Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determination of Stress Intensity Factors in Cracked Bonded Composite Joints

In this paper, a method is presented that facilitates the determination of stress intensity factors in composite bonded joints with interfacial or interlaminar cracks. The method is based on a global/local concept, where the displacements and stresses away from the crack tip are found by a conventional finite element analysis. In the neighborhood of the crack tip singularity, where the finite element results alone no longer converge, an elasticity solution is constructed using an eigenfunction expansion of the stresses and displacements. It was shown that the method allows accurate determination of stresses and stress intensity factors at the crack tip (within 5% of reference solutions) with a relatively small computational effort by using a coarse FE mesh. In addition, the method does not require special finitelements and can be used with any existing finite element code. An equivalent intensity factor [ILLEGIBLE] that captures the combined effect of KI and KII on failure was defined. Numerical results indicated that, out of various interfacial and interlaminar cracks studied, the largest value of the equivalent intensity factor occurs at the interlaminar crack in the first ply interface of the adherend near the adhesive, but not at the adherend-adhesive interface. These results are consistent with the experimental observation that failure of composite bonded joints typically occurs by delamination of the adherend near, but not at, the adhesive.
Long-Term Performance Assessment of Asphalt Concrete Pavements Using the Third Scale Model Mobile Loading Simulator and Fiber Reinforced Asphalt Concrete

LEE, SUGJOON. Long-Term Performance Assessment of Asphalt Concrete Pavements Using the Third Scale Model Mobile Loading Simulator and Fiber Reinforced Asphalt Concrete (Under the direction of Dr. Y. R. Kim, Dr. R. H. Borden, and Dr. J. P. Rust). Long-term pavement performance such as fatigue and rutting is investigated using the third scale Model Mobile Loading Simulator (MMLS3). Prediction algorithms are proposed that can account for the loading rate of MMLS3 and temperature variation along the depth of pavement. In a separate study, influence of fibers on the fatigue cracking resistance is studied. In this research, laboratory asphalt pavement construction technique, sensor instrumentation, and test conditions are evaluated to establish effective test protocols for fatigue cracking and rutting evaluation using the MMLS3. The investigated results present that: (1) the MMLS3 with wheel wandering system can induce the realistic fatigue (alligator pattern) cracks; (2) using wavelet correlation method (WCM), fatigue damage growth and microdamage healing are observed; (3) the algorithm for the fatigue life prediction of laboratory pavement is established using the indirect tension testing program and linear cumulative damage theory; (4) the MMLS3 performs a rapid assessment of the rutting potential under controlled conditions; (5) the predictive algorithm predicts rutting performance of asphalt pavements loaded by the MMLS3 using the repetitive cyclic triaxial compression testing program. It was found that fiber inclusion can improve the mechanical properties of asphalt concrete. Single nylon fiber pullout test was used to investigate debonding and pulling behavior. As for indirect tension strength tests, asphalt concrete containing nylon fibers showed the potential of improving fatigue cracking resistance by an increase of the fracture energy. LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF ASPHALT CONCRETE PAVEMENTS USING THE THIRD SCALE MODEL MOBILE LOADING SIMULATOR AND FIBER REINFORCED ASPHALT CONCRETE by SUGJOON LEE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy DEPARTMENTS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING AND FIBER AND POLYMER SCIENCE North Carolina State University 2003 APPROVED BY: ______________________________ _____________________________ Dr. Y. R. Kim Dr. J. P. Rust Co-Chair of Advisory Committee Co-Chair of Advisory Committee in Department of Civil Engineering in Fiber and Polymer Science ______________________________ ____________________________ Dr. R. H. Borden Dr. H. Hamouda Co-Chair of Advisory Committee in Department of Civil Engineering ____________________________ Dr. M. N. Guddati
Phase II study of nedaplatin and docetaxel in patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

BACKGROUND The treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung has not advanced sufficiently. Nedaplatin is a second-generation platinum compound that is active against squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, with a response rate of ~40%. PATIENTS AND METHODS Eligible patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lung were treated with docetaxel (60 mg/m(2)) and nedaplatin (100 mg/m(2)) administered i.v. on day 1; these doses were determined in an earlier phase I study. The treatment cycles were repeated every 3 weeks. The primary end point was the response rate, and the secondary end points were overall survival, progression-free survival, and toxicity. RESULTS Twenty-one patients were enrolled. Eighteen of the patients were male, and the median age was 67 years. The objective response rate was 62%. The median progression-free survival time was 7.4 months. The median survival time was 16.1 months, and the 1-year survival rate was 66.7% (95% confidence interval 46.5% to 86.8%). The most common adverse event was neutropenia (grade 3/4, 86%). Non-hematological toxic effects were relatively mild. One patient died of sepsis. CONCLUSIONS Combination chemotherapy with nedaplatin and docetaxel is highly active and has an acceptable toxicity. Further investigation of nedaplatin and docetaxel is warranted.
Differences in Resuscitation in Morbidly Obese Burn Patients May Contribute to High Mortality

The rising number of obese patients poses new challenges for burn care. These may include adjustments in calculations of burn size, resuscitation, ventilator wean, nutritional goals as well as challenges in mobilization. The authors have focused this observational study on resuscitation in the obese patient population in the first 48 hours after burn injury. Previous trauma studies suggest a prolonged time to reach end points of resuscitation in the obese compared to nonobese injured patients. The authors hypothesize that obese patients have worse outcomes after thermal injury and that differences in the response to resuscitation contribute to this disparity. The authors retrospectively analyzed data prospectively collected in a multicenter trial to compare resuscitation and outcomes in patients stratified by National Institutes of Health/World Health Organization body mass index (BMI) classification (BMI: normal weight, 18.5–24.9; overweight, 25–29.9, obese, 30–39.9; morbidly obese, ≥40). Because of the distribution of body habitus in the obese, total burn size was recalculated for all patients by using the method proposed by Neaman and compared with Lund–Browder estimates. The authors analyzed patients by BMI class for fluids administered and end points of resuscitation at 24 and 48 hours. Multivariate analysis was used to compare morbidity and mortality across BMI groups. The authors identified 296 adult patients with a mean TBSA of 41%. Patient and injury characteristics were similar across BMI categories. No significant differences were observed in burn size calculations by using Neaman vs Lund–Browder formulas. Although resuscitation volumes exceeded the predicted formula in all BMI categories, higher BMI was associated with less fluid administered per actual body weight (P = .001). Base deficit on admission was highest in the morbidly obese group at 24 and 48 hours. Furthermore, the morbidly obese patients did not correct their metabolic acidosis to the extent of their lower BMI counterparts (P values .04 and .03). Complications and morbidities across BMI groups were similar, although examination of organ failure scores indicated more severe organ dysfunction in the morbidly obese group. Compared with being normal weight, being morbidly obese was an independent risk factor for death (odds ratio = 10.1; confidence interval, 1.94–52.5; P = .006). Morbidly obese patients with severe burns tend to receive closer to predicted fluid resuscitation volumes for their actual weight. However, this patient group has persistent metabolic acidosis during the resuscitation phase and is at risk of developing more severe multiple organ failure. These factors may contribute to higher mortality risk in the morbidly obese burn patient.
Critical Issues in Burn Care

Burn care, especially for serious burn injuries, represents a considerable challenge for the healthcare system. The American Burn Association has established a number of strategies for the management of burn patients and dedicates its efforts and resources to promoting and supporting burn-related research, education, care, rehabilitation, and prevention, often in collaboration with other organizations. The American Burn Association has recommended that patients with serious burns be referred to a designated burn center, ie, a hospital outfitted with specialized personnel and equipment dedicated to burn care. Burn centers have been operational for over 50 years, but the complexity and costs of providing specialized burn care have given rise to a number of critical administrative and political issues. These include logistical limitations imposed by the uneven national distribution of burn centers and a potential shortage of burn beds, both during everyday conditions and in the event of a mass disaster. Burn surgeon shortages have also been identified, stemming, in part, from a lack of specialized burn care training opportunities. There is currently a lack of quality outcome data to support evidence-based recommendations for burn care, and burn care centers are compromised by problems obtaining reimbursement for the care of uninsured and publicly insured out-of-state burn patients. Initiatives are underway to maintain efficient burn care facilities that are fully funded, easily accessible, and most importantly, provide optimal, evidence-based care on a daily basis, and are well-equipped to handle a surge of patients during a disaster situation.
Effects of future writing and optimism on health behaviors in HIV-infected women

Optimists (people who have positive expectations about the future) have been shown to perform more health-promoting behaviors than pessimists. This study attempts to alter individuals’ levels of optimism, and thereby their health behaviors, by having them write about a positive future. HIV-infected women (N =40) on combination therapies were randomly assigned to write about a positive future or assigned to a no-writing control group. Among participants who were low in optimism, the writing intervention led to increased optimism, a trend toward increased self-reported adherence to medications, and decreased distress from medication side effects, compared to controls who did not write. Participants who were high in optimism showed the opposite effects after writing about the future. Results suggest that a future-oriented writing intervention may be a promising technique to increase medication adherence and decrease symptom, distress in pessimistic individuals.
LD Hub: a centralized database and web interface to perform LD score regression that maximizes the potential of summary level GWAS data for SNP heritability and genetic correlation analysis

Motivation LD score regression is a reliable and efficient method of using genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary-level results data to estimate the SNP heritability of complex traits and diseases, partition this heritability into functional categories, and estimate the genetic correlation between different phenotypes. Because the method relies on summary level results data, LD score regression is computationally tractable even for very large sample sizes. However, publicly available GWAS summary-level data are typically stored in different databases and have different formats, making it difficult to apply LD score regression to estimate genetic correlations across many different traits simultaneously. Results In this manuscript, we describe LD Hub – a centralized database of summary-level GWAS results for 177 diseases/traits from different publicly available resources/consortia and a web interface that automates the LD score regression analysis pipeline. To demonstrate functionality and validate our software, we replicated previously reported LD score regression analyses of 49 traits/diseases using LD Hub; and estimated SNP heritability and the genetic correlation across the different phenotypes. We also present new results obtained by uploading a recent atopic dermatitis GWAS meta-analysis to examine the genetic correlation between the condition and other potentially related traits. In response to the growing availability of publicly accessible GWAS summary-level results data, our database and the accompanying web interface will ensure maximal uptake of the LD score regression methodology, provide a useful database for the public dissemination of GWAS results, and provide a method for easily screening hundreds of traits for overlapping genetic aetiologies. Availability and implementation The web interface and instructions for using LD Hub are available at http://ldsc.broadinstitute. org/
An Optimal Control Approach to Deep Learning and Applications to Discrete-Weight Neural Networks

Deep learning is formulated as a discrete-time optimal control problem. This allows one to characterize necessary conditions for optimality and develop training algorithms that do not rely on gradients with respect to the trainable parameters. In particular, we introduce the discrete-time method of successive approximations (MSA), which is based on the Pontryagin's maximum principle, for training neural networks. A rigorous error estimate for the discrete MSA is obtained, which sheds light on its dynamics and the means to stabilize the algorithm. The developed methods are applied to train, in a rather principled way, neural networks with weights that are constrained to take values in a discrete set. We obtain competitive performance and interestingly, very sparse weights in the case of ternary networks, which may be useful in model deployment in low-memory devices.
The Use of Match Statistics that Discriminate Between Successful and Unsuccessful Soccer Teams

The Use of Match Statistics that Discriminate Between Successful and Unsuccessful Soccer Teams Three soccer World Cups were analysed with the aim of identifying the match statistics which best discriminated between winning, drawing and losing teams. The analysis was based on 177 matches played during the three most recent World Cup tournaments: Korea/Japan 2002 (59), Germany 2006 (59) and South Africa 2010 (59). Two categories of variables were studied: 1) those related to attacking play: goals scored, total shots, shots on target, shots off target, ball possession, number of off-sides committed, fouls received and corners; and 2) those related to defence: total shots received, shots on target received, shots off target received, off-sides received, fouls committed, corners against, yellow cards and red cards. Discriminant analysis of these matches revealed the following: (a) the variables related to attacking play that best differentiated between winning, drawing and losing teams were total shots, shots on target and ball possession; and (b) the most discriminating variables related to defence were total shots received and shots on target received. These results suggest that winning, drawing and losing national teams may be discriminated from one another on the basis of variables such as ball possession and the effectiveness of their attacking play. This information may be of benefit to both coaches and players, adding to their knowledge about soccer performance indicators and helping to guide the training process.
Variance-Aware Regret Bounds for Undiscounted Reinforcement Learning in MDPs

The problem of reinforcement learning in an unknown and discrete Markov Decision Process (MDP) under the average-reward criterion is considered, when the learner interacts with the system in a single stream of observations, starting from an initial state without any reset. We revisit the minimax lower bound for that problem by making appear the local variance of the bias function in place of the diameter of the MDP. Furthermore, we provide a novel analysis of the KL-UCRL algorithm establishing a high-probability regret bound scaling as $\widetilde {\mathcal O}\Bigl({\textstyle \sqrt{S\sum_{s,a}{\bf V}^\star_{s,a}T}}\Big)$ for this algorithm for ergodic MDPs, where $S$ denotes the number of states and where ${\bf V}^\star_{s,a}$ is the variance of the bias function with respect to the next-state distribution following action $a$ in state $s$. The resulting bound improves upon the best previously known regret bound $\widetilde {\mathcal O}(DS\sqrt{AT})$ for that algorithm, where $A$ and $D$ respectively denote the maximum number of actions (per state) and the diameter of MDP. We finally compare the leading terms of the two bounds in some benchmark MDPs indicating that the derived bound can provide an order of magnitude improvement in some cases. Our analysis leverages novel variations of the transportation lemma combined with Kullback-Leibler concentration inequalities, that we believe to be of independent interest.
Analysis of Functionally Graded Magneto-Electro-Elastic Composites Using Hybrid/Mixed Finite Elements and Node-Wise Material Properties

A new class of hybrid/mixed finite elements, denoted “HMFEM-C”, has been developed for modeling magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) materials. These elements are based on assuming independent strain-fields, electric and magnetic fields, and collocating them with the strain-fields, electric and magnetic fields derived from the primal variables (mechanical displacements, electric and magnetic potentials) at some cleverly chosen points inside each element. The newly developed elements show significantly higher accuracy than the primal elements for the electric, magnetic as well as the mechanical variables. HMFEM-C is invariant through the use of the element-fixed local orthogonal base vectors, and is stable since it is not derived from a multi-field variational principle; hence it completely avoids LBB conditions that govern the stability of hybrid/mixed elements. In this paper, node-wise material properties are used in order to better simulate the spatial material grading of the functionally graded materials (FGM). A computer code was developed, validated and used to calculate the three magnetoelectric (ME) voltage coefficients for piezoelectric-piezomagnetic (PE-PM) composites, namely, the out-of-plane, transverse and in-plane ME voltage coefficients. The effects of the piezoelectric phase volume fraction as well as the mechanical boundary conditions and loadings on the ME voltage coefficients are investigated. Also, the effects of grading functions in PE-PM composites with functionally graded layers, as well as single-layered functionally graded magneto-electro-elastic materials, on the three ME voltage coefficients are presented.
Comparative Genomics of Environmental and Clinical Burkholderia cenocepacia Strains Closely Related to the Highly Transmissible Epidemic ET12 Lineage

The Burkholderia cenocepacia epidemic ET12 lineage belongs to the genomovar IIIA including the reference strain J2315, a highly transmissible epidemic B. cenocepacia lineage. Members of this lineage are able to cause lung infections in immunocompromised and cystic fibrosis patients. In this study, we describe the genome of F01, an environmental B. cenocepacia strain isolated from soil in Burkina Faso that is, to our knowledge, the most closely related strain to this epidemic lineage. A comparative genomic analysis was performed on this new isolate, in association with five clinical and one environmental B. cenocepacia strains whose genomes were previously sequenced. Antibiotic resistances, virulence phenotype, and genomic contents were compared and discussed with an emphasis on virulent and antibiotic determinants. Surprisingly, no significant differences in antibiotic resistance and virulence were found between clinical and environmental strains, while the most important genomic differences were related to the number of prophages identified in their genomes. The ET12 lineage strains showed a noticeable greater number of prophages (partial or full-length), especially compared to the phylogenetically related environmental F01 strain (i.e., 5–6 and 3 prophages, respectively). Data obtained suggest possible involvements of prophages in the clinical success of opportunistic pathogens.
Multiple-Drug Resistance in Burn Patients: A Retrospective Study on the Impact of Antibiotic Resistance on Survival and Length of Stay

Despite improvements in early treatment, survival following burn injury remains challenged by sepsis and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). Additionally, susceptibility to infections and growing antibiotic resistance places burn patients at increased risk for infections with multiple-drug resistant organisms (MDROs). We therefore aimed to evaluate the impact of MDRO infections on survival and hospital length of stay, as well as examine the role of these organisms in the development of complications, such as acute kidney injury, sepsis, and MODS. To study this, we included all burn patients with infections, admitted between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2013. Patients were divided into two groups: patients with infections caused by MDROs and patients with infections caused by susceptible organisms. Data were collected on all available cultures, as well as demographic, injury, and treatment-related variables from the medical record. The number of operative procedures (median: 2 vs 1, P < .0001), ventilator days (21 vs 0 days, P < .0001), total antibiotic days (21 vs 7days, P < .0001), and length of hospitalization (39 vs 14 days, P < .0001) were significantly different in the MDRO group vs the nonresistant group. While MDRO infection was not associated with patient mortality, univariable logistic regression analyses demonstrated >20% TBSA (odds ratio [OR] = 4.30, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.14–16.29, P = .03), acute kidney injury (OR = 10.93, 95% CI: 2.74–43.57, P = .001), sepsis (OR = 19.20, 95% CI: 3.79–97.27, P < .001), and MODS (OR = 85.49, 95% CI: 12.97–563.28, P < .0001) significantly increased the odds of patient mortality. These findings suggest that infections with MDROs are associated with a greater number of surgical procedures, longer duration of mechanical ventilation, more antibiotic days, and longer hospitalization.