Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetic charge and ordering in kagome spin ice

We present a numerical study of magnetic ordering in spin ice on kagome, a two-dimensional lattice of corner-sharing triangles. The magnet has six ground states and the ordering occurs in two stages, as one might expect for a six-state clock model. In spin ice with short-range interactions up to second neighbours, there is an intermediate critical phase separated from the paramagnetic and ordered phases by Kosterlitz–Thouless (KT) transitions. In dipolar spin ice, the intermediate phase has long-range order of staggered magnetic charges. The high- and low-temperature phase transitions are of the Ising and 3-state Potts universality classes, respectively. Freeze-out of defects in the charge order produce a very large spin correlation length in the intermediate phase. As a result of that, the lower-temperature transition appears to be of the KT type.
Investigation of a novel approach for the cross-linking characterization of SU-8 photoresist materials by means of optical dispersion measurements

The increase in efficiency and precision in the production of semiconductor structures under the use of polymeric materials like SU-8 is crucial in securing the technological innovation within this industry. The manufacturing of structures on wafers demands a high quality of materials, tools and production processes. In particular, deviations in the materials' parameters (e.g. cross-linking state, density or mechanical properties) could lead to subsequent problems such as a reduced lifetime of structures and systems. In particular problems during the soft and post-exposure bake process can lead to an inhomogeneous distribution of material properties. This paper describes a novel approach for the characterization of SU-8 material properties in relation to a second epoxy-based material of different cross-linking by the measurement of optical dispersion within the material. A white-light interferometer was used. In particular the setup consisted of a white-light source, a Michelson-type interferometer and a spectrometer. The investigation of the dispersion characteristics was carried out by the detection of the equalization wavelength for different positions of the reference arm in a range from 400 to 900 nm. The measured time delay due to dispersion ranges from 850 to 1050 ps/m. For evaluation purposes a 200μm SU-8 sample was characterized in the described setup regarding its dispersion characteristics in relation to bulk epoxy material. The novel measurement approach allowed a fast and high-resolution material characterization for SU-8 micro structures which was suitable for integration in production lines. The outlook takes modifications of the experimental setup regarding on-wafer measurements into account.
Tunable Bandgap in Bilayer Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons: Concurrent Influence of Electric Field and Uniaxial Strain

In this paper, the effect of uniaxial strain on the electronic properties of bilayer armchair graphene nanoribbons (BLAGNRs) is theoretically investigated for the first time. Our calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) reveal the tunable nature of the electronic properties of BLAGNRs with the application of uniaxial strain. We further explore the simultaneous effect of perpendicular electric field and uniaxial strain on the electronic bandgap. The results show that as long as the strain induced bandgap is smaller than a critical value of 0.2 eV, the electric field can significantly modulate the bandgap. In addition, we modified nearest neighbor tight-binding (TB) parameters to include the effect of the hydrogen passivation, which results in an excellent agreement between the electronic bandstructures obtained from DFT and TB calculations. Finally, by employing the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, an on-off conductance ratio as high as 105 is predicted for strained BLAGNRs.
Recurrence rate of different techniques for repair of coarctation of aorta: A 10 years experience

Background and Aim: The main goal of this study was to assess the frequency of recurrent coarctation after repair using different surgical methods. Methods: Surgical results of repairs for coarctation of aorta (Co-A) in 188 patients under the age 14 years who were treated in Rajaee Heart Center, Tehran, Iran, were evaluated retrospectively. The most common methods included patch-graft aortoplasty (59%), resection with end-to-end anastomosis (20.7%) and subclavian flap aortoplasty (SCFA) (16.5%). The remaining patients underwent bypass tube graft and excision with placement of a tube graft. Seventy eight percent had discrete stenosis while 22% had long segment narrowing. The patients were followed for 81.6±32.8 months. Results: The overall mortality rate was 2.6%. The highest incidence rate of recoarctation was found in the patch-graft aortoplasty group (12.7%) and the lowest was found in SCFA (3.2%). The incidence of recoarctation in long-segment lesions was significantly higher than that in the discrete ones (30% vs. 4%, P<0.001). In patients <1 year, the incidence of recoarctation was lower than that in the other age groups. Conclusion: The patch-graft aortoplasty technique had the highest incidence of recoarctation and SCFA had the lowest rate. Long-segment Co-A had a higher chance of recoarctation. In contrast to some previous reports, the incidence of recoarctation was not higher in the age below 1 year.
Processing enhancers for rotational molding of polyethylene

