Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrochemical study of corrosion in aluminium cans in contact with soft drinks

This work evaluates the corrosion resistance of the inner surface of the aluminium cans in guarana, cola flavoured and tonic water soft drinks using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The less aggressive electrolyte was tonic water. One time constant was identified for the aluminium can in contact with guarana and tonic water. In the most aggressive medium of cola flavoured soft drinks, two time constants were identified and a charge transfer resistance was obtained associated to a corrosion of aluminium in contact with the electrolyte.
Comparison by Controlled Clinical Trial of Streptokinase and Heparin in Treatment of Life-threatening Pulmonary Embolism

Treatment with heparin or streptokinase was allocated randomly to 30 patients with life-threatening pulmonary embolism verified by angiography. Treatment was given for 72 hours and pulmonary angiography was repeated. There was significantly greater (P < 0·001) evidence of thrombolysis in those patients treated with streptokinase compared with those treated with heparin. The reduction of systolic and mean pulmonary arterial pressures was also significantly greater (P < 0·05 and P < 0·02 respectively) in the streptokinase group. Seven patients failed to complete 72 hours of the trial treatment: five successfully underwent pulmonary embolectomy. Six of these “failures” had initial pulmonary angiographic scores of 24 or more and systemic systolic blood pressure recordings of 100 mm Hg or less. Patients with these features should probably be considered for pulmonary embolectomy as the initial treatment. A febrile reaction commonly occurred in the streptokinase group; otherwise side effects were no more common than in the heparin group.
A descriptive evaluation of transfusion practices in patients receiving mechanical ventilation.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To characterize and compare transfusion practices in a broad sample of patients receiving mechanical ventilation (MV) and not receiving MV in the ICU. DESIGN Retrospective subgroup analysis from the prospective, multicenter, observational CRIT study. SETTING Two hundred eighty-four medical, surgical, or medical/surgical ICUs. PATIENTS Critically ill adults. MAIN RESULTS Of the 4,892 patients enrolled in the CRIT study, 60% were receiving MV on ICU admission or within 48 h after admission for a median of 4 days. Patients receiving MV had higher baseline APACHE (acute physiology and chronic health evaluation) II scores than patients not receiving MV (22.8 +/- 7.8 and 14.9 +/- 6.4, respectively [mean +/- SD]; p < 0.0001). Despite similar baseline hemoglobin levels (11.0 +/- 2.3 g/dL and 10.9 +/- 2.5 g/dL, p = 0.17), more patients receiving MV underwent transfusions (49% vs 33%, p < 0.0001), and they received significantly more RBCs than patients not receiving MV (p < 0.0001). The principal reason for transfusion in both groups was low hemoglobin level (78.4% and 84.6%, respectively); however, patients receiving MV had higher pretransfusion hemoglobin levels (8.7 +/- 1.7 g/dL) than patients not receiving MV (8.2 +/- 1.7 g/dL, p < 0.0001). Notably, 40.1% of all transfusions in patients receiving MV were administered after day 3 of the ICU stay, compared to 21.2% in patients not receiving MV (p < 0.0001), and a higher percentage of patients receiving MV remaining in the ICU after day 3 underwent transfusions (33.4% vs 18.3%, p < 0.0001). Mortality was higher (17.2% vs 4.5%, p < 0.0001) and mean hospital (15 days vs 10 days, p < 0.0001) and ICU stays (9 days vs 4 days, p < 0.0001) were longer in the subgroup receiving MV. CONCLUSIONS Mechanical ventilation appears to be an easily identifiable early marker for allogeneic blood exposure risk in ICU patients. While the longer ICU stays account for much of this risk, patients receiving MV also appear to undergo transfusions at higher hemoglobin thresholds than patients not receiving MV, at least early in the ICU stay. Justification of this relatively liberal transfusion practice in patients receiving MV will require further study.
Life prediction for composite laminates submitted to service loading spectra

