Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships between the structure and the mechanical properties of paving grade asphalt cements

Since the late sixties, different models have been proposed in the literature to describe asphalt cement (AC) rheology. Most of these models, based on the plot of rheological master-curves and the determination of shift factors, imply that the Time-Temperature Superposition Principle (TTSP) holds for AC. However, a few authors questioned the applicability of TTSP to AC. In this paper AC structure is described using the colloidal picture. At high temperature, the peptization equilibrium of the solid asphaltene particles is believed to evolve with temperature, causing the TTSP not to apply. On the other hand, at low temperature, vitrification of the liquid maltene phase prevents the structure from changing, causing the TTSP to apply. As a consequence of the colloidal nature of ACs, their viscoelastic properties can be separated according to two relaxation phenomena: an "a" relaxation, due to the asphaltene particles' Brownian motion, which leads to a transition from a Newtonian to a viscoelastic behavior; and a "b" relaxation, due to the vitrification of the maltene phase, which induces a transition from a viscoelastic flow to a solid glassy behavior. These ideas are shown to apply to several paving grade ACs from two different crude sources. In the end, eight structure-related parameters are needed to describe the viscoelastic properties of AC.
Narrow Linewidth All-fiberCavity Thulium Fiber Laser at 2 µm

The aim of this project is to develop a stable, narrow linewidth, all-fiber cavity thulium fiber laser with an output wavelength around 2 μm. There are several important fields of applications for a narrow linewidth laser, including the area of optical sensors, spectroscopy and for optical fiber communication. A narrow linewidth can be obtained with wavelength selecting elements such as fiber Bragg gratings, volume Bragg gratings, diffraction gratings and intra-cavity etalons. However, an all-fiber cavity was desired and, therefore, fiber Bragg gratings were the element of choice. An all-fiber cavity is robust, compact, cheap and alignment free. The rare-earth element thulium has a broad gain-bandwidth allowing ultrashort pulse operation, and a wide wavelength tunability. Thulium has emission peaks located at eye-safe wavelengths, which open up applications within the field of medicine, spanning 400 nm, ranging from 1700 to 2100 nm. Therefore, thulium fiber lasers provide the possibility of amplification windows other than the currently established window around 1550 nm, using erbium amplifiers. The output of the thulium fiber laser could, in turn, be used as a pump source for non-linear frequency conversion schemes extending the output wavelength to the 3-10 μm range. High-power fiber lasers commonly rely on master oscillator power amplification schemes, which makes a robust and compact seed source with excellent spectral and spatial beam quality desirable, which an all-fiber cavity laser provides. During this thesis work, such a source was realized, by developing a cladding-pumped fiber Bragg grating-locked thulium all-fiber cavity laser. The thulium fiber laser was characterized by investigating the threshold input and maximum output power, which were 1.12 W and 0.86 W, respectively. The slope efficiency was found to be 47%, with respect to the absorbed pump power, with very good spatial beam quality,M2 ≤ 1.05. Analyzing the spectral beam quality showed a central wavelength of 2051 nm, with a full width at half maximum of 1.5 nm. The characteristics were also investigated with the coiling diameter of the active thulium fiber as a variable.
Differences in the Progression of Disability: A U.S.–Mexico Comparison

Abstract Objectives This article seeks to document the progression of disability in a developing country by implementing a model to examine how this process compares to a developed country. Methods Data come from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), including a baseline survey in 2001 and a follow-up in 2003, and from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS), using the 2000 and 2002 waves. An ordinal logistic regression approach is used to examine a progression of disability that considers (a) no disability, (b) mobility problems, (c) mobility plus limitations with instrumental activities of daily living, (d) mobility plus limitations with activities of daily living (ADLs), (e) limitations in all three areas and (f) death. Results In both data sets, approximately 44% of the sample remained in the same level of disability at the 2-year follow-up. However, the progression of limitations with two disabilities differs by gender in the MHAS but is consistent for both men and women in the HRS. Discussion Our model reflects the importance of ADLs in the disablement process in Mexico. We speculate that the difference in lifetime risk profiles and cultural context might be responsible for the divergence in the progression of disability by gender.
Real-Time 3D Shape of Micro-Details