Rotational molding is a zero shear process used to manufacture hollow plastic parts. One disadvantage of this process is long cycle times, which are significantly affected by the sintering rates of thermoplastic powder. The objective of this work was to evaluate low molecular weight additives as sintering enhancers for polyethylene and to validate the results in rotational molding. The following additives were blended with linear low-density polyethylene: mineral oil, glycerol monostearate and pentaerythritol monooleate. The additives resulted in decreased melt viscosity and/or elasticity at low shear rate. The reduction in melt elasticity was particularly significant. Sintering studies confirmed that the additives resulted in significantly faster coalescence. In uniaxial rotational molding, the decreased melt viscosity and elasticity obtained with mineral oil were observed to result in much faster densification and bubble removal. Part thickness was uniform and there was no warpage. Adding mineral oil to polyethylene reduced the cycle time in uniaxial rotational molding and the peak impact strength was identical to that obtained without any additive. Biaxial rotational molding experiments confirmed that the use of mineral oil resulted in shorter cycle time without sacrificing peak impact strength.
Expression Profiles and Clinical Correlations of Degradome Components in the Tumor Microenvironment of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Purpose: Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) are characterized by high morbidity and mortality, largely due to the high invasive and metastatic potential of these tumors, high recurrence rates, and low treatment responses. Proteinases have been implicated in several aspects of tumor growth and metastasis in a broad range of tumors including HNSCC. Experimental Design: Comprehensive expression profiling of proteinases [matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), A disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAMs), and ADAMs with thrombospondin motif (ADAMTSs)] and their inhibitors [tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMPs)] was done using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR analysis of a large cohort of tissue samples representing the tumor (n = 83), the invasive margin (n = 41), and the adjacent tissue (n = 41) from 83 HNSCC patients, along with normal tissue controls (n = 13), as well as cell lines established from tumors of 34 HNSCC patients. Results: The results show specifically elevated gene expression of several proteinases, including MMP1, MMP3, MMP10, and MMP13 within tumor tissue and peritumoral adjacent tissue. In addition, the results identify several novel HNSCC-associated proteinases, including ADAM8, ADAM9, ADAM17, ADAM28, ADAMTS1, ADAMTS8, and ADAMTS15. There were also significant differences in proteinase expression based on clinical parameters, i.e., tumor location, grade, and local invasion. MMP13 expression was significantly higher in large (>4 cm) locally invasive tumors (P < 0.05). MMP9 expression was significantly decreased in tumors with regional metastasis, whereas increased expression of ADAM8 was noted in the metastatic tumors (P < 0.001 for both). Conclusions: These findings suggest the HNSCC degradome as a valuable source of diagnostic, predictive, and prognostic molecular markers for these malignant tumors. Clin Cancer Res; 16(7); 2022–35. ©2010 AACR.
Exposure to Excess Estradiol or Leptin during Pregnancy Increases Mammary Cancer Risk and Prevents Parity-Induced Protective Genomic Changes in Rats

Using a preclinical model, we investigated whether excess estradiol (E2) or leptin during pregnancy affects maternal mammary tumorigenesis in rats initiated by administering carcinogen 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA) on day 50. Two weeks later, rats were mated, and pregnant dams were treated daily with 10 μg of 17β-estradiol, 15 μg of leptin, or vehicle from gestation day 8 to 19. Tumor development was assessed separately during weeks 1 to 12 and 13 to 22 after DMBA administration, because pregnancy is known to induce a transient increase in breast cancer risk, followed by a persistent reduction. Parous rats developed less (32%) mammary tumors than nulliparous rats (59%, P < 0.001), and the majority (93%) of tumors in the parous rats appeared before week 13 (vs. 41% in nulliparous rats), indicating that pregnancy induced a transient increase in breast cancer risk. Parous rats exposed to leptin (final tumor incidence 65%) or E2 (45%) during pregnancy developed mammary tumors throughout the tumor-monitoring period, similar to nulliparous control rats, and the incidence was significantly higher in both the leptin- and E2-exposed dams after week 12 than in the vehicle-exposed parous dams (P < 0.001). The mammary glands of the exposed parous rats contained significantly more proliferating cells (P < 0.001). In addition, the E2- or leptin-treated parous rats did not exhibit the protective genomic signature induced by pregnancy and seen in the parous control rats. Specifically, these rats exhibited downregulation of genes involved in differentiation and immune functions and upregulation of genes involved in angiogenesis, growth, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Cancer Prev Res; 6(11); 1194–211. ©2013 AACR.
Kolmogorov's spline network

In this paper, an innovative neural-network architecture is proposed and elucidated. This architecture, based on the Kolmogorov's superposition theorem (1957) and called the Kolmogorov's spline network (KSN), utilizes more degrees of adaptation to data than currently used neural-network architectures (NNAs). By using cubic spline technique of approximation, both for activation and internal functions, more efficient approximation of multivariate functions can be achieved. The bound on approximation error and number of adjustable parameters, derived in this paper, favorably compares KSN with other one-hidden layer feedforward NNAs. The training of KSN, using the ensemble approach and the ensemble multinet, is described. A new explicit algorithm for constructing cubic splines is presented.
Toxic effects of cisplatin alone and in combination with gentamicin in stria vascularis of guinea pigs

