Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electricity Generation by Photosynthetic Biomass

Biofuel cells generate electricity through biological processes. Conventional microbial fuel cells (MFCs) operate by converting organic substrates, such as glucose, acetate, starch, and lactate, to electrical bioenergy through microbial oxidation processes [1-3]. A typical MFC consists of an anodic and a cathodic chamber with electrodes partitioned by a proton exchange membrane (PEM) or a cation exchange membrane. This membrane functions as an insulator for maintaining the redox potential and only allows specific ion exchange [4]. While MFCs use suspension cultivation of microorganisms in the anodic chamber [5], some MFCs attach microorganisms to the electrodes to form a biofilm [6]. As microbial oxidation consumes the supplied substrates, the anode surface generates electrons and conducts them to the cathode through an external circuit. The resulting cations pass through the membrane to the cathode in the electrolyte. However, the following three factors limit MFC performance: (1) electron activation on the anode and cathode surfaces, (2) electron transfer from microbial cells to the anode, and (3) internal resistances of the circuit and anions passing through the membrane. Researchers have developed electrode modification, mediator addition, and membrane-free designs to address these issues and improve MFC performance [5]. Different electrode materials produce different activation polarization losses; for example, the noble metal platinum (Pt) offers superior catalytic activity. But, graphite, graphite felt, Pt-coated graphite, and other metal-coated materials are employed as cost-effective electrodes [5,7,8]. Since the cell surfaces of microorganisms are not electrically conductive, the electrons inside the cells cannot directly transfer to the surrounding electrolyte [9,10]. For this reason, previous designs adopt several kinds of toxic and unstable electro-chemicals as electrochemical mediators, or electron shuttles: neutral red (NR), methylene blue (MB), thionint, and phenolic compounds [4,10]. However, these active chemicals are expensive and toxic, rendering them unsuitable for long-term operation [4]. Exchange membranes are the most expensive components of typical MFC [10]. These membranes insulate and separate different kinds and/or concentrations of electrolytes into two chambers and restrict specific ion exchange. Once the permeability of the exchange membrane becomes poor, the resulting increase in ohmic resistance decreases MFC performance [11]. A membrane-free system may address these concerns. In a membrane-free system, the diffusion gradient of the dissolved reactants between the anode and cathode maintains the electrochemical
How do program understanding tools affect how programmers understand programs?

We explore the question of whether program understanding tools enhance or change the way that programmers understand programs. The strategies that programmers use to comprehend programs vary widely. Program understanding tools should enhance or ease the programmer's preferred strategies, rather than impose a fixed strategy that may not always be suitable. We present observations from a user study that compares three tools for browsing program source code and exploring software structures. In this study, 30 participants used these tools to solve several high level program understanding tasks. These tasks required a broad range of comprehension strategies. We describe how these tools supported or hindered the diverse comprehension strategies used.
Immunological studies of aging. IV. The contribution of thymic involution to the immune deficiencies of aging mice and reversal with thymopoietin32-36

Aged mice preferentially lose the capacity to make IgG and high affinity PFC after immunization with the T-dependent antigen DNP-BGG. We have found that thymectomy accelerates the appearances of these immune deficiencies associated with aging. When splenocytes from old mice are transferred to young lethally irradiated, syngeneic mice and the recipients immunized 7 wk later, the number of IgG and high affinity PFC was increased compared to the response of old splenocytes transferred to young thymectomized mice. These immune deficiencies of aged mice were also reversed when old mice were treated with thymopoietin in vivo or splenocytes from old mice were incubated with thymopoietin before adoptive transfer to young irradiated, thymectomized syngeneic mice. The T-cell independent response to DNP- Ficoll was less impaired than the T-cell dependent response to DNP-BGG in old animals. These data suggest that a decline in thymic function that occurs during aging may contribute to the immunological deficiencies of old animals.
Chordal Cutting Does Not Adversely Affect Left Ventricle Contractile Function

