Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On application of machine learning in fixture design and clamping optimization

In machining operations, frictional contact between workpiece and clamps makes clamping scheme a complex and non-linear problem with parameters such as contact area, state of contact, clamping force, wear and damage in the contact area and deformation of the component. One attribute of an efficient fixture plan is to know the optimum values of clamping forces. To solve this optimization problem, this study along investigating utilization of support vector machines (SVM) for fixture optimization, presents a hybrid method that uses finite element analysis (FEA) with a supportive combination of artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA). A frictional model of workpiece-fixture system under cutting and clamping forces is solved through FEA. The results of this analysis are used for training and querying SVM and ANN where they are required to recognize a pattern between the clamping forces and state of contact in the workpiece-fixture system and workpiece maximum elastic deformation. Using the identified pattern a GA based program determines the optimum values for clamping forces that do not cause excessive deformation or stress in the component. The advantage of this work to similar studies is predicting the contact status between clamps and the workpiece. The results contribute to automation of fixture design task and computer aided process planning.
Acute Elevations of Plasma Asymmetric Dimethylarginine and Impaired Endothelial Function in Response to a High-Fat Meal in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), a compound detectable in human plasma, is an endogenous inhibitor of NO synthase. Endothelial dysfunction is an early event in atherogenesis, and large-vessel atherosclerosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Fifty patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were studied at baseline and 5 hours after ingestion of a high-fat meal. Plasma ADMA measured by using high-performance liquid chromatography increased from 1.04±0.99 to 2.51±2.27 &mgr;mol/L (P <0.0005). Brachial arterial vasodilation after reactive hyperemia, a NO-dependent function, measured by high-resolution ultrasound, decreased from 6.9±3.9% at baseline to 1.3±4.5% (P <0.0001). These changes occurred in association with increased plasma levels of triglycerides and very low density lipoprotein triglycerides, with reduced low density lipoprotein cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol, and with no changes in total cholesterol. The increase in plasma ADMA in response to a high-fat meal was significantly and inversely related to the decrease in percent vasodilation. In 10 of the subjects studied with a similar protocol on another day, no significant changes in the brachial artery flow responses or in plasma ADMA were observed 5 hours after ingestion of a nonfat isocaloric meal. The data suggest that ADMA may contribute to abnormal blood flow responses and to atherogenesis in type 2 diabetics.
On the Behavior of the Robust Bayesian Combination Operator and the Significance of Discounting

We study the combination problem for credal sets via the robust Bayesian combination operator. We extend Walley’s notion of degree of imprecision and introduce a measure for degree of conict between two credal sets. Several examples are presented in order to explore the behavior of the robust Bayesian combination operator in terms of imprecision and conict. We further propose a discounting operator that suppresses a source given an interval of reliability weights, and highlight the importance of using such weights whenever additional information about the reliability of a source is available.
Towards Covariant Quantization of the Supermembrane

By replacing ten-dimensional pure spinors with eleven-dimensional pure spinors, the formalism recently developed for covariantly quantizing the d = 10 superparticle and superstring is extended to the d = 11 superparticle and supermembrane. In this formalism, kappa symmetry is replaced by a BRST-like invariance using the nilpotent operator Q = λαdα where dα is the worldvolume variable corresponding to the d = 11 spacetime supersymmetric derivative and λα is an SO(10,1) pure spinor variable satisfying λΓcλ = 0 for c = 1 to 11. Super-Poincare covariant unintegrated and integrated supermembrane vertex operators are explicitly constructed which are in the cohomology of Q. After double-dimensional reduction of the eleventh dimension, these vertex operators are related to type-IIA superstring vertex operators where Q = QL + QR is the sum of the left and right-moving type-IIA BRST operators and the eleventh component of the pure spinor constraint, λΓ11λ = 0, replaces the bL0−bR0 constraint of the closed superstring. A conjecture is made for the computation of M-theory scattering amplitudes using these supermembrane vertex operators.
A SECOND CASE OF VARIABLE Na i D LINES IN A HIGHLY REDDENED TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA

Recent high-resolution spectra of the Type Ia supernova SN 2006X have revealed the presence of time-variable and blueshifted Na i D features, interpreted by Patat et al. as originating in circumstellar material within the progenitor system. The variation seen in SN 2006X induces relatively large changes in the total Na i D equivalent width (ΔEW ∼ 0.5 Å in just over two weeks) that would be detectable at lower resolutions. We have used a large data set comprising 2400 low-resolution spectra of 450 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained by the CfA Supernova Program to search for variable Na i D features. Out of the 31 SNe Ia (including SN 2006X) in which we could have detected similar EW variations, only one other (SN 1999cl) shows variable Na i D features, with an even larger change over a similar ∼10 day timescale (ΔEW = 1.66 ± 0.21 Å). Interestingly, both SN 1999cl and SN 2006X are the two most highly reddened objects in our sample, raising the possibility that the variability is connected to dusty environments.
Structural Causal Models: Cycles, Marginalizations, Exogenous Reparametrizations and Reductions

