Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combustion instability characteristics in a dump combustor using different hydrocarbon fuels

ABSTRACT The combustion instability characteristics in a model dump combustor with an exhaust nozzle were experimentally investigated. The first objective was to understand the effects of operating conditions and geometric conditions on combustion instability. The second objective was to examine more generalised parameters that affect the onset of combustion instability. Three different premixed gases consisting of air and hydrocarbon fuels (C2H4, C2H6, C3H8) were burnt in the dump combustor at various inlet velocity, equivalence ratio and combustion chamber length. Dynamic pressure transducer and photomultiplier tube with a bandpass filter were used to measure pressure fluctuation and CH* chemiluminescence data. Peak frequencies and their maximum power spectral densities of pressure fluctuations at same equivalence ratios showed different trends for each fuel. However, the dynamic combustion characteristics of pressure fluctuations displayed consistent results under similar characteristics chemistry times regardless of the used hydrocarbon fuels. The results showed that characteristic chemistry time and characteristic convection time influenced combustion instabilities. It was found that the convective-acoustic combustion instability could be prevented by increasing the characteristic chemistry time and characteristic convection time.
Process Dynamics and Parameter Variations during Co-Composting of Mixed Vegetables , Broiler Litter , Cow Dung and Textile Sludge

The co–composting behaviours of a mixture of vegetable wastes and three other different substrates (broiler litter, cow dung and textile sludge) were investigated through the evolution of temperature, respiration rate (RR), pH, volatile solids (VS), electrical conductivity (EC), moisture content (MC), bulk density (BD) and free air space (FAS) for 32 days. The three experimental mixes were set up separately in three 200L in–vessel rotary batch composters. The mass of vegetable wastes was kept fixed at 10 kg in all mixes but the amount of other substrates varied, and bagasse (10 kg) was used as bulking agent. 10 kg broiler litter, 17 kg cow dung and 36 kg textile sludge were added to Mix 1, Mix 2 and Mix 3 respectively. The average initial C/N ratio and initial wet MC were 24.0 and 53.2, 32.1 and 66.4% and 33.3 and 65.7% for Mixes 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Temperature peaks were recorded on day 2 for Mix 1 at 68.9 and 49.2°C on day 4 for Mix 2 and 68.5°C on day 4 for Mix 3. The average matrix temperatures for all mixes remained above the threshold of 55°C for an average period of 4 days. An increase in wet BD of 84.64% was noted for Mix 1, 57.12% for Mix 2, and 34.28% for Mix 3. The VS typically reduced from 72.35 to 55.9% in Mix 1, 72.27 to 62.10% in Mix 2, and from 66.11 to 58.39% in Mix 3, indicating that adequate microbial degradation of the organic fractions had taken place in the mixes. The average RR peaked at 73 mg CO2.C/day on day 2 for Mix 1 and decreased to 10.9 mg CO2.C/day on day 32. The corresponding peak and final stable values for Mixes 2 and 3 were 54.2 mg CO2.C/day and 14.0 mg CO2.C/day on day 32, and 50.2 mg CO2.C/day and 14.5 mg CO2.C/day on day 32. The typical temperature trends obtained for all mixes supported that the major composting stages had taken place but the different pH, EC, VS and temporal RR variations highlighted that the microbial decomposition rates were dependent on the nature of the substrates. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Comparison of marginal bone loss between internal- and external-connection dental implants in posterior areas without periodontal or peri-implant disease