The toxic effects on the stria vascularis of treatment with cisplatin alone and combined with the aminoglycoside antibiotic, gentamicin, were studied in guinea pigs. The toxicity induced in albino and pigmented guinea pigs was investigated morphologically with light and transmission electron microscopy, and functionally by brainstem‐evoked response audiometry. The results of hearing thresholds were variable, ranging from no change in one ear in some of the animals to a hearing loss of 20 dB in one or both ears when treated with low‐dose cisplatin alone or in combination with gentamicin. Bilateral deafness resulted from high‐dose cisplatin combined with gentamicin. The combined treatment produced prominent structural damage in the stria vascularis. The results should be considered when aminoglycoside therapy is required in conjunction with cisplatin.
Don't Trust Satellite Phones: A Security Analysis of Two Satphone Standards

There is a rich body of work related to the security aspects of cellular mobile phones, in particular with respect to the GSM and UMTS systems. To the best of our knowledge, however, there has been no investigation of the security of satellite phones (abbr. sat phones). Even though a niche market compared to the G2 and G3 mobile systems, there are several 100,000 sat phone subscribers worldwide. Given the sensitive nature of some of their application domains (e.g., natural disaster areas or military campaigns), security plays a particularly important role for sat phones. In this paper, we analyze the encryption systems used in the two existing (and competing) sat phone standards, GMR-1 and GMR-2. The first main contribution is that we were able to completely reverse engineer the encryption algorithms employed. Both ciphers had not been publicly known previously. We describe the details of the recovery of the two algorithms from freely available DSP-firmware updates for sat phones, which included the development of a custom disassembler and tools to analyze the code, and extending prior work on binary analysis to efficiently identify cryptographic code. We note that these steps had to be repeated for both systems, because the available binaries were from two entirely different DSP processors. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, we found that the GMR-1 cipher can be considered a proprietary variant of the GSM A5/2 algorithm, whereas the GMR-2 cipher is an entirely new design. The second main contribution lies in the cryptanalysis of the two proprietary stream ciphers. We were able to adopt known A5/2 cipher text-only attacks to the GMR-1 algorithm with an average case complexity of 232 steps. With respect to the GMR-2 cipher, we developed a new attack which is powerful in a known-plaintext setting. In this situation, the encryption key for one session, i.e., one phone call, can be recovered with approximately 50-65 bytes of key stream and a moderate computational complexity. A major finding of our work is that the stream ciphers of the two existing satellite phone systems are considerably weaker than what is state-of-the-art in symmetric cryptography.
Current concepts in F18 FDG PET/CT-based radiation therapy planning for lung cancer

Radiation therapy is an important component of cancer therapy for early stage as well as locally advanced lung cancer. The use of F18 FDG PET/CT has come to the forefront of lung cancer staging and overall treatment decision-making. FDG PET/CT parameters such as standard uptake value and metabolic tumor volume provide important prognostic and predictive information in lung cancer. Importantly, FDG PET/CT for radiation planning has added biological information in defining the gross tumor volume as well as involved nodal disease. For example, accurate target delineation between tumor and atelectasis is facilitated by utilizing PET and CT imaging. Furthermore, there has been meaningful progress in incorporating metabolic information from FDG PET/CT imaging in radiation treatment planning strategies such as radiation dose escalation based on standard uptake value thresholds as well as using respiratory-gated PET and CT planning for improved target delineation of moving targets. In addition, PET/CT-based follow-up after radiation therapy has provided the possibility of early detection of local as well as distant recurrences after treatment. More research is needed to incorporate other biomarkers such as proliferative and hypoxia biomarkers in PET as well as integrating metabolic information in adaptive, patient-centered, tailored radiation therapy.
The Model of Fuzzy Variable Precision Rough Sets

The fuzzy rough set (FRS) model has been introduced to handle databases with real values. However, FRS was sensitive to misclassification and perturbation (here misclassification means error or missing values in classification, and perturbation means small changes of numerical data). The variable precision rough sets (VPRSs) model was introduced to handle databases with misclassification. However, it could not effectively handle the real-valued datasets. Now, it is valuable from theoretical and practical aspects to combine FRS and VPRS so that a powerful tool, which not only can handle numerical data but also is less sensitive to misclassification and perturbation, can be developed. In this paper, we set up a model named fuzzy VPRSs (FVPRSs) by combining FRS and VPRS with the goal of making FRS a special case. First, we study the knowledge representation ways of FRS and VPRS, and then, propose the set approximation operators of FVPRS. Second, we employ the discernibility matrix approach to investigate the structure of attribute reductions in FVPRS and develop an algorithm to find all reductions. Third, in order to overcome the NP-complete problem of finding all reductions, we develop some fast heuristic algorithms to obtain one near-optimal attribute reduction. Finally, we compare FVPRS with RS, FRS, and several flexible RS-based approaches with respect to misclassification and perturbation. The experimental comparisons show the feasibility and effectiveness of FVPRS.
Morphogenesis of blood vessels in the head muscles of avian embryo: Spatial, temporal, and VEGF expression analyses