Structural causal models (SCMs), also known as non-parametric structural equation models (NP-SEMs), are widely used for causal modeling purposes. In this paper, we give a rigorous treatment of structural causal models, dealing with measure-theoretic complications that arise in the presence of cyclic relations. The central question studied in this paper is: given a (possibly cyclic) SCM defined on a large system (consisting of observable endogenous and latent exogenous variables), can we "project it down" to an SCM that describes a subsystem (consisting of a subset of the observed endogenous variables and possibly different latent exogenous variables) in order to obtain a more parsimonious but equivalent representation of the subsystem? We define a marginalization operation that effectively removes a subset of the endogenous variables from the model, and a class of mappings, exogenous reparameterizations, that can be used to reduce the space of exogenous variables. We show that both operations preserve the causal semantics of the model and that under mild conditions they can lead to a significant reduction of the model complexity, at least in terms of the number of variables in the model. We argue that for the task of estimating an SCM from data, the existence of "smooth" reductions would be desirable. We provide several conditions under which the existence of such reductions can be shown, but also provide a counterexample that shows that such reductions do not exist in general. The latter result implies that existing approaches to estimate linear or Markovian SCMs from data cannot be extended to general SCMs.
Evaluation of NUMA Memory Management Through Modeling and Measurements

Dynamic page placement policies for NUMA (nonuniform memory access time) shared-memory architectures are explored using two approaches that complement each other in important ways. The authors measure the performance of parallel programs running on the experimental DUnX operating system kernel for the BBN GP1000, which supports a highly parameterized dynamic page placement policy. They also develop and apply an analytic model of memory system performance of a local/remote NUMA architecture based on approximate mean-value analysis techniques. The model is validated against experimental data obtained with DUnX while running a synthetic workload. The results of this validation show that, in general, model predictions are quite good. Experiments investigating the effectiveness of dynamic page-placement and, in particular, dynamic multiple-copy page placement the cost of replication/coherency fault errors, and the cost of errors in deciding whether a page should move or be remotely referenced are described. >
Series Elasticity in Heart Muscle: Its Relation To Contractile Element Velocity And Proposed Muscle Models

The series elasticity (SE) of cat papillary muscle was measured in 6 muscles by the isotonic quick-release method, with careful correction for the compliance of the equipment. The resultant SE curve was exponential in form with an extension of 4% to 5% of initial muscle length for a preload of 0.5 g and a developed tension of 10 g; this demonstrates a stiffer SE for cardiac muscle than has previously been reported. The quick-release SE extension curve was unaffected by inotropic interventions or changing the time of quick release, and was less compliant than the SE curves calculated by two different isotonic methods. These differences arise from the fact that contractile element velocity has a secondary rise during the transition from the isometric to isotonic phase of any afterloaded contraction. With increasing preload (and initial muscle length) the SE became stiffer, suggesting that a substantial part of it is in series with both the contractile and parallel elastic elements.
Clinical risk factors and bronchoscopic features of invasive aspergillosis in Intensive Care Unit patients

Summary Introduction. Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. During recent years, a rising incidence of IA in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients has been reported. The patterns of IA related infection may differ according to the type of underlying disease. Unfortunately little is known about the characteristics of IA in ICU patients. In the present study we assessed IA related clinical and bronchoscopy findings in ICU patients. Materials and methods. This study was performed at the ICU units in Sari and Babul, Mazandaran from August 2009 through September 2010. We analysed 43 ICU patients with underlying predisposing conditions for IA. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples were collected by bronchoscope twice a weekly. The samples were analyzed by direct microscopic examination, culture and non-culture based diagnostic methods. Patients were assigned a probable or possible diagnosis of IA according to the consensus definition of the EORTC/MSG. Results. Out of 43 suspected patients to IA, 13 (36.1%) cases showed IA. According to criteria presented by EORTC/MSG, they were categorized as: 4 cases (30.8%) of possible IA and 9 (69.2%) of probable IA. The observed mortality was 69.2%. The main underlying predisposing conditions were neutropenia, hematologic malignancy, and COPD. The macroscopic finding in bronchoscopy included of Prulent secretion (46.6%), Mucosal bleeding (30.7%), Mucosal erythema (23%), Trachobronchomalasia (15.3%). Conclusion. The diagnosis of IA in patients with critical illness in ICU is even more difficult. The clinical diagnostic process is often dependent on indirect circumstantial data enhancing the probability of IA. Bronchoscopy with inspection of the tracheobronchial tree, sampling of deep airway secretions and BAL can be helpful.
Interstratal dewatering origin for polygonal patterns of sand‐filled cracks: a case study from late Proterozoic metasediments of Islay, Scotland

