Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the main ethanol dehydration technologies through process simulation

Anhydrous ethanol production has become to be one of the most important issues for many countries in the world due to the great efforts directed to use biofuels and diminishment in pollution and environmental effects of fossil fuels. The process of anhydrous alcohol production comprises three main important steps: fermentation, distillation and dehydration. In the final dehydration step the quality of ethanol is determined by the operating conditions, the technology used and its benefits related to the quality and costs of ethanol. In Brazil and United States, the two largest producers of ethanol in the world, azeotropic distillation with cyclohexane, extractive distillation with ethyleneglycol and adsorption with molecular sieves are used. In this work, an investigation and comparative analysis of the three main ethanol dehydration technologies was made. Aspen Plus process simulator was used to simulate azeotropic, extractive and adsorption processes and to determine the main operating conditions taking a case base of 300 cubic meters per day of anhydrous ethanol. Additionally, a preliminary costs analysis was implemented taking into account total investment and operating costs of each technology. The results showed that extractive distillation process is the most promising technology from operating and economical points of view and that is necessary to investigate for new solvents that improve the efficiency and sustainability of the alcohol production.
Factored Neural Machine Translation

We present a new approach for neural machine translation (NMT) using the morphological and grammatical decomposition of the words (factors) in the output side of the neural network. This architecture addresses two main problems occurring in MT, namely dealing with a large target language vocabulary and the out of vocabulary (OOV) words. By the means of factors, we are able to handle larger vocabulary and reduce the training time (for systems with equivalent target language vocabulary size). In addition, we can produce new words that are not in the vocabulary. We use a morphological analyser to get a factored representation of each word (lemmas, Part of Speech tag, tense, person, gender and number). We have extended the NMT approach with attention mechanism in order to have two different outputs, one for the lemmas and the other for the rest of the factors. The final translation is built using some \textit{a priori} linguistic information. We compare our extension with a word-based NMT system. The experiments, performed on the IWSLT'15 dataset translating from English to French, show that while the performance do not always increase, the system can manage a much larger vocabulary and consistently reduce the OOV rate. We observe up to 2% BLEU point improvement in a simulated out of domain translation setup.
Sweep rate dependence of coercivity in closed magnetic circuit

A hysteresisgraph has been set up to investigate the sweep rate dependence of coercivity on NdFeB magnets in closed magnetic circuit. The linear relationship between coercivity and logarithmic sweep rate has been found and the maximum difference of HC in the sweep rate is 1.1%. The fluctuation field and activation volume have been deduced, which is in agreement with results in open magnetic circuit. This study is helpful to understand the coercivity variation of NdFeB in closed magnetic circuit in industrial measurement.
Electromechanical effects of bepridil on rabbit isolated hearts

1 Electromechanical effects of a new antianginal agent, bepridil, on Langendorff‐perfused rabbit hearts were compared with those of verapamil and lidocaine. 2 Bepridil at concentrations above 2 × 10−7m caused a dose‐related decrease in heart rate (HR), a prolongation of the atrio‐His bundle conduction time (A‐H interval) and a prolongation of the functional refractory period (FRP) of the atrioventricular (A‐V) node. Similar changes in HR, A‐H interval and the FRP of the A‐V node were observed with verapamil at concentrations above 2 × 10−8m. Lidocaine at above 4 × 10−5m prolonged slightly the A‐H interval and the FRP of the A‐V node but did not decrease the HR. 3 Bepridil at concentrations above 10−6m prolonged both the His bundle‐ventricular conduction time (H‐V interval) and the effective refractory period (ERP) of ventricular muscles. Similar changes in the H‐V interval and in the ERP of ventricular muscles were observed with lidocaine at above 10−5m. Verapamil ranging between 5 × 10−8m and 8 × 10−7m had no effect on the H‐V interval and appreciably shortened the ERP of ventricular muscles. 4 Bepridil at concentrations above 2 × 10−6m reduced the developed tension as did verapamil at above 10−7m. 5 On a molar basis, the depressant effect of bepridil on HR and the A‐V nodal conduction, which may reflect inhibitory action on the slow channels, was less than one tenth that of verapamil. Bepridil was more potent than lidocaine in prolonging the H‐V interval and the ERP of ventricular muscles indicating a possible inhibition of the fast sodium channels. Both of these electrophysiological effects of bepridil may afford significant bases for the antiarrhythmic action of the drug.
Traveling salesman heuristics and embedding dimension in the Hopfield model

