Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Superelastic Behavior of Ti-Nb Alloys Obtained by the Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) Technique

The effect of Nb content on microstructure, mechanical properties and superelasticity was investigated for a series of Ti-xNb alloys, fabricated by the laser engineered net shaping method, using elemental Ti and Nb powders. The microstructure of as-deposited materials consisted of columnar β-phase grains, elongated in the built direction. However, due to the presence of undissolved Nb particles during the deposition process, an additional heat treatment was necessary. The observed changes in mechanical properties were explained in relation to the phase constituents and deformation mechanisms. Due to the elevated oxygen content in the investigated materials (2 at.%), the specific deformation mechanisms were observed at lower Nb content in comparison to the conventionally fabricated materials. This made it possible to conclude that oxygen increases the stability of the β phase in β–Ti alloys. For the first time, superelasticity was observed in Ti–Nb-based alloys fabricated by the additive manufacturing method. The highest recoverable strain of 3% was observed in Ti–19Nb alloy as a result of high elasticity and reverse martensitic transformation stress-induced during the loading.
Blind Calibration of Phase Drift in Millimeter-Wave Channel Sounders

Millimeter-wave channel sounders are much more sensitive to phase drift than their microwave counterparts by virtue of shorter wavelength. This matters when coherently combining untethered channel measurements – scanned over multiple antennas either electronically or mechanically in seconds, minutes, or even hours – to obtain directional information. To eliminate phase drift, a synchronization cable between the transmitter and receiver is required, limiting deployment range and flexibility indoors, and precluding most outdoor and mobile scenarios. Instead, we propose a blind technique to calibrate for phase drift by post-processing the channel measurements; the technique is referred to as blind because it requires no reference signal and, as such, works even in non-line-of-sight conditions when the (reference) direct path goes undetected. To substantiate the technique, it was tested on real measurements collected with our 60 GHz virtual phased-array channel sounder, as well as through simulation. The technique was demonstrated robust enough to deal with the most severe case of phase drift (uniformly distributed phase) and in non-line-of-sight conditions.
Interaction between Smad7 and β-Catenin: Importance for Transforming Growth Factor β-Induced Apoptosis

ABSTRACT Members of the transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) and Wnt/wingless superfamilies regulate cell fate during development and tissue maintenance. Here we report that Smad7 interacts with β-catenin and lymphoid enhancer binding factor 1/T-cell-specific factor (LEF1/TCF), transcriptional regulators in Wnt signaling, in a TGF-β-dependent manner. Smad7 was found to be required for TGF-β1-induced accumulation of β-catenin and LEF1 in human prostate cancer (PC-3U) cells as well as in human keratinocytes (HaCaT cells). Moreover, when the endogenous Smad7 was repressed by specific small interfering RNA, TGF-β-induced increase of activated p38, Akt phosphorylated on Ser473, glycogen synthase kinase 3β phosphorylated on Ser9 was prevented, as well as the TGF-β-induced association between β-catenin and LEF1. Notably, the observed physical association of Smad7 and β-catenin was found to be important for TGF-β-induced apoptosis, since suppression of β-catenin expression by small interfering RNA decreased the apoptotic response to TGF-β.
An Efficient Automatic Mesh Generator With Parabolic Arcs in Julia for Computation of TE and TM Modes for Waveguides

An enriched finite element method is presented to numerically solve the eigenvalue problem on electromagnetic waveguides governed by the Helmholtz equation. In this work, a highly efficient, simple and precise higher order subparametric method was developed using a 2D automated mesh generator performed with JuliaFEM. The transcendence computerized discretization code in Julia is developed for the present work. For curved waveguide structures, meshes with one side and curving higher orders are proposed with triangular elements with parabolic arcs. The technique is shown for distinct waveguide constructions, and the results are compared with the strongest numerical or analytical results available. The results demonstrate that the proposed methodology is effective and accurate for generating finite element simulations for complex structures with black holes and irregular topology due to no curvature loss. This article presents a finding cutoff frequency performed with JuliaFEM—an open-source program. Analysis results produced by commercial software are considered for the comparison and show that the calculation results between the two programs do not differ significantly. This procedure can be used to achieve the most effective transmission of energy for electromagnetic applications.
Does firefighters’ physical fitness influence their cardiac parasympathetic reactivation? Analysis with post-exercise heart rate variability and ultra-short-term measures