Sand‐filled cracks from the Lower Fine‐grained Quartzite of Dalradian (late Proterozoic) age on the Island of Islay, western Scotland, may be divided into two main types, both of which form orthogonal and non‐orthogonal closed patterns on bedding surfaces. Type 1 cracks are short and lenticular in cross‐section, contain sand which had been injected downwards, and are found on the bottoms of cross‐laminated sandstone beds. Type 2 cracks cut several beds and preserve evidence of upward flow of water‐saturated sand. Both types of crack developed through the interstratal intrusion of water‐saturated sand into shrinkage cracks in mud or muddy sand, not, as previously thought, as a result of sub‐aerial desiccation, or sub‐aqueous cracking of the sediment surface (synaeresis). These cracks likely resulted from layer‐parallel contraction caused by compaction of mudstone layers during burial. Seismic shock may have provided the trigger for the preferential development of polygonal crack patterns in these layers instead of the more usual small‐scale dewatering structures. From a detailed comparison with published descriptions of filled cracks from a number of different geological environments, it is concluded that interstratal cracking is a mechanism which rivals sub‐aerial desiccation in importance, and is more common in the geological record than is currently realized.
Assortative Matching and Search

In Becker’s (1973) neoclassical marriage market model, matching is positively assortative if types are complements: i.e. match output f(x, y) is supermodular in x and y. We reprise this famous result assuming timeintensive partner search and transferable output. We prove existence of a search equilibrium with a continuum of types, and then characterize matching. After showing that Becker’s conditions on match output no longer suffice for assortative matching, we find sufficient conditions valid for any search frictions and type distribution: supermodularity not only of output f , but also of log fx and log fxy. Symmetric submodularity conditions imply negatively assortative matching. Examples show these conditions are necessary.
’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Locating Bugs without Looking Back Conference Item

Bug localisation is a core program comprehension task in software maintenance: given the observation of a bug, where is it located in the source code files? Information retrieval (IR) approaches see a bug report as the query, and the source code files as the documents to be retrieved, ranked by relevance. Such approaches have the advantage of not requiring expensive static or dynamic analysis of the code. However, most of state-of-the-art IR approaches rely on project history, in particular previously fixed bugs and previous versions of the source code. We present a novel approach that directly scores each current file against the given report, thus not requiring past code and reports. The scoring is based on heuristics identified through manual inspection of a small set of bug reports. We compare our approach to five others, using their own five metrics on their own six open source projects. Out of 30 performance indicators, we improve 28. For example, on average we find one or more affected files in the top 10 ranked files for 77% of the bug reports. These results show the applicability of our approach to software projects without history.
Evolutionarily Driven Shifts in Communities with Intraguild Predation

Recent studies investigating feedbacks between evolution and ecology suggest that microevolution may affect community structure. Motivated by this, we use a quantitative genetics and Lotka-Volterra framework to understand the impact of eco-evolutionary feedbacks on an intraguild predation community in which the intraguild predator evolves between a phenotype specialized for attacking its competitor (the intraguild prey) and a phenotype specialized for attacking a common resource. We show that evolution can drive both sudden and gradual shifts in community structure. Evolutionary rescue of the community, in which evolution prevents the loss of species, occurs in two ways: (i) selection to a particular phenotype that supports coexistence and (ii) continuous evolution between prey- and resource-specialist phenotypes that support community-level Red Queen dynamics in which the community fluctuates between prey- and predator-dominated states. Paradoxically, the predator can evolve to extirpate itself from the community provided that the ecological dynamics support bistability. Strong trade-offs between specialist phenotypes can lead to trait-based alternative states of the community resembling either a food chain or exploitative competition. Finally, we show that rapid evolution can stabilize equilibria that are unstable for the ecological dynamics, whereas slow evolution can stabilize equilibria that are unstable for the evolutionary dynamics. Our results demonstrate that eco-evolutionary feedbacks can drive shifts in community structure and that the overall dynamics depend on the trade-off strength and evolutionary rate.
The relationship between personality, life events and healthy longevity: A comparison of U.S. and Japanese centenarians

