Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asymptotic analysis of the constant pressure turbulent boundary layer

The Navier-Stokes equations are expanded in asymptotic power series in a small parameter ϵ(=uτ∕Ue) which is determined as a function of Reynolds number by an asymptotic matching procedure. The present matched asymptotic expansion analysis differs from the more traditional approach by employing the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations instead of the unclosed Reynolds averaged equations. It is therefore not necessary to expand the Reynolds stress separately in the small parameter, and more importantly, the problem is mathematically well posed. The analysis is simpler, requires fewer assumptions, and gives information about all the velocity components. The main result of this analysis is an instantaneous log-law in the overlap region, of the form u+=κ−1ln(y+)+B, where the additive “constant” B is independent of y but depends on the outer scaled x,z,t variables. It is found that all the Reynolds stresses are constant in the overlap region. Estimates are made of the extent of the overlap region and the rate at whi.
White Functionals for Anomaly Detection in Dynamical Systems

We propose new methodologies to detect anomalies in discrete-time processes taking values in a probability space. These methods are based on the inference of functionals whose evaluations on successive states visited by the process are stationary and have low autocorrelations. Deviations from this behavior are used to flag anomalies. The candidate functionals are estimated in a subspace of a reproducing kernel Hilbert space associated with the original probability space considered. We provide experimental results on simulated datasets which show that these techniques compare favorably with other algorithms.
Problems and opportunities for model-centric versus code-centric software development: a survey of software professionals

We present some results of a survey of 113 software practitioners conducted between April and December 2007. The aim of the survey was to uncover their attitudes and experiences regarding software modeling, and development approaches that avoid modeling. We were motivated by observations that modeling is not widely adopted; many developers continue to take a code-centric approach. Key findings overall include: Modeling tools are primarily used to create documentation and for up-front design with little code generation; and participants believe that model-centric approaches to software engineering are easier but are currently not very popular as most participants currently work in code-centric environments. Key findings from sub-samples include: problems identified with model-centric approaches are similar regardless of a participant's country. Programmers that model extensively (versus those that do not model much) are more likely to agree that models become out of date and inconsistent with code.
Notes on dual-critical graphs

We define dual-critical graphs as graphs having an acyclic orientation, where the indegrees are odd except for the unique source. We have very limited knowledge about the complexity of dual-criticality testing. By the definition the problem is in NP, and a result of Bal\'azs and Christian Szegedy provides a randomized polynomial algorithm, which relies on formal matrix rank computing. It is unknown whether dual-criticality test can be done in deterministic polynomial time. Moreover, the question of being in co-NP is also open. We give equivalent descriptions for dual-critical graphs in the general case, and further equivalent descriptions in the special cases of planar graphs and 3-regular graphs. These descriptions provide polynomial algorithms for these special classes. We also give an FPT algorithm for a relaxed version of dual-criticality called $k$-dual-criticality.
Electromagnetic Form Factors of the Nucleon in an Improved Quark Model

Nucleon electromagnetic form factors are studied in the cloudy bag model (CBM) with center-of-mass and recoil corrections. This is the first presentation of a full set of nucleon form factors using the CBM. The center of mass motion is eliminated via several different momentum projection techniques and the results are compared. It is found that the shapes of these form factors are significantly improved with respect to the experimental data if the Lorentz contraction of the internal structure of the baryon is also appropriately taken into account.
A Novel Restraining Device for Small Animal Imaging Exams: Validation in Rabbits

Objective. To develop, validate, and patent a Restraining Device for Small Animal Imaging Exams (RDSAIE) that allows exams to be comfortably conducted without risks to animals and professionals. Methods. A RDSAIE with a mobile cover and shelf was built with transparent acrylic material. A total of six anesthetized rabbits were used to perform the following imaging exams of the skull: Cone Beam Computed Tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Scintigraphy. Results. The device showed great functionality and full visibility of the animal behavior, which remained fully stabilized and immobilized in either the horizontal or vertical position without the need for a person to remain in the test room to assist them. The procedures were performed without difficulty, and images of good resolution and without artifacts were obtained. Conclusion. The RDSAIE is comfortable, safe, efficient, and ergonomic. It allows the easy placement of animals in different body positions, including the vertical, the maintenance of postural stability, and full visibility. It may be constructed for animals heavier than 4 kg and it is adaptable for translational studies in anima nobile.
Nucleosynthesis and Mixing in Cassiopeia A

