Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Process Variables on Microstructure in Laser-Deposited Materials

Bontha, Srikanth, Ph.D., Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Wright State University, 2006. The Effect of Process Variables on Microstructure in Laser-Deposited Materials. Laser deposition of titanium alloys is under consideration for aerospace applications, which require the consistent control of microstructure and resulting mechanical properties. To date, only limited experimental data exists to link deposition process variables (e.g., laser power and velocity) to resulting microstructure (e.g., grain size and morphology) in laser-deposited materials, and suitable microstructures have typically been obtained only by trial and error. In addition, it is unclear whether knowledge based on small-scale laser deposition processes (e.g., LENSTM) can be applied to large-scale (higher power) processes currently under development for commercial applications. Therefore, simulation-based methods are needed to predict the effects of process variables and size-scale on microstructure in laser-deposited titanium and other aerospace materials. The ability to predict and control microstructure in laser deposition processes requires an understanding of the thermal conditions at the onset of solidification. The focus of this work is the development of thermal process maps relating solidification cooling rate and thermal gradient (the key parameters controlling microstructure) to laser deposition process variables (laser power and velocity). The approach employs the well-known Rosenthal solution for a moving point heat source traversing an infinite substrate. Cooling rates and thermal gradients at the onset of solidification are numerically extracted from the Rosenthal solution throughout the depth of the melt pool, and dimensionless process maps are presented for both 2-D thin-wall and bulky 3-D geometries. Results for both small-scale (LENSTM) and large-scale (higher power) processes are plotted on solidification maps for predicting trends in grain morphology in laser-deposited Ti-6Al-4V. Although the Rosenthal predictions neglect the nonlinear effects of temperature-dependent properties and latent heat of transformation, a comparison with 2-D and 3-D nonlinear FEM results for both small-scale and large-scale processes suggests that they can provide reasonable estimates of trends in solidification
Nicotinamide Riboside Is a Major NAD+ Precursor Vitamin in Cow Milk.

BACKGROUND Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is a recently discovered NAD(+) precursor vitamin with a unique biosynthetic pathway. Although the presence of NR in cow milk has been known for more than a decade, the concentration of NR with respect to the other NAD(+) precursors was unknown. OBJECTIVE We aimed to determine NAD(+) precursor vitamin concentration in raw samples of milk from individual cows and from commercially available cow milk. METHODS LC tandem mass spectrometry and isotope dilution technologies were used to quantify NAD(+) precursor vitamin concentration and to measure NR stability in raw and commercial milk. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to test for NR binding to substances in milk. RESULTS Cow milk typically contained ∼12 μmol NAD(+) precursor vitamins/L, of which 60% was present as nicotinamide and 40% was present as NR. Nicotinic acid and other NAD(+) metabolites were below the limits of detection. Milk from samples testing positive for Staphylococcus aureus contained lower concentrations of NR (Spearman ρ = -0.58, P = 0.014), and NR was degraded by S. aureus Conventional milk contained more NR than milk sold as organic. Nonetheless, NR was stable in organic milk and exhibited an NMR spectrum consistent with association with a protein fraction in skim milk. CONCLUSIONS NR is a major NAD(+) precursor vitamin in cow milk. Control of S. aureus may be important to preserve the NAD(+) precursor vitamin concentration of milk.
OPTIMAL DYNAMIC NONLINEAR INCOME TAXATION UNDER LOOSE COMMITMENT

This paper examines an infinite-horizon model of nonlinear income taxation in which the probability that the government can commit is high, but not certain. In this “loose commitment” environment, we find that even a little uncertainty over whether the government can commit yields substantial effects on the optimal dynamic nonlinear income tax system. This result holds even though separating taxation remains optimal, as in the case of full commitment. Under an empirically plausible parameterization, our numerical simulations show that high-skilled individuals must be subsidized in the short run, despite the government's redistributive objective, unless the probability of commitment is higher than 98%. Loose commitment also reverses the short-run welfare effects of changes in most of the model's parameters, and yields some counterintuitive outcomes. For example, all individuals are worse off, rather than better off, in the short run when the proportion of high-skilled individuals in the economy increases.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Does Unhappiness Make You Sick? the Role of Affect and Neuroticism in the Experience of Common Physical Symptoms Affective State and Physical Symptoms