Background— Severing a limited number of second-order chordae to the anterior leaflet can improve ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR). Some concerns have been raised regarding possible influence on regional and global left ventricle (LV) function. We evaluated changes in cardiac function in 5 normal sheep with cutting of pre-instrumented chords in the beating heart to maintain constant load. Methods and Results— Under cardiopulmonary bypass, wires were placed around the 2 central basal chordae and brought outside the heart, which was restarted. Hemodynamic and imaging data were collected before and after chordal cutting by radiofrequency ablation using those wires. Segmental contractility was assessed invasively using sonomicrometers and noninvasively using Doppler tissue velocity and strain rate (with strain rate viewed as less load-dependent than ejection fraction) at 6 sites: base, mid-ventricle, and apex along the anteroseptal and posterolateral walls. We found no changes from before to after chordal cutting in LV end-diastolic volume (47.2±3.3 after cutting versus 48.4±4.6 mL before cutting, P=0.66), end-systolic volume (21.5±1.2 versus 22.3±2.8 mL, P=0.68), ejection fraction (54.2±1.8 versus 54.2±2.7%, P=0.96), systolic ventricular elastance (7.28±1.68 versus 7.66±2.11 mm Hg/mL, P=0.64), preload-recruitable stroke work (46.6±7.7 versus 50.2±10.7 mm Hg, P=0.76), and LVdP/dt (1480±238 versus 1392±250 mm Hg/s, P=0.45). Doppler tissue velocities and longitudinal strain rates surrounding the papillary muscles were unchanged, as were sonomicrometer longitudinal and mediolateral absolute strains. No wall motion abnormalities were visible around the papillary muscles, and no MR developed. Conclusion— We find no evidence for acutely decreased global or segmental LV contractility with chordal cutting. This absence of adverse effects is consistent with long-term clinical experience with cutting these chords in valve repair.
Cytocompatibility and Structural Arrangement of the Collagen Fibers: An In Vitro and In Vivo Evaluation of 5% Zinc Containing Hydroxyapatite Granules

Hydroxyapatite (HA) is one of the most employed materials for bone therapy due to its structural similarity with bone, its biocompatibility and physicochemical properties. Additionally, HA performance may be improved by ionic substitution of calcium with divalent bioactive metallic cations such as zinc. In this context, zinc incorporation into HA have been well studied, in spite of conflicting results regarding its biocompatibility: while previous reports on in vitro cytocompatibility have described 5% zinc containing HA (ZnHA) as slightly cytotoxic, this material presented an excellent response on in vivo studies. In order to bring more information on ZnHA biocompatibility, we performed a multiparametric assay evaluating sequentially on the same cells three different viability parameters: mitochondrial activity (XTT), membrane integrity (Neutral Red) and cell density (Crystal Violet Dye Exclusion test). Additionally, we intended to complement the existing data on ZnHA in vivo performance, by assessing its ability to affect the arrangement of collagen fibers on the grafted area, an important indicative of bone maturation. MC3T3-E1 cells were exposed to 24-hours extracts of ZnHA or stoichiometric HA on culture medium (DMEM) and cell viability was assayed. ZnHA was very cytocompatible, since the levels of viable cells on all 3 tests were similar to the HA and polystyrene (negative control) extracts, but significantly higher than cells treated with 4% phenol (positive control). For the in vivo studies, critical size defects in rats calvaria were filled with HA or ZnHA granules. The histological evaluation after 30 and 180 days revealed an increase along time. Event tough ZnHA is cytocompatible the presence of Zn was unable to alter the interaction between collagen fibers and the mineral bone phase, as compared to stoichiometric HA.
The Effectiveness of Surrogate Taxa for the Representation of Biodiversity

