poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. Moreover, the Akt/PKB double mutant Akt(D108A,D119A), which is not cleaved by caspase-3, and a triple mutant (D453A,D455A,D456A), which lacks the consensus sequence for caspase-3 cleavage, were also degraded in H2O2-treated cells. Our results suggest that strong oxidants generate intracellular ROS and ceramide which in term lead to down-regulation of Akt by dephosphorylation and caspase-3-independent proteolysis.
Mutual learning of an object concept and language model based on MLDA and NPYLM

Humans develop their concept of an object by classifying it into a category, and acquire language by interacting with others at the same time. Thus, the meaning of a word can be learnt by connecting the recognized word and concept. We consider such an ability to be important in allowing robots to flexibly develop their knowledge of language and concepts. Accordingly, we propose a method that enables robots to acquire such knowledge. The object concept is formed by classifying multimodal information acquired from objects, and the language model is acquired from human speech describing object features. We propose a stochastic model of language and concepts, and knowledge is learnt by estimating the model parameters. The important point is that language and concepts are interdependent. There is a high probability that the same words will be uttered to objects in the same category. Similarly, objects to which the same words are uttered are highly likely to have the same features. Using this relation, the accuracy of both speech recognition and object classification can be improved by the proposed method. However, it is difficult to directly estimate the parameters of the proposed model, because there are many parameters that are required. Therefore, we approximate the proposed model, and estimate its parameters using a nested Pitman-Yor language model and multimodal latent Dirichlet allocation to acquire the language and concept, respectively.
Natural products – antifungal agents derived from plants

A new spectrum of human fungal infections is increasing due to increased cancer, AIDS, and immunocompromised patients. The increased use of antifungal agents also resulted in the development of resistance to the present drugs. It makes necessary to discover new classes of antifungal compounds to cure fungal infections. Plants are rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites of wide variety such as tannins, terpenoids, saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, and other compounds, reported to have in vitro antifungal properties. Since the plant kingdom provides a useful source of lead compounds of novel structure, a wide-scale investigation of species from the tropics has been considered. Therefore, the research on natural products and compounds derived from natural products has accelerated in recent years due to their importance in drug discovery. A series of molecules with antifungal activity against different strains of fungus have been found in plants, which are of great importance to humans. These molecules may be used directly or considered as a precursor for developing better molecules. This review attempts to summarize the current status of important antifungal compounds from plants.
Incremental maintenance for materialized XPath/XSLT views

This paper proposes an incremental maintenance algorithm that efficiently updates the materialized XPath/XSLT views defined using XPath expressions in XP([],*,//,vars). The algorithm consists of two processes. 1) The dynamic execution flow of an XSLT program is stored as an XT (XML Transformation) tree during the full transformation. 2) In response to a source XML data update, the impacted portions of the XT-tree are identified and maintained by partially re-evaluating the XSLT program. This paper discusses the XPath/XSLT features of incremental view maintenance for subtree insertion/deletion and applies them to the maintenance algorithm. Experiments show that the incremental maintenance algorithm outperforms full XML transformation algorithms by factors of up to 500.
Determination of Hydro-Mechanical Characteristics of Biodegradable Waste- Laboratory and Landfill Site

The present research work deals with the study of hydro-mechanical characteristics of biodegradable waste at laboratory scale and landfill site. After a brief introduction of landfills and final treatment of waste (Ch. 1), physical, mechanical and hydraulic parameters have been defined by analogy with porous media (Ch. 2). The research work presented, on one hand, casts light on the flow properties and, on the other, characterizes mechanical properties of biodegradable waste. Novel laboratory experiments on fresh as well as on biodegraded waste, vis-a-vis compression-permeability of gas, were conducted (Ch. 3). These experiments were aimed at measuring the evolution of gas conductivity as a function of settlement and degree of saturation in leachate, allowing eventually to validate the double porosity model proposed by Stoltz (Thesis 2009) (Ch. 4). Extending on the mechanical properties, a new version of software ISPM - Olivier (Thesis 2003), a modelling tool meant for settlement prediction of waste, has been proposed. The new model, implemented on the study of settlement of two cells in question, served to determine the coefficient of secondary compression by retro-analysis (Ch. 5). Lastly, shear strength of waste extracted by drilling from a landfill, has been characterized as a function of different state parameters (Ch. 6). The latter values hence achieved have been employed for site stability calculations.
Small Molecule Allosteric Modulation of the Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Enhances the Insulinotropic Effect of Oxyntomodulin

Identifying novel mechanisms to enhance glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor signaling may enable nascent medicinal chemistry strategies with the aim of developing new orally available therapeutic agents for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that selectively modulating the low-affinity GLP-1 receptor agonist, oxyntomodulin, would improve the insulin secretory properties of this naturally occurring hormone to provide a rationale for pursuing an unexplored therapeutic approach. Signal transduction and competition binding studies were used to investigate oxyntomodulin activity on the GLP-1 receptor in the presence of the small molecule GLP-1 receptor modulator, 4-(3-benzyloxyphenyl)-2-ethylsulfinyl-6-(trifluoromethyl)pyrimidine (BETP). In vivo, the intravenous glucose tolerance test characterized oxyntomodulin-induced insulin secretion in animals administered the small molecule. BETP increased oxyntomodulin binding affinity for the GLP-1 receptor and enhanced oxyntomodulin-mediated GLP-1 receptor signaling as measured by activation of the α subunit of heterotrimeric G protein and cAMP accumulation. In addition, oxyntomodulin-induced insulin secretion was enhanced in the presence of the compound. BETP was pharmacologically characterized to induce biased signaling by oxyntomodulin. These studies demonstrate that small molecules targeting the GLP-1 receptor can increase binding and receptor activation of the endogenous peptide oxyntomodulin. The biased signaling engendered by BETP suggests that GLP-1 receptor mobilization of cAMP is the critical insulinotropic signaling event. Because of the unique metabolic properties of oxyntomodulin, identifying molecules that enhance its activity should be pursued to assess the efficacy and safety of this novel mechanism.
Double Muscling in Cattle: Genes, Husbandry, Carcasses and Meat