The relative strength of both affective state and the personality trait neuroticism in predicting common physical symptoms was tested. The authors used an event-sampling design to overcome methodologi-cal limitations of past research in the area. Contrary to much previous research, neuroticism was found to be unrelated to reports of physical symptoms, although it was found to be related to unpleasant affective state. Unpleasant affect bore a strong concurrent relation to the frequency of reported symptoms. Temporal relations between experiences of unpleasant affect and subsequent symptoms were found for some individuals, but wide individual variability was seen in both the strength and direction of this linkage. The findings suggest that when individuals are asked to report their subjective experiences of physical illness without the necessity to retrospect over significant periods of time, unpleasant affective state is more strongly related to experiences of symptoms than is the trait neuroticism. An important focus of research in health psychology has been the relation between personality and unpleasant affective states and major physical illness, including such ailments as asthma, ulcers, and heart disease (Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987; Suls & Rittenhouse, 1987). Recently, researchers have begun to explore this mind-body dynamic in the context of more common physical symptoms of minor illness that are regularly experienced in individuals' lives. Are unpleasant affect states predictive of minor physical illness? Some research suggests that it is. However, other research suggests that if a relation exists, it is inflated by the personality trait of neuroticism. The lack of consensus on this issue prompted the present study, which was designed to explore the relative influence of both of these factors on somatic health. Research has been accumulating that indicates that various emotional stressors can adversely affect immune function and potentially impair resistance to illness resulted in significant improvements to the presentation of this research. We extend gratitude and affection to Eun Jung Suh for help in conducting the study; thanks also to Rhonda Amsel, Jim Ramsay, and Yoshio Takane for statistical assistance. for example, using a laboratory emotion-induction procedure, found that the experience of unpleasant emotion promoted significant declines in mitogenic lymphocyte reactivity and increases in systolic blood pressure. A pleasant mood induction, however, did not lead to significant biological changes. Other research has explored the role of emotional state in reports of minor physical illness itself. Emmons (1991) found that daily symptoms were significantly correlated with unpleasant affect but …
A novel system design and implementation for realtime sensing and warning of roadway hazards round-the-clock

Though there exist ready-made DSRC/WiFi/3G/4G cellular systems for roadway communications, there are common defects in these systems for roadway safety oriented applications and the corresponding challenges remain unsolved for years, i.e., WiFi cannot work well in vehicular networks due to the high probability of packet loss caused by burst communications, which is a common phenomenon in roadway networks; 3G/4G cannot well support real-time communications due to the nature of their designs; DSRC lacks the support to roadway safety oriented applications with hard real-time and reliability requirements in the most recent study [1]. To solve the conflict between the capability limitations of existing systems and the ever-growing demands of roadway safety oriented communication applications, we propose a novel system design and implementation for realtime warnings of roadway hazards, e.g., physical hazards such as puddles, rocks, and pits on the road, and behavioral hazards such as lane changing, speeding, careless left-turn, etc. Specifically, our demo aims to provide hazard sensing and warnings to users close to a hazard on the road in a realtime and reliable manner. In our extensive experimental study, the latency is well controlled within the hard realtime requirement (100ms) for roadway safety applications given by NHTSA, and the reliability is proved to be improved by two orders of magnitude compared with existing experimental results [1]. To our best knowledge, it is the first system for roadway safety applications that provides guaranteed highly reliable packet delivery ratio of 99% within the strict hard-realtime requirement 100ms under various scenarios, e.g., highways, city areas, rural areas, tunnels, bridges. Even in the worst case that burst warnings coming from multiple neighboring vehicles at the same time, the experimental results still show that the system is able to stably receive 99% warning messages within the hard realtime requirement 100ms. Our design can be widely applied for roadway safety applications and facilitate the current research in both hardware and software design and further provide an opportunity to consolidate the existing work on a practical and easy-configurable low-cost roadway safety oriented system.
Delays in inactivation development and activation kinetics in myxicola giant axons