Adult skeletal muscle is a highly vascularized tissue, but the development of intramuscular endothelial networks has not been well studied. In quail embryos, QH1‐positive angioblasts are present and moving throughout myogenic head mesoderm before the onset of primary myotube formation. On day 5 of incubation, concurrent with early myotube formation and aggregation, angioblasts establish a transient vascular plexus surrounding the myogenic condensations. Between days 5 and 9, the intramuscular vessels form an irregular network of endothelial cords and patent channels and only later are the parallel arrays of capillaries characteristic of adult muscles established. Microinjections using India ink, QH1, and Mercox resin reveal that these intramuscular capillaries are typically not connected to systemic vessels of the head until day 10, which is near the end of primary myogenesis and corresponds to the onset of muscular function. Morphometric analyses performed during primary myogenesis stages show a decrease in muscle cell density but no significant changes in intramuscular vascular density between days 5 and 9. This finding was surprising, as it is generally assumed that muscle growth requires elevated oxygen and nutrient levels. Moreover, there are no significant morphometric differences in vascular supply to embryonic fast and slow muscles. Endothelial tissue density is similar in slow muscles (oculorotatory, e.g., lateral rectus), fast muscles (mandibular depressor), and mixed muscles, in which the fiber types can be interspersed (jaw adductors) or segregated (branchiomandibular). Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein is abundant in myotubes but not endothelial cells within both fast and slow head muscles at days 7 and 9. However, in some mixed muscles, only a minority of myotubes, which do not correspond to one specific fiber type, express VEGF. These results document a dynamic set of intramuscular and perimuscular angiogenic reorganizations during avian head myogenesis. Thus far, no vasculogenic distinctions between fast and slow muscles have been observed, although muscle heterogeneity in VEGF expression is evident. Developmental Dynamics 227:470–483, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Negative control of BAK1 by protein phosphatase 2A during plant innate immunity

Recognition of pathogen‐associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) by surface‐localized pattern‐recognition receptors (PRRs) activates plant innate immunity, mainly through activation of numerous protein kinases. Appropriate induction of immune responses must be tightly regulated, as many of the kinases involved have an intrinsic high activity and are also regulated by other external and endogenous stimuli. Previous evidences suggest that PAMP‐triggered immunity (PTI) is under constant negative regulation by protein phosphatases but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we show that protein Ser/Thr phosphatase type 2A (PP2A) controls the activation of PRR complexes by modulating the phosphostatus of the co‐receptor and positive regulator BAK1. A potential PP2A holoenzyme composed of the subunits A1, C4, and B’η/ζ inhibits immune responses triggered by several PAMPs and anti‐bacterial immunity. PP2A constitutively associates with BAK1 in planta. Impairment in this PP2A‐based regulation leads to increased steady‐state BAK1 phosphorylation, which can poise enhanced immune responses. This work identifies PP2A as an important negative regulator of plant innate immunity that controls BAK1 activation in surface‐localized immune receptor complexes.
Laparoscopic Ablation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Cirrhotic Patients Unsuitable for Liver Resection or Percutaneous Treatment: A Cohort Study

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic ablation for cirrhotic HCC patients. Between January 2004 and December 2009, laparoscopic ablation was applied prospectively in 169 consecutive HCC patients (median age 62 years, 43% hepatitis C positive) considered ineligible for liver resection and/or percutaneous ablation. There was clinically relevant portal hypertension in 72% of cases. A significant proportion of subjects (50%) had multinodular tumors or nodules larger than 25 mm. The main ablation techniques used were radiofrequency in 103 patients (61%), microwave ablation in 8 (5%), and ethanol injection in 58 (34%). The primary endpoint was 3-year survival. There was no perioperative mortality. The overall morbidity rate was 25%. The median postoperative hospital stay was 3 days (range 1–19 days). Patients survived a median 33 months with a 3-year survival rate of 47%. Cox's multivariate analysis identified patient age, presence of diabetes, albumin ≤37 g/l, and alpha-fetoprotein >400 µg/l as significant preoperative predictors of survival, while the chance to undergo liver transplantation and postoperative ascites were the only independent postoperative predictor of survival. Laparoscopic ablation is a safe and effective therapeutic option for selected HCC patients ineligible for liver resection and/or percutaneous ablation.