Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Precise and Quantitative Evaluation of the Adhesive Strength of Diamond Thin Films by Bulge/Blister Test

With the widespread use of diamond thin films in mechanical engineering, especially in cutting tools, dies and molds, the insight into adhesive strength between the film and the base is becoming necessary and inevitable. Furthermore, the optimization of diamond thin film fabrication process relies mainly on the precise quantitative evaluation of the adhesive strength. How to obtain the adhesive strength precisely and quantitatively has been the frontier issue to the related scientists and engineers. Many useful practical measurements have been developed and the adhesive strength of diamond thin film can be demonstrated qualitatively very well up to now. But seldom contribution to its quantitative evaluation has been made due to the limitations to both available measurement condition and theoretical modeling. Aiming at solving this problem, the authors presented an innovative experimental method by bulge/blister tests on base of intensive modeling and simulation. The special equipment for bulge/blister tests was designed purposely and fabricated considering the influential factors such as the sealed connecting under high liquid pressure and dose feeding. The so-called free-standing window of diamond thin films with the support of silicon wafer was obtained by the aid of photolithography and anisotropic wet etching technology. The laser interferometer measurement with fine solution was used to pick up dynamic signals of bulge deformation of diamond thin film in micrometer scale and the relationship between stress and strain of the diamond thin film was available. As a result, the adhesive strength could be obtained precisely and quantitatively by the valid model. In this paper, the average adhesion strength of diamond thin films calculated from the tests of the square membranes is 4.28726 J/m 2 . By the comparison of simulation outcomes and the experimental results, experiment system was slightly modified for more practical and reliable measurement. This paper confirms the accessibility to precise quantitative evaluation of the adhesive strength of the diamond thin film and the results will be beneficial to wide application of diamond thin films in the tool-engineering field.
Joint analysis in rapid fabrication of non‐assembly mechanisms

Purpose – The main purpose of this study is to develop a systematic method that can minimize joint clearance for non‐assembly mechanism fabrication using a layer‐based fabrication technology.Design/methodology/approach – Joint clearance is one of the key factors affecting a mechanism's performance. Hertz theory is adopted to analyze the joint clearance‐penetration displacement relationship and the impact force‐displacement relationship. This analysis has indicated the importance of reducing joint clearance. To reduce joint clearance in layer‐based fabrication, a drum‐shaped roller is proposed for pin joint design in non‐assembly mechanism fabrication. Compared to cylindrical pin joint design, a drum‐shaped roller joint results in less impact force in mechanism operation. Furthermore, the joint clearance can also be drastically reduced.Findings – Large joint clearance could introduce instability into the dynamic behaviour of a mechanism. By applying a drum‐shaped roller, the instability could apparently be.
Doxycycline, the drug used to control the tet‐regulatable promoter system, has no effect on global gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The tet‐regulatable promoter system is commonly used for genetic studies in many eukaryotic organisms. The promoter is regulated using doxycycline. There are no obvious phenotypic effects observed when doxycycline is added to the growth medium of yeast to control expression from the promoter. It is widely accepted that doxycycline is innocuous to yeast. Global genetic studies are now commonplace and the tetO‐system is being used in transcriptome studies. Hence, we wanted to ensure that the absence of phenotypic effects, on addition of doxycycline to the growth medium, is mirrored in transcriptome data. We have demonstrated that doxycycline has no significant effect on global transcription levels and will continue to use the tetO‐regulatable promoter system for genetic studies. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of lactic acid suppositories compared with oral metronidazole and placebo in bacterial vaginosis: a randomised clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE--To compare the effect of lactic acid locally, metronidazole orally and placebo in women with bacterial vaginosis. DESIGN--Randomised clinical trial. SETTING--30 general practices in the Netherlands. PATIENTS--125 women consulting the general practitioner for symptomatic bacterial vaginosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Duration of subjective symptoms, recurrence of symptoms, clinically diagnosed cure, adverse events. RESULTS--Survival analysis showed a significantly faster disappearance of symptoms in the metronidazole category compared with both lactic acid and placebo (p = 0.0005 metronidazole v placebo, p = 0.0002 metronidazole v lactic acid p = 0.6521 lactic acid v placebo [The stratified Mantel Cox test]). The median duration until absence of symptoms was 21 days for metronidazole and 80 days for placebo. Disappearance of symptoms did not occur in 50% of the lactic acid group in 90 days. Recurrence rates of symptoms were similar over the treatment categories (p = 0.13 metronidazole v placebo and p = 0.12 lactic acid v placebo). After 2 weeks cure rates (cure defined as less than three of four clinical criteria present) were 83%, 49% and 47% for metronidazole, lactic acid and placebo category respectively. At that time cure rates (cure defined as none of three clinical criteria present) were 10%, 0% and 3%. After four weeks and three months these figures were: 55%, 20%, 20% and 64%, 28%, 28%. No differences in adverse events were found between the three interventions. CONCLUSIONS--Lactic acid suppositories are ineffective, metronidazole capsules are effective on signs and symptoms in bacterial vaginosis. A considerable proportion of the patients recover without active medication.
Fibroblast surface-associated FGF-2 promotes contact-dependent colorectal cancer cell migration and invasion through FGFR-SRC signaling and integrin αvβ5-mediated adhesion

Carcinoma-associated fibroblasts were reported to promote colorectal cancer (CRC) invasion by secreting motility factors and extracellular matrix processing enzymes. Less is known whether fibroblasts may induce CRC cancer cell motility by contact-dependent mechanisms. To address this question we characterized the interaction between fibroblasts and SW620 and HT29 colorectal cancer cells in 2D and 3D co-culture models in vitro. Here we show that fibroblasts induce contact-dependent cancer cell elongation, motility and invasiveness independently of deposited matrix or secreted factors. These effects depend on fibroblast cell surface-associated fibroblast growth factor (FGF) -2. Inhibition of FGF-2 or FGF receptors (FGFRs) signaling abolishes these effects. FGFRs activate SRC in cancer cells and inhibition or silencing of SRC in cancer cells, but not in fibroblasts, prevents fibroblasts-mediated effects. Using an RGD-based integrin antagonist and function-blocking antibodies we demonstrate that cancer cell adhesion to fibroblasts requires integrin αvβ5. Taken together, these results demonstrate that fibroblasts induce cell-contact-dependent colorectal cancer cell migration and invasion under 2D and 3D conditions in vitro through fibroblast cell surface-associated FGF-2, FGF receptor-mediated SRC activation and αvβ5 integrin-dependent cancer cell adhesion to fibroblasts. The FGF-2-FGFRs-SRC-αvβ5 integrin loop might be explored as candidate therapeutic target to block colorectal cancer invasion.
Investigation of polyacrylonitrile electrospun nanofibres morphology as a function of polymer concentration, viscosity and berry number

This study focuses on using curve fitting methodology and power law equation to analyse polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibres morphology synthesised by electrospinning. The effects of polymer solution properties (i.e. polymer concentration, viscosity and Berry number) on electrospinnability of the PAN/DMF ( N , N -dimethylformamide) solutions are investigated. For the polymer electrospun from concentrated solution (3.5 C 4.16 , the relation between the diameter of electrospun the PAN nanofibres and solution concentration is in the form: d =0.0326 C 3.45 , and the relationship between the nanofibres diameter and solution viscosity is in the form: d =0.834= 0.827 .
CadiaPlayer: A Simulation-Based General Game Player

The aim of general game playing (GGP) is to create intelligent agents that can automatically learn how to play many different games at an expert level without any human intervention. The traditional design model for GGP agents has been to use a minimax-based game-tree search augmented with an automatically learned heuristic evaluation function. The first successful GGP agents all followed that approach. In this paper, we describe CadiaPlayer, a GGP agent employing a radically different approach: instead of a traditional game-tree search, it uses Monte Carlo simulations for its move decisions. Furthermore, we empirically evaluate different simulation-based approaches on a wide variety of games, introduce a domain-independent enhancement for automatically learning search-control knowledge to guide the simulation playouts, and show how to adapt the simulation searches to be more effective in single-agent games. CadiaPlayer has already proven its effectiveness by winning the 2007 and 2008 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) GGP competitions.
Adaptive data hiding in palette images by color ordering and mapping with security protection

Palette images are widely used in multimedia and Internet applications. In this paper, a new method for data hiding in palette images with security protection by color ordering and mapping, as well as parameter randomization, is proposed. First, image pixels are classified as data embeddable or nonembeddable, and only the former ones are used to embed secret data. The proposed idea of data hiding is based on the use of a new type of color-ordering relationship, from which a color-mapping function is defined with binary values as output. When a secret data bit is to be embedded, a data-embeddable pixel is selected, and its color is adjusted to make the output of the color-mapping function equal to the secret bit value. The embedded secret data can be extracted correctly and quickly from the resulting stego-image by merely inspecting the outputs of the color-mapping function. Indetectability of the secret information embedded by the proposed method is also analyzed and confirmed. Furthermore, a number of possible security enhancement measures based on parameter randomization in the data-embedding process are proposed to protect the hidden data in the stego-image. The randomization effect is created by the use of a secret key and a number of random number-generating functions. The proposed data hiding method was tested with a variety of palette images. The experimental results show that secret data can be embedded and extracted successfully without producing visual artifacts in the cover image. A good balance between stego-image quality and data-embedding capacity can be achieved, which proves the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed method for practical applications.
Distinct roles for E12 and E47 in B cell specification and the sequential rearrangement of immunoglobulin light chain loci

The E2A gene products, E12 and E47, are critical regulators of B cell development. However, it remains elusive whether E12 and E47 have overlapping and/or distinct functions during B lymphopoiesis. We have generated mice deficient for either E12 or E47 and examined their roles in B cell maturation. We show that E47 is essential for developmental progression at the prepro–B cell stage, whereas E12 is dispensable for early B cell development, commitment, and maintenance. In contrast, both E12 and E47 play critical roles in pre–B and immature B cells to promote immunoglobulin λ (Igλ) germline transcription as well as Igλ VJ gene rearrangement. Furthermore, we show that E12 as well as E47 is required to promote receptor editing upon exposure to self-antigen. We demonstrate that increasing levels of E12 and E47 act to induce Igλ germline transcription, promote trimethylated lysine 4 on histone 3 (H3) as well as H3 acetylation across the Jλ region, and activate Igλ VJ gene rearrangement. We propose that in the pre–B and immature B cell compartments, gradients of E12 and E47 activities are established to mechanistically regulate the sequential rearrangement of the Ig light chain genes.
Co-training using RBF Nets and Different Feature Splits

In this paper we propose a new graph-based feature splitting algorithm maxlnd, which creates a balanced split maximizing the independence between the two feature sets. We study the performance of RBF net in a co-training setting with natural, truly independent, random and maxlnd split. The results show that RBF net is successful in a co-training setting, outperforming SVM and NB. Co-training is also found to be sensitive to the trade-off between the dependence of the features within a feature set, and the dependence between the feature sets.
Performance of a Wastewater Treatment Pond System with Microfiltration

I hereby grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in its entirety or any of its parts, without further authorization, provided acknowledgment is made to the authors and advisors. The Woodlands Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWWTP) treats wastewater from the Woodlands housing community near Nipomo, California. The treated effluent is recycled for irrigation of a golf course within the community. The treatment facility consists of three facultative ponds in series followed by a microfiltration system and chlorine disinfection. Microfiltration of wastewater pond effluent is a fairly new, and potentially challenging, application of microfiltration. This thesis describes the operating conditions and behavior of the WWWTP pond system followed by a microfiltration system for the purpose of producing recyclable water fit for reuse under the regulations of Title 22. Water quality data were compiled in two ways. Weekly influent and effluent water quality and flow measurements conducted by the WWWTP operators over the course of three years were studied to show the treatment trends of the treatment plant as a whole. In addition, weekly water quality tests were performed on samples of wastewater influent, effluent, and intermediate stages of treatment for 20 weeks and studied to show treatment performance of each individual pond and the microfiltration system. Pond treatment performance was analyzed based on removal of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) and accumulation of sludge within the pond system. Microfiltration performance was analyzed in terms of meeting vi the TSS discharge requirement and the membrane fouling rate. The power consumption of the pond system components and the microfiltration system were estimated. The data show that the WWWTP is producing very high quality discharge. Without microfiltration, five-day carbonaceous soluble BOD (csBOD 5) averaged 3.0 mg/L and TSS averaged 42.5 mg/L. BOD 5 and TSS removal efficiencies were greater than 90%. Microfilter effluent BOD 5 and TSS concentrations averaged 3.0 mg/L and 1.6 mg/L, respectively. Total ammonia nitrogen was reduced to 1.61 mg/L. pH remained between 6.5 and 8.5 with few temporary exceptions. The sludge accumulation was at the high end of the range of typical accumