Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of initial temper on mechanical properties of friction stir welded Al-2024 alloy

The microstructural evolution and resultant mechanical properties during the friction stir welding (FSW) of precipitation strengthened aluminium alloys depend on initial temper as well as FSW process parameters. Al-2024 alloy under two different initial tempers, T3 and T8, was used in the present study. FSW bead-on-plate runs were performed at different values of process parameters (tool rotation rate and tool traverse speed). Microstructure and mechanical properties of the nugget region and heat affected zone (HAZ) were evaluated. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) revealed that in the nugget region, presence of Guinier–Preston–Bagaryatskii (GPB) zone results from the partial dissolution of Al2CuMg phase. The microstructure and tensile properties were found to be independent of the initial temper of the material in the nugget region. In the HAZ region, tensile properties increased at higher heat index values for T3 condition, and decreased monotonically for T8 condition.
Higher Groups in Homotopy Type Theory

We present a development of the theory of higher groups, including infinity groups and connective spectra, in homotopy type theory. An infinity group is simply the loops in a pointed, connected type, where the group structure comes from the structure inherent in the identity types of Martin-Löf type theory. We investigate ordinary groups from this viewpoint, as well as higher dimensional groups and groups that can be delooped more than once. A major result is the stabilization theorem, which states that if an n-type can be delooped n + 2 times, then it is an infinite loop type. Most of the results have been formalized in the Lean proof assistant.
Changes in functional qualities of turkey eggshells in strains selected for increased egg production or growth.

Much past research has been devoted to physical eggshell qualities, i.e., weight, deformation, or egg density, but little research has investigated the functional eggshell qualities when expressed in terms of eggshell conductance to gases. Conductance is a measure of the ease with which gases diffuse across the pores of the shell and is (by Fick's law) determined by the number and geometry of the individual pores. The objective of the present study was to determine changes that have occurred in functional eggshell characteristics (eggshell conductance) following selection for egg production or growth over nearly 30 generations. Major changes have occurred in the physical dimensions of eggs from selected lines of turkeys compared with their respective randombred controls. Egg weights increased 11% due to selection for growth and decreased 14% due to selection for egg production. Other measurements such as length and width increased allometrically with egg weights. Selection for egg production has decreased the physical dimensions (egg weight, volume, or surface area) of eggs, and selection for growth has increased the same measurements, but adjustments have not been made by selected hens to increase or decrease the functional characteristic (conductance) allometrically (conductance constants). An interaction was observed in eggshell conductance constants as the hens aged, suggesting that genetic selection may affect functional characteristics. This suggests that the energetics of embryonic development may be different in eggs from turkey hens of various ages. Energetics may result in poor hatchability and poult quality. It can be concluded that as the hens aged the conductance and conductance constants did not change allometrically with increasing egg weight. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Unravelling Robustness of Deep Learning based Face Recognition Against Adversarial Attacks

Deep neural network (DNN) architecture based models have high expressive power and learning capacity. However, they are essentially a black box method since it is not easy to mathematically formulate the functions that are learned within its many layers of representation. Realizing this, many researchers have started to design methods to exploit the drawbacks of deep learning based algorithms questioning their robustness and exposing their singularities. In this paper, we attempt to unravel three aspects related to the robustness of DNNs for face recognition: (i) assessing the impact of deep architectures for face recognition in terms of vulnerabilities to attacks inspired by commonly observed distortions in the real world that are well handled by shallow learning methods along with learning based adversaries; (ii) detecting the singularities by characterizing abnormal filter response behavior in the hidden layers of deep networks; and (iii) making corrections to the processing pipeline to alleviate the problem. Our experimental evaluation using multiple open-source DNN-based face recognition networks, including OpenFace and VGG-Face, and two publicly available databases (MEDS and PaSC) demonstrates that the performance of deep learning based face recognition algorithms can suffer greatly in the presence of such distortions. The proposed method is also compared with existing detection algorithms and the results show that it is able to detect the attacks with very high accuracy by suitably designing a classifier using the response of the hidden layers in the network. Finally, we present several effective countermeasures to mitigate the impact of adversarial attacks and improve the overall robustness of DNN-based face recognition.
Outcome With the Repositionable and Retrievable Boston Scientific Lotus Valve Compared With the Balloon-Expandable Edwards Sapien 3 Valve in Patients Undergoing Transfemoral Aortic Valve Replacement