Purpose The purpose of this retrospective study with 4–12 years of follow-up was to compare the marginal bone loss (MBL) between external-connection (EC) and internal-connection (IC) dental implants in posterior areas without periodontal or peri-implant disease on the adjacent teeth or implants. Additional factors influencing MBL were also evaluated. Methods This retrospective study was performed using dental records and radiographic data obtained from patients who had undergone dental implant treatment in the posterior area from March 2006 to March 2007. All the implants that were included had follow-up periods of more than 4 years after loading and satisfied the implant success criteria, without any peri-implant or periodontal disease on the adjacent implants or teeth. They were divided into 2 groups: EC and IC. Subgroup comparisons were conducted according to splinting and the use of cement in the restorations. A statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney U test for comparisons between 2 groups and the Kruskal-Wallis test for comparisons among more than 2 groups. Results A total of 355 implants in 170 patients (206 EC and 149 IC) fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in this study. The mean MBL was 0.47 mm and 0.15 mm in the EC and IC implants, respectively, which was a statistically significant difference (P<0.001). Comparisons according to splinting (MBL of single implants: 0.34 mm, MBL of splinted implants: 0.31 mm, P=0.676) and cement use (MBL of cemented implants: 0.27 mm, MBL of non-cemented implants: 0.35 mm, P=0.178) showed no statistically significant differences in MBL, regardless of the implant connection type. Conclusions IC implants showed a more favorable bone response regarding MBL in posterior areas without peri-implantitis or periodontal disease.
On the rate distortion functions of spherically invariant vectors and sequences

The Shannon lower bound on the rate distortion function of spherically invariant random vectors and sequences is found, and a condition for its tightness is given. Under this condition, simple upper bounds which are valid over a certain range of distortions are given. Also included is a coding theorem for certain stationary discrete-time spherically invariant sources.
Burden of Exposure to Potential Interactions Between Antiretroviral and Non-Antiretroviral Medications in a Population of HIV-Positive Patients Aged 50 Years or Older

Background: As HIV-infected patients aged 50 years or older are at increased risk of comorbidities and multidrug treatments, we examined their exposure to the potential drug–drug interactions (PDDIs) of antiretroviral (ARV) and other medications. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved the patients aged 50 years or older receiving ARV and non-ARV medications at our clinic. PDDIs were identified using the University of Liverpool HIV Drug Interaction Checker. Logistic regression models were used to assess risk factors for PDDIs. The American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria were used to identify potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). Results: A total of 395 (53.9%) of 744 patients showed ≥1 PDDI: 47.4% ≥ 1 amber-PDDI (comedications requiring appropriate management) and 5.6% ≥ 1 red-PDDI (contraindicated comedications). A higher risk of PDDIs was associated with the use of ≥5 medications (P < 0.001), of antiosteoporotics (P < 0.001), calcium channel blockers (P < 0.001), anti–benign prostatic hypertrophy agents (P < 0.001), hypnotics/sedatives (P = 0.022), and anticoagulants (P = 0.006). A higher risk of red-PDDIs was associated with the use of antacids (P < 0.001), anti–benign prostatic hypertrophy agents (P < 0.001) and antipsychotics (P = 0.023). The use of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor + nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor + integrase strand transfer inhibitor rather than protease inhibitor–based regimens was associated with a reduced risk of PDDIs (P < 0.001). Overall, 119 (16.0%) patients were receiving PIMs (mainly hypnotics/sedatives) and 49 (41.2%) of them had PDDIs able to increase the blood levels of these medications. Conclusions: Older patients with HIV are highly exposed to PDDIs between ARVs and comedications. The knowledge of their complete medication regimens and the screening for PDDIs and PIMs is therefore crucial to prevent drug-related adverse outcomes in this population.
Deep and shallow features learning for short texts matching

Short texts matching problem is a special issue in natural language matching. Different from common natural language, short texts have their own characteristices, such as casual expressions and limited lengths, especially in the sentences from social media. Previous works usually use rule-based model and retrieval-based model to match short texts. These models merely focus on word-level similarity between short texts and can not capture deep matching relation of them. To boost the performance of short texts matching, we investigate a basic con-volutional neural network model to learn the sentence-level deep matching relation between short texts. Subsequently, we propose a hybrid model to merge sentence-level deep matching relation with shallow features to generate the final matching score. We evaluate our model on a dataset of short-text conversation based on real-world instances from Sina Weibo. The experimental results show that our model outperforms the previous state-of-art work on this task.
Antimicrobial activity of bovine NK-lysin-derived peptides on Mycoplasma bovis