Abstract: Biodiversity is too complex to measure directly, so conservation planning must rely on surrogates to estimate the biodiversity of sites. The species richness of selected taxa is often used as a surrogate for the richness of other taxa. Surrogacy values of taxa have been evaluated in diverse contexts, yet broad trends in their effectiveness remain unclear. We reviewed published studies testing the ability of species richness of surrogate taxa to capture the richness of other (target) taxa. We stratified studies into two groups based on whether a complementarity approach (surrogates used to select a combination of sites that together maximize total species richness for the taxon) or a richness‐hotspot approach (surrogates used to select sites containing the highest species richness for the taxon) was used. For each comparison of one surrogate taxon with one target, we used the following predictor variables: biome, spatial extent of study area, surrogate taxon, and target taxon. We developed a binary response variable based on whether the surrogate taxon provided better than random representation of the target taxon. For studies that used an evaluation approach that was not based on better than random representation of target taxa, we based the response variable on the interpretation of results in the original study. We performed a categorical regression to elucidate trends in the effectiveness of surrogate taxa with regard to each of the predictor variables. A surrogate was 25% more likely to be effective with a complementarity approach than with a hotspot approach. For hotspot‐based approaches, biome, extent of study, surrogate taxon, and target taxon significantly influenced effectiveness of the surrogate. For complementarity‐based approaches, biome, extent, and surrogate taxon significantly influenced effectiveness of the surrogate. For all surrogate evaluations, biome explained the greatest amount of variation in surrogate effectiveness. From most to least, extent, surrogate taxon, and target taxon explained the most variation after biome. Surrogate taxa were most effective in grasslands and in some cases boreal zones, deserts, and tropical forests; surrogate taxa also were more effective in studies examining larger areas. Herpetofauna were the most effective taxon as both surrogate and target when a richness‐hotspot approach was used; however, herpetofauna were analyzed in fewer studies, so this result is tentative. For complementarity approaches, taxa that are easy to measure and tend to have a large number of habitat specialists distributed collectively across broad environmental gradients (e.g., plants, birds, and mammals) were the most effective surrogates.
Realtime Two‐Way Coupling of Meshless Fluids and Nonlinear FEM

In this paper, we present a novel method to couple Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and nonlinear FEM to animate the interaction of fluids and deformable solids in real time. To accurately model the coupling, we generate proxy particles over the boundary of deformable solids to facilitate the interaction with fluid particles, and develop an efficient method to distribute the coupling forces of proxy particles to FEM nodal points. Specifically, we employ the Total Lagrangian Explicit Dynamics (TLED) finite element algorithm for nonlinear FEM because of many of its attractive properties such as supporting massive parallelism, avoiding dynamic update of stiffness matrix computation, and efficient solver. Based on a predictor‐corrector scheme for both velocity and position, different normal and tangential conditions can be realized even for shell‐like thin solids. Our coupling method is entirely implemented on modern GPUs using CUDA. We demonstrate the advantage of our two‐way coupling method in computer animation via various virtual scenarios.
Why We Don't Really Know What Statistical Significance Means: A Major Educational Failure

The Neyman-Pearson theory of hypothesis testing, with the Type I error rate, α, as the significance level, is widely regarded as statistical testing orthodoxy. Fisher’s model of significance testing, where the evidential p value denotes the level of significance, nevertheless dominates statistical testing practice. This paradox has occurred because these two incompatible theories of classical statistical testing have been anonymously mixed together, creating the false impression of a single, coherent model of statistical inference. We show that this hybrid approach to testing, with its misleading p
Anaplasma phagocytophilum inhibits human neutrophil apoptosis via upregulation of bfl‐1, maintenance of mitochondrial membrane potential and prevention of caspase 3 activation

