Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Global Anthropogenic Aerosol Effects on Convective Clouds in Echam5-ham

Aerosols affect the climate system by changing cloud characteristics in many ways. They act as cloud condensation and ice nuclei and may have an influence on the hydrological cycle. Here we investigate aerosol effects on con-vective clouds by extending the double-moment cloud mi-crophysics scheme developed for stratiform clouds, which is coupled to the HAM double-moment aerosol scheme, to con-vective clouds in the ECHAM5 general circulation model. This enables us to investigate whether more, and smaller cloud droplets suppress the warm rain formation in the lower parts of convective clouds and thus release more latent heat upon freezing, which would then result in more vigorous convection and more precipitation. In ECHAM5, including aerosol effects in large-scale and convective clouds (simulation ECHAM5-conv) reduces the sensitivity of the liquid water path increase with increasing aerosol optical depth in better agreement with observations and large-eddy simulation studies. In simulation ECHAM5-conv with increases in greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions since pre-industrial times, the geographical distribution of the changes in precipitation better matches the observed increase in precipitation than neglecting microphysics in convective clouds. In this simulation the convective precipitation increases the most suggesting that the convection has indeed become more vigorous .
Paraoxonase 1 activity, concentration and genotype in cardiovascular disease

Purpose of review To provide up-to-date information on the most recent advances in the epidemiology, biochemistry and molecular biology of the antiatherosclerotic enzyme paraoxonase 1. Recent findings Case-control and prospective studies published during the period covered by this review have indicated that paraoxonase 1 ‘status’ (i.e. activity and/or concentration) was a more important coronary heart disease risk factor than the paraoxonase 1 genetic polymorphisms. New findings on the role of paraoxonase 1 in homocysteine metabolism are reviewed, as are advances in the nutritional and pharmacological regulation of paraoxonase 1. The recent controversy over whether paraoxonase 1 or platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase is responsible for the antioxidant activity of high-density lipoprotein is also addressed. Summary In the light of recent findings, we believe that genetic epidemiological studies of the paraoxonase 1 polymorphisms in relation to coronary heart disease should no longer be undertaken unless they are very large and prospective in nature. More research should be undertaken to discover the biochemical mechanisms underlying the mode of action of paraoxonase 1 and the factors which modulate its activity and/or concentration. Sponsorship Bharti Mackness is funded by the International HDL Research Awards Programme. All authors receive research funding from the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.
Pareto-Based approach to the optimization of schedule for the polymeric composite structures cure process

Resin transfer molding is a widely used composite material manufacturing process that produces high-strength and lightweight parts for various industrial applications. In order to manufacture defect-free parts with consistent material properties, it is important to control process parameters throughout the entire volume of the molded part. Usually a curing schedule includes a pre-warming to the resin viscosity reaches a minimum, further applying of pressure, and finally consolidation of resin at elevated temperature to its full polymerization. To ensure the uniformly state of the composites across the thick-walled products, we propose a model-based approach to the problem of optimal control synthesis using a mathematical model for curing an epoxy-based composite structure with varied thickness. The PDE system linking a kinetic equation with heat transfer equation takes into account an exothermic heat, a phase transition of resin from liquid to gel and further to the solid state, and well describes the cure process which is controlled by independent heat sources. To synthesize the multi-objective optimal control law, we perform the transient analysis of the developed model to calculate the coordinates of Pareto points in the 8-dimensional space of design variables. An efficiency of such approach in the manufacturing applications we demonstrate on example of cured glass-epoxy composite part with a varied thickness. Key-Words: Composite material; Curing process; Optimal control; Kinetic equations; PDEs in connection with control and optimization, Finite element modeling – FEM, Pareto frontier
A study on the characteristics of copper and copper oxide-based antifouling coatings / Leeana Ismail

Coating is the easiest and cheapest method to prevent corrosion. Every country spends enormous money due to the adverse effect of corrosion. Marine industry is facing lot of issues because of corrosion and biofouling problems. There are restrictions to use harmful biocides in antifouling coatings for boats, yachts and ships. In the market, antifouling coatings have been developed using more than 50 wt% of biocide loading. In this work, an attempt was made to reduce the usage of biocide to protect the ocean environment and production cost. In this work, polyester-epoxy resins have been used as the binder to formulate the coating system. The developed coating systems were analysed to evaluate physical, mechanical, structural, thermal and electrochemical properties. The anticorrosion property was examined by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The variation of coating resistance, Rc was calculated by analyzing the Bode plot from the impedance data obtained. From FTIR and DSC studies, the formation of crosslinking between the resins was explained. From the performance analyses, the binder system consisting of 90 wt% polyester and 10 wt% epoxy has shown better performance compared to other compositions. It has been selected to develop antifouling coatings. Copper and copper oxides were added as biocide in the antifouling coating system. The optimum pigment volume concentrations of the biocides were found. The best coating resistance, Rc for both copper and copper oxide binder system was found to be in the order of 108 ohm at the end of 30 days of exposure in artificial seawater. Antifouling property of this developed coatings depend on the leaching of the biocide from the coatings. The leaching has been measured by immersing the coated panels in different electrolyte solutions. The electrolyte samples were tested by ICP-OES. The metal concentration in different types of electrolytes reveals that the amount of leaching is greater for the seawater as compared to the distilled water and artificial seawater. The real-time seawater exposure test was carried iv at two locations such as Lumut, Perak and Penang Island in Malaysia. The copper oxide based antifouling coating system showed the best performance in real exposure in seawater since the adhesion of the coating to the steel plates was very good. The microorganism growth on the coated panels was prevented by the leaching of biocide. It has been confirmed by SEM micrographs which were free of microorganism on the surface. From the results it was found that 25 % PVC of copper based antifouling coating and 25 % PVC of copper oxide based antifouling coating showed better performance. Booster biocide (diuron) was added from 1wt. % to 5 wt. % into the two best antifouling coating systems to study the effect of diuron on the antifouling properties. SEM micrographs revealed that the performance of the copper oxide-diuron antifouling coating system was better than the copper oxide antifouling coating system.
Prediction of variation in MIMO channel capacity for the populated indoor environment using a Radar cross-section-based pedestrian model

Multipath propagation is a fundamental requirement for the operation of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems. However, at ultrahigh frequency (UHF) and above, pedestrian movement may significantly affect the multipath propagation conditions in indoor environments. For the first time, a systematic analysis of the effect of pedestrian movement on channel capacity for an otherwise line-of-sight MIMO link in a single room is presented. A novel channel model for the populated indoor environment is also introduced, based on geometrical optics and a detailed radar cross-section representation of the human body. The new model generates a temporal profile for the complex transfer function of each antenna combination in the MIMO system in the presence of specified pedestrian movement. Channel capacity values derived from this data are important in terms of understanding the limitations and possibilities for MIMO systems. Capacity results are presented for a 42-m/sup 2/ single room environment, using a 2.45-GHz narrowband 8/spl times/8 MIMO array with 0.4/spl lambda/ element spacing. Although the model predicts significant increases in the peak channel capacity due to pedestrian movement, the improvement in mean capacity values was more modest. For the static empty room case, the channel capacity was 10.9 b/s/Hz, while the mean capacity under dynamic conditions was 12.3 b/s/Hz for four pedestrians, each moving at the same speed (0.5 m/s). The results presented suggest that practical MIMO systems must be sufficiently adaptive if they are to benefit from the capacity enhancement caused by pedestrian movement.
Fitting B-Spline Curves to Point Clouds by Squared Distance Minimization

Computing a curve to approximate data points is a problem encountered frequently in many applications in computer graphics, computer vision, CAD/CAM, and image processing. We present a novel and efficient method, calledsquared distance minimization (SDM), for computing a planar B-spline curve, closed or open, to approximate a target shape defined by a point cloud, i.e., a set of unorganized, possibly noisy data points. We show that SDM outperforms significantly other optimization methods used currently in common practice of curve fitting. In SDM a B-spline curve starts from some properly specified initial shape and converges towards the target shape through iterative quadratic minimization of the fitting error. Our contribution is the introduction of a new fitting error term, called the squared distance (SD) error term, defined by a quadratic approximant of squared distances from data points to a fitting curve. The SD error term measures faithfully the geometric distance between a fitting curve and a target shape, thus leading to faster and more stable convergence than the point distance (PD) error term, which is commonly used in computer graphics and CAGD, and the tangent distance (TD) error term, which is adopted in the computer vision community. To provide a theoretical explanation of the superior performance of SDM, we formulate the B-spline curve fitting problem as a nonlinear least squares problem and conclude that SDM is a quasi-Newton method, which employs a carefully chosen positive definite approximant to the true Hessian of the objective function. Furthermore, we show that the method based on the TD error term is a Gauss-Newton iteration which is unstable for target shapes with corners, whereas optimization based on the PD error term is the alternating method that is known to have linear convergence.
Role of iron, capsule, and toxins in the pathogenicity of Vibrio vulnificus biotype 2 for mice

The virulence mechanisms of Vibrio vulnificus biotype 2 have been studied and compared with those of biotype 1 in mice as the experimental animals. Biotype 2 isolates from European eels were as virulent for mice as biotype 1 strains (50% lethal dose, about 10(5) CFU per mouse); a septicemic infection developed in less than 24 h. These strains had several properties in common with biotype 1 organisms including capsule expression, uptake of various iron sources, and production of exoproteins, whose role in mouse virulence has been demonstrated. We also discuss the implication of biotype 2 strains in human infections.
Thompson Sampling for Complex Online Problems

We consider stochastic multi-armed bandit problems with complex actions over a set of basic arms, where the decision maker plays a complex action rather than a basic arm in each round. The reward of the complex action is some function of the basic arms' rewards, and the feedback observed may not necessarily be the reward perarm. For instance, when the complex actions are subsets of the arms, we may only observe the maximum reward over the chosen subset. Thus, feedback across complex actions may be coupled due to the nature of the reward function. We prove a frequentist regret bound for Thompson sampling in a very general setting involving parameter, action and observation spaces and a likelihood function over them. The bound holds for discretely-supported priors over the parameter space without additional structural properties such as closed-form posteriors, conjugate prior structure or independence across arms. The regret bound scales logarithmically with time but, more importantly, with an improved constant that non-trivially captures the coupling across complex actions due to the structure of the rewards. As applications, we derive improved regret bounds for classes of complex bandit problems involving selecting subsets of arms, including the first nontrivial regret bounds for nonlinear MAX reward feedback from subsets. Using particle filters for computing posterior distributions which lack an explicit closed-form, we present numerical results for the performance of Thompson sampling for subset-selection and job scheduling problems.
Effect of prosthetic ankle units on the gait of persons with bilateral trans-femoral amputations

In able-bodied individuals, the ankle joint functions to provide shock absorption, aid in foot clearance during the swing phase, and provides a rocker mechanism during stance phase to facilitate forward progression of the body. Prosthetic ankles currently used by persons with lower limb amputations provide considerably less function than their anatomical counterparts. However, increased ankle motion in the sagittal plane may improve the gait of persons with lower limb amputations while providing a more versatile prosthesis. The primary aim of this study was to examine and quantify temporal-spatial, kinematic, and kinetic changes in the gait of four male subjects with bilateral trans-femoral amputations who walked with and without prosthetic ankle units. Two prosthesis configurations were examined: (i) Baseline with only two Seattle LightFoot2 prosthetic feet, and (ii) with the addition of Endolite Multiflex Ankle units. Data from the gait analyses were compared between prosthetic configurations and with a control group of able-bodied subjects. The amputee subjects' freely-selected walking speeds, 0.74 ± 0.19 m/s for the Baseline condition and 0.81 ± 0.15 m/s with the ankle units, were much less than that of the control subjects (1.35 ± 0.10 m/s). The amputee subjects demonstrated no difference in walking speed, step length, cadence, or ankle, knee, and hip joint moments and powers between the two prosthesis configurations. Sagittal plane ankle range of motion, however, increased by 3–8° with the addition of the prosthetic ankle units. Compared to the control group, following initial contact the amputee subjects passively increased the rate of energy storage or dissipation at the prosthetic ankle joint, actively increased the power generation at the hip, and increased the extension moment at the hip while wearing the prosthetic ankle configuration. The amputee subjects increased the power generation at their hips, possibly as compensation for the reduced rate of energy return at their prosthetic ankles. Results from subject questionnaires administered following the gait analyses revealed that the prosthetic ankle units provided more comfort during gait and did not increase the perceived effort to walk. The subjects also indicated that they preferred walking with the prosthetic ankle units compared to the Baseline configuration. The results of the study showed that the prosthetic ankle units improved sagittal plane ankle range of motion and increased the comfort and functionality of the amputee subjects’ prostheses by restoring a significant portion of the ankle rocker mechanism during stance phase. Therefore, prosthetic ankle mechanisms should be considered a worthwhile option when prostheses are prescribed for persons with trans-femoral amputations.
Rat retinal pigment epithelial cells show specificity of phagocytosis in vitro

The retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell of the eye normally phagocytozes only retinal rod outer segments (ROS). The specificity of this phagocytic process was examined by incubating RPE cells with a variety of particle types. Confluent RPE cell cultures were incubated for 3 h at 37 degrees C in the presence of rat ROS, rat red blood cells (RBC), algae, bacteria, or yeast. Other cell cultures were incubated with equal numbers of ROS and one other particle type. Quantitative scanning electron microscopy was used to determine the numbers and morphology of particles bound to RPE cells, while double immunofluorescence labeling (Chaitin, M. H., and M. O. Hall, 1983, Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci., 24:812-820) was used to quantitate particle binding and ingestion. Both assays demonstrated phagocytosis to be a highly specific process. RPE cells bound 40-250 X more ROS than RBC, 30 X more ROS than algae, and 5 X more ROS than bacteria or yeast. Ingestion was more specific than binding; RPE cells ingested 970 X more ROS than RBC, 140 X more ROS than bacteria, and 35 X more ROS than yeast. The phagocytic preference for ROS was maintained in competition experiments with other particle types. Serum was found to be essential for phagocytosis. This study demonstrates that both the binding and ingestion phases of phagocytosis are highly specific processes.
A common framework for ecological inference in epidemiology, political science and sociology

Ecological studies arise within many different disciplines. This chapter describes common approaches to ecological inference in an environmental epidemiology setting, and compares these with traditional approaches in political science and sociology. These approaches vary considerably, both in their use of terminology and notation, and in the relative importance of the various issues that make ecological analyses problematic. The aims of this chapter are twofold. Firstly, we describe ecological inference in an epidemiology setting, where the interest is in the relationship between disease status and exposure to some potential risk factor. We concentrate on those issues which are of particular concern in epidemiology, for example the presence of additional (possibly unmeasured) covariates, termed confounders. Secondly, we seek to unite the current work in epidemiology, political science, and sociology by clarifying differences in terminology, by describing commonly used approaches within a common statistical framework, and by highlighting similarities and differences between these approaches. Often different models can be attributed to different sets of underlying assumptions; we emphasize that such assumptions are crucial in the conclusions drawn from ecological data, and their appropriateness should be carefully considered in any specific situation. Combining approaches from all three disciplines gives a broad range of possible assumptions and available techniques from which to choose.
Opinions as Incentives

We study costs and benefits of differences of opinion between an adviser and a decision maker. Even when they share the same underlying preferences over decisions, a difference of opinion about payoff‐relevant information leads to strategic information acquisition and transmission. A decision maker faces a fundamental trade‐off: a greater difference of opinion increases an adviser's incentives to acquire information but exacerbates the strategic disclosure of any information that is acquired. Nevertheless, when choosing from a rich pool of opinion types, it is optimal for a decision maker to select an adviser with some difference of opinion. Centralization of authority is essential to harness these incentive gains since delegation to the adviser can discourage effort.
Sequence/structural analysis of xylem proteome emphasizes pathogenesis-related proteins, chitinases and β-1, 3-glucanases as key players in grapevine defense against Xylella fastidiosa

Background. Xylella fastidiosa, the causative agent of various plant diseases including Pierce’s disease in the US, and Citrus Variegated Chlorosis in Brazil, remains a continual source of concern and economic losses, especially since almost all commercial varieties are sensitive to this Gammaproteobacteria. Differential expression of proteins in infected tissue is an established methodology to identify key elements involved in plant defense pathways. Methods. In the current work, we developed a methodology named CHURNER that emphasizes relevant protein functions from proteomic data, based on identification of proteins with similar structures that do not necessarily have sequence homology. Such clustering emphasizes protein functions which have multiple copies that are up/down-regulated, and highlights similar proteins which are differentially regulated. As a working example we present proteomic data enumerating differentially expressed proteins in xylem sap from grapevines that were infected with X. fastidiosa. Results. Analysis of this data by CHURNER highlighted pathogenesis related PR-1 proteins, reinforcing this as the foremost protein function in xylem sap involved in the grapevine defense response to X. fastidiosa. β-1, 3-glucanase, which has both anti-microbial and anti-fungal activities, is also up-regulated. Simultaneously, chitinases are found to be both up and down-regulated by CHURNER, and thus the net gain of this protein function loses its significance in the defense response. Discussion. We demonstrate how structural data can be incorporated in the pipeline of proteomic data analysis prior to making inferences on the importance of individual proteins to plant defense mechanisms. We expect CHURNER to be applicable to any proteomic data set.
Neuromonitoring of cochlea and auditory nerve with multiple extracted parameters during induced hypoxia and nerve manipulation

A system capable of comprehensive and detailed monitoring of the cochlea and the auditory nerve during intraoperative surgery was developed. The cochlear blood flow (CBF) and the electrocochleogram (ECochGm) were recorded at the round window (RW) niche using a specially designed otic probe. The ECochGm was further processed to obtain cochlear microphonics (CM) and compound action potentials (CAP). The amplitude and phase of the CM were used to quantify the activity of outer hair cells (OHC); CAP amplitude and latency were used to describe the auditory nerve and the synaptic activity of the inner hair cells (IHC). In addition, concurrent monitoring with a second electrophysiological channel was achieved by recording compound nerve action potential (CNAP) obtained directly from the auditory nerve. Stimulation paradigms, instrumentation and signal processing methods were developed to extract and differentiate the activity of the OHC and the IHC in response to three different frequencies. Narrow band acoustical stimuli elicited CM signals indicating mainly nonlinear operation of the mechano-electrical transduction of the OHCs. Special envelope detectors were developed and applied to the ECochGm to extract the CM fundamental component and its harmonics in real time. The system was extensively validated in experimental animal surgeries by performing nerve compressions and manipulations.