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a diverse group of molecules which play an important role in the innate immune response. Bovine NK-lysins, a type of AMP, have been predominantly found in the granules of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes and NK-cells. Bovine NK-lysin-derived peptides demonstrate antimicrobial activity against various bacterial pathogens, including several involved in bovine respiratory disease complex (BRDC) in cattle; however, such studies are yet to be performed with one important contributor to the BRDC, Mycoplasma bovis. Therefore, the goal of this study was to assess the antimicrobial activity of bovine NK-lysin-derived peptides on M. bovis. Thirty-mer synthetic peptides corresponding to the functional region helices 2 and 3 of bovine NK-lysins NK1, NK2A, NK2B, and NK2C were evaluated for killing activity on M. bovis isolates. Among four peptides, NK2A and NK2C showed the highest antimicrobial activity against the M. bovis isolates tested. All four NK-lysin peptides induced rapid plasma membrane depolarization in M. bovis at two concentrations tested. However, based on propidium iodide uptake, only NK2A and NK2C appeared capable of causing structural damage to M. bovis plasma membrane. Confocal microscopy, flow cytometry, and transmission electron microscopy further suggested NK-lysin-induced damage to the plasma membrane. Taken together, the findings in this study suggest that plasma membrane depolarization alone was insufficient to induce lethality, but disruption/permeabilization of the M. bovis plasma membrane was the cause of lethality.
Governance Through Trading: Does institutional trading discipline empire building and earnings management?

This paper empirically identifies an important external corporate governance mechanism through which the institutional trading improves firm values and disciplines managers from conducting value-destroying activities. We propose a reward-punishment intensity (RPI) measure, and show that it is positively related to firm’s subsequent Tobin’s Q. Importantly, we find that firms with higher RPI exhibit less subsequent empire building and earnings management. Furthermore, we show that the exogenous liquidity shock of Decimalization augments the governance effect of institutional trading. We also find that the discipline effect is more pronounced for firms with moderate institutional ownership concentration, higher managers’ wealth-performance sensitivity, and higher trading liquidity, which further supports the governance role of the RPI. The results are robust to using a subsample containing firms with reduced institutional ownership and to using two instrumental variables. JEL classification: G20, G30, G32.
Hair colour and skin colour together influence perceptions of age, health and attractiveness in lightly pigmented young women

Research documents that even subtle changes in visible skin condition affect perceptions of age, health and attractiveness. There is evidence that hair quality also affects the assessment of physical appearance, as variations in hair diameter, hair density and hairstyle have systematic effects on perception. Here, we consider combined effects of hair colour and skin colour on the perception of female physical appearance.
Evidence of associations between cytokine gene polymorphisms and quality of life in patients with cancer and their family caregivers.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To identify latent classes of individuals with distinct quality-of-life (QOL) trajectories, to evaluate for differences in demographic characteristics between the latent classes, and to evaluate for variations in pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine genes between the latent classes. DESIGN Descriptive, longitudinal study. SETTING Two radiation therapy departments located in a comprehensive cancer center and a community-based oncology program in northern California. SAMPLE 168 outpatients with prostate, breast, brain, or lung cancer and 85 of their family caregivers (FCs). METHODS Growth mixture modeling (GMM) was employed to identify latent classes of individuals based on QOL scores measured prior to, during, and for four months following completion of radiation therapy. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes in 16 candidate cytokine genes were tested between the latent classes. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the relationships among genotypic and phenotypic characteristics and QOL GMM group membership. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES QOL latent class membership and variations in cytokine genes. FINDINGS Two latent QOL classes were found: higher and lower. Patients and FCs who were younger, identified with an ethnic minority group, had poorer functional status, or had children living at home were more likely to belong to the lower QOL class. After controlling for significant covariates, between-group differences were found in SNPs in interleukin 1 receptor 2 (IL1R2) and nuclear factor kappa beta 2 (NFKB2). For IL1R2, carrying one or two doses of the rare C allele was associated with decreased odds of belonging to the lower QOL class. For NFKB2, carriers with two doses of the rare G allele were more likely to belong to the lower QOL class. CONCLUSIONS Unique genetic markers in cytokine genes may partially explain interindividual variability in QOL. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Determination of high-risk characteristics and unique genetic markers would allow for earlier identification of patients with cancer and FCs at higher risk for poorer QOL. Knowledge of these risk factors could assist in the development of more targeted clinical or supportive care interventions for those identified.
New director in the chair

