Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of Fibre Degradation due to Friction during the Weaving Process

In order to be able to properly evaluate the in-use mechanical properties of high performance composite materials, it is useful to identify all the critical operations of the forming process which can degrade the row materials (i.e. the yarns for continuous fibre reinforcements). Those degradations begin during the weaving process which is the main topic of the present paper. The weaving operation has been proved to be particularly critical, especially when the weaving parameters are not correctly tuned. For glass fibre reinforcements, the travel followed by both the warp and weft yarns inside the weaving loom is observed and several zones are identified as particularly critical: the contact between warp yarns and heddles, between yarns and the beater, between yarns … For each zone, the loading has been reproduced in laboratory devices in order to quantify its effect on the final resistance of the yarn. In parallel, the friction parameters have been measured for several friction configurations: friction between yarns in several directions, friction between yarns and various metallic parts of the loom. The objective is the identification of a forming window in terms of yarn tension, the shed opening, the beater for… This work is realised with the financial support of the French National Agency for Research (ANR) in the framework of project ANR- 09-MAPR-0018 (NUMTISS)
Marine Durability of 23-Year-Old Reinforced Concrete Beams

This paper gives findings of marine durability tests of 23-yr-old reinforced concrete beams exposed to marine tidal and atmospheric environments. The study mainly focused on corrosion of steel bars with respect to orientation in concrete, carbonation and chloride-ion induced corrosion of steel bars, quantitative evaluation of corrosion based on the electrochemical data, and the influence of stirrups on macrocell formation. Experimental work covered electrochemical investigations, chloride ion profile and carbonation depth measurements, microscopic steel concrete interfaces, and visual observation of steel bar corrosion. The study found that chloride-ion induced corrosion is significantly influenced by the orientation of steel bars in concrete. Cracks and interfacial gaps between steel and concrete must be accounted for in order to predict corrosion of steel bars in concrete.
Esophageal cancer.

N Engl J Med 2003;349:2241-52. Copyright © 2003 Massachusetts Medical Society. sophageal cancer is one of the least studied and deadliest cancers worldwide. During the past three decades, important changes have occurred in the epidemiologic patterns associated with this disease. Recent advances in the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of this neoplastic condition have led to small but significant improvements in survival. These new observations serve as the focus of this review.
Bistability of mitotic entry and exit switches during open mitosis in mammalian cells

Mitotic entry and exit are switch‐like transitions that are driven by the activation and inactivation of Cdk1 and mitotic cyclins. This simple on/off reaction turns out to be a complex interplay of various reversible reactions, feedback loops, and thresholds that involve both the direct regulators of Cdk1 and its counteracting phosphatases. In this review, we summarize the interplay of the major components of the system and discuss how they work together to generate robustness, bistability, and irreversibility. We propose that it may be beneficial to regard the entry and exit reactions as two separate reversible switches that are distinguished by differences in the state of phosphatase activity, mitotic proteolysis, and a dramatic rearrangement of cellular components after nuclear envelope breakdown, and discuss how the major Cdk1 activity thresholds could be determined for these transitions.
Evidence for three major clades within the snapping shrimp genus Alpheus inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequence data.

The snapping shrimp genus Alpheus is among the most diverse of caridean shrimps, and analyses of taxa separated by the Isthmus of Panama have been used to estimate rates of molecular evolution. Although seven morphological groups have been informally suggested, no formal phylogenetic analysis of the genus has been previously attempted. Here we infer the phylogenetic relationships within Alpheus using sequence data from two nuclear genes, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase and elongation factor-1alpha, and from the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase I. Three major clades corresponding to previously noted morphological features were identified. Discrepancies between earlier informal morphological groupings and molecular analyses largely consisted of species whose morphologies were not entirely typical of the group to which they had been assigned. The traditional placements of shrimp with highly sessile lifestyles and consequently simplified morphologies were also not supported by molecular analyses. Phylogenies for Alpheus suggest that specialized ecological requirements (e.g., symbiotic associations and estuarine habitats) and modified claw morphologies have evolved independently several times. These new analyses also support the sister species status of transisthmian pairs analyzed previously, although very similar pairs were not always resolved with the more slowly evolving nuclear loci. In addition, six new cryptic species were identified in the course of these studies plus a seventh whose status remains to be determined.
Effect of dietary supplementation of fermented fish silage on serum biochemical parameters of broiler Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

Aim: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of feeding fermented fish silage (FFS) on serum biochemical parameters of Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica). Materials and Methods: A total of 192, 7-day-old broiler Japanese quail chicks of either sex, were randomly distributed into four dietary treatments with four replicates in each group having 12 chicks in each replicate pen. The dietary treatments were T1 – Control diet, T2 – Diet containing 5% FFS, T3 – Diet containing 10% FFS, and T4 – Diet containing 15% FFS. Group body weight and feed consumption were recorded at weekly intervals. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was derived by dividing the feed consumed with the weekly body weight gain. At the end of the experiment, 8 birds from each treatment were selected randomly and sacrificed by cervical dislocation to study the carcass traits expressed as % pre-slaughter live weight. At 5 weeks of age, about 2 ml of blood was taken from the jugular vein of each selected bird, and serum samples were separated after centrifugation. Total protein, albumin/globulin (A/G) ratio, calcium, phosphorus, triglyceride, total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), very low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (VLDL-C), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were estimated in the serum. Result: The cumulative body weight gains from 1 to 5 weeks of age did not vary significantly between control and 5% FFS group. However, a linear decrease in body weight gain was observed by increasing the levels of FFS beyond 5% in the diet. The cumulative feed consumption was significantly higher in case of birds under control group during 1-5 weeks of age as compared to birds fed FFS based diet (5%, 10%, and 15%). No statistical difference in cumulative feed conversion ratio could be noticed during 1-5 weeks of age. The eviscerated yield decreased and giblet weight increased due to the dietary supplementation of FFS at 15% level. The breast meat yield decreased due to dietary supplementation of FFS at 10% and 15% level in the diet of broiler Japanese quails. The effect of FFS was found to be nonsignificant (p>0.05) with respect to serum total protein, globulin and A/G ratio under different treatments whereas significant difference observed in serum albumin concentration. Dietary supplementation of FFS at 10% and 15% level significantly increased the AST concentration in serum. There was no significant difference among the treatments regarding the parameters such as ALT, calcium, phosphorous, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL-C, VLDL-C, and LDL-C. Conclusion: The serum-biochemical parameters are influenced by the dietary supplementation of FFS in broiler Japanese quails.
Measuring Perceived Emotional Intelligence in the Adolescent Population: Psychometric Properties of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale

The Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS; Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995) is a well-established measure of perceived emotional intelligence, an aspect of emotional intelligence that includes people’s beliefs and attitudes about their own emotional experience. Although the TMMS has been widely used in adult populations, until now no data have been reported on its validity in the adolescent population. In the present work we analyzed the psychometric properties of the TMMS in a sample of 1,497 adolescents aged 12 to 17. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis corroborated the 3-factor structure of the original scale (attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, and mood repair); moreover, these dimensions showed adequate reliability and correlated among themselves in the expected fashion. We also found evidence of discriminant validity with the Big Five personality factors and analyzed differences in the TMMS dimensions according to participants’ age and sex. We discuss both the implications of these results and the utility of this scale in research on the emotional intelligence construct.
Grape Seed Proanthocyanidin Extract Improved some of Biochemical Parameters and Antioxidant Disturbances of Red Blood Cells in Diabetic Rats

Grape seed proanthocyanidin extract (GSPE) has a broad spectrum of biologic properties against oxidative stress. This study aimed to investigate the effects of GSPE on biochemical factors and antioxidant enzymes of erythrocyte in diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced through single injection of streptozotocin (50 mg.Kg-1, i.p). Forty Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four Groups: Group 1, healthy control group; Group 2, healthy group treated with GSPE (200 mg.Kg-1); Group 3, diabetic control group; Group 4, diabetic group treated with GSPE (200 mg.Kg-1) for 4 weeks. At the end, the experimental animals were sacrificed and blood samples were collected and plasma parameters and erythrocytes antioxidant status were evaluated. The results show, treatment with GSPE significantly reduced (P<0.001) urine volume, proteinuria and biochemical factors such as blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, triglyceride, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein and very low density lipoprotein as well as malondialdehyde. Also GSPE treatment significantly (P<0.005) increased high density lipoprotein, total protein and albumin. Moreover GSPE significantly increased antioxidant enzymes activity such as: superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase. These results suggest that GSPE can ameliorate biochemical abnormalities and antioxidant system status in streptozotocin- induced diabetic rats probably by its potent antioxidant features.
Comparison of Lifts Versus Tape Measure in Determining Leg Length Discrepancy

Objective. To evaluate the validity (accuracy) and reliability of 2 commonly used clinical methods, 1 indirect (lifts) and 1 direct (tape measure), for assessment of leg length discrepancy (LLD) in comparison to radiograph. Methods. Twenty subjects suspected of having LLD participated in this study. Two clinical methods, 1 direct using a tape measure and 1 indirect using lifts, were standardized and carried out by 4 examiners. Difference in height of the femoral heads on standing pelvic radiograph was measured and served as the gold standard. Results. The intraclass correlation coefficient assessing interobserver reliability was 0.737 for lifts and 0.477 for tape measure. The remainder of the analysis is based on the average of the measurements by the 4 examiners. Pearson correlation coefficients were 0.93 for the lifts and 0.75 for the tape measure method. Paired sample t tests showed difference in means of 2 mm (p = 0.051) for lifts and −5 mm (p = 0.007) for tape measure compared with radiograph. Sensitivity and specificity were 55% and 89% for lifts and 45% and 56% for tape measure, respectively, using > 5 mm as the definition for LLD. The wrong leg was identified as being shorter in 1 out of 20 subjects using lifts versus 7 out of 20 using tape measure. Conclusion. The indirect standing method of LLD measurement using lifts had superior validity, interobserver reliability, and specificity in comparison with radiograph over the direct supine method using tape measure. Both clinical methods underestimated LLD compared with radiograph.
CloudVisor: retrofitting protection of virtual machines in multi-tenant cloud with nested virtualization

Multi-tenant cloud, which usually leases resources in the form of virtual machines, has been commercially available for years. Unfortunately, with the adoption of commodity virtualized infrastructures, software stacks in typical multi-tenant clouds are non-trivially large and complex, and thus are prone to compromise or abuse from adversaries including the cloud operators, which may lead to leakage of security-sensitive data. In this paper, we propose a transparent, backward-compatible approach that protects the privacy and integrity of customers' virtual machines on commodity virtualized infrastructures, even facing a total compromise of the virtual machine monitor (VMM) and the management VM. The key of our approach is the separation of the resource management from security protection in the virtualization layer. A tiny security monitor is introduced underneath the commodity VMM using nested virtualization and provides protection to the hosted VMs. As a result, our approach allows virtualization software (e.g., VMM, management VM and tools) to handle complex tasks of managing leased VMs for the cloud, without breaking security of users' data inside the VMs. We have implemented a prototype by leveraging commercially-available hardware support for virtualization. The prototype system, called CloudVisor, comprises only 5.5K LOCs and supports the Xen VMM with multiple Linux and Windows as the guest OSes. Performance evaluation shows that CloudVisor incurs moderate slow-down for I/O intensive applications and very small slowdown for other applications.
Temporal and Qualitative Dynamics of Conditioned Taste Aversion Processing: Combined Generalization Testing and Licking Microstructure Analysis Portions of These Data Were Collected for Academic Credit for Eric Anh-nhat

The pattern of licking microstructure during various phases of a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) was evaluated. In Experiment 1, rats ingested lithium chloride (LiCl) for 3 trials and were then offered sodium chloride (NaCl) or sucrose on 3 trials. A CTA to LiCl developed and generalized to NaCl but not to sucrose. CTA intake suppression was characterized by reductions in burst size, average ingestion rate, and intraburst lick rate, and increases in brief pauses and burst counts. Compared with previous studies, LiCl licking shifted from a pattern initially matching that for normally accepted NaCl to one matching licking for normally avoided quinine hydrochloride by the end of the 1st acquisition trial. In Experiment 2, a novel paradigm was developed to show that rats expressed CTA generalization within 9 min of their first LiCl access. These results suggest that licking microstructure analysis can be used to assay changes in hedonic evaluation caused by treatments that produce aversive states. When intake of a novel tastant is followed by the injection of a toxin—for example, lithium chloride (LiCl)—animals form a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) and subsequently avoid that tastant see also Riley & Freeman, 2003). This model has been widely used to investigate behavioral and neural mechanisms of taste–visceral integration, learning, and memory and to identify therapeutic targets for clinical conditions such as cancer anorexia The traditional measure of CTA is intake of the novel tastant before and after toxin exposure, relative either to control animals that do not receive toxin and/or to water intake in two-bottle preference tests. Although they are widely accepted, intake measurements per se cannot indicate how CTA-related neural or drug treatments affect hedonic evaluation of the tastant. For example, humans who develop a CTA after nausea not only minimize ingestion of the conditioned tastant but also report an acquired dislike for it (Pelchat & Rozin, 1982). In addition, intake measurements cannot distinguish whether CTA-blocking treatments selectively disrupt particular stages of the CTA learning sequence. A given manipulation may disrupt taste or visceral sensation, the ability to integrate taste and visceral information , and/or the ability to consolidate a CTA into or recall it from long-term memory (Spector, Breslin, & Grill, 1988). Disruption at any point in this sequence blocks CTA learning as assessed through intake measures. 1983) used a videographic analysis of orofacial ingestion and rejection responses (taste reactivity) to brief intraoral sucrose infusions before and after CTA …
Natural history of valvular aortic stenosis.

Fifteen adult patients (ages 32 to 59 years) with significant valvular aortic stenosis in whom the severity of obstruction was documented by haemodynamic measurement and in whom the natural history was not interrupted by operation were followed for up to II 7 years, or until death. The overall prognosis was poor, two-thirds of the group being dead at last follow-up. The percentage mortality, corrected for the number of patients followed, was 36 per cent at 3 years, and 52 per cent at 5 years; of those who were followed for IO
Inferring large scale genetic networks with S-system model

Gene regulatory network (GRN) reconstruction from high-throughput microarray data is an important problem in systems biology. The S-System model, a differential equation based approach, is among the mainstream approaches for modeling GRNs. It has the ability to represent GRNs accurately with precise regulatory weights. However, the current applications of S-System are limited to small and medium scale network, as inferring large network requires inhibitive computational cost. In this paper, we propose a novel S-System based framework to reconstruct biologically relevant GRNs by exploiting their special topological structure. In GRNs, the complex interactions occurring amongst transcription factors (TFs) and target genes (TGs) are unidirectional, i.e., TFs to TGs, and the vice-versa is biologically irrelevant. In addition, TFs can regulate themselves while only self-regulations may exist for TGs. As such, we decompose GRN into two sub-networks representing TF-TF and TF-TG interactions. We learn the sub-networks separately by adapting the traditional S-System model, and combining the solutions to get the entire network. Our experimental studies indicate that the proposed approach can scale up to larger networks, not achievable with other current S-System based approaches, yet with higher accuracy.
EDTA Improves Stability of Whole Blood C-Peptide and Insulin to Over 24 Hours at Room Temperature

Introduction C-peptide and insulin measurements in blood provide useful information regarding endogenous insulin secretion. Conflicting evidence on sample stability and handling procedures continue to limit the widespread clinical use of these tests. We assessed the factors that altered the stability of insulin and C-peptide in blood. Methods We investigated the impact of preservative type, time to centrifugation, storage conditions and duration of storage on the stability of C-peptide and insulin on three different analytical platforms. Results C-peptide was stable for at least 24 hours at room temperature in both centrifuged and whole blood collected in K+-EDTA and serum gel tubes, with the exception of whole blood serum gel, which decreased to 78% of baseline at 24 hours, (p = 0.008). Insulin was stable at room temperature for 24 hours in both centrifuged and whole blood collected in K+-EDTA tubes. In contrast insulin levels decreased in serum gel tubes both centrifuged and whole blood (66% of baseline, p = 0.01 and 76% of baseline p = 0.01, by 24 hours respectively). C-peptide and insulin remained stable after 6 freeze-thaw cycles. Conclusions The stability of C-peptide and insulin in whole blood K+-EDTA tubes negates the need to conform to strict sample handling procedures for these assays, greatly increasing their clinical utility.
Management of Endometrial Cancer

Endometrial cancer is the fourth most common malignancy diagnosed in US women. Although most cases present in early stages and respond well to surgical staging with appropriately administered adjuvant radiation, the prognosis for advanced endometrial cancers is comparatively poor. Currently available treatments for advanced and recurrent metastatic endometrial cancer have significant toxicities, and are given to a population that is usually elderly with multiple other medical comorbidities. This article examines the pathogenesis of endometrial cancer as well as its diagnosis and management.
Immunoelectron microscopic studies of the intracellular transport of the membrane glycoprotein (G) of vesicular stomatitis virus in infected Chinese hamster ovary cells

An immunoelectron microscopic study was undertaken to survey the intracellular pathway taken by the integral membrane protein (G- protein) of vesicular stomatitis virus from its site of synthesis in the rough endoplasmic reticulum to the plasma membrane of virus- infected Chinese hamster ovary cells. Intracellular transport of the G- protein was synchronized by using a temperature-sensitive mutant of the virus (0-45). At the nonpermissive temperature (39.8 degrees C), the G- protein is synthesized in the cell infected with 0-45, but does not leave the rough endoplasmic reticulum. Upon shifting the temperature to 32 degrees C, the G-protein moves by stages to the plasma membrane. Ultrathin frozen sections of 0-45-infected cells were prepared and indirectly immunolabeled for the G-protein at different times after the temperature shift. By 3 min, the G-protein was seen at high density in saccules at one face of the Golgi apparatus. No large accumulation of G- protein-containing vesicles were observed near this entry face, but a few 50-70-mm electron-dense vesicular structures labeled for G-protein were observed that might be transfer vesicles between the rough endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi complex. At blebbed sites on the nuclear envelope at these early times there was a suggestion that the G- protein was concentrated, these sites perhaps serving as some of the transitional elements for subsequent transfer of the G-protein from the rough endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi complex. By 3 min after its initial asymmetric entry into the Golgi complex, the G-protein was uniformly distributed throughout all the saccules of the complex. At later times, after the G-protein left the Golgi complex and was on its way to the plasma membrane, a new class of G-protein-containing vesicles of approximately 200-nm diameter was observed that are probably involved in this stage of the transport process. These data are discussed, and the further prospects of this experimental approach are assessed.