This paper deals with the prediction of the fatigue life of composite laminates subjected to service loading spectra. Assuming that the spectrum loading is a Gaussian stationary and ergodic process, a model that predicts the fatigue life is proposed. This model requires the results of the constant amplitude fatigue test and is based on a combination of the Palmgreen-Miner damage rule and the peak-counting method to define and count the cycles. To compare the model predictions to experimental results, random loading was simulated in three different manners: block programming, random sequence block programming and individual cycles method. It is shown that the three simulation methods agree reasonably well with the experimental results: however, the best agreement is obtained with the individual cycle simulation method. All the constant amplitude and random fatigue tests were performed in three point bending on a digitally controlled servohydraulic fatigue machine that permits random simulation. The material used is a quasiisotropic graphite epoxy composite [± 45/0/90] 3s .
Risk analysis of user satisfaction in online communities

Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.
Single‐unit responses of serotonergic medullary raphe neurons to cardiovascular challenges in freely moving cats

Single‐unit activity of serotonergic neurons in the nuclei raphe obscurus (NRO) and raphe pallidus (NRP) were recorded in conjunction with heart rate in freely moving cats in response to systemic administration of vasoactive drugs and to graded haemorrhage. Bolus administration of phenylephrine hydrochloride and sodium nitroprusside (20 µg/kg, i.v.) produced a marked, transient reflex bradycardia (−42 b.p.m.) and tachycardia (+60 b.p.m.), respectively. The activity of NRO/NRP serotonergic neurons remained unchanged after phenylephrine and nitroprusside administration. The administration of hydralazine (1 mg/kg, i.v.), a long‐acting vasodilator, produced sustained tachycardia (+60 b.p.m.), which was not accompanied by changes in neuronal activity, despite prolonged reflex activation of the sympathetic nervous system. The initial withdrawal of up to 15% of total blood volume increased heart rate (+12 b.p.m.), whereas the removal of 22.5% of total blood decreased heart rate (−44 b.p.m.). The activity of NRO/NRP serotonergic neurons remained unaltered throughout graded haemorrhage trials, despite the changes in sympathetic outflow. Thus, serotonergic NRO and NRP neurons appear to be insensitive to alterations in blood pressure and baroreceptor activity, and this lack of responsiveness does not support a specific role for these cells in cardiovascular regulation. Furthermore, these neurons do not appear to be involved in physiological mechanisms underlying alterations in autonomic outflow invoked by hypertension and hypotension. Taken within the context of our previous work, the present data suggest that medullary serotonergic neurons may modulate autonomic outflow, but only in relation to their primary role in motor control.
Credible Compilation with Pointers

This paper presents the formal foundations and architectural design of a credible compiler, or a compiler that, in addition to a transformed program, produces a proof that the transformed program correctly implements the original input program. In our design, programs are represented using a standard low-level intermediate form based on controlow graphs. The compiler is structured as a set of components. Each component performs a speci c transformation and produces a proof that the transformation is correct. Typically, the correctness proof will consist of two subproofs: a subproof that the analysis of the input program produced a correct result, and a subproof that establishes a simulation relation between the original and transformed programs. The paper presents two logics, one for each kind of subproof, and shows that the logics are sound. A novel and important feature of our framework is its simultaneous support for both formal reasoning and sophisticated compiler transformations that deal with the program and the target machine at a very low level. In particular, our logics allow the compiler to prove the correctness of lowlevel optimizations such as register allocation and instruction scheduling even in the presence of potentially aliased pointers into the memory of the machine.
Intentions to retire, life dissatisfaction and the subsequent risk of disability retirement

