Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Building up Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes Nanostructures inside Millimetric Channels of Ceramic Monoliths

Multiwall carbon nanotubes were grown inside the millimetric channels of commercial ceramic materials, cordierite monoliths, using a modified catalytic chemical vapor deposition method. Fe(CO)5 liquid catalyst precursor was introduced in gas phase at the same time as the acetylene carbon source to allow a more uniform distribution of carbon nanotubes on the substrate surface. Different techniques were used for the characterization of the obtained multiwall carbon nanotubes such as scanning and transmission electron microscopies, N2 adsorption isotherms, Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The results show that the surface of the ceramic monolith is progressively covered with multiwall carbon nanotubes reaching total coverage for longer times under reaction. The carbon nanotubes were built up with a tree-like morphology. So, firstly larger carbon nanotubes are formed as the tree trunks on the cordierite surface, followed by the growing on them of narrower and longer nanotubes suggesting the tree branches.
SWIFT: Using Task-Based Parallelism, Fully Asynchronous Communication, and Graph Partition-Based Domain Decomposition for Strong Scaling on more than 100,000 Cores

We present a new open-source cosmological code, called SWIFT, designed to solve the equations of hydrodynamics using a particle-based approach (Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics) on hybrid shared / distributed-memory architectures. SWIFT was designed from the bottom up to provide excellent strong scaling on both commodity clusters (Tier-2 systems) and Top100-supercomputers (Tier-0 systems), without relying on architecture-specific features or specialized accelerator hardware. This performance is due to three main computational approaches: • Task-based parallelism for shared-memory parallelism, which provides fine-grained load balancing and thus strong scaling on large numbers of cores. • Graph-based domain decomposition, which uses the task graph to decompose the simulation domain such that the work, as opposed to just the data, as is the case with most partitioning schemes, is equally distributed across all nodes. • Fully dynamic and asynchronous communication, in which communication is modelled as just another task in the task-based scheme, sending data whenever it is ready and deferring on tasks that rely on data from other nodes until it arrives. In order to use these approaches, the code had to be re-written from scratch, and the algorithms therein adapted to the task-based paradigm. As a result, we can show upwards of 60% parallel efficiency for moderate-sized problems when increasing the number of cores 512-fold, on both x86-based and Power8-based architectures.
Effectiveness of prognosticating pulmonary embolism using the ESC algorithm and the Bova score

Summary The prognostic value of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2014 algorithm and the Bova score has lacked adequate validation. According to the ESC 2014 guidelines and the Bova score, we retrospectively risk stratified normotensive patients with PE who were enrolled in the PROTECT study. This study used a complicated course (which consisted of death from any cause, haemodynamic collapse, or recurrent PE) as the primary endpoint, and follow-up occurred through 30 days after the PE diagnosis. Of 848 patients, 37 % had a sPESI of 0 and 5 (1.6 %; 95 % confidence interval [CI], 0.5-3.7 %) experienced a complicated course. Of 143 patients with a sPESI of 0 points and negative computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA) for right ventricle (RV) dysfunction, three (2.1 %; 95 % CI, 0.4-6.0 %) experienced a complicated course. Four hundred seventy-eight (56 %) patients with a sPESI ≥ 1 had echocardiographic evidence of RV dysfunction or elevated troponin level or none, and 48 (10 %, 95 % CI, 7.5-13.1 %) experienced a complicated course. Fifty-seven (6.7 %) patients with a sPESI ≥ 1 had echocardiographic RV dysfunction and elevated troponin level, and 10 (17.5 %; 95 % CI, 8.8-29.9 %) experienced a complicated course, compared to 21.6 % (8 of 37 patients, 21.6 %; 95 % CI, 9.8-38.2 %) in Bova risk class III. In conclusion, the ESC 2014 prognostic algorithm is effective in the risk stratification of normotensive patients with PE. Use of CTPA did not improve the ability for identification of low-risk PE. Bova risk scoring did not significantly improve identification of intermediate-high risk PE. Jiménez et al. Validation of the ESC 2014 prognostication algorithm
Stereotactic LINAC-Radiosurgery for Glomus Jugulare Tumors: A Long-Term Follow-Up of 27 Patients

