Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low and high‐cycle fatigue properties of an ultrahigh‐strength TRIP bainitic steel

The scope of this study is to characterize the mechanical properties of a novel Transformation-Induced Plasticity bainitic steel grade TBC700Y980T. For this purpose, tensile tests are carried out with loading direction 0, 45 and 90° with respect to the L rolling direction. Yield stress is found to be higher than 700 MPa, ultimate tensile strength larger than 1050 MPa and total elongation higher than 15%. Low-cycle fatigue (LCF) tests are carried out under fully reverse axial strain exploring fatigue lives comprised between 102 and 105 fatigue cycles. The data are used to determine the parameters of the Coffin–Manson as well as the cyclic stress–strain curve. No significant stress-induced austenite transformation is detected. The high-cycle fatigue (HCF) behaviour is investigated through load controlled axial tests exploring fatigue tests up to 5 × 106 fatigue cycles at two loading ratios, namely R = −1 and R = 0. At fatigue lives longer than 2 × 105 cycles, the strain life curve determined from LCF tests tends to greatly underestimate the HCF resistance of the material. Apparently, the HCF behaviour of this material cannot be extrapolated from LCF tests, as different damage, cyclic hardening mechanisms and microstructural conditions are involved. In particular, in the HCF regime, the predominant damage mechanism is nucleation of fatigue cracks in the vicinity of oxide inclusions, whereby mean value and scatter in fatigue limit are directly correlated to the dimension of these inclusions.
Effect of salt on the H-bond symmetrization in ice

Significance Ice-VII and ice-X phases are the most stable forms of ice at high temperature and extreme pressures, typical of the interiors of satellites and planets. The phase transition between them is a prototypical case of quantum-driven phenomenon, as it can be described as a quantum delocalization of protons in the middle of O–O distances. In this study, we investigate the effect of ions on such quantum effects. We show that the presence of ions significantly modifies the fundamental H-bond properties of water ices. This finding could challenge our present description of the physics of ice bodies, essentially based on the assumption of the properties of pure ice under high pressure. The richness of the phase diagram of water reduces drastically at very high pressures where only two molecular phases, proton-disordered ice VII and proton-ordered ice VIII, are known. Both phases transform to the centered hydrogen bond atomic phase ice X above about 60 GPa, i.e., at pressures experienced in the interior of large ice bodies in the universe, such as Saturn and Neptune, where nonmolecular ice is thought to be the most abundant phase of water. In this work, we investigate, by Raman spectroscopy up to megabar pressures and ab initio simulations, how the transformation of ice VII in ice X is affected by the presence of salt inclusions in the ice lattice. Considerable amounts of salt can be included in ice VII structure under pressure via rock–ice interaction at depth and processes occurring during planetary accretion. Our study reveals that the presence of salt hinders proton order and hydrogen bond symmetrization, and pushes ice VII to ice X transformation to higher and higher pressures as the concentration of salt is increased.
Automatic Assessment of Pathological Voice Quality Using Higher-Order Statistics in the LPC Residual Domain

A preprocessing scheme based on linear prediction coefficient (LPC) residual is applied to higher-order statistics (HOSs) for automatic assessment of an overall pathological voice quality. The normalized skewness and kurtosis are estimated from the LPC residual and show statistically meaningful distributions to characterize the pathological voice quality. 83 voice samples of the sustained vowel /a/ phonation are used in this study and are independently assessed by a speech and language therapist (SALT) according to the grade of the severity of dysphonia of GRBAS scale. These are used to train and test classification and regression tree (CART). The best result is obtained using an optima l decision tree implemented by a combination of the normalized skewness and kurtosis, with an accuracy of 92.9%. It is concluded that the method can be used as an assessment tool, providing a valuable aid to the SALT during clinical evaluation of an overall pathological voice quality.
A new view of dark Martian regions from geomorphic and spectroscopic analysis of Syrtis Major

New analysis of Mars Observer Camera (MOC) images and Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) data focussed on West Syrtis Major show that this region, usually interpreted as typical of in-situ bedrocks, is covered by a dark mantle which could result from a transient deposition of suspended fine particles still active until a few million years ago. To help address the questions of the nature of these low albedo regions covered by blankets, we revisited the surface composition by modelling Imaging Spectrometer (ISM) spectra with a radiative transfer model, the strength of such a modelling method being to aid in determining appropriate endmembers as well as their relative abundance, their grain size, and the type of mixtures (sand/dust). Two distinct surface compositions (basaltic sand vs. sand/dust mixture of pyroxenes and oxides) are possible. The solution more consistent with the geomorphic analysis is the sand/dust mixture with a large proportion of dusty grains of oxides and/or pyroxenes (about 50-60%). This implies that Type 1 plagioclase-rich lithology derived from Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) is not required by NIR data. This work gives new evidence of the presence of dark dust on the surface of Mars.
The coupling hypothesis: why genome scans may fail to map local adaptation genes