Na inactivation was studied in Myxicola (two-pulse procedure, 6-ms gap between conditioning and test pulses). Inactivation developed with an initial delay (range 130-817 microseconds) followed by a simple exponential decline (time constant tau c). Delays (deviations from a simple exponential) are seen only for brief conditioning pulses were gNa is slightly activated. Hodgkin-Huxley kinetics with series resistance, Rs, predict deviations from a simple exponential only for conditioning pulses that substantially activate gNa. Reducing INa fivefold (Tris substitution) had no effect on either tau c or delay. Delay in not generated by Rs or by contamination from activation development. The slowest time constant in Na tails is approximately 1 ms (Goldman and Hahin, 1978) and the gap was 6 ms. Shortening the gap to 2 ms had no effect on either tau c or delay. Delay is a true property of the channel. Delay decreased with more positive conditioning potentials, and also decreased approximately proportionally with time to peak gNa during the conditioning pulse, as expected for sequentially coupled activation and inactivation. In a few cases the difference between Na current values for brief conditioning pulses and the tau c exponential could be measured. Difference values decayed exponentially with time constant tau m. The inactivation time course is described by a model that assumes a process with the kinetics of gNa activation as a precursor to inactivation.
Danish Nationwide Data Reveal a Link between Diabetes Mellitus, Diabetic Retinopathy, and Glaucoma

Aims. To determine the association between treatment against diabetes mellitus (DM) and treatment with antiglaucomatous drugs in the entire Danish population and to investigate the comorbidity between DM and its complications with antiglaucomatous treatment. Methods. Retrospective nationwide cohort study with data over a 16-year follow-up period. The National Danish Registry of Medicinal Products Statistics was used to identify all claimed prescriptions for antiglaucomatous medication and DM drugs. ICD-10 classifications were furthermore used to identify comorbidities between antiglaucomatous medication and the DM complications, diabetic retinopathy (DR), and nephropathy. Results. A total of 6,343,747 individuals in the period between 1996 and 2012 were analyzed. The overall incidence rate of new-onset glaucoma patients was 0.07 per 1000 person-years for the reference population compared to 36 per 1000 person-years for all diagnosed DM cases. Patients treated with DM drugs had about two times higher relative risk of glaucoma, when adjusting for a range of factors. The presence of DR alone or in combination with nephropathy increased the risk of glaucoma. Conclusions. The present study reports a strong association between DM and onset of glaucoma treatment in the entire Danish population.
Fast joint source-channel decoding of convolutional coded Markov sequences with Monge property

This work addresses the problem of joint source-channel decoding of a Markov sequence which is first encoded by a source code, then encoded by a convolutional code, and sent through a noisy memoryless channel. It is shown that for Markov sources satisfying the so-called Monge property, both the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) sequence decoding, as well as the soft output Max-Log-MAP decoding can be accelerated by a factor of K without compromising the optimality, where K is the size of the Markov source alphabet. The key to achieve a higher decoding speed is a convenient organization of computations at the decoder combined with a fast matrix search technique enabled by the Monge property. The same decrease in complexity follows, as a by-product of the development, for the soft output Max-Log-MAP joint source channel decoding in the case when the convolutional coder is absent, result which was not known previously.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy in patients with heart failure: systematic review