The author discusses methods for improving performance of the Hopfield-Tank quadratic minimization approach to the traveling salesman problem (TSP). A wide range of geometric (e.g. convex-hull based) topological and cutting-plane heuristics are investigated. The author also investigated performance for non-Euclidean and nonmetrizable TSPs using a new concept of embedding dimension. Implications concerning the nature of the Hopfield energy surface are discussed. It is concluded that the Hopfield-Tank formulation is not so robust as might be hoped; however, it remains well suited to many important applications. <<ETX>>
Universal Distribution of Saliencies for Pruning in Layered Neural Networks

A better understanding of pruning methods based on a ranking of weights according to their saliency in a trained network requires further information on the statistical properties of such saliencies. We focus on two-layer networks with either a linear or nonlinear output unit, and obtain analytic expressions for the distribution of saliencies and their logarithms. Our results reveal unexpected universal properties of the log-saliency distribution and suggest a novel algorithm for saliency-based weight ranking that avoids the numerical cost of second derivative evaluations.
Identification, characterization, and nucleotide sequence of the F17-G gene, which determines receptor binding of Escherichia coli F17 fimbriae

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli strains express fimbriae which mediate binding to intestinal mucosal cells. The F17 fimbriae mediate binding to N-acetylglucosamine-containing receptors present on calf intestinal mucosal cells. These fimbriae consist of F17-A subunit peptides. Analysis of the F17 gene cluster indicated that at least the F17-A, F17-C, F17-D, and F17-G genes are indispensable to obtain adhesive F17 fimbriae (unpublished data). Genetic evidence is presented that the F17-G protein, a minor fimbrial component, is required for the binding of the F17 fimbriae to the intestinal villi. The F17-G gene was cloned and sequenced. An open reading frame of 1,032 bp encoding a polypeptide of 344 amino acids, starting with a signal sequence of 22 residues, was localized. The F17-G mutant strain produced F17 fimbriae which were morphologically identical to the fimbriae purified from strains which contained the intact F17 gene cluster. However, this F17-G mutant could no longer adhere to calf villi. The F17-G locus was shown to act in trans: transformation of the F17-G mutant strain, still expressing the genes F17-A, F17-C, and F17-D, with a vector expressing the F17-G gene restored the binding activity of this mutant strain.
Comparing different acoustic modeling techniques for multilingual boosting

In this paper, we explore how different acoustic modeling techniques can benefit from data in languages other than the target language. We propose an algorithm to perform decision tree state clustering for the recently proposed Kullback-Leibler divergence based hidden Markov models (KL-HMM) and compare it to subspace Gaussian mixture modeling (SGMM). KL-HMM can exploit multilingual information in the form of universal phoneme posterior features and SGMM benefits from a universal background model that can be trained on multilingual data. Taking the Greek SpeechDat(II) data as an example, we show that KL-HMM performs best for small amounts of target language data.
Spent Brewer’s Yeast and Beta-Glucans Isolated from Them as Diet Components Modifying Blood Lipid Metabolism Disturbed by an Atherogenic Diet

© 2013 Waszkiewicz-Robak, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Spent Brewer’s Yeast and Beta-Glucans Isolated from Them as Diet Components Modifying Blood Lipid Metabolism Disturbed by an Atherogenic Diet
Neural Transplantation

Cell transplantation is now being explored as a new therapeutic strategy to restore function in the diseased human central nervous system. Neural grafts show long-term survival and function in patients with Parkinson's disease but the symptomatic relief needs to be increased. Cell transplantation seems justified in patients with Huntington's disease and, at a later stage, possibly also in demyelinating disorders. The further development in this research field will require systematic studies in animal experiments but also well-designed clinical trials in small groups of patients.
Transplantation of embryonic motor neurons into peripheral nerve combined with functional electrical stimulation restores functional muscle activity in the rat sciatic nerve transection model

Reinnervation of denervated muscle by motor neurons transplanted into the peripheral nerve may provide the potential to excite muscles artificially with functional electrical stimulation (FES). Here we investigated whether transplantation of embryonic motor neurons into peripheral nerve combined with FES restored functional muscle activity in adult Fischer 344 rats after transection of the sciatic nerve. One week after sciatic nerve transection, cell culture medium containing (cell transplantation group, n = 6) or lacking (surgical control group, n = 6) dissociated embryonic spinal neurons was injected into the distal stump of the tibial and peroneal nerves. Electrophysiological and tissue analyses were performed in the cell transplantation and surgical control groups 12 weeks after transplantation, as well as a in naïve control group (n = 6) that received no surgery. In the cell transplantation group, ankle angle was measured during gait, with and without FES of the peroneal nerve. Ankle angle at mid‐swing was more flexed during gait with FES (26.6 ± 8.7°) than gait without FES (51.4 ± 12.8°, p = 0.011), indicating that transplantated motor neurons in conjunction with FES restored ankle flexion in gait, even though no neural connection between central nervous system and muscle was present. These results indicate that transplantation of embryonic motor neurons into peripheral nerve combined with FES can provide a novel treatment strategy for paralysed muscles. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of antisense mediated inhibition of cathepsin K on human osteoclasts obtained from peripheral blood