Genomic scans of multiple populations often reveal marker loci with greatly increased differentiation between populations. Often this differentiation coincides in space with contrasts in ecological factors, forming a genetic–environment association (GEA). GEAs imply a role for local adaptation, and so it is tempting to conclude that the strongly differentiated markers are themselves under ecologically based divergent selection, or are closely linked to loci under such selection. Here, we highlight an alternative and neglected explanation: intrinsic (i.e. environment‐independent) pre‐ or post‐zygotic genetic incompatibilities rather than local adaptation can be responsible for increased differentiation. Intrinsic genetic incompatibilities create endogenous barriers to gene flow, also known as tension zones, whose location can shift over time. However, tension zones have a tendency to become trapped by, and therefore to coincide with, exogenous barriers due to ecological selection. This coupling of endogenous and exogenous barriers can occur easily in spatially subdivided populations, even if the loci involved are unlinked. The result is that local adaptation explains where genetic breaks are positioned, but not necessarily their existence, which can be best explained by endogenous incompatibilities. More precisely, we show that (i) the coupling of endogenous and exogenous barriers can easily occur even when ecological selection is weak; (ii) when environmental heterogeneity is fine‐grained, GEAs can emerge at incompatibility loci, but only locally, in places where habitats and gene pools are sufficiently intermingled to maintain linkage disequilibria between genetic incompatibilities, local‐adaptation genes and neutral loci. Furthermore, the association between the locally adapted and intrinsically incompatible alleles (i.e. the sign of linkage disequilibrium between endogenous and exogenous loci) is arbitrary and can form in either direction. Reviewing results from the literature, we find that many predictions of our model are supported, including endogenous genetic barriers that coincide with environmental boundaries, local GEA in mosaic hybrid zones, and inverted or modified GEAs at distant locations. We argue that endogenous genetic barriers are often more likely than local adaptation to explain the majority of Fst‐outlying loci observed in genome scan approaches – even when these are correlated to environmental variables.
Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces

Mechanically soft neural implants When implanting a material into the body, not only does it need the right functional properties, but it also needs to have mechanical properties that match the native tissue or organ. If the material is too soft, it will be mechanically degraded, and if it is too hard it may get covered with scar tissue or it may damage the surrounding tissues. Starting with a transparent silicone substrate, Minev et al. patterned microfluidic channels to allow for drug delivery, and soft platinum/silicone electrodes and stretchable gold interconnects for transmitting electrical excitations and transferring electrophysiological signals. In tests of spinal cord implants, the soft neural implants showed biointegration and functionality within the central nervous system. Science, this issue p. 159 A soft neural implant that mimics the mechanical properties of the dura layer biointegrates within the brain and spinal cord. The mechanical mismatch between soft neural tissues and stiff neural implants hinders the long-term performance of implantable neuroprostheses. Here, we designed and fabricated soft neural implants with the shape and elasticity of dura mater, the protective membrane of the brain and spinal cord. The electronic dura mater, which we call e-dura, embeds interconnects, electrodes, and chemotrodes that sustain millions of mechanical stretch cycles, electrical stimulation pulses, and chemical injections. These integrated modalities enable multiple neuroprosthetic applications. The soft implants extracted cortical states in freely behaving animals for brain-machine interface and delivered electrochemical spinal neuromodulation that restored locomotion after paralyzing spinal cord injury.
Inference of Cell Mechanics in Heterogeneous Epithelial Tissue Based on Multivariate Clone Shape Quantification

Cell populations in multicellular organisms show genetic and non-genetic heterogeneity, even in undifferentiated tissues of multipotent cells during development and tumorigenesis. The heterogeneity causes difference of mechanical properties, such as, cell bond tension or adhesion, at the cell–cell interface, which determine the shape of clonal population boundaries via cell sorting or mixing. The boundary shape could alter the degree of cell–cell contacts and thus influence the physiological consequences of sorting or mixing at the boundary (e.g., tumor suppression or progression), suggesting that the cell mechanics could help clarify the physiology of heterogeneous tissues. While precise inference of mechanical tension loaded at each cell–cell contacts has been extensively developed, there has been little progress on how to distinguish the population-boundary geometry and identify the cause of geometry in heterogeneous tissues. We developed a pipeline by combining multivariate analysis of clone shape with tissue mechanical simulations. We examined clones with four different genotypes within Drosophila wing imaginal discs: wild-type, tartan (trn) overexpression, hibris (hbs) overexpression, and Eph RNAi. Although the clones were previously known to exhibit smoothed or convoluted morphologies, their mechanical properties were unknown. By applying a multivariate analysis to multiple criteria used to quantify the clone shapes based on individual cell shapes, we found the optimal criteria to distinguish not only among the four genotypes, but also non-genetic heterogeneity from genetic one. The efficient segregation of clone shape enabled us to quantitatively compare experimental data with tissue mechanical simulations. As a result, we identified the mechanical basis contributed to clone shape of distinct genotypes. The present pipeline will promote the understanding of the functions of mechanical interactions in heterogeneous tissue in a non-invasive manner.
Molecular Characterization of Human Zyxin*

Zyxin is a component of adhesion plaques that has been suggested to perform regulatory functions at these specialized regions of the plasma membrane. Here we describe the isolation and characterization of cDNAs encoding human and mouse zyxin. Both the human and mouse zyxin proteins display a collection of proline-rich sequences as well as three copies of the LIM domain, a zinc finger domain found in many signaling molecules. The human zyxin protein is closely related in sequence to proteins implicated in benign tumorigenesis and steroid receptor binding. Antibodies raised against human zyxin recognize an 84-kDa protein by Western immunoblot analysis. The protein is localized at focal contacts in adherent erythroleukemia cells. By Northern analysis, we show that zyxin is widely expressed in human tissues. The zyxin gene maps to human chromosome 7q32-q36.
A Role for Oxidized DNA Precursors in Huntington's Disease–Like Striatal Neurodegeneration

Several human neurodegenerative disorders are characterized by the accumulation of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxodG) in the DNA of affected neurons. This can occur either through direct oxidation of DNA guanine or via incorporation of the oxidized nucleotide during replication. Hydrolases that degrade oxidized purine nucleoside triphosphates normally minimize this incorporation. hMTH1 is the major human hydrolase. It degrades both 8-oxodGTP and 8-oxoGTP to the corresponding monophosphates. To investigate whether the incorporation of oxidized nucleic acid precursors contributes to neurodegeneration, we constructed a transgenic mouse in which the human hMTH1 8-oxodGTPase is expressed. hMTH1 expression protected embryonic fibroblasts and mouse tissues against the effects of oxidants. Wild-type mice exposed to 3-nitropropionic acid develop neuropathological and behavioural symptoms that resemble those of Huntington's disease. hMTH1 transgene expression conferred a dramatic protection against these Huntington's disease–like symptoms, including weight loss, dystonia and gait abnormalities, striatal degeneration, and death. In a complementary approach, an in vitro genetic model for Huntington's disease was also used. hMTH1 expression protected progenitor striatal cells containing an expanded CAG repeat of the huntingtin gene from toxicity associated with expression of the mutant huntingtin. The findings implicate oxidized nucleic acid precursors in the neuropathological features of Huntington's disease and identify the utilization of oxidized nucleoside triphosphates by striatal cells as a significant contributor to the pathogenesis of this disorder.
Similarities between the Abiotic Reduction of Selenite with Glutathione and the Dissimilatory Reaction Mediated by Rhodospirillum rubrum and Escherichia coli*

Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the biological dissimilatory reduction of selenite (\batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(\mathrm{SeO}_{3}^{2-}\) \end{document}) to elemental selenium (Se°), although none is without controversy. Glutathione, the most abundant thiol in the eukaryotic cells, the cyanobacteria, and the α, β, and γ groups of the proteobacteria, has long been suspected to be involved in selenium metabolism. Experiments with the phototrophic α proteobacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum showed that the rate of selenite reduction was decreased when bacteria synthesized lower than normal levels of glutathione, and in Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Escherichia coli the reaction was reported to induce glutathione reductase. In the latter organism superoxide dismutase was also induced in cells grown in the presence of selenite, indicating that superoxide anions (O-2) were produced. These observations led us to investigate the abiotic (chemical) reduction of selenite by glutathione and to compare the features of this reaction with those of the reaction mediated by R. rubrum and E. coli. Our findings imply that selenite was first reduced to selenodiglutathione, which reached its maximum concentration within the 1st min of the reaction. Formation of selenodiglutathione was paralleled by a rapid reduction of cytochrome c, a known oxidant for superoxide anions. Cytochrome c reduction was inhibited by superoxide dismutase, indicating that O-2 was the source of electrons for the reduction. These results demonstrated that superoxide was produced in the abiotic reduction of selenite with glutathione, thus lending support to the hypothesis that glutathione may be involved in the reaction mediated by R. rubrum and E. coli. The second phase of the reaction, which led to the formation of elemental selenium (Se°), developed more slowly. Se° precipitation reached a maximum within 2 h after the beginning of the reaction. Secondary reactions leading to the degradation of the superoxide significantly decreased the yield of Se° in the abiotic reaction compared with that of the bacterially mediated selenite reduction. Abiotically formed selenium particles showed the same characteristic orange-red color, spherical structure, and size as particles produced by R. rubrum, again providing support for the hypothesis that glutathione is involved in the reduction of selenite to elemental selenium in this organism.
Elevated arterial stiffness evaluated by brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity is deleterious for the prognosis of patients with heart failure.