Background The optimal treatment of glomus jugulare tumors (GJTs) remains controversial. Due to the critical location, microsurgery still provides high treatment-related morbidity and a decreased quality of life. Thus, we performed stereotactical radiosurgery (SRS) for the treatment of GJTs and evaluated the long-term outcome. Methods Between 1991 and 2011, 32 patients with GJTs underwent SRS using a linear accelerator (LINAC) either as primary or salvage therapy. Twenty-seven patients (median age 59.9 years, range 28.7–79.9 years) with a follow-up greater than five years (median 11 years, range 5.3–22.1 years) were selected for retrospective analysis. The median therapeutic single dose applied to the tumor surface was 15 Gy (range 11–20 Gy) and the median tumor volume was 9.5 ml (range 2.8–51 ml). Results Following LINAC-SRS, 10 of 27 patients showed a significant improvement of their previous neurological complaints, whereas 12 patients remained unchanged. Five patients died during follow-up due to old age or other, not treatment-related reasons. MR-imaging showed a partial remission in 12 and a stable disease in 15 patients. No tumor progression was observed. The actuarial overall survival rates after five, ten and 20 years were 100%, 95.2% and 79.4%, respectively. Conclusions Stereotactic LINAC-Radiosurgery can achieve an excellent long-term tumor control beside a low rate of morbidity in the treatment of GJTs. It should be considered as an alternative therapy regime to surgical resection or fractionated external beam radiation either as primary, adjuvant or salvage therapy.
Interference aware (IA) MAC: an enhancement to IEEE802.11b DCF

The IEEE802.11 has been devised explicitly for low mobility and single access point scenarios, so its effectiveness is impaired in conditions with not negligible interference in ad hoc and/or in infrastructure modes. Well known problems typical of these scenarios are the so called hidden and exposed terminals. In this paper we propose and test a novel MAC layer for wireless LANs, able to improve the performance of IEEE802.11 DCF (distributed coordination function) in environments with high interference levels. The key point is to insert information about received power and interference levels into MAC control packets. By computing an estimation of the interference increasing due to an eventual transmission (forbidden with IEEE802.11 because blocked by the virtual carrier sensing), the number of parallel transmissions can grow significantly.
USHER: Improving data quality with dynamic forms

Data quality is a critical problem in modern databases. Data entry forms present the first and arguably best opportunity for detecting and mitigating errors, but there has been little research into automatic methods for improving data quality at entry time. In this paper, we propose USHER, an end-to-end system for form design, entry, and data quality assurance. Using previous form submissions, USHER learns a probabilistic model over the questions of the form. USHER then applies this model at every step of the data entry process to improve data quality. Before entry, it induces a form layout that captures the most important data values of a form instance as quickly as possible. During entry, it dynamically adapts the form to the values being entered, and enables real-time feedback to guide the data enterer toward their intended values. After entry, it re-asks questions that it deems likely to have been entered incorrectly. We evaluate all three components of USHER using two real-world data sets. Our results demonstrate that each component has the potential to improve data quality considerably, at a reduced cost when compared to current practice.
Common patterns in type II restriction enzyme binding sites

Restriction enzymes are among the best studied examples of DNA binding proteins. In order to find general patterns in DNA recognition sites, which may reflect important properties of protein–DNA interaction, we analyse the binding sites of all known type II restriction endonucleases. We find a significantly enhanced GC content and discuss three explanations for this phenomenon. Moreover, we study patterns of nucleotide order in recognition sites. Our analysis reveals a striking accumulation of adjacent purines (R) or pyrimidines (Y). We discuss three possible reasons: RR/YY dinucleotides are characterized by (i) stronger H-bond donor and acceptor clusters, (ii) specific geometrical properties and (iii) a low stacking energy. These features make RR/YY steps particularly accessible for specific protein–DNA interactions. Finally, we show that the recognition sites of type II restriction enzymes are underrepresented in host genomes and in phage genomes.
Corrosion Evaluation of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls

Numerous reinforced walls and slopes have been built over the past four decades in Kentucky, the United States, as well as worldwide. Tensile elements used in constructing low-cost reinforcing walls and slopes consist of metal polymer strips or grids. Although reinforced structures have been used extensively, the effects of corrosion on the metal tensile elements are unknown. Mechanically stabilized earth walls are expected to remain stable for many decades. An examination of the effects of corrosion of metal tensile elements used to construct these walls can provide invaluable data regarding the longevity of reinforced walls and slopes. Four mechanically stabilized earth walls constructed with galvanized steel reinforcing elements were instrumented and corrosion rates obtained. Corrosion data obtained indicate the designed sacrificial thickness will not be used during the design life of the structures. No visible corrosion was observed in reinforcing elements removed from a mechanically stabilized earth wall that had been in service for more than 20 years. A database was constructed to manage inventory of mechanically stabilized earth walls constructed and maintained by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
A diagnostic marker for childhood apraxia of speech: the lexical stress ratio