Cathepsin K is a cystein protease that displays a proteolytic activity against Type I collagen and is abundantly and selectively expressed in osteoclasts where it plays a critical role in bone degradation. Its direct role in bone tissue has been defined by knock‐out mice studies and inhibiting strategies in animals models. However, direct proof of cathepsin K function in human osteoclast model in vitro is lacking. The aim of this study is to analyze cathepsin K expression and localization in human osteoclasts obtained from peripheral blood and to examine cathepsin K function in these cells by antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (AS‐ODN) strategy. AS‐ODN was added to the culture of osteoclast precursors induced to differentiate by RANKL and M‐CSF. AS‐ODN treatment produced a significant down‐regulation of cathepsin K mRNA (>80%) and protein expression, as verified respectively by Real‐time PCR and by immunocytochemistry or Western blot. The cathepsin K inhibition caused an impairment of resorption activity as evaluated by a pit formation assay ( p = 0.045) and by electron microscopy, while the acidification process was unaffected. We demonstrated that antisense strategies against cathepsin K are selectively effective to inhibit resorption activity in human osteoclasts, like in animal models. © 2006 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 24:1699–1708, 2006
Low frequency of clonotypic Ig and T‐cell receptor gene rearrangements in t(4;11) infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and its implication for the detection of minimal residual disease

Summary. Infant t(4;11) acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a rare but cytogenetically well defined subgroup of immature B‐cell precursor (BCP) ALL. To date, the configuration of their antigen receptor genes has not been studied in a large group of patients so far. In this study on 27 t(4;11) infant ALL, we have used standardized primer sets for the detection of all incomplete and complete immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain (IGH) rearrangements, as well as for the Ig light chain kappa (IGK), T‐cell receptor delta (TCRD) and gamma (TCRG) rearrangements that are most common in childhood BCP ALL. Only 52% of cases displayed clonotypic antigen receptor gene rearrangements (IGH in 48%, IGK, TCRD and TCRG in 12%, 41% and 6% respectively). This low frequency suggests, together with the findings of predominantly incomplete DJh joins and monoallelic IGH rearrangements, that they are derived from an immature progenitor cell. As 48% of the t(4;11) infant ALL cases had no detectable antigen receptor gene rearrangements that could be used for minimal residual disease (MRD) analysis, we established an expression‐independent, leukaemia‐specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the genomic sequence of the MLL–AF4 fusion genes. This method had high sensitivity and specificity and resulted in identical estimations of tumour loads when compared with IGH targets. Thus, genomic MLL–AF4 fusion genes are a good alternative target for the analysis of MRD in patients with t(4;11) leukaemias.
Congenital choanal atresia and its heredity.

The authors describe 16 cases of congenital choanal atresia treated in the period 1954-1963 in Helsinki University Otolaryngological Hospital. Of these patients 12 were female and 4 male. In 5 cases the atresia was bilateral, in 7 it was on the left and in 4 on the right side. A surprisingly high incidence of associated congenital abnormalities occurred in these patients. Similarly, the incidence of congenital abnormalities in the patients' family was surprisingly high. The authors assume that this may depend on the presence of a pleiotropic gene manifesting itself by the accumulation of various congenital malformations in these patients' family members.
School meets street: Exploring the links between low achievement, school exclusion and youth crime among African-Caribbean boys in London

This paper explores the process that links low achievement, school exclusion and involvement in crime among African-Caribbean boys and young men. Based on qualitative interviews with pupils and teachers at a pioneering secondary school in London and also with African-Caribbean young men who had dropped out of or been excluded from other schools in the area, we identify key aspects of â€˜trouble at schoolâ€™ and ways in which this can lead to â€˜trouble on the streetâ€™. When students experience academic or behavioural problems they may drop out of or be formally excluded from school. Although schools are responsible for arranging alternative provision, in practice, once out of mainstream education, students are unlikely to gain academic qualifications and the problem of low achievement is exacerbated. They are then at a disadvantage in the job market, and their perceived lack of legitimate opportunities for making money may lead them to engage in crime. A complex interplay of factors appears to influence this low achievement â€“ school exclusion â€“ crime sequence, including the young personâ€™s family background, their neighbourhood, and the culture in which they are embedded. According to the students who took part in school interventions the main benefits of participation were seen as: being part of a community of support; improved motivation; higher academic achievement; the ability to express emotions constructively; and a greater sense of responsibility and self- worth. Our research suggests that by adopting an inclusive rather than exclusive policy, schools can buy time, retaining vulnerable young men within the educational system, keeping their options open until they have a chance to mature, rather than leaving them to the uncertainty of â€˜the streetâ€™.
Multidimensional stochastic approximation