ABSTRACT CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has emerged as the predominant electrical treatment strategy for patients on pharmacological therapy who present heart failure with wide QRS and low ejection fraction. The objective of this study was to investigate whether cardiac resynchronization therapy improved mortality and morbidity among patients with heart failure. METHODS: This was a systematic review using the Cochrane Collaboration’s methodology. The online search strategy included the Cochrane Library, Medline (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online), Lilacs (Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde) and cardiology congresses from 1990 to 2006. The criteria for considering studies for this review were as follows:-types of studies: randomized controlled trials; types of interventions: cardiac resynchronization therapy compared with other therapies; types of participants: patients with heart failure with low ejection fraction and wide QRS; outcomes: death or hospitalization. RESULTS: Seven trials met the selection criteria. The risk of death due to congestive heart failure was nonsignificant: relative risk (RR), 0.79; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60 to 1.03. There was an absolute risk reduction of 4% in all-cause mortality for the experimental group [RR 0.70; CI: 0.60 to 0.83; number needed to treat (NNT) 25]; sudden cardiac death showed a statistically significant difference favoring the experimental group, with absolute risk reduction of 1% (CI: 0.46 to 0.96; RR 0.67; NNT 100). There was an absolute risk reduction of 9% for hospitalization due to heart failure (RR 0.64; CI: 0.50 to 0.80; NNT 11) in the experimental group. CONCLUSIONS: Patients receiving CRT had a significantly lower risk of hospitalization due to heart failure, but death rates due to heart failure were similar.
ARC: the analytical rate control scheme for real-time traffic in wireless networks

Next-generation wireless Internet (NGWI) is expected to provide a wide range of services including real-time multimedia to mobile users. However, the real-time multimedia traffic transport requires rate control deployment to protect shared Internet from unfairness and further congestion collapse. The transmission rate control method must also achieve high throughput and satisfy multimedia requirements such as delay or jitter bound. However, the existing solutions are mostly for the wired Internet, and hence, they do not address the challenges in the wireless environments which are characterized by high bit error rates. In this paper, a new analytical rate control (ARC) protocol for real-time multimedia traffic over wireless networks is presented. It is intended to achieve high throughput and multimedia support for real-time traffic flows while preserving fairness to the TCP sources sharing the same wired link resources. Based on the end-to-end path model, the desired behavior of a TCP source over lossy links is captured via renewal theory. The resulting asymptotic throughput equation is designated as the driving equation for the proposed rate control method. Performance evaluation via simulation experiments reveals that ARC achieves high throughput and meets multimedia traffic expectations without violating good citizenship rules for the shared Internet.
Generic absoluteness and the continuum

Let Hω2 denote the collection of all sets whose transitive closure has size at most א1. Thus, (Hω2 ,∈) is a natural model of ZFC minus the power-set axiom which correctly estimates many of the problems left open by the smaller and better understood structure (Hω1 ,∈) of hereditarily countable sets. One of such problems is, for example, the Continuum Hypothesis. It is largely for this reason that the structure (Hω2 ,∈) has recently received a considerable amount of study (see e.g. [15] and [16]). Recall the well-known Levy-Schoenfield absoluteness theorem ([10, §2]) which states that for every Σ0−sentence φ(x, a) with one free variable x and parameter a from Hω2 , if there is an x such that φ(x, a) holds then there is such an x in Hω2 , or in other words, (Hω2 ,∈) ≺1 (V,∈). (1)
Multiple sources of uncertainty affect metrics for ranking conservation risk under climate change

Ecological niche modelling is one of the main tools that allows for the incorporation of climate change effects into conservation planning. For example, ecological niche model predictions can be used to rank species by degree of predicted future habitat loss. While many studies have considered how different modelling decisions contribute to uncertainty in niche model outputs, here we evaluate how metrics used to rank species by conservation risk respond to the choice of global climate models, greenhouse gas emission scenarios, suitable versus unsuitable threshold values, and the degree of model complexity.
Effects of viscosity ratio and compatibilizers on the morphology and mechanical properties of polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene blends