Motivated by the growing demand for interactive environments, we propose an accurate real-time 3D shape reconstruction technique. To provide a reliable 3D reconstruction which is still a challenging task when dealing with real-world applications, we integrate several components including (i) Photometric Stereo (PS), (ii) perspective Cook-Torrance reflectance model that enables PS to deal with a broad range of possible real-world object reflections, (iii) realistic lightening situation, (iv) a Recurrent Optimization Network (RON) and finally (v) heuristic Dijkstra Gaussian Mean Curvature (DGMC) initialization approach. We demonstrate the potential benefits of our hybrid model by providing 3D shape with highly-detailed information from micro-prints for the first time. All real-world images are taken by a mobile phone camera under a simple setup as a consumer-level equipment. In addition, complementary synthetic experiments confirm the beneficial properties of our novel method and its superiority over the state-of-the-art approaches.
Demographic and Clinical Profile in Patients with Liver Cirrhosis in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Central Nepal.

INTRODUCTION Liver cirrhosis is an important health problem worldwide and is a common disease in Nepal. The profile of cirrhosis may vary due to different factors. This study was undertaken to see the demographic and clinical profiles of patients with cirrhosis of liver attending a tertiary care hospital in Central Nepal. METHODS Six hundred patients with clinical features, laboratory and sonological findings suggestive of chronic liver dysfunction and endoscopic evidence of portal hypertension were included in the study. Their demographic and clinical profile, endoscopic findings, outcomes during hospitalization were studied. Ethical approval was taken from Institutional Review Committee of College of Medical Sciences. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS The mean age of subjects was 54±11.84 years with 435 males (72.5%) and 165 (27.5%) females. Majority of 203 (33.8%) patients were from Mongol ethnicity followed by 127 (21.2%) Khas. Two hundred and twenty (36.6%) were farmers followed by 169 (28.2%) retired personnel. A total of 338 (56.4 %) patients were from rural areas. The commonest aetiology of cirrhosis was chronic alcohol consumption and seen in 552 (92%) patients. Abdominal distension was commonest presenting sign and observed in 561 (93.5%) patients. Ascites seen in 555 (92.5%) patients was the commonest complication followed by UGI bleed in 326 (54.3%) patients. Gastro-oesophageal varices observed in 345 (57.5%) patients, was the most common endoscopic finding followed by portal gastropathy, peptic ulcer and erosive mucosal diseases. In patient mortality was noted in 92 (15.3 %) patients. CONCLUSIONS This study highlights the burden of cirrhosis, usually caused by chronic alcohol consumption in Central Nepal. Majority of subjects were male, middle aged, farmers, from rural areas and predominantly observed in some ethnicity like Mongols. Cirrhotic patients usually Keywords: cirrhosis of liver; complications; endoscopy.
Solar energy conversion : solid-state physics aspects

Spectrally selective surfaces and their impact on photothermal solar energy conversion. - Spectral selectivity of composite materials. - Solar photoelectrolysis with semiconductor electrodes. - Carrier lifetime in silicon and its impact on solar cell characteristics. - Problems of the Cu2S/CdS Cell. - Heterojunction phenomena and interfacial defects in photovoltaic converters.
Language Transfer of Audio Word2Vec: Learning Audio Segment Representations Without Target Language Data

Audio Word2Vec offers vector representations of fixed dimensionality for variable-length audio segments using Sequence to-sequence Autoencoder (SA). These vector representations are shown to describe the sequential phonetic structures of the audio segments to a good degree, with real world applications such as spoken term detection (STD). This paper examines the capability of language transfer of Audio Word2Vec. We train SA from one language (source language) and use it to extract the vector representation of the audio segments of another language (target language). We found that SA can still catch the phonetic structure from the audio segments of the target language if the source and target languages are similar. In STD, we obtain the vector representations from the SA learned from a large amount of source language data, and found them surpass the representations from naive encoder and SA directly learned from a small amount of target language data. The result shows that it is possible to learn Audio Word2Vec model from high-resource languages and use it on low-resource languages. This further expands the usability of Audio Word2Vec.
Evaluation of the ThinPrep processor for fine needle aspiration specimens.