Purpose. This study assessed the influence of firefighters' physical fitness on performances and parasympathetic reactivation in rescue interventions, and tested the validity of post-exercise ultra-short-term heart rate variability. Methods. Twenty-four firefighters were assigned to two groups based on their fitness and performed three simulated interventions. The mean completion time was recorded. The post-exercise root mean square of successive differences of R–R intervals (LnRMSSD) was determined from both criterion (between 5 and 10 min) and ultra-short-term (every 1-min segment from minutes 0–6) analyses. Results. Completion time was better for the highest fitness group in the three simulated interventions while post-exercise LnRMSSD was not influenced by the firefighters' fitness. Reliability between ultra-short-term and criterion analyses differed between the segments tested; minute 5–6 revealed the highest intra-class correlations (0.86–0.97). Concerning sensitivity of both analyses, the criterion analysis revealed differences between the three rescue interventions and the fitness test, but these results were not observed with ultra-short-term measures. Conclusions. Fitness was associated with firefighters’ performances but not with parasympathetic reactivation in the firefighting intervention. The ultra-short-term measures do not seem to be a suitable post-exercise LnRMSSD analysis because of the low sensitivity to reveal differences among exercise conditions.
Imaging findings in coronavirus infections: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2

During the first two decades of the 21st century, there have been three coronavirus infection outbreaks raising global health concerns by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and the SARS-CoV-2. Although the reported imaging findings of coronavirus infection are variable and non-specific, the most common initial chest radiograph (CXR) and CT findings are ground-glass opacities and consolidation with peripheral predominance and eventually spread to involve both lungs as the disease progresses. These findings can be explained by the immune pathogenesis of coronavirus infection causing diffuse alveolar damage. Although it is insensitive in mild or early coronavirus infection, the CXR remains as the first-line and the most commonly used imaging modality. That is because it is rapid and easily accessible and helpful for monitoring patient progress during treatment. CT is more sensitive to detect early parenchymal lung abnormalities and disease progression, and can provide an alternative diagnosis. In this pictorial review, various coronavirus infection cases are presented to provide imaging spectrums of coronavirus infection and present differences in imaging among them or from other viral infections, and to discuss the role of imaging in viral infection outbreaks.
PROTEIN REQUIREMENT OF LABEO ROHITA FINGERLINGS BASED ON GROWTH AND AMMONIA EXCRETION

A 45-day feeding trial was conducted to study the effect of dietary crude protein levels (viz. 25, 30, 35, 40 or 45% CP) on growth performance and ammonia-N excretion in Labeo rohita fingerlings (av wt 1.07-1.14 g) as a strategy to find quick and effective method for protein requirement determination. The culture system consisted of 20 plastic tanks (5 treatments x 4 replicates) of 100 l capacity, each one of which was stocked with 20 fingerlings. Soyabean meal and fish meal were used as the main protein sources, whereas corn flour and rice polish as major carbohydrate sources for diet formulation. Higher weight gain% (WG%) was recorded in 35, 40 and 45% CP fed groups, but there was no significant variation between these groups. One-slope broken-line regression analysis of WG% exhibited an estimate of 35.37% protein requirement for maximum growth. The pattern of ammonia excretion was similar in different protein fed groups with rapid increase after meal and reaching a maximum at 7-10 h after the meal. Ammonia excretion rate was higher (P<0.05) in fish fed with more protein. But when ammonia-N was expressed as % total N intake, ammonia-N excretion was similar in all the groups fed higher than 25% CP. Broken-line analysis of N excretion (as percentage of N intake) showed highest ammonia-N excretion at an estimated dietary protein level of 33%, which is very close to the protein requirement based on the growth performance of fish. The ammonia excretion rate can serve as a good indicator of the dietary protein requirement, and it is quicker than the growth study.
Demographics and clinical presentation of patients with ocular disorders during the COVID-19 lockdown in India: A report

Purpose: The aim of this study is to describe the demographics and clinical profile of patients with ocular disorders presenting during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown in India. Methods: This cross-sectional hospital-based study included patients presenting between March 23, 2020 and April 19, 2020. All patients who presented to the emergency department were included as cases. The data were collected using an electronic medical record system. Results: Overall, 1,192 patients (mean 42.57 per day) presented to the ocular emergency department and were included for analysis. The median age of the patients was 35 (Interquartile range, IQR: 20-52) years and they were mostly adults (77.85%). The majority of patients were male (62.16%) and presented from the local metropolitan region (56.21%). On triaging based on the ocular disorders at presentation, the majority of the patients were emergency related (65.02%), followed by urgent (8.14%) and routine (26.85%) in nature. The most common emergencies were microbial keratitis (23.74%), followed by corneal trauma (16.39%). There was an increasing trend seen in emergency patients (46.11%; week 1 to 71.78%; week 4) and a decreasing trend seen in routine patients (45%; week1 to 21.20%; week 4). A subset of patients (23.49%) underwent surgery where indicated and the most commonly performed procedures were vitreo-retinal procedures (32.86%) followed by trauma related (31.43%). Conclusion: The enforcement of the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 resulted in a fewer patients presenting to the hospital. The majority of them presented from the local metropolitan region and the common emergencies were microbial keratitis and corneal trauma. About one fourth required a surgical intervention which was most commonly a vitreo-retinal procedure.
Simulation-Assisted Design of a Bidirectional Wireless Power Transfer With Circular Sandwich Coils for E-Bike Sharing System