We present results from the first light observations of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant (SNR) by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Based on representative spectra from four selected regions, we investigate the processes of nucleosynthesis and mixing in Cas A. We make the first unequivocal identification of iron-rich ejecta produced by explosive silicon burning in a young Galactic SNR. Elsewhere in the remnant, we see silicon-rich ejecta from explosive oxygen burning. The Fe-rich ejecta lie outside the Si-rich material, indicating that bulk motions were extensive and energetic enough in Cas A to cause a spatial inversion of a significant portion of the supernova core. It is likely that this inversion was caused by "Fe"-rich ejecta emerging in plumes from the rising bubbles in the neutrino-driven convection layer during the supernova explosion. In addition, the radioactive decay energy from 56Ni may have contributed to the subsequent evolution of the material. We have also discovered faint, well-defined filaments with featureless X-ray spectra that are possibly sites of cosmic-ray acceleration in Cas A.
Preliminary Stratigraphic Cross Sections of Oil Shale in the Eocene Green River Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah

Oil shale units in the Eocene Green River Formation are shown on two east-west stratigraphic sections across the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah. Several units have potential value for recovery of shale oil, especially the Mahogany oil shale zone, which is a high grade oil shale that can be traced across most of the Uinta Basin and into the Piceance Basin in northwestern Colorado. Many thin medium to high grade oil shale beds above the Mahogany zone can also be traced for many miles across the basin. Several units below the Mahogany that have slow velocities on sonic logs may be low grade oil shale. These may have value as a source for shale gas. Introduction The oil shale deposits of the Eocene Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, constitute the world’s largest known oil shale resource—an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of in-place shale oil from units that yield 15 or more gallons of oil per short ton (gpt) (Dyni, 2005, p. 29). For the Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah, 214 billion barrels were estimated by Trudell and others (1983, p. 57), and 320 billion barrels by Cashion (1967); however it seems likely that the total resource for Green River strata in the basin yielding 15 or more gpt will exceed 400 billion barrels. Early attempts to conduct an oil shale operation in the shale-oil-rich Mahogany zone of the Green River Formation were not successful, owing to the fact that the price of shale oil could not economically compete with more cheaply produced petroleum. Today, with the high prices for crude oil, there is renewed interest in the development of these deposits. Under the auspices of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a new research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) program was initiated to attract private companies to develop improved methods of extracting shale oil from the Green River deposits. In Utah, under this program, a company has acquired a
Reassessment of the Transhydrogenase/Malate Shunt Pathway in Clostridium thermocellum ATCC 27405 through Kinetic Characterization of Malic Enzyme and Malate Dehydrogenase

ABSTRACT Clostridium thermocellum produces ethanol as one of its major end products from direct fermentation of cellulosic biomass. Therefore, it is viewed as an attractive model for the production of biofuels via consolidated bioprocessing. However, a better understanding of the metabolic pathways, along with their putative regulation, could lead to improved strategies for increasing the production of ethanol. In the absence of an annotated pyruvate kinase in the genome, alternate means of generating pyruvate have been sought. Previous proteomic and transcriptomic work detected high levels of a malate dehydrogenase and malic enzyme, which may be used as part of a malate shunt for the generation of pyruvate from phosphoenolpyruvate. The purification and characterization of the malate dehydrogenase and malic enzyme are described in order to elucidate their putative roles in malate shunt and their potential role in C. thermocellum metabolism. The malate dehydrogenase catalyzed the reduction of oxaloacetate to malate utilizing NADH or NADPH with a k cat of 45.8 s−1 or 14.9 s−1, respectively, resulting in a 12-fold increase in catalytic efficiency when using NADH over NADPH. The malic enzyme displayed reversible malate decarboxylation activity with a k cat of 520.8 s−1. The malic enzyme used NADP+ as a cofactor along with NH4 + and Mn2+ as activators. Pyrophosphate was found to be a potent inhibitor of malic enzyme activity, with a Ki of 0.036 mM. We propose a putative regulatory mechanism of the malate shunt by pyrophosphate and NH4 + based on the characterization of the malate dehydrogenase and malic enzyme.
RhythMiXearch: Searching for Unknown Music by Mixing Known Music

We present a novel method for searching for unknown music. RhythMiXearch is a music search system we developed that can accept two music inputs and mix those inputs to search for music that could reasonably be a result of the mixture. This approach expands the ability of Query-by-Example and allows greater flexibility for users in finding unknown music. Each music piece stored by our system is characterized by text data written by users, i.e., review data. We used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to capture semantics from the reviews that were then used to characterize the music by Hevner’s eight impression categories. RhythMiXearch mixes two music inputs in accordance with a probabilistic mixture model and finds music that is the most likely product of the mixture. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed method is comparable to human in searching for music by multiple examples.
Modelling and analysis of three-phase hybrid transformer with buck-boost matrix-reactance chopper and active load