BACKGROUND Arterial stiffness is used as an index of arteriosclerosis. The goal of this study was to clarify whether increased arterial stiffness, evaluated by measuring the brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), is a risk factor for the prognosis of heart failure (HF) patients. METHODS AND RESULTS After examination of the baPWV, as well as the levels of neurohumoral factors, the 72 enrolled HF patients were followed up for a survival study, which had a primary endpoint of re-admission because of HF. The secondary endpoint was cardiac death. Results of Cox proportional hazards modeling revealed that baPWV, systolic blood pressure (BP) and brain natriuretic peptide level were factors that affected survival (P<0.05). The patients were divided into 2 groups according to the cutoff baPWV value (1,750 cm/s). Although hemodynamic factors were similar between the groups, the high-baPWV group had a lower event-free survival rate for the primary and secondary endpoints than the low-baPWV group (P<0.05). BP at re-admission was higher in the high-baPWV group (174+/-30 mmHg) than in the low-baPWV group (121+/-33 mmHg, P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Elevated arterial stiffness is a risk factor for re-admission or cardiac death of HF patients.
Variables of Individual Difference and the Experience of Touch in Nursing

We aim to investigate nurses’ feelings of comfort or discomfort with three different types of touch: task-oriented contact, touch promoting physical comfort, and touch providing emotional containment. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 198 nurses. We present results of multiple regression analysis identifying some antecedents of nurses’ feelings of comfort with touch, namely, attachment style, worry, gender, and length of service. Worry is negatively associated with task-oriented contact and touch promoting physical comfort. Attachment security and length of service are associated with comfort with touch aimed at emotional containment; female nurses feel more comfortable than male nurses in performing this type of touch. Practical implications of findings are discussed in relation to the promotion of focused training courses for practitioners who are willing to improve the quality of care services.
Biome-Level Biogeography of Streambed Microbiota

ABSTRACT A field study was conducted to determine the microbial community structures of streambed sediments across diverse geographic and climatic areas. Sediment samples were collected from three adjacent headwater forest streams within three biomes, eastern deciduous (Pennsylvania), southeastern coniferous (New Jersey), and tropical evergreen (Guanacaste, Costa Rica), to assess whether there is biome control of stream microbial community structure. Bacterial abundance, microbial biomass, and bacterial and microbial community structures were determined using classical, biochemical, and molecular methods. Microbial biomass, determined using phospholipid phosphate, was significantly greater in the southeastern coniferous biome, likely due to the smaller grain size, higher organic content, and lower levels of physical disturbance of these sediments. Microbial community structure was determined using phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) profiles and bacterial community structure from terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and edited (microeukaryotic PLFAs removed) PLFA profiles. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to investigate patterns in total microbial community structure. The first principal component separated streams based on the importance of phototrophic microeukaryotes within the community, while the second separated southeastern coniferous streams from all others based on increased abundance of fungal PLFAs. PCA also indicated that within- and among-stream variations were small for tropical evergreen streams and large for southeastern coniferous streams. A similar analysis of bacterial community structure indicated that streams within biomes had similar community structures, while each biome possessed a unique streambed community, indicating strong within-biome control of stream bacterial community structure.
Cell Cycle–Specified Fluctuation of Nucleosome Occupancy at Gene Promoters

The packaging of DNA into nucleosomes influences the accessibility of underlying regulatory information. Nucleosome occupancy and positioning are best characterized in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, albeit in asynchronous cell populations or on individual promoters such as PHO5 and GAL1–10. Using FAIRE (formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements) and whole-genome microarrays, we examined changes in nucleosome occupancy throughout the mitotic cell cycle in synchronized populations of S. cerevisiae. Perhaps surprisingly, nucleosome occupancy did not exhibit large, global variation between cell cycle phases. However, nucleosome occupancy at the promoters of cell cycle–regulated genes was reduced specifically at the cell cycle phase in which that gene exhibited peak expression, with the notable exception of S-phase genes. We present data that establish FAIRE as a high-throughput method for assaying nucleosome occupancy. For the first time in any system, nucleosome occupancy was mapped genome-wide throughout the cell cycle. Fluctuation of nucleosome occupancy at promoters of most cell cycle–regulated genes provides independent evidence that periodic expression of these genes is controlled mainly at the level of transcription. The promoters of G2/M genes are distinguished from other cell cycle promoters by an unusually low baseline nucleosome occupancy throughout the cell cycle. This observation, coupled with the maintenance throughout the cell cycle of the stereotypic nucleosome occupancy states between coding and non-coding loci, suggests that the largest component of variation in nucleosome occupancy is “hard wired,” perhaps at the level of DNA sequence.