Background and aims: To examine the predictive value of intentions to retire early on the process of disability retirement and the contribution of life dissatisfaction to the association between intentions to retire early and disability retirement. Methods: A cohort of 6484 employees over 40 years and working for the City of Helsinki was followed from 2000 to 2004. At baseline, the participants had responded to a questionnaire. Information on disability retirement was obtained from the Local Government Pensions Institution and the State Treasury. We calculated age and gender adjusted incidence rates and estimated Cox regression models. Results: During the follow-up 232 (3.6%) participants were granted a disability pension. Clear predictive value of disability retirement was found for strong intentions to retire early (age and gender adjusted hazard ratio HR 6.55, 95% CI 4.64—9.26) and for life dissatisfaction (dissatisfaction with subjective well-being, HR 5.31, 4.11—6.87). After adjusting for life dissatisfaction, the HR for those with strong intentions to retire early attenuated to 3.86 (2.66—5.62). After simultaneous adjustments for various risk factors the associations of intentions to retire early and dissatisfaction with subjective well-being with disability retirement attenuated, but remained statistically significant. Conclusions: The impact of intentions and subjective experience of well-being as measured by life dissatisfaction to the process of disability retirement should be recognized. Intentions to retire and life dissatisfaction should be considered as suitable measures when identifying people with elevated risk of disability retirement.
Compression by induction of hierarchical grammars

The paper describes a technique that constructs models of symbol sequences in the form of small, human-readable, hierarchical grammars. The grammars are both semantically plausible and compact. The technique can induce structure from a variety of different kinds of sequence, and examples are given of models derived from English text, C source code and a sequence of terminal control codes. It explains the grammatical induction technique, demonstrates its application to three very different sequences, evaluates its compression performance, and concludes by briefly discussing its use as a method for knowledge acquisition. <<ETX>>
VMATCH: Using logical variation to counteract physical variation in bottom-up, nanoscale systems

Nanowire building blocks provide a promising path to small feature size and thus the ability to more densely pack logic. However, the small feature size and novel, bottom-up manufacturing process will exhibit extreme variation and produce many devices that operate outside acceptable operating ranges. One-mapping-fits-all, prefabrication assignment of logical functions to physical transistors that exhibit high threshold variation will not work-combining the wide range of physical variation in transistor threshold voltage with the wide range of fanouts in the design produces an unworkably large composite range of possible delays. Nonetheless, by carefully matching the fanout of each net to the physical threshold voltages of devices after fabrication, it is possible to reduce the net range of path delays sufficiently to achieve high system yield. By adding a modest amount of extra resources, we achieve 100% yield for systems built out of devices with 38% variation, the ITRS prediction for threshold variation in 5nm transistors. Moreover, for these systems, we maintain delay, energy and area close to the variation-free nominal case.
Do Interventions in an ICU Affect the Predictive Ability of Pediatric Index of Mortality and Pediatric Index of Mortality-2 Scores in a Tertiary Care Hospital?

Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the effect of interventions in the initial period of stabilization (i.e., at 4 hrs) on the predictive ability of Pediatric Index of Mortality and Pediatric Index of Mortality-2 scores and to evaluate their performance in our ICU. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: PICU of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Patients: Consecutive children aged 2 months to 17 yr admitted to our ICU from June 2010 to July 2011 were included. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: We prospectively recorded the baseline characteristics, variables of Pediatric Index of Mortality and Pediatric Index of Mortality-2 at 1 and 4 hrs after admission, and the outcome data in a predesigned proforma. We compared the performance of the scores at these two time points by calculating their discriminative ability and calibration as measured by the area under curve of the receiver operating characteristic curves and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test, respectively. Of the 282 children enrolled, 93 (32.9%) died. The median (interquartile) age of the study patients was 3.5 yr (0.8, 10). The major reasons for ICU admission as well as mortality were sepsis/severe sepsis and cardiac and neurological illnesses. The area under curves for Pediatric Index of Mortality at 4 and 1 hrs were 0.73 (95% confidence interval 0.66–0.79) and 0.70 (0.63–0.77), respectively. The corresponding values for Pediatric Index of Mortality-2 were 0.72 (0.66–0.79) and 0.71 (0.64–0.78), respectively. The goodness-of-fit test showed a good calibration across deciles of risk for the two scores at both the time points (p > 0.1 for all). The calibration across different age and diagnostic subgroups was also good. Conclusion: Interventions in the first 4 hrs did not affect the predictive ability of Pediatric Index of Mortality and Pediatric Index of Mortality-2 scores. The 4-hr scores may be used in place of the 1-hr score, particularly in units where scoring is not possible with in the 1-hr time frame.
An adaptation of Relief for attribute estimation in regression