Congratulations: you just got the job of Director! The only problem is the previous director walked off the set, leaving a film that is nearly, but not quite, complete. And did anyone mention that the financial backers have reservations about the relevance of the whole theme? But no doubt you have this all in hand, and know all about project closure under difficult conditions. So everyone is looking to you to close-out this movie and ensure the best possible outcomes.
Call it Good, Bad or No News? The Valuation Effect of Debt Issues

Studies investigating market reactions to changes in capital structure aim to find the impact of private information conveyed. However, these studies ignore that financial decisions are not made randomly but are conditional on managers’ private information. Using a sample of U.S. leverage-increasing public companies with public long-term debt offerings, we find that debt offerings convey no new information to the markets after considering the conditionality of decisions. We also show that results can be biased if the deterministic role played by private information ex ante is omitted, which may explain the conflicting valuation evidence found in the literature.
Long‐Time Relaxation Induced by Dynamic Forcing in Geomaterials

We present a theoretical model and experimental evidence of the long‐time relaxation process (slow dynamics) in rocks and other geomaterials following a dynamic wave excitation, at scales ranging from the laboratory to the Earth. The model is based on the slow recovery of an ensemble of grain contacts and asperities broken by a mechanical impact. It includes an Arrhenius‐type equation for recovery of the metastable, broken contacts. The model provides a characteristic size of the broken contacts (order 10−9 m) and predicts that their number increases with impact amplitude. Theoretical results are in good agreement with the laboratory and field data in that they predict both the logarithmic law of recovery rate and deviations from this law.
Transcriptome Analysis of the Ark Shell Scapharca subcrenata: De Novo Assembly, Identification of Genes and Pathways Involved in Growth

19 To understand the molecular mechanism associated with growth variability in bivalves, the 20 Solexa/Illumina technology was employed to analyze the transcriptomic profiles of extreme 21 growth rate differences (fastVS. slow-growing individuals) in one full-sib family of the ark 22 shell Scapharca subcrenata. De novo assembly of S. subcrenata transcriptome yielded 23 276,082,016 raw reads, which were assembled into 98,502 unique transcripts by Trinity 24 strategy. A total of 6,357 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained between fast25 and slow-growing individuals, with 580 up-regulated expression and 5777 down-regulated 26 expression. Functional annotation revealed that the largest proportion of DEGs were 27 classified to the large or small subunit ribosomal protein, all of which showed significantly 28 lower expression levels in fast-growing group than those in slow-growing group. GO 29 enrichment analysis identified the maximum of DEGs to biological process, followed by 30 molecular function and cellular component. Most of the top enriched KEGG pathways were 31 related to energy metabolism, protein synthesis and degradation. These findings reveal the 32 Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 1 March 2018 doi:10.20944/preprints201803.0002. v1 © 2018 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license. link between gene expression and contrasting phenotypes in ark shells, which support that 33 fast-growing individuals may be resulted from decreased energy requirements for metabolism 34 maintenance, accompanying with greater efficiency of protein synthesis and degradation in 35 bivalves. 36
Evaluation of the effect of dose-dependent platelet-rich fibrin membrane on treatment of gingival recession: a randomized, controlled clinical trial