OBJECTIVE To test the ThinPrep Processor for fine needle aspiration. STUDY DESIGN One hundred unfixed, surgically removed specimens were aspirated. One pass was directly smeared, fixed and stained with the Papanicolaou technique. The other pass was rinsed in a proprietary fixative, and a single ThinPrep slide was made. Smears were diagnosed without knowledge of the histologic diagnosis. RESULTS Cellularity and architectural integrity of cell groups were superior on the conventional slides. Preservation and detail of both epithelial and stromal cells were superior with the ThinPrep Processor. Preservation of background material, such as mucus and colloid, was slightly superior on the ThinPrep slides. Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for malignancy and unsatisfactory rates were all slightly better on the ThinPrep slides. CONCLUSION The ThinPrep Processor offers an alternative to direct smears in situations in which expertise in slide preparation is not available.
Incorporating BEAMing technology as a liquid biopsy into clinical practice for the management of colorectal cancer patients: an expert taskforce review

Abstract The importance of mutation identification for advanced colorectal cancer treatment with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor agents is well established. However, due to delays in turnaround time, low-quality tissue samples, and/or lack of standardization of testing methods a significant proportion of patients are being treated without the information that Kirsten rat sarcoma and neuroblastoma rat sarcoma (RAS) testing can provide. The detection of mutated circulating tumor DNA by BEAMing technology addresses this gap in care and allows these patients to receive international guideline-recommended expanded RAS testing with rapid turnaround times. Furthermore, the overall concordance between OncoBEAM RAS colorectal cancer testing and standard of care tissue testing is very high (93.3%). This article presents an overview of the clinical utility and potential applications of this minimally invasive method, such as early detection of emergent resistance to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor therapy. If appropriately implemented, BEAMing technology holds considerable promise to enhance the quality of patient care and improve clinical outcomes.
Effect of Hydrogen Concentration on the Growth of Carbon Nanotube Arrays for Gecko-Inspired Adhesive Applications

Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) have extraordinary structural and mechanical properties, and have been considered as potential candidates for creating dry adhesives inspired by adhesive structures in nature. Catalytic chemical vapor deposition is widely used to grow VACNTs; however, the influential mechanism of VACNT preparation parameters (such as H2 concentration) on its adhesion property is not clear, making accurate control over the structure of VACNTs adhesive an ongoing challenge. In this article, we use electron beam-deposited SiO2/Al2O3 as a support layer, Fe as catalyst, and C2H4/H2 gas mixtures as a feed gas to prepare VACNTs, while varying the ratio of the reducing atmosphere (H2) from 0% to 35%. VACNTs synthesized at a 15% H2 concentration (5 mm × 5 mm in size) can support a maximal weight of 856 g, which indicates a macroscopic shear adhesive strength of 34 N/cm2. We propose a hydrogen-concentration-dependent model for the shear adhesive performance of VACNTs. By adjusting the amount of hydrogen present during the reaction, the morphology and quality of the prepared VACNTs can be precisely controlled, which significantly influences its shear adhesive performance. These results are advantageous for the application of carbon nanotubes as dry adhesives.
Focal Hematopoietic Hyperplasia of the Rib