The inhibition of neutrophil apoptosis plays a central role in human granulocytic anaplasmosis. Intracellular signalling pathways through which the obligatory intracellular bacterium Anaplasma phagocytophilum inhibits the spontaneous apoptosis of human peripheral blood neutrophils were investigated. bfl‐1 mRNA levels in uninfected neutrophils after 12 h in culture were reduced to ≈ 5–25% of 0 h levels, but remained high in infected neutrophils. The eukaryotic RNA synthesis inhibitor, actinomycin D, prevented the maintenance of bfl‐1 mRNA levels by A. phagocytophilum. Differences in mcl‐1, bax, bcl‐w, bad or bak mRNA levels in infected versus uninfected neutrophils were not remarkable. By using mitochondrial fluorescent dyes, Mitotracker Red and JC‐1, it was found that most uninfected neutrophils lost mitochondrial membrane potential after 10–12 h incubation, whereas A. phagocytophilum‐infected neutrophils maintained high membrane potential. Caspase 3 activity and the degree of apoptosis were lower in dose‐dependent manner in A. phagocytophilum‐infected neutrophils at 16 h post infection, as compared to uninfected neutrophils. Anti‐active caspase 3 antibody labelling showed less positively stained population in infected neutrophils compared to those in uninfected neutrophils after 12 h incubation. These results suggest that A. phagocytophilum inhibits human neutrophil apoptosis via transcriptional upregulation of bfl‐1 and inhibition of mitochondria‐mediated activation of caspase 3.
Abrasion Property of Epoxidized Natural Rubber

Abstract The abrasion resistance of two grades of epoxidized natural rubber (ENR 25 and ENR 50) and one grade of styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) were studied using an Akron abrasion tester. An accelerated sulfur vulcanization system with 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT) as the accelerator is used throughout the study. Carbon black (N 330), precipitated silica, and calcium carbonate were chosen as the fillers. The range of sulfur and filler loadings was from 1 to 5 phr and 10 to 50 phr, respectively. Mixing was done on a two-roll mill. Results obtained show that for all the rubbers studied, the volume loss due to abrasion decreases with increasing sulfur loading and passes through a minimum at about 3 phr of sulfur. This observation is attributed to the changes of cross-link types from monosulfidic to polysulfidic crosslink as sulfur concentration is increased. However, further sulfur loading would cause a “tight” cure, thus increasing the abrasion loss. For sulfur loading less than 3 phr, ENR 25 indicates the.
Arp2/3 complex is essential for actin network treadmilling as well as for targeting of capping protein and cofilin

Acute suppression of Arp2/3 complex activity in lamellipodia demonstrates its essential role in actin network treadmilling and filament organization and geometry. Arp2/3 complex activity also defines the recruitment of crucial independent factors, including capping protein and cofilin, and is essential for lamellipodia-based keratocyte migration.
Time and Space-Efficient Write Parallelism in PCM by Exploiting Data Patterns

The size of write unit in PCM, namely the number of bits allowed to be written concurrently at one time, is restricted due to high write energy consumption. It typically needs several serially executed write units to finish a cache line service when using PCM as the main memory, which results in long write latency and high energy consumption. To address the poor write performance problem, we propose a novel PCM write scheme called Min-WU (Minimize the number of Write Units). We observe data access locality that some frequent zero-extended values dominate the write data patterns in typical multi-threaded applications (more than 40 and 44.9 percent of all memory accesses in PARSEC workloads and SPEC 2006 benchmarks, respectively). By leveraging carefully designed chip-level data redistribution method, the data amount is balanced and the data pattern is the same among all PCM chips. The key idea behind Min-WU is to minimize the number of serially executed write units in a cache line service after data redistribution through sFPC (simplified Frequent Pattern Compression), eRW (efficient Reordering Write operations method) and fWP (fine-tuned Write Parallelism circuits). Using Min-WU, the zero parts of write units can be indicated with predefined prefixes and the residues can be reordered and written simultaneously under power constraints. Our design can improve the performance, energy consumption and endurance of PCM-based main memory with low space and time overhead. Experimental results of 12 multi-threaded PARSEC 2.0 workloads show that Min-WU reduces 44 percent read latency, 28 percent write latency, 32.5 percent running time and 48 percent energy while receiving 32 percent IPC improvement compared with the conventional write scheme with few memory cycles and less than 3 percent storage space overhead. Evaluation results of 8 SPEC 2006 benchmarks demonstrate that Min-WU earns 57.8/46.0 percent read/write latency reduction, 28.7 percent IPC improvement, 28 percent running time reduction and 62.1 percent energy reduction compared with the baseline under realistic memory hierarchy configurations.
Potential of Enzymatic Kinetic Resolution Using Solid Substrates Suspension: Improved Yield, Productivity, Substrate Concentration, and Recovery