We consider prototypical sequential stochastic optimization methods of Robbins-Monro (RM), Kiefer-Wolfowitz (KW), and Simultaneous Perturbations Stochastic Approximation (SPSA) varieties and propose adaptive modifications for multidimensional applications. These adaptive versions dynamically scale and shift the tuning sequences to better match the characteristics of the unknown underlying function, as well as the noise level. We test our algorithms on a variety of representative applications in inventory management, health care, revenue management, supply chain management, financial engineering, and queueing theory.
Optimal partitioners and end-case placers for standard-cell layout

We study alternatives to classic Fiduccia-Mattheyses (FM)-based partitioning algorithms in the context of end-case processing for top-down standard-cell placement. While the divide step in the top-down divide and conquer is usually performed heuristically, we observe that optimal solutions can be found for many sufficiently small partitioning instances. Our main motivation is that small partitioning instances frequently contain multiple cells that are larger than the prescribed partitioning tolerance, and that cannot be moved iteratively while preserving the legality of a solution. To sample the suboptimality of FM-based partitioning algorithms, we focus on optimal partitioning and placement algorithms based on either enumeration or branch-and-bound that are invoked for instances below prescribed size thresholds, e.g., <10 cells for placement and <30 cells for partitioning. Such partitioners transparently handle tight balance constraints and uneven cell sizes while typically achieving 40% smaller cuts than best of several FM starts for instances between ten and 50 movable nodes and average degree 2-3. Our branch-and-bound codes incorporate various efficiency improvements, using results for hypergraphs (1993) and a graph-specific algorithm (1996). We achieve considerable speed-ups over single FM starts on such instances on average. Enumeration-based partitioners relying on Gray codes, while easier to implement and taking less time for elementary operations, can only compete with branch-and-bound on very small instances, where optimal placers achieve reasonable performance as well. In the context of a top-down global placer, the right combination of optimal partitioners and placers can achieve up to an average of 10% wirelength reduction and 50% CPU time savings for a set of industry testcases. Our results show that run-time versus quality tradeoffs may be different for small problem instances than for common large benchmarks, resulting in different comparisons of optimization algorithms. We therefore suggest that alternative algorithms be considered and, as an example, present detailed comparisons with the flow-based balanced partitioner heuristic.
Predictions of 2010’s Tropical Cyclones Using the GFS and Ensemble-Based Data Assimilation Methods

AbstractExperimental ensemble predictions of tropical cyclone (TC) tracks from the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) using the Global Forecast System (GFS) model were recently validated for the 2009 Northern Hemisphere hurricane season by Hamill et al. A similar suite of tests is described here for the 2010 season. Two major changes were made this season: 1) a reduction in the resolution of the GFS model, from 2009’s T384L64 (~31 km at 25°N) to 2010’s T254L64 (~47 km at 25°N), and some changes in model physics; and 2) the addition of a limited test of deterministic forecasts initialized from a hybrid three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3D-Var)/EnKF method.The GFS/EnKF ensembles continued to produce reduced track errors relative to operational ensemble forecasts created by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the Met Office (UKMO), and the Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC). The GFS/EnKF was not uniformly as skillful as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts .
Aliskiren as a novel therapeutic agent for hypertension and cardio‐renal diseases

Objectives High blood pressure (BP) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and renal complications. A majority of treated hypertensive patients still complain of high BP. The renin‐angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) has been a centre‐stage target for all the cardiovascular and cardio‐renal complications. Aliskiren, is the first direct renin inhibitor (DRI) to be approved by the US FDA. Renin controls the rate‐limiting step in the RAAS cascade and hence is the most favorable target for RAAS suppression.
Agile manufacturing: A taxonomy of strategic and technological imperatives

Agile Manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new operations concept that is intended to improve the competitiveness of firms. Manufacturing/service processes based on AM are characterized by customer-supplier integrated processes for product design, manufacturing, marketing, and support services. Agile manufacturing requires enriching of the customer; cooperating with competitors; organizing to manage change, uncertainty and complexity; and leveraging people and information. In recent years, a number of research papers have been published in the area of AM. The term 'agile' was coined in 1991. However, there are still some serious concerns that prevent companies from taking an entirely different direction from AM. Considering the potential importance of agile manufacturing in 21st century manufacturing competitiveness, an attempt has been made in this paper to reexamine the scope, definitions and strategies of AM. In addition, a framework has been presented as a basis for understanding the major strategies and relevant technologies of AM.