Heuristic measures for estimating the quality of attributes mostly assume the independence of attributes so in domains with strong dependencies between attributes their performance is poor. Relief and its extension ReliefF are capable of correctly estimating the quality of attributes in classification problems with strong dependencies between attributes. By exploiting local information provided by different contexts they provide a global view. We present the analysis of ReliefF which lead us to its adaptation to regression (continuous class) problems. The experiments on artificial and real-world data sets show that Regressional ReliefF correctly estimates the quality of attributes in various conditions, and can be used for non-myopic learning of the regression trees. Regressional ReliefF and ReliefF provide a unified view on estimating the attribute quality in regression and classification.
Influence of Standard Laboratory Procedures on Measures of Erythrocyte Damage

The ability to characterize the mechanical properties of erythrocytes is important in clinical and research contexts: to diagnose and monitor hematologic disorders, as well as to optimize the design of cardiovascular implants and blood circulating devices with respect to blood damage. However, investigation of red blood cell (RBC) properties generally involves preparatory and processing steps. Even though these impose mechanical stresses on cells, little is known about their impact on the final measurement results. In this study, we investigated the effect of centrifuging, vortexing, pipetting, and high pressures on several markers of mechanical blood damage and RBC membrane properties. Using human venous blood, we analyzed erythrocyte damage by measuring free hemoglobin, phosphatidylserine exposure by flow cytometry, RBC deformability by ektacytometry and the parameters of a complete blood count. We observed increased levels of free hemoglobin for all tested procedures. The release of hemoglobin into plasma depended significantly on the level of stress. Elevated pressures and centrifuging also altered mean cell volume (MCV) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), suggesting changes in erythrocyte population, and membrane properties. Our results show that the effects of blood handling can significantly influence erythrocyte damage metrics. Careful quantification of this influence as well as other unwanted secondary effects should thus be included in experimental protocols and accounted for in clinical laboratories.
RIM-Binding Protein 2 Promotes a Large Number of CaV1.3 Ca2+-Channels and Contributes to Fast Synaptic Vesicle Replenishment at Hair Cell Active Zones

Ribbon synapses of inner hair cells (IHCs) mediate high rates of synchronous exocytosis to indefatigably track the stimulating sound with sub-millisecond precision. The sophisticated molecular machinery of the inner hair cell active zone realizes this impressive performance by enabling a large number of synaptic voltage-gated CaV1.3 Ca2+-channels, their tight coupling to synaptic vesicles (SVs) and fast replenishment of fusion competent SVs. Here we studied the role of RIM-binding protein 2 (RIM-BP2)—a multidomain cytomatrix protein known to directly interact with Rab3 interacting molecules (RIMs), bassoon and CaV1.3—that is present at the inner hair cell active zones. We combined confocal and stimulated emission depletion (STED) immunofluorescence microscopy, electron tomography, patch-clamp and confocal Ca2+-imaging, as well as auditory systems physiology to explore the morphological and functional effects of genetic RIM-BP2 disruption in constitutive RIM-BP2 knockout mice. We found that RIM-BP2 (1) positively regulates the number of synaptic CaV1.3 channels and thereby facilitates synaptic vesicle release and (2) supports fast synaptic vesicle recruitment after readily releasable pool (RRP) depletion. However, Ca2+-influx—exocytosis coupling seemed unaltered for readily releasable SVs. Recordings of auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and of single auditory nerve fiber firing showed that RIM-BP2 disruption results in a mild deficit of synaptic sound encoding.
Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights 328 Notices of the Ams Volume 49, Number 3 Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights

In this book, Robert Moses (assisted by journalist Charles Cobb Jr.) tells the story of two arduous campaigns in which he has played a leadership role: the voter registration drive in Mississippi in the 1960s and the efforts to increase success rates in math among black children. Early in the book, Moses explains the link between the two: In today's world, economic access and full citizenship depend crucially on math and science literacy. I believe that the absence of math literacy in urban and rural communities throughout this country is an issue as urgent as the lack of registered black voters in Mississippi was in 1961…[M]ath literacy—and algebra in particular—is the key to the future of disenfranchised communities. (p. 5) The book is divided into two parts. Part I gives a vivid picture of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the years 1961–1964. Moses not only conveys the drama of impoverished black Mississippians confronting the violence of whites determined to prevent them from voting, but also candidly and convincingly describes the difficult strategic and tactical decisions of organizers such as himself who were trying to transform these rural black communities into an effective political force. In Part II Moses describes the Algebra Project, which grew out of his efforts to improve the teaching of math in his own children's middle school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1980s. Alarmed that his oldest child would not be adequately prepared for the college-prep track in high school, Moses volunteered to teach beginning algebra to her and several of her more advanced classmates. He later expanded the program to include other schools in Cambridge and Boston. As word spread of the success of the Algebra Project, Moses was able to start similar programs in Chicago, Milwaukee, Oakland, San Francisco, Atlanta, and elsewhere. In 1992 he returned to his old battle-ground, Mississippi, and from there launched the " Southern Initiative " , directed by David Dennis, a Neal Koblitz is professor of mathematics at the University of Washington. His e-mail address is koblitz@math.
Challenges, Methodologies, and Issues in the Usability Testing of Mobile Applications

Usability testing of software applications developed for mobile devices is an emerging research area that faces a variety of challenges due to unique features of mobile devices, limited bandwidth, unreliability of wireless networks, as well as changing context (environmental factors). Traditional guidelines and methods used in usability testing of desktop applications may not be directly applicable to a mobile environment. Therefore, it is essential to develop and adopt appropriate research methodologies that can evaluate the usability of mobile applications. The contribution of this article is to propose a generic framework for conducting usability tests for mobile applications through discussing research questions, methodologies, and usability attributes. The article provides an overview of existing mobil application usability studies and discusses major research questions that have been investigated. Then, it proposes a generic framework and provides detailed guidelines on how to conduct such usability studies.
AEROBIC SPORULATING BACTERIA I

Bach, John A. (Michigan State University, East Lansing) and H. L. Sadoff. Aerobic sporulating bacteria. I. Glucose dehydrogenase of Bacillus cereus. J. Bacteriol. 83:699–707. 1962. —A heat-resistant glucose dehydrogenase occurs in cultures of Bacillus cereus which are in the initial stages of sporulation. This enzyme is, kinetically, identical to the glucose dehydrogenase which can be extracted from mature spores, but is considerably more heat resistant than the spore-free enzyme. The two enzymes produce identity lines in two-dimensional immunodiffusion experiments, and their behavior in chromatographic and electrophoretic studies is also identical. A labile glucose dehydrogenase can be extracted from germinated spores of B. cereus. It differs from its stable counterparts in possessing a higher pH optimum for enzymatic activity.
General class of metamaterial transformation slabs

In this paper, we apply transformation-based optics to the derivation of a general class of transparent metamaterial slabs. By means of analytical and numerical full-wave studies, we explore their image-displacement/formation capabilities, and establish intriguing connections with configurations already known in the literature. Starting from these revisitations, we develop a number of nontrivial extensions, and illustrate their possible applications to the design of perfect radomes, anticloaking devices, and focusing devices based on double-positive (possibly nonmagnetic) media. These designs show that such anomalous features may be achieved without necessarily relying on negative-index or strongly resonant metamaterials, suggesting more practical venues for the realization of these devices.