In the literature the enzymatic kinetic resolution of a suspension of a solid substrate has largely been treated as a conventional kinetic resolution of a fully dissolved substrate. In this paper it is shown that this type of kinetic resolution is different in several important aspects. Quantitative models are developed for two types of such suspension processes. These models are used to compare the merits of these processes with the conventional kinetic resolution process where fully dissolved substrate is used. In the suspension processes the liquid phase concentration of substrate enantiomer that should be converted can be kept close to the maximum value, i.e., the solubility, when process conditions are properly chosen, whereas in a conventional process this concentration gradually decreases. Calculations show that this leads to a productivity that is about 6‐fold higher in the suspension processes. Also, for enzymes with a low enantioselectivity, a severalfold increase in yield of remaining enantiopure substrate is predicted compared to the conventional kinetic resolution of dissolved enantiomers. Other potential advantages of using suspension reactions are that the initial substrate concentration may be higher (up to 25% (w/w) ) and that the desired remaining substrate may be recovered by simply filtering off the solid crystals. Experimental evidence that these merits can be exploited is only partly given, using the few available examples from the literature.
iSith - Intersection-based Spatial Interaction for Two Hands

This paper introduces the iSith metaphor, a concept for a very direct bimanual object selection and manipulation interface using two ray pointers, one for each hand, and thus taking advantage of the user’s natural control over his interhand-coordination. The concept allows controlled translation of virtual objects in an increased interaction volume, not restricted by arm’s length and without the use of buttons for reeling or confusing algorithms for translation scaling.
Use of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Cable for Post-Tensioning Application

The primary objective of this research project was to assess the feasibility of the use of innovative carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) tendons and to develop guidelines for CFRP in post-tensioned bridge applications, including segmental bridges and pier caps. The main motivation for the use of advanced composites is that they are not susceptible to corrosion, unlike prestressing steel. An experimental investigation and a numerical simulation were conducted to compare the performance of a scaled model of the Long Key segmental box girder bridge, post-tensioned with two types of carbon fiber strands and steel strands. The model was tested at different prestress levels and at different loading configurations. The most important distinction between the two types of carbon fiber strands is the elastic modulus, which are respectively 77% and 93% of that of steel strands. While the study confirms feasibility of both types of carbon fiber strands for segmental bridge applications, and their similar serviceability behavior, strands with higher elastic modulus could improve structural performance and minimize displacements beyond service loads. As the second component of the project, a side-by-side comparison of two types of carbon fiber strands against steel strands was conducted in a scaled model of a typical interior hammerhead with two identical cantilever overhangs. Two different strand arrangements were used for post-tensioning, with eight and six strands, respectively representing an over-design and a slight under-design relative to the factored demand. The model was tested under service and factored flexure and shear loads. The investigation confirmed the feasibility of using carbon fiber strands in unbonded post-tensioning of pier caps. Considering both serviceability and overload conditions, the general performance of the pier cap model under both flexure and shear loading was deemed acceptable using either type of carbon fiber strands and quite comparable to that of steel strands. In another component of this research, creep stress tests were conducted with carbon fiber composite cable (CFCC). The anchorages for all the specimens were prepared using a commercially available expansive grout. Specimens withstood 95% of the guaranteed capacity provided by the manufacturer for a period of five months, without any sign of rupture.