A wireless power transfer (WPT) system with bidirectional power flow control for charging batteries and drawing electric power from batteries is presented in this paper for e-bike sharing applications. The proposed WPT consists of a bidirectional DC-DC converter and a sandwiched coil set, which includes primary winding with ferrite pad in charging stations and a movable secondary coil without ferrite pad, which is inserted into the primary coils to receive or transmit energy, on the e-bike. Hence, the proposed coil set could provide high coupling factor, better tolerance of misalignment, and a compact size that enables easy installation in the current mechanism of bike-sharing systems. The Maxwell 3D is adopted to design coil sets, which are based on the known resistance of Litz wire, and the effect of the ferrite pad and misalignment are analyzed to achieve good performance. To select a suitable converter, the characteristics of predesigned coils are simulated using Maxwell 3D, MATLAB and PSIM. Then, a full-bridge CLLC converter with the same resonant frequency for charging and discharging modes is chosen to provide minimal loss by using the synchronous rectifier on the 48-V side and voltage gain without the loading effect. Finally, a digital signal processor-based digitally controlled CLLC converter is constructed to verify the performance of the proposed WPT, which can provide 200 to 48 V/500 W charging and discharging functions with constant current/constant voltage modes and fast-response current control. In addition, the maximum efficiency is 96% at 52 V and 75% rated load in charging mode.
The breadth of the Mexican Transition Zone as defined by its flowering plant generic flora

Biogeographic regions are defined by taxa with similar distribution patterns. Flowering plants have been widely used to propose biogeographic regionalization schemes because of shared historical or ecological factors that determine their distribution. The Mexican Transition Zone represents the boundary between the Nearctic and Neotropical kingdoms; however, there is no general agreement about the limits and extent of this region. Despite the significance of its role in the history of Mexican biota, no study involving a set of relevant plant taxa validates the magnitude of the Mexican Transition Zone. This work attempts to determine the proportion of flowering plant families and genera that characterize the biogeographic kingdoms and the Mexican Transition Zone. Through identification of distinctive genera it is shown that the Mexican Transition Zone includes the mountains of Mexico, from Oaxaca northwards. The results provide a broad view of the distribution patterns of the flora of Mexico and allow the evaluation of relationships and floristic affinities.
Quantized Deep Residual Convolutional Neural Network for Image-Based Dietary Assessment

Vegetable intake is an essential element to maintain a healthy body of a human. However, research shows most people do not consume an adequate intake of vegetables per day. An ameliorate dietary assessment for vegetable intake is needed to increase awareness and assist users to improve their vegetable consumption. In this paper, we proposed a novel Quantized Deep Residual Convolutional Neural Network (DRCNN) model to ameliorate the fundamental task of dietary assessment. The proposed deep learning strategy integrating a deep residual architecture and a deep learning model, i.e. convolutional neural network, to apply for image-based dietary assessment. The proposed DRCNN model is then deeply fused with post-training quantization techniques to quantize the network weights of the proposed DRCNN model into low-bit fixed-point representations. Extensive experiments have been done to evaluate the proposed model. Results show that the proposed Quantized DRCNN model outperformed the state-of-the-arts, which include the conventional CNN models and also the machine learning models. Those experiments also indicate the effectiveness of the proposed Quantized DRCNN model. Finally, we further evaluate our model with cross-dataset validation to verify the generalization of the proposed model. The experimental result proves that the proposed Quantized DRCNN model is general enough to predict unseen cases and it works well on a wide range of food images.
Homologous Recombination Repair Polymorphisms, Cancer Susceptibility and Treatment Outcome

DNA repair mechanisms are crucial for the maintenance of genome’s integrity. When DNA damage is not repaired promptly, that may pose a serious threat to genomic stability and can contribute to carcinogenesis. On the other hand, the core molecular mechanism of action in several cancer treatments including chemotherapeutic agents and radiation therapy is induction of DNA damage and the efficacy of DNA repair mechanisms may influence the outcome of cancer treatment. Genetic variability of DNA repair proteins can modify the ability to repair DNA damage and may therefore play an important role in both cancer susceptibility and the outcome of cancer treatment.
Development of a Scale for Assessing the Meaning of Participation in Care Prevention Group Activities Provided by Local Governments in Japan

The meaning of participation in care prevention group activities may encourage continuous participation, making older adults active and healthy throughout their lives. This study developed a scale to assess the meaning of participation in care prevention group activities. It involved 427 participants in care prevention group activities (CPGAs) in Japan who filled out a self-administered questionnaire between October 2017 and February 2018. The meaning of participation was assessed using 15 items. In total, there were 379 valid responses. A factor analysis yielded two factors: “promotion of self-growth” and “enrichment of daily life”. The goodness of fit index (GFI), comparative fit index (CFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were satisfactory (GFI = 0.923; CFI = 0.960; RMSEA = 0.073). Cronbach’s α was 0.939 for the entire scale. The scale scores were significantly correlated with scores of the social activity-related daily life satisfaction scale and Ikigai-9. The scale’s reliability and validity were confirmed, indicating its usability for promoting care prevention efforts.
Visual Cultural Biases in Food Classification

This article investigates how visual biases influence the choices made by people and machines in the context of online food. To this end the paper investigates three research questions and shows (i) to what extent machines are able to classify images, (ii) how this compares to human performance on the same task and (iii) which factors are involved in the decision making of both humans and machines. The research reveals that algorithms significantly outperform human labellers on this task with a range of biases being present in the decision-making process. The results are important as they have a range of implications for research, such as recommender technology and crowdsourcing, as is discussed in the article.
Withaferin-A Can Be Used to Modulate the Keratin Network of Intermediate Filaments in Human Epidermal Keratinocytes

The mechanical state of cells is a critical part of their healthy functioning and it is controlled primarily by cytoskeletal networks (actin, microtubules and intermediate filaments). Drug-based strategies targeting the assembly of a given cytoskeletal network are often used to pinpoint their role in cellular function. Unlike actin and microtubules, there has been limited interest in the role of intermediate filaments, and fewer drugs have thus been identified and characterised as modulators of its assembly. Here, we evaluate whether Withaferin-A (WFA), an established disruptor of vimentin filaments, can also be used to modulate keratin filament assembly. Our results show that in keratinocytes, which are keratin-rich but vimentin-absent, Withaferin-A disrupts keratin filaments. Importantly, the dosages required are similar to those previously reported to disrupt vimentin in other cell types. Furthermore, Withaferin-A-induced keratin disassembly is accompanied by changes in cell stiffness and migration. Therefore, we propose that WFA can be repurposed as a useful drug to disrupt the keratin cytoskeleton in epithelial cells.
Arboreal Arthropod Associations with Epiphytes Following Gap Harvesting in The Acadian Forest of Maine

Abstract Arthropod and epiphyte assemblages were compared at three heights (0–2, 2–4 and 4–6 m) on the boles of red maple (Acer rubrum) trees located in a closed canopy forest and within harvest gaps. A positive correlation among bryophytes, Collembola (springtails) and Araneae (spiders) suggested a potential trophic interaction where arboreal spiders, during early developmental stages, were dependent upon availability of Collembolan prey. This relationship appeared to be sensitive to a decline in bryophyte abundance that occurred following gap harvesting. Fifteen families of Diptera (flies) were identified, eight of which were common. The eight common families utilized the arboreal habitat differently depending on height along the bole and abundance of crustose and other lichens. A potential association was identified between six Dipteran families and a Collembolan morphospecies in the family Entomobryidae, suggesting a diverse arthropod community that exploits different attributes of the arboreal habitat and exhibits varied responses to harvest gaps.
Cryo-EM Structure and Molecular Dynamics Analysis of the Fluoroquinolone Resistant Mutant of the AcrB Transporter from Salmonella

Salmonella is an important genus of Gram-negative pathogens, treatment of which has become problematic due to increases in antimicrobial resistance. This is partly attributable to the overexpression of tripartite efflux pumps, particularly the constitutively expressed AcrAB-TolC. Despite its clinical importance, the structure of the Salmonella AcrB transporter remained unknown to-date, with much of our structural understanding coming from the Escherichia coli orthologue. Here, by taking advantage of the styrene maleic acid (SMA) technology to isolate membrane proteins with closely associated lipids, we report the very first experimental structure of Salmonella AcrB transporter. Furthermore, this novel structure provides additional insight into mechanisms of drug efflux as it bears the mutation (G288D), originating from a clinical isolate of Salmonella Typhimurium presenting an increased resistance to fluoroquinolones. Experimental data are complemented by state-of-the-art molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on both the wild type and G288D variant of Salmonella AcrB. Together, these reveal several important differences with respect to the E. coli protein, providing insights into the role of the G288D mutation in increasing drug efflux and extending our understanding of the mechanisms underlying antibiotic resistance.