This report includes an extended review of the contemporary inclusionary criteria used to identify children with suspected apraxia of speech (sAOS) and describes findings supporting a lexical stress marker for sAOS. The thesis is that although a deficit in speech praxis is the core disorder in sAOS, only a few diagnostic markers for sAOS assess this speech motor control construct. The proposed marker is a composite lexical stress ratio (LSR) that quantifies the acoustic correlates of stress (frequency, intensity, duration) in bisyllabic word forms. Responses to a lexical stress task were obtained from 35 participants referred for a study of apraxia of speech. Eleven of the children were classified as sAOS, because they met one or both of two investigator groups' provisional criteria for sAOS. The 24 remaining children who did not meet either group's criteria were classified as having speech delay (SD). The first question posed was whether the LSR scores of children with sAOS differed from those of children with SD. Findings were affirmative. Of the six LSRs at the upper and lower extremes of the obtained distributions of LSR scores (approximately 8% of scores at each end), five (83%) were from speakers with sAOS (p<0.003). The second question was whether findings for the sAOS speakers were more consistent with deficits in speech motor control or with deficits in underlying phonological representational aspects of lexical stress. A parsimonious interpretation of the present findings, together with findings from other studies, suggests that they reflect the prosodic consequences of a praxis deficit in speech motor control.
Soil and Plant Response to MSW Compost Applications on Lowbush Blueberry Fields in 2000 and 2001

SUMMARY Field experiments were initiated in May 1999 to investigate the application of municipal solid waste (MSW) compost to low-bush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.) fields. Three sites were selected: Debert, NS (Truro sandy loam) and two sites near Musquodoboit, NS (both Rawdon gravely loamy sands). Treatments at each site consisted of a randomized complete block design with six treatments (Control [no fertilizer], NK fertilizer, NPK fertilizer, and three rates of MSW compost) blocked four times. Compost treatments provided the equivalent of 100, 200, and 400 kg ha−1 of total N, respectively. The experimental objectives were to evaluate soil and plant response to the compost and to determine whether the organic amendment could be used as an alternative to chemical fertilizers. Yield, soil fertility, and plant nutrients were evaluated in blueberry leaf tissue and fruit over two years. The MSW compost had a strong (K) and a mild effect (P, Ca, Mg, S, Cu, Zn) on extractable soil nutrients, while a strong effect (Mn) and a mild effect (N, K) was observed on leaf tissue nutrients. The fruit yield was not affected by the treatments. Therefore, the compost treatments provided equivalent amounts of plant essential nutrients without negatively influencing trace element absorption.
A queue management algorithm for intra-flow service differentiation in the "best effort" Internet

End-to-end QoS can be improved by exploiting knowledge about the flow structure to influence the flow within the network. This leads to a graceful degradation under congestion ("intra-flow" QoS). Typically this is accomplished by filtering higher-layer information within the network, which is both expensive in terms of resources, as well as undesirable with regard to network security. In this paper, we present a queue management algorithm called DiffRED (differential random early detection) that allows us to enhance intra-flow QoS without higher-layer filtering. The algorithm differentiates between packets marked by the sender as either more or less eligible to be dropped in comparison to unmarked packets. This gives the application some control over the packet loss process and thus enhances the performance of available end-to-end loss recovery mechanisms, end-to-end fairness and finally the perceived quality. The algorithm helps to bridge the huge gap between the current "best-effort" Internet and full deployment of inter-flow service differentiation. We introduce simple metrics to describe the loss process of individual flows and present simulation results for a voice service using the proposed scheme. We demonstrate how the algorithm provides a significant intra-flow QoS enhancement and evaluate the impact on conventional traffic.
Applying the Annotation View on Messages for Discussion Search

In this paper we present our runs for the TREC 2005 Enterprise Track discussion search task. Our approaches are based on the view of replies as annotations of the previous message. Quotations in particular play an important role, since they indicate the target of such an annotation. We examine the role of quotations as a context for the unquoted parts as well as the role of quotations as an indicator of which parts of a message were seen as important enough to react to. Results show that retrieval effectiveness w.r. t. the topicality of email messages can be improved by applying this annotation view on email messages.
A Survey on Selfishness Handling In Mobile Ad Hoc Network

— In MANETs some of the nodes do not take part in forwarding packets to other nodes to conserve their resources such as energy, bandwidth and power. The nodes which act selfishly to conserve their resources are called selfish nodes. The selfish nodes are engaged to reduce data availability and produce high communication cost in terms of query processing. Many selfish node detection methods are found to detect the nodes which do not participate in packet forwarding but they fail to detect the selfish nodes which does not allocate replica for the purpose of other nodes. This survey paper provides methods to detect selfish nodes in terms of allocating replica to other nodes. The methods are categorised according to detect the selfish nodes and reduce the impact of that nodes in mobile ad hoc network. It also discusses the key features of selfish nodes and numerous replica allocation techniques. The introduction of new replica allocation techniques will considerably reduce the delay in query processing and produce high data availability.
A flexible temporal planner ?