Simple Summary Selection for an increased meatiness in beef cattle has resulted in double-muscled (DM) animals, owing to the inactivation of the myostatin gene. These animals are characterized by an excellent conformation and an extremely high carcass yield, coinciding with a reduced organ mass. As a consequence, voluntary feed intake is reduced, but feed efficiency is considerably improved, although maintenance requirements are not clearly reduced. DM animals are more susceptible to respiratory disease, stress and dystocia, requiring extra attention for accommodation and welfare. Carcasses of DM animals are very lean, and intramuscular fat content is low. The fatty acid profile is different when compared with non-DM animals, containing less saturated fatty acids. Collagen content of the meat is lower, so that meat from double-muscled animals is mostly more tender. However, meat tenderness, color and juiciness are not always improved. A different metabolism as a consequence of faster glycolytic myofibers can be partly responsible for this phenomenon. DM animals are interesting for the producer and butcher, and beneficial for the consumer, if an appropriate nutrition and accommodation, and adequate slaughter conditions are taken into account. Abstract Molecular biology has enabled the identification of the mechanisms whereby inactive myostatin increases skeletal muscle growth in double-muscled (DM) animals. Myostatin is a secreted growth differentiation factor belonging to the transforming growth factor-β superfamily. Mutations make the myostatin gene inactive, resulting in muscle hypertrophy. The relationship between the different characteristics of DM cattle are defined with possible consequences for livestock husbandry. The extremely high carcass yield of DM animals coincides with a reduction in the size of most vital organs. As a consequence, DM animals may be more susceptible to respiratory disease, urolithiasis, lameness, nutritional stress, heat stress and dystocia, resulting in a lower robustness. Their feed intake capacity is reduced, necessitating a diet with a greater nutrient density. The modified myofiber type is responsible for a lower capillary density, and it induces a more glycolytic metabolism. There are associated changes for the living animal and post-mortem metabolism alterations, requiring appropriate slaughter conditions to maintain a high meat quality. Intramuscular fat content is low, and it is characterized by more unsaturated fatty acids, providing healthier meat for the consumer. It may not always be easy to find a balance between the different disciplines underlying the livestock husbandry of DM animals to realize a good performance and health and meat quality.
Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Youth With and Without Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE—To compare cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among recently diagnosed youth with type 2 diabetes and nondiabetic youth and investigate whether demographic, behavioral, or metabolic factors might account for observed differences. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Data from 106 type 2 diabetic and 189 nondiabetic multiethnic youth, aged 10–22 years, were analyzed. Prevalence of CVD risk factors were age and race/ethnicity adjusted using direct standardization. Multiple linear regression models were sequentially adjusted for demographic, behavioral (dietary saturated fat intake and physical activity), and metabolic (body adiposity and glycemia) factors to explore possible mechanisms associated with differences in CVD risk factors between the case and control groups. RESULTS—Compared with control subjects, youth with type 2 diabetes had a higher prevalence of elevated blood pressure, obesity, large waist circumference, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high albumin-to-creatinine ratio (P < 0.05 for each risk factor). Type 2 diabetic youth also had higher levels of apolipoprotein B, fibrinogen, interleukin (IL)-6, C-reactive protein, and leptin; lower adiponectin levels; and denser LDL particles (P < 0.05 for each risk factor). Adjustment for BMI, waist circumference, and A1C substantially attenuated differences in the CVD risk factors between the case/control groups, except for fibrinogen and IL-6, which remained significantly higher in type 2 diabetic youth. CONCLUSIONS—Compared with control youth, type 2 diabetic youth have a less favorable CVD risk factor profile. Adiposity and glycemia are important contributors to differences in CVD risk profiles among type 2 diabetic and control youth. Inflammatory and prothrombotic factors may also play an important role.
Detection of carbonic anhydrase 9–expressing tumor cells in the lymph nodes of vulvar carcinoma patients by RT‐PCR

Regional lymph node status is an important prognostic factor for vulvar cancer. The goal of our study was to elaborate a reliable test for detecting micrometastases, undetectable by traditional methods, in the lymph nodes of vulvar squamous carcinoma patients. For this purpose, carbonic anhydrase‐9 (CA9) was investigated as a cancer‐related marker by RT‐PCR. Firstly, primary carcinoma specimens were examined for CA9 expression by immunohistochemistry with M75 monoclonal antibody. All 19 tissues exhibited a variable degree of staining, which was mostly confined to the plasma membranes of tumor cells. Correspondingly, all primary tumor specimens and the control A‐431 vulvar cancer cell line gave a positive signal in the nested RT‐PCR assay designed to detect CA9‐expressing cells with a high sensitivity. Analysis of 77 lymph node specimens from 20 patients revealed a full correlation between RT‐PCR results and standard hematoxylin–eosin staining in 75% of samples, whereas 25% of specimens were negative by the standard method and positive for CA9 mRNA, accounting for 28% of all histologically negative lymph nodes. There were no false‐negatives with RT‐PCR. A positive inguinal lymph node with a negative sentinel node was observed in the same groin only once in 38 specimens. Our findings clearly indicate potential value of CA9 as a molecular marker for the assessment of regional lymph node status in vulvar cancer patients and support a possible utility of our RT‐PCR assay in the detection of micrometastases. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.