BACKGROUND Focal hematopoietic hyperplasia (FHH) of the rib is a rare, benign, localized proliferation of bone marrow to such a degree that it produces a tumorlike expansion of the rib that can be the source of considerable clinical alarm. In the appropriate clinical setting, this lesion needs to be included in the differential diagnosis of solitary bone lesions, in particular when assessing the adequacy of a specimen at the time of aspiration. CASE A large, lytic mass on the posterior aspect of the sixth rib was incidentally discovered on a chest roentgenogram from a 46-year-old male during a routine presurgical evaluation for diverticulitis. The radiologic characteristics of the tumor were thought to be consistent with a neoplasm; that prompted a recommendation for fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB). The mass was thoroughly sampled under radiologic guidance, performing multiple aspirations of different areas. All smears prepared at the time of the aspiration for the evaluation of specimen adequacy showed abundant marrow tissue without any evidence of malignancy. Although it was initially thought that the tissue was probably obtained from the periphery of the lesion, this notion was discarded after multiple passes from different areas showed only marrow tissue and since there was radiologic evidence that the sample was obtained from within the lesion. CONCLUSION The diagnosis of FHH of the rib by FNAB or other small-biopsy techniques requires strict radiologic-pathologic correlation. Awareness of this entity will avoid unnecessary repeated biopsy procedures and potentially large, complicated surgical procedures. This case shares several features with the other two reported cases: a solitary lesion on the rib presenting in an asymptomatic patient with no evidence of associated hematologic disease.
Personalized query expansion for the web

The inherent ambiguity of short keyword queries demands for enhanced methods for Web retrieval. In this paper we propose to improve such Web queries by expanding them with terms collected from each user's Personal Information Repository, thus implicitly personalizing the search output. We introduce five broad techniques for generating the additional query keywords by analyzing user data at increasing granularity levels, ranging from term and compound level analysis up to global co-occurrence statistics, as well as to using external thesauri. Our extensive empirical analysis under four different scenarios shows some of these approaches to perform very well, especially on ambiguous queries, producing a very strong increase in the quality of the output rankings. Subsequently, we move this personalized search framework one step further and propose to make the expansion process adaptive to various features of each query. A separate set of experiments indicates the adaptive algorithms to bring an additional statistically significant improvement over the best static expansion approach.
Process of Warp Knitting Mesh for Hernia Repair and its Mechanical Properties

Polypropylene monofilament is selected to fabricate the mesh used for hernia repair, and the mesh is warp knitted on a Tricot machine with a compound needle (gauge E 18); an atlas structure is used. The mesh with 18 to 20 courses per centimetre has the best mechanical properties. The heat-setting conditions are confirmed on the basis of trials. It can be concluded that the heat-setting temperature between 125 °C to 128 °C and the time between 5 to 8 minutes benefit the mechanical properties of the mesh.
A Phase II Randomized Trial (GO27827) of First-Line FOLFOX Plus Bevacizumab with or Without the MET Inhibitor Onartuzumab in Patients with Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