The idea of including a flexible management of time in a temporal planner is the aim of this work. We propose an extension of a previous work of the authors [4] based on the use of fuzzy temporal intervals by defining a possibility measure over the continuous time line. This gives the planner some very interesting features like obtaining valid plans when the knowledge is ill defined, obtaining approximate plans when exact plans are not possible and provide a flexible time line of execution.
Efficient Reflectance and Visibility Approximations for Environment Map Rendering

We present a technique for approximating isotropic BRDFs and precomputed self‐occlusion that enables accurate and efficient prefiltered environment map rendering. Our approach uses a nonlinear approximation of the BRDF as a weighted sum of isotropic Gaussian functions. Our representation requires a minimal amount of storage, can accurately represent BRDFs of arbitrary sharpness, and is above all, efficient to render. We precompute visibility due to self‐occlusion and store a low‐frequency approximation suitable for glossy reflections. We demonstrate our method by fitting our representation to measured BRDF data, yielding high visual quality at real‐time frame rates.
Mutation in the Pro-Peptide Region of a Cysteine Protease Leads to Altered Activity and Specificity—A Structural and Biochemical Approach

Papain-like proteases contain an N-terminal pro-peptide in their zymogen form that is important for correct folding and spatio-temporal regulation of the proteolytic activity of these proteases. Catalytic removal of the pro-peptide is required for the protease to become active. In this study, we have generated three different mutants of papain (I86F, I86L and I86A) by replacing the residue I86 in its pro-peptide region, which blocks the specificity determining S2-subsite of the catalytic cleft of the protease in its zymogen form with a view to investigate the effect of mutation on the catalytic activity of the protease. Steady-state enzyme kinetic analyses of the corresponding mutant proteases with specific peptide substrates show significant alteration of substrate specificity—I86F and I86L have 2.7 and 29.1 times higher kcat/Km values compared to the wild-type against substrates having Phe and Leu at P2 position, respectively, while I86A shows lower catalytic activity against majority of the substrates tested. Far-UV CD scan and molecular mass analyses of the mature form of the mutant proteases reveal similar CD spectra and intact masses to that of the wild-type. Crystal structures of zymogens of I86F and I86L mutants suggest that subtle reorganization of active site residues, including water, upon binding of the pro-peptide may allow the enzyme to achieve discriminatory substrate selectivity and catalytic efficiency. However, accurate and reliable predictions on alteration of substrate specificity require atomic resolution structure of the catalytic domain after zymogen activation, which remains a challenging task. In this study we demonstrate that through single amino acid substitution in pro-peptide, it is possible to modify the substrate specificity of papain and hence the pro-peptide of a protease can also be a useful target for altering its catalytic activity/specificity.
Role for Hydrogen Peroxide in Flow-Induced Dilation of Human Coronary Arterioles

Abstract— Flow-induced dilation (FID) is dependent largely on hyperpolarization of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in human coronary arterioles (HCA) from patients with coronary disease. Animal studies show that shear stress induces endothelial generation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which is proposed as an endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF). We tested the hypothesis that H2O2 contributes to FID in HCA. Arterioles (135±7 &mgr;m, n=71) were dissected from human right atrial appendages at the time of cardiac surgery and cannulated with glass micropipettes. Changes in internal diameter and membrane potential of VSMCs to shear stress, H2O2, or to papaverine were recorded with videomicroscopy. In some vessels, endothelial H2O2 generation to shear stress was monitored directly using confocal microscopy with 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCFH) or using electron microscopy with cerium chloride. Catalase inhibited FID (%max dilation; 66±8 versus 25±7%;P <0.05, n=6), whereas dilation to papaverine was unchanged. Shear stress immediately increased DCFH fluorescence in the endothelial cell layer, whereas treatment with catalase abolished the increase in fluorescence. Electron microscopy with cerium chloride revealed shear stress–induced increase in cerium deposition in intimal area surrounding endothelial cells. Exogenous H2O2 dilated (%max dilation; 97±1%, ED50; 3.0±0.7×10−5 mol/L) and hyperpolarized HCA. Dilation to H2O2 was reduced by catalase, 40 mmol/L KCl, or charybdotoxin plus apamin, whereas endothelial denudation, deferoxamine, 1H-1,2,4-oxadiazole-[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one, or glibenclamide had no effect. These data provide evidence that shear stress induces endothelial release of H2O2 and are consistent with the idea that H2O2 is an EDHF that contributes to FID in HCA from patients with heart disease. The full text of this article is available at http://www.circresaha. org.
Extending matchmaking to maximize capability reuse

This paper describes an extension of semantic matchmaking that aims at maximizing the reuse of agent capabilities over new application domains. Our approach is to use an Agent Capability Description Language (ACDL) not only to describe the requests and the advertised capabilities, but also to describe the domain-models characterizing specific application domains. The description of tasks and capabilities is independent of any particular domain, though a capability can specify the knowledge requirements to be verified by the application domain. Therefore, capabilities can be used by a team to solve a request whenever theirs knowledge requirements are satisfied by the application domain.