Abstract Miller's class I gingival recessions (GR) have been treated using coronally advanced flap (CAF) with platelet-rich fibrin membrane (PRF membrane) or connective tissue graft (CTG). Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different multiple layers of PRF membranes for the treatment of GR compared with the CTG procedure. Material and Methods: Sixty-three Miller class I GR were treated in this study. Twenty-one GR selected randomly were treated with two layers of PRF membranes+CAF in 2PRF+CAF (test group-1), four layers of PRF membranes+CAF in 4PRF+CAF (test group-2), and CTG+CAF in the control group. The plaque index (PI), gingival index (GI), probing depth (PD), keratinized tissue thickness (KTT), clinical attachment level (CAL), recession depth (RD), recession width (RW), and keratinized tissue height (KTH) measurements were performed at baseline and 1, 3, and 6 months after surgery. The post-operative discomfort of patients, assessed with the visual analog scale (VAS) and healing index (HI), was recorded after surgery. Results: PI, GI, and PD scores were similar for all patients at all times. RD and RW scores were similar for each patient at 1 month, but these values were significantly increased in the subsequent periods in test group-1. The increase in KTT was significantly higher in the control group compared with the test groups. Similar root coverage scores were obtained in the test group-2 and control groups, and these scores were significantly higher compared with test group-1. Conclusions: The PRF membrane+CAF technique may be an alternative to the CTG+CAF technique for postoperative patient comfort. However, PRF membranes should use as many layers as possible.
MicroRNA-222 contributed to cell proliferation, invasion and migration via regulating YWHAG in osteosarcoma.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the role of microRNA-222 (miR-222) in osteosarcoma (OS), and to further explore the potential molecular mechanism. PATIENTS AND METHODS We measured the level of miR-222 in OS tissues and cell lines using quantitative Real-time polymerase chain reaction. Synthesized miR-222 mimics or inhibitors were obtained to up-regulate or down-regulate the expression of miR-222 in U2OS or Saos2 cells. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) and colony formation assay were employed to detect the ability of cell proliferation, and transwell assay was used to confirm the ability of cell invasion. Furthermore, luciferase assay and Western blot were applied to verify the target of miR-222 in OS. RESULTS The level of miR-222 in OS tumor tissue samples was significantly lower than that in normal group. Over-expression of miR-222 decreased cell proliferation and invasion in U2OS cells while knockdown of miR-222 promoted cell growth and metastasis in Saos2 cells. Furthermore, YWHAG was found to be a candidate target of miR-222 using several databases. Elevated level of miR-222 inhibited YWHAG expression while reduced miR-222 promoted YWHAG expression. Also, up-regulation of YWHAG restored the inhibiting effect of miR-222 mimics. CONCLUSIONS We identified for the first time that the expression level of miR-222 was reduced in OS tissues as well as in OS cell lines. miR-222 could inhibit cell proliferation and invasion via down-regulating YWHAG. These data could provide a potential target for the biological treatment of OS.
Inequality among Older Workers in the Netherlands: A Life Course and Social Stratification Perspective on Early Retirement

This study integrates a life course and social stratification perspective to examine early retirement in the Netherlands. Event history analysis of retrospective life course data from four rounds of the Family Survey Dutch Population reveals that employment career characteristics are strongly associated with early retirement. The results also show that educational differences in early labour force withdrawal persist when controlling for work history: lower-educated older men are more likely to exit employment before the age of 65 years, irrespective of their employment trajectories. Furthermore, working-class elderly face higher risks of disability and unemployment than members of the service class and the self-employed, because their occupational careers are more volatile and because they often work in the industrial sector for a long period of their lives. Against the background of ageing populations and policy measures to stimulate employment of older people, these findings suggest that social inequalities in old age could grow, as particularly less-educated and low-skilled older workers may not be able to prolong their employment career.