BACKGROUND Dysregulated hepatocyte growth factor/mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) signaling is associated with poor prognosis and resistance to vascular endothelial growth factor inhibition in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). We report outcomes from a double-blind, multicenter phase II trial of the MET inhibitor onartuzumab in combination with mFOLFOX-6 and bevacizumab for mCRC (GO27827; NCT01418222). MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients were randomized 1:1 to receive onartuzumab (10 mg/kg intravenously [IV]) or placebo plus mFOLFOX-6 and bevacizumab (5 mg/kg IV). Oxaliplatin was given for 8-12 cycles; other agents were continued until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or death. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS) in the intent-to-treat (ITT) and MET immunohistochemistry (IHC) expression-positive populations. RESULTS Between September 2011 and November 2012, 194 patients were enrolled. In September 2013, an interim analysis recommended stopping onartuzumab treatment due to lack of efficacy. At the time of the final analysis in February 2014, no significant improvement in PFS was seen with onartuzumab versus placebo in either the ITT or MET IHC-positive populations. An improvement in PFS was noted in the MET IHC-negative population. Neither overall survival nor response rate was improved with onartuzumab. The incidence of fatigue, peripheral edema, and deep vein thrombosis was increased with onartuzumab relative to placebo. CONCLUSION Onartuzumab combined with mFOLFOX-6 and bevacizumab did not significantly improve efficacy outcomes in either the ITT or MET IHC-positive populations. MET expression by IHC was not a predictive biomarker in this setting. The Oncologist 2017;22:264-271 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The addition of onartuzumab to mFOLFOX-6 plus bevacizumab did not improve outcomes in patients with previously untreated metastatic colorectal cancer in this randomized, phase II study. Although initial results with onartuzumab were promising, a number of phase II/III clinical trials have reported a lack of improvement in efficacy with onartuzumab combined with standard-of-care therapies in several tumor types. Furthermore, negative study data have been published for rilotumumab and ficlatuzumab, both of which block hepatocyte growth factor binding to the mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) receptor. MET immunohistochemistry was not a predictive biomarker. It remains to be seen if other biomarkers or small molecule inhibitors may be more appropriate for inhibiting this oncogenic pathway.
Agroclimatology and Wheat Production: Coping with Climate Change

Cereal production around the world is critical to the food supply for the human population. Crop productivity is primarily determined by a combination of temperature and precipitation because temperatures have to be in the range for plant growth and precipitation has to supply crop water requirements for a given environment. The question is often asked about the changes in productivity and what we can expect in the future and we evaluated the causes for variation in historical annual statewide wheat grain yields in Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota across the Great Plains of United States. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is adapted to this area and we focused on production in these states from 1950 to 2016. This analysis used a framework for annual yields using yield gaps between attainable and actual yields and found the primary cause of the variation among years were attributable to inadequate precipitation during the grain-filling period. In Oklahoma, wheat yields were reduced when April and May precipitation was limited (r2 = 0.70), while in Kansas, May precipitation was the dominant factor (r2 = 0.78), and in North Dakota June–July precipitation was the factor explaining yield variation (r2 = 0.65). Temperature varied among seasons and at the statewide level did not explain a significant portion of the yield variation. The pattern of increased variation in precipitation will cause further variation in wheat production across the Great Plains. Reducing yield variation among years will require adaptation practices that increase water availability to the crop coupled with the positive impact derived from other management practices, e.g., cultivars, fertilizer management, etc.
Validation of a Standalone Smartphone Application for Measuring Heart Rate Using Imaging Photoplethysmography.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of a freely available smartphone application, Cardiio app (Cardiio, Inc., Cambridge, MA), to measure heart rate from the finger or face using imaging photoplethysmography, by comparing against an FDA-cleared pulse oximeter at rest, and after moderate to vigorous exercise. METHODS A total of 40 healthy adults participated in this study. Participants engaged in a period of rest, followed by 3 min of moderate to vigorous intensity cycling on a stationary bicycle. Heart rate measurements were obtained from both the finger and face of participants using the Cardiio app at rest, immediately after exercise, 1-2 min after exercise, and 2-3 min after exercise. Concurrent heart rate readings using an FDA-cleared finger pulse oximeter served as the reference measurement. RESULTS There was a very strong agreement between heart rate measurements obtained using the Cardiio app and the pulse oximeter, both at rest (r = 0.99 for finger, r = 0.97 for face) and after exercise (r = 0.99 for finger, r = 0.97 for face). At rest, the accuracy of the Cardiio app was ±1.58 beats per minute (bpm) (or ±2.27%) using the finger mode and ±2.28 bpm (or ±3.17%) for the face mode, compared to the pulse oximeter. After moderate to vigorous exercise, the accuracy of the Cardiio app was ±2.97 bpm (or ±2.79%) using the finger mode and ±5.31 bpm (or ±4.50%) for the face mode, compared to the pulse oximeter. CONCLUSION The Cardiio app provided accurate heart rate measurements from the finger and face, both at rest and after exercise.