A comprehensive experimental study was carried out to investigate the effects of 1) viscosity ratio, 2) temperature on the viscosity ratio, 3) extruder screw location, and 4) compatibilizers on the morphology of bisphenol-A-polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (PC/ABS). Blends were prepared by utilizing a co-rotating twin screw extruder and in-situ morphology obtained via the screw pullout technique. A plot of the PC/ABS viscosity ratio, η PC /η ABS , versus the shear rate showed a gradual rise in the curve up to a critical shear rate and thereafter displayed asymptotic character. Contrary to premise, η PC /η ABS decreased with increasing temperature. This was elucidated by the melt viscosity of PC being thermally more sensitive than ABS over the temperature range investigated. As expected, the plot of the average domain size versus the viscosity ratio gave a concave up curve with a minimum when the viscosity ratio was close to unity. The morphology evolution along the screw of a twin screw extruder was examined. When sections of the kneading block were examined, the minor phase domains gradually showed reduction in size toward the extruder die, and the smallest domain was realized at the end of the block, namely, the flow impeding left-handed screw element. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) exhibited the greatest ABS domain size reduction, and annealed samples showed that it suppressed coalescence.
Short-term Effects of a Proprioceptive Training Session with Unstable Platforms on the Monopodal Stabilometry of Athletes

To analyze the short-term effects of a proprioceptive session on the monopodal stabilometry of athletes. [Subjects] Thirty-seven athletes were divided into a control group (n=17) and an experimental group (n=20). [Methods] Both groups performed a conventional warm-up, after which a 25-minute proprioceptive session on ustable platforms was carried out only by the experimental group. Before the training session, all athletes carried out a single-leg stabilometry test which was repeated just after training, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours and 24 hours later. [Results] Analysis of covariance (α=0.05) revealed that the experimental group had lower values than the control group in length and velocity of center of pressure (CoP) of left-monopodal stance and in velocity of CoP of right-monopodal stance in post-training measurements. Also, the experimental group had values closer to zero for the CoP position in the mediolateral and anteroposterior directions of left-monopodal stance (Xmeanl and Ymeanl) and the anteroposterior direction in on right-monopodal stance (Ymeanr) in post-training measurements. Within-group analysis of Xmeanl and Ymeanl, length and velocity of CoP in right-monopodal stance showed continuous fluctuations of values between sequential measurements in the control group. [Conclusion] Proprioceptive training on unstable platfoms after a warm-up stabilizes the position of CoP in the anteroposterior and mediolateral directions and decreases CoP movements in short-term monopodal stability of athletes.
Some Results Concerning Voronoi's Continued Fraction Over â(v*D )

Let D be a cube-free integer and let eq be the fundamental unit of the pure cubic field S(Vfl ). It is well known that Voronoi's algorithm can be used to determine e0. In this work several results concerning Voronoi's algorithm in â(Vfl ) are derived and it is shown how these results can be used to increase the speed of calculating «0 for many values of D. Among these D values are those such that D ( > 3) is not a prime = 8 (mod 9) and the class number of &(V2) ) is not divisible by 3. A frequency table of all class numbers not divisible by 3 for all ©(VI) ) with D < 2 X 103 is also presented.
Perceived Responsibility in Juvenile Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: An Experimental Manipulation

Investigated the role of responsibility in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in juveniles with the disorder. This study experimentally manipulated perceived responsibility during a behavioral avoidance task (BAT) and examined the effects on levels of perceived probability and severity of harm, distress, ritualizing, and avoidance. Further, the association between OCD severity, anxiety, and depression with cognitive perceptions of threat was investigated. Finally, this study examined whether cognitive -behavioral treatment (CBT) would decrease ratings across all measures during a BAT. Results indicated that the manipulation successfully inflated responsibility, however this did not lead to increased ratings of distress or of probability or severity of harm. Anxiety was negatively correlated with responsibility; however, there were no significant correlations between depression and the cognitive variables. Following CBT, there were significant reductions across measures during the BAT.