This paper deals with a three-phase power system with hybrid transformer (HT). The HT contains a conventional transformer with electromagnetic coupling and PWM AC line chopper integrated with the secondary windings through an electric coupling. The HT uses a three-phase Yy connected transformer with additional secondary windings and three-phase PWM AC line chopper with buck-boost topology. The paper gives a description of the three-phase power system with hybrid transformer (HT) and unsynchronized active load, as well as the mathematical and circuit models of the AC source with HT. The analysis of basic steady state properties of these models are verified by means of the simulation and experimental test results obtained for the power system with HT of about 6 kVA.
Functional Treatment and Early Weightbearing After an Ankle Fracture: A Prospective Study

Objective: Postoperative care for ankle fractures is generally 1 of 2 regimens: 1) functional treatment combined with early weightbearing (EWB), or 2) immobilization in a cast/orthosis for 6 weeks without weightbearing (6WC). The objective of this study was 2-fold: 1) to follow a prospective group treated with EWB as to long-term subjective and objective outcomes, and 2) to compare a subset of this group with a matched group of historic controls treated with 6WC. Design: Prospective, clinical, cohort observation, and retrospective matched pair analysis. Setting: University hospital, level 1 trauma center. Patients: Forty-three patients (20 males; mean age, 49 ± 14 years) with operated Weber B/C fractures underwent EWB. For comparison, 23 patients of this group were matched to a same number of historic controls with respect to age, gender, body mass index, and fracture type. Intervention: Open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) using a 1/3-tubular-fibula-plate for the fibula, and malleolar screws for the medial malleolus fracture (in cases with a bimalleolar ankle fracture) followed by EWB or 6WC. Main Outcome Measurements: Olerud and Tegner scores at follow-up (at least 12 months after surgery), time to full weightbearing, return to work, pain intensity (numerical rating scale (NRS)), and hospital stay. Statistical comparisons were performed by using the Mann-Whitney U test or Fisher exact test (P < 0.05). Results: Patients with EWB were full weightbearing at 7 ± 3 weeks and returned to work at 8 ± 5 weeks after surgery. At follow-up (mean, 20 ± 11 months after surgery), all EWB patients showed good results in the Olerud score (90 ± 13 points). Matched-pair analysis in 23 patients in each group revealed differences between EWB and 6WC groups for hospital stay (mean, 10.8 ± 4.7 vs. 13.6 ± 6 days; P = 0.12), time to full weightbearing (mean, 7.7 ± 3.1 vs. 13.5 ± 9.4 weeks; P = 0.01), and time until return to work (mean 9.2 ± 5.5 vs. 10.8 ± 7 weeks; P = 0.63). No differences concerning pain intensities were observed (EWB vs. 6WC: NRS = 1.9 vs. 1.7; P = 0.12). At follow-up, Olerud scores were generally considered good for both groups; however, mean values in EWB patients were slightly higher (87 ± 14 vs. 79 ± 19 points; P = 0.25). In both groups, the majority of patients reached their preinjury level of activity as demonstrated by Tegner scores. Conclusions: EWB patients tolerated earlier full weightbearing compared with 6WC patients, and there were no disadvantages with EWB compared with 6WC concerning hospital stay, pain intensities, time until return to work, and Olerud/Tegner Scores. Potential candidates for EWB are patients with a stable osteosynthesis of their fractured ankles as judged by the responsible surgeon, compliance, and high motivation.
Throughput optimization of automated flats sorting machines

Abstract Large letters, journals, magazines, plastic wrapped mail items of A4 size are called flats. In order to be able to handle the large volumes of flats that have to be processed state-of-the-art post sorting centers are equipped with dedicated flats sorting machines. The throughput of a flats sorting machine is crucial when dealing with a continually increasing number of items to be sorted in a certain time. But, the throughput is limited by the mechanical constraints. We propose to optimize the efficiency of this sorting system by making several design changes and implementing advanced model-based control methods such as optimal control and model predictive control. In this paper we determine an event-based model of the flats sorting system. The considered control methods are compared for several scenarios. Results indicate that using the proposed approaches the throughput can be increased with up to 52.62%, the computation of the optimal velocity being performed in real-time.
NOX2 Antisense Attenuates Hypoxia-Induced Oxidative Stress and Apoptosis in Cardiomyocyte