This dissertation comprises of three manuscripts and compares a population-based sample of 239 U.S. centenarians from the Georgia Centenarians Study to 304 Japanese centenarians from the Tokyo Centenarian Study. The first study compared the most important life events reported by U.S. and Japanese centenarians. Two open-ended life events questions were categorized and grouped into different life event domains. Several cross-tabulations were computed to investigate culture and gender differences in most important life event domains. The main results suggest that events related to marriage were the most frequent event domains mentioned by U.S. centenarians. The Japanese sample was more likely to report historical events. Men from the U.S. were more likely to report events related to work and retirement compared to U.S. women, and U.S. women reported events related to family as the most important life events when compared to U.S. men. Japanese women considered events related to marriage, death and grief as the most important life events when compared to Japanese men. In addition, Japanese men reported events related to work and retirement as the most important life events. A cross-cultural difference was found in life events. U.S. centenarians were more likely to mention positive experiences related to marriage and children, whereas Japanese centenarians reported mostly negative and traumatic experiences such as historical events, death/grief, and work/retirement events. The second study investigated demographic and cultural mean differences among five NEO personality traits. In addition, it identified and compared across culture centenarians’ personality trait profiles in U.S. and Japanese centenarians. Several one-way analyses of variance were performed and latent profile analyses were conducted to identify personality trait profiles in
Unsupervised learning of compact 3D models based on the detection of recurrent structures

In this paper we describe a novel algorithm for constructing a compact representation of 3D laser range data. Our approach extracts an alphabet of local scans from the scene. The words of this alphabet are used to replace recurrent local 3D structures, which leads to a substantial compression of the entire point cloud. We optimize our model in terms of complexity and accuracy by minimizing the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). Experimental evaluations on large real-world data show that our method allows robots to accurately reconstruct environments with as few as 70 words.
The dental development in patients with Aperts syndrome.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this retrospective study was to quantify the level of dental developmental delay in a group of patients with Aperts syndrome when compared to matched controls. METHODS Twenty-six Dental Panoramic Tomographic (DPT) radiographs of patients with Apert syndrome attending Great Ormond Street Hospital were compared to controls (n = 29) from the Eastman Dental Hospital, UK. Dental development was assessed using the staging systems of Demirjian and Haavikko, and dental age (DA) was estimated using the weighted averages method. RESULTS Dental age, as estimated using the 12 stages of Haavikko and eight stages of Demirjian, suggested no statistical evidence of developmental delay between the Aperts and control group. CONCLUSIONS The hypothesis 'that there is no difference in the dental development of subjects with Apert syndrome, when compared to a group of matched controls', was accepted.
Accumulation of Advanced Glycation End Products Involved in Inflammation and Contributing to Severe Preeclampsia, in Maternal Blood, Umbilical Blood and Placental Tissues

Objective: To investigate the expression of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and the receptor for AGE (RAGEs) in maternal blood, umbilical blood and placental tissues in women with severe preeclampsia (sPE) as well as any association with inflammatory processes. Methods: The expressions of AGEs, RAGE, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF)-α and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM)-1 in placental tissues were measured using immunohistochemistry. The levels of AGEs, RAGE, TNF-α and VCAM-1 in maternal blood, umbilical blood and placental extracts were assessed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Placental RAGE, TNF-α and VCAM-1 mRNA expression levels were determined by PCR. Placental AGEs, RAGE, TNF-α and VCAM-1 protein levels were determined by western blotting. Results: The levels of AGEs, TNF-α and VCAM-1 in the maternal tissues and umbilical blood were significantly higher in the sPE group than in the normal pregnancy (NP) controls (p < 0.05). The serum level of sRAGE in the umbilical blood was lower in the sPE group than in the NP controls (p < 0.05), while sRAGE was higher in the maternal blood of sPE than in the NP (p < 0.05). The maternal serum levels of AGEs were positively correlated with that of TNF-α and VCAM-1 in the maternal blood. There were no correlations between the levels of RAGE, TNF-α or VCAM-1 in maternal blood or umbilical serum. There were no correlations between the levels of sRAGE and TNF-α or VCAM-1 in maternal blood or umbilical serum. The levels of AGEs were positively correlated with those of TNF-α and VCAM-1 in placental lysates. Conclusion: AGEs and RAGE appear to act as important mediators in regulating the inflammatory pathways of preeclampsia.
Modelling of impaired cerebral blood flow due to gaseous emboli

Bubbles introduced to the arterial circulation during invasive medical procedures can have devastating consequences for brain function but their effects are currently difficult to quantify. Here we present a Monte Carlo simulation investigating the impact of gas bubbles on cerebral blood flow. For the first time, this model includes realistic adhesion forces, bubble deformation, fluid dynamical considerations, and bubble dissolution. This allows investigation of the effects of buoyancy, solubility, and blood pressure on embolus clearance. Our results illustrate that blockages depend on several factors, including the number and size distribution of incident emboli, dissolution time and blood pressure. We found it essential to model the deformation of bubbles to avoid overestimation of arterial obstruction. Incorporation of buoyancy effects within our model slightly reduced the overall level of obstruction but did not decrease embolus clearance times. We found that higher blood pressures generate lower levels of obstruction and improve embolus clearance. Finally, we demonstrate the effects of gas solubility and discuss potential clinical applications of the model.