Background— New generation devices for transfemoral aortic valve replacement were optimized on valve positioning and reduction of residual aortic regurgitation. We compared 30-day, 12-month, and 24-month outcomes of the Boston Scientific Lotus valve (Lotus) and the balloon-expandable Edwards Sapien 3 (ES3) valve. Primary end point was all-cause mortality or disabling stroke within 12 months. Methods and Results— Between 2014 and 2016, 537 patients were enrolled at our center, and 202 patients received Lotus and 335 ES3. There was no residual moderate or severe aortic regurgitation. Rate of mild aortic regurgitation was lower with the repositionable and retrievable Lotus valve compared with the ES3. Rate of pacemaker implantation was significantly higher with the Lotus valve compared with the ES3 valve (36.1% versus 14.9%, P<0.01). Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 early safety end point at 30 days was 7.4% with both devices with no difference in all-cause mortality (Lotus, 1.9%; ES3, 1.8%; P=0.87), rate of disabling stroke (Lotus, 1.5%; ES3, 2.1%; P=0.62), or major vascular complications (Lotus, 2.9%; ES3, 2.4%; P=0.69). The primary end point at 12 months was similar between groups. In a propensity score–matched comparison, there was no difference in the primary end point within 12 months (Lotus, 15.5%; ES3, 18.6%; P=0.69) and 24 months (Lotus, 21.9%; ES3, 26.4%; P=0.49). Conclusions— Transfemoral aortic valve replacement with the ES3 and the Lotus were associated with similar 30-day, 12-month, and 24-month clinical outcomes. Need for permanent pacemaker implantation was significantly higher with the repositionable Lotus device. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT02162069.
Practical Test Dependency Detection

Regression tests should consistently produce the same outcome when executed against the same version of the system under test. Recent studies, however, show a different picture: in many cases simply changing the order in which tests execute is enough to produce different test outcomes. These studies also identify the presence of dependencies between tests as one likely cause of this behavior. Test dependencies affect the quality of tests and of the correlated development activities, like regression test selection, prioritization, and parallelization, which assume that tests are independent. Therefore, developers must promptly identify and resolve problematic test dependencies. This paper presents PRADET, a novel approach for detecting problematic dependencies that is both effective and efficient. PRADET uses a systematic, data-driven process to detect problematic test dependencies significantly faster and more precisely than prior work. PRADET scales to analyze large projects with thousands of tests that existing tools cannot analyze in reasonable amount of time, and found 27 previously unknown dependencies.
Risk-benefit considerations in the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating disease of the central nervous system and mainly affects young adults. Its natural history has changed in recent years with the advent of disease-modifying drugs, which have been available since the early 1990s. The increasing number of first-line and second-line treatment options, together with the variable course of the disease and patient lifestyles and expectations, makes the therapeutic decision a real challenge. The aim of this review is to give a comprehensive overview of the main present and some future drugs for relapsing-remitting MS, including risk-benefit considerations, to enable readers to draw their own conclusions regarding the risk-benefit assessment of personalized treatment strategies, taking into account not only treatment-related but also disease-related risks. We performed a Medline literature search to identify studies on the treatment of MS with risk stratification and risk-benefit considerations. We focused our attention on studies of disease-modifying, immunomodulating, and immunosuppressive drugs, including monoclonal antibodies. Here we offer personal considerations, stemming from long-term experience in the treatment of MS and thorough discussions with other neurologists closely involved in the care of patients with the disease. MS specialists need to know not only the specific risks and benefits of single drugs, but also about drug interactions, either in simultaneous or serial combination therapy, and patient comorbidities, preferences, and fears. This has to be put into perspective, considering also the risks of untreated disease in patients with different clinical and radiological characteristics. There is no single best treatment strategy, but therapy has to be tailored to the patient. This is a time-consuming task, rich in complexity, and influenced by the attitude towards risk on the parts of both the patient and the clinical team. The broader the MS drug market becomes, the harder it will be for the clinician to help the patient decide which therapeutic strategy to opt for.
SpaRTA - Tracking across occlusions via global partitioning of 3D clouds of points

Any 3D tracking algorithm has to deal with occlusions: multiple targets get so close to each other that the loss of their identities becomes likely. In the best case scenario, trajectories are interrupted, thus curbing the completeness of the data-set; in the worse case scenario, identity switches arise, potentially affecting in severe ways the very quality of the data. Here, we present a novel tracking method that addresses the problem of occlusions within large groups of featureless objects by means of three steps: i) it represents each target as a cloud of points in 3D; ii) once a 3D cluster corresponding to an occlusion occurs, it defines a partitioning problem by introducing a cost function that uses both attractive and repulsive spatio-temporal proximity links; iii) it minimizes the cost function through a semi-definite optimization technique specifically designed to cope with link frustration. The algorithm is independent of the specific experimental method used to collect the data. By performing tests on public data-sets, we show that the new algorithm produces a significant improvement over the state-of-the-art tracking methods, both by reducing the number of identity switches and by increasing the accuracy of the actual positions of the targets in real space.
Assessing the potential impacts of a changing climate on the distribution of a rabies virus vector

Common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) occur throughout much of South America to northern México. Vampire bats have not been documented in recent history in the United States, but have been documented within about 50 km of the U.S. state of Texas. Vampire bats feed regularly on the blood of mammals and can transmit rabies virus to native species and livestock, causing impacts on the health of prey. Thus cattle producers, wildlife management agencies, and other stakeholders have expressed concerns about whether vampire bats might spread into the southern United States. On the other hand, concerns about vampire-borne rabies can also result in wanton destruction at bat roosts in areas occupied by vampire bats, but also in areas not known to be occupied by this species. This can in turn negatively affect some bat roosts, populations, and species that are of conservation concern, including vampire bats. To better understand the current and possible future distribution of vampire bats in North America and help mitigate future cattle management problems, we used 7,094 vampire bat occurrence records from North America and species distribution modeling (SDM) to map the potential distribution of vampire bats in North America under current and future climate change scenarios. We analysed and mapped the potential distribution of this species using 5 approaches to species distribution modeling: logistic regression, multivariate adaptive regression splines, boosted regression trees, random forest, and maximum entropy. We then projected these models into 17 “worst-case” future climate scenarios for year 2070 to generate hypotheses about how the vampire bat distribution in North America might change in the future. Of the variables used in this analysis, minimum temperature of the coldest month had the highest variable importance using all 5 SDM approaches. These results suggest two potential near-future routes of vampire bat dispersal into the U.S., one via southern Texas, and a second into southern Florida. Some of our SDM models support the hypothesis that suitable habitat for vampire bats may currently exist in parts of the México–U.S. borderlands, including extreme southern portions of Texas, as well as in southern Florida. However, this analysis also suggests that extensive expansion into the south-eastern and south-western U.S. over the coming ~60 years appears unlikely.
Divergent selection for egg production in Coturnix coturnix japonica.

From a randombred control population of Coturnix coturnix japonica, strains were divergently selected for high (HE) and low (LE) 120-day egg production based on individual egg records. Based on five generations of selection, realized heritabilities for HE and LE were . 063 +/- . 055 and . 353 +/- . 020, respectively. The total change in number of eggs was 3 and -19, respectively, in HE and LE. Mortality to 4 weeks of age, 4-week body weight, egg weight, total plasma phosphorus (yolk precursor), liver weight, and number and weight of ovarian follicles in rapid development in the ovary did not change significantly in HE and LE. Mature body weight increased in LE with no consistent change in HE. Significant changes in the component parts of the egg occurred in HE and LE. Shell weight increased in HE with no change in LE while the reverse was true for yolk weight. Percent albumin decreased in both selected strains.
Is ribosomal capacity a potential metabolic marker of muscle development? Measurement by muscular biopsy.

Metabolic markers of muscle metabolism could help geneticists and nutritionists predict the breast meat development of chickens. The aim of the current study was to test the ribosomal capacity (CS), a potential metabolic marker, and to evaluate a simple biopsy method on the pectoralis major muscle. Ribosomal capacity was measured in three commercial meat chicken genotypes differing in their growth rate. Fast-, medium-, and slow-growing male chickens were fed using three commercial dietary programs of increasing energy and protein concentration (nine treatments). Biopsy was performed at 4 wk of age on the p. major 12 chickens per treatment. Fast-, medium-, and slow-growing chickens were slaughtered at market weight, i.e., 6, 8, and 12 wk of age, respectively, and breast meat (right and left p. major + minor) was dissected. A significant reduction in BW at slaughter (-1 to -3%) and breast meat yield (-4%) occurred only in biopsied medium-growing chickens but not in the other two types. Slow-growing chickens had a significantly lower CS (8.75 microg/mg) than the two other chicken types (9.40 and 9.46 microg/mg for fast- and medium-growing chickens, respectively). No significant dietary effect or interaction of dietary treatment with genotype was measured. The CS was not significantly correlated to breast meat development. Under conditions of the present experiment, CS may not be a relevant marker of subsequent breast meat development at 4 wk of age. The biopsy technique can easily be applied to other markers.
1 SUPPLY NETWORK DELEGATION AND INTERVENTION STRATEGIES DURING SUPPLIER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Dr

Purpose This paper proposes and empirically investigates two strategies that companies can employ to involve indirect suppliers in new product development: supply network delegation and supply network intervention. The implications of the two strategies are explored. Design/methodology/approach – The paper brings together the traditional new product development literature, organizational behaviour and organizational economics literature, and reports on three in-depth case studies of new product development projects, involving 39 semi-structured interviews across three supply networks. Findings – Findings reveal different manifestations of the two strategies of supply network intervention and delegation, when applied as part of supplier involvement in product development, and positive and negative indications of delegation and intervention, depending on the actor perspective: manufacturers perceive a need to control the product development process across several supply network tiers through intervention in supplier selection and communication, but these actions are likely to „tie the hands of the suppliers‟.
Different Effect of Local and General Fatigue on Knee Joint Stiffness

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the influence of locally and generally induced fatigue on the stiffness properties of the knee joint. Methods Twenty-two male (24.9 ± 4.5 yr, 1.78 ± 0.06 m, 75.4 ± 6.4 kg, 23.9 ± 1.8 kg·m−2) and 18 female (21.1 ± 1.5 yr, 1.66 ± 0.05 m, 63.4 ± 6.5 kg, 22.9 ± 2.5 kg·m−2) amateur athletes participated. Peak torque (PT) of the knee extensor musculature, muscle stiffness (MS) of the vastus lateralis, and musculoarticular stiffness (MAS) of the knee joint were assessed pre- and postlocally and generally induced fatigue (undertaken on two separate days with a 1-wk interval). Results Males were characterized by higher values of MAS, relaxed and contracted MS, normalized PT (PT/body mass), and normalized MAS (MAS/external load) irrespective of time point (P < 0.05). Locally induced fatigue Contracted MS increased more (P < 0.01) and normalized PT decreased more (P = 0.03) in males than in females postfatigue. Significant increases occurred in MAS in females (P = 0.01); relaxed MS (males, P < 0.001; females, P < 0.001), contracted MS (males, P < 0.001; females, P = 0.04), and normalized MAS (males, P = 0.001; females, P = 0.01) in both sexes; and normalized contracted MS (contracted MS/external load) in males (P < 0.001). Normalized PT decreased significantly in males (P < 0.01) postfatigue. Generally induced fatigue Contracted MS (P = 0.01) and MAS (P = 0.05) decreased significantly in males post-fatigue. Conclusion The stiffness properties of the knee joint are influenced by locally and generally induced fatigue, with different responses being observed in males and females.
A Well-Defined Readily Releasable Pool with Fixed Capacity for Storing Vesicles at Calyx of Held

The readily releasable pool (RRP) of vesicles is a core concept in studies of presynaptic function. However, operating principles lack consensus definition and the utility for quantitative analysis has been questioned. Here we confirm that RRPs at calyces of Held from 14 to 21 day old mice have a fixed capacity for storing vesicles that is not modulated by Ca2+. Discrepancies with previous studies are explained by a dynamic flow-through pool, established during heavy use, containing vesicles that are released with low probability despite being immediately releasable. Quantitative analysis ruled out a posteriori explanations for the vesicles with low release probability, such as Ca2+-channel inactivation, and established unexpected boundary conditions for remaining alternatives. Vesicles in the flow-through pool could be incompletely primed, in which case the full sequence of priming steps downstream of recruitment to the RRP would have an average unitary rate of at least 9/s during heavy use. Alternatively, vesicles with low and high release probability could be recruited to distinct types of release sites; in this case the timing of recruitment would be similar at the two types, and the downstream transition from recruited to fully primed would be much faster. In either case, further analysis showed that activity accelerates the upstream step where vesicles are initially recruited to the RRP. Overall, our results show that the RRP can be well defined in the mathematical sense, and support the concept that the defining mechanism is a stable group of autonomous release sites.
Changes in Abdominal Fat following Antiretroviral Therapy Initiation in HIV-Infected Individuals Correlate with Waist Circumference and Self-Reported Changes

Background We examined whether waist circumference (WC) and self-reported abdominal size changes can estimate visceral adipose tissue (VAT) changes for those initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART). Methods Prospectively collected data from ACTG A5257 and its metabolic substudy, A5260s, were used for this analysis. ART-naive HIV-infected participants were randomized to one of three contemporary ART regimens. Changes in abdominal CT-measured VAT and total adipose tissue (TAT) and DXA-measured trunk fat were tested for association with WC changes (by Pearson correlation) and categories of self-reported abdominal size changes (by ANOVA) between entry and week 96. Linear models compared WC and self-reported changes. Results The study population (n=328) was predominantly male (90%) and White non-Hispanic (44%) with a baseline median age of 36 years and body mass index of 25 kg/m2. At week 96, median WC change was +2.8 cm. Of those reporting at week 96, 53% indicated ‘no change/lost’, 39% ‘gained some/somewhat larger’ and 8% ‘gained a lot/much larger’ as their self-reported changes. Trunk fat, VAT and TAT changes differed across self-reported groups (ANOVA P<0.0001 for all), and the group ordering was as expected. WC changes were strongly correlated with CT and DXA changes (trunk fat: ρ=0.72, p<0.0001; VAT: ρ=0.52, p<0.0001; TAT: ρ=0.62, p<0.0001). While WC changes explained a greater proportion of VAT, TAT and trunk fat variation, self-reported changes remained a significant predictor after controlling for WC (p<0.05). Conclusions WC and self-reported abdominal changes each correlated directly with imaging-derived abdominal fat measures, and can be used as reliable, affordable tools for central adiposity assessment.