Heart ischemia is a hypoxia related disease. NOX2 and HIF-1α proteins were increased in cardiomyocytes after acute myocardial infarction. However, the relationship of the hypoxia-induced HIF-1α. NOX2-derived oxidative stress and apoptosis in cardiomyocyte remains unclear. In the current study, we use NOX2 antisense strategy to investigate the role of NOX2 in hypoxia-induced oxidative stress and apoptosis in rat cardiomyocytes. Here, we show that transduction of ADV-NOX2-AS induces potent silencing of NOX2 in cardiomyocytes, and resulting in attenuation of hypoxia-induced oxidative stress and apoptosis. This study indicates the potential of antisense-based therapies and validates NOX2 as a potent therapeutic candidate for heart ischemia.
Trust model based on dynamic policy similarity for pervasive computing environments

Traditional security mechanisms can not satisfy the pervasive computing environment commendably. A dynamic trust model is proposed, utilizing the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory to model the diminution of the hypothesis set on trust evaluation with the accumulation of evidence. The trust expression of relationship between entities, the general formula of direct trust, indirect trust and integrated trust are deduced. With the model presented, anonymous entities can collaborate with trustful parties without central security managers. To avoid or reduce the probability of insecurity brought by inappropriate recommendations, a policy similarity function is adopted in our model to choose proper recommenders. From the simulation results, the mechanism is proved to be advantageous over the other approaches.
Performance of stabilized explicit time integration methods for parallel air quality models

Comprehensive air quality models (AQMs) describe the fate and transport of atmospheric chemical constituents associated with the gas and aerosol phases. Air quality studies involve multi-scale multi-physics simulations which follow the evolution of ~ 107 -- 108 variables on relatively long time scales. Air quality simulations are therefore computationally intense and require efficient parallelization to make them practical. The goals of this work are twofold. First we study the use of Runge Kutta Chebyshev (RKC) time integration of the advection-diffusion equations in AQMs. RKC are stabilized explicit time integration methods which are appropriate for the time integration of mildly stiff diffusion terms. Second, we assess the benefits of a tiled domain decomposition scheme for parallelization of AQMs. This approach is feasible due to the reduced data dependencies associated with explicit time stepping. Numerical results indicate that RKC methods have the necessary stability properties to handle turbulent diffusion. Moreover, the parallelization based on tiled domain decomposition with explicit time stepping shows a much-improved parallel performance when compared to the parallelization of implicit time stepping schemes. Our benchmarks also highlight a possibly significant bottleneck in the I/O system of an air quality model. This research demonstrates the viability of RCK time stepping methods and motiviates future research into parallel I/O.
Video semantic indexing using object detection-derived features

A new feature extraction method based on object detection to achieve accurate and robust semantic indexing of videos is proposed. Local features (e.g., SIFT and HOG) and convolutional neural network (CNN)-derived features, which have been used in semantic indexing, in general are extracted from the entire image and do not explicitly represent the information of meaningful objects that contributes to the determination of semantic categories. In this case, the background region, which does not contain the meaningful objects, is unduly considered, exerting a harmful effect on the indexing performance. In the present study, an attempt was made to suppress the undesirable effects derived from the redundant background information by incorporating object detection technology into semantic indexing. In the proposed method, a combination of the meaningful objects detected in the video frame image is represented as a feature vector for verification of semantic categories. Experimental comparisons demonstrate that the proposed method facilitates the TRECVID semantic indexing task.
Neural control and adaptive neural forward models for insect-like, energy-efficient, and adaptable locomotion of walking machines

Living creatures, like walking animals, have found fascinating solutions for the problem of locomotion control. Their movements show the impression of elegance including versatile, energy-efficient, and adaptable locomotion. During the last few decades, roboticists have tried to imitate such natural properties with artificial legged locomotion systems by using different approaches including machine learning algorithms, classical engineering control techniques, and biologically-inspired control mechanisms. However, their levels of performance are still far from the natural ones. By contrast, animal locomotion mechanisms seem to largely depend not only on central mechanisms (central pattern generators, CPGs) and sensory feedback (afferent-based control) but also on internal forward models (efference copies). They are used to a different degree in different animals. Generally, CPGs organize basic rhythmic motions which are shaped by sensory feedback while internal models are used for sensory prediction and state estimations. According to this concept, we present here adaptive neural locomotion control consisting of a CPG mechanism with neuromodulation and local leg control mechanisms based on sensory feedback and adaptive neural forward models with efference copies. This neural closed-loop controller enables a walking machine to perform a multitude of different walking patterns including insect-like leg movements and gaits as well as energy-efficient locomotion. In addition, the forward models allow the machine to autonomously adapt its locomotion to deal with a change of terrain, losing of ground contact during stance phase, stepping on or hitting an obstacle during swing phase, leg damage, and even to promote cockroach-like climbing behavior. Thus, the results presented here show that the employed embodied neural closed-loop system can be a powerful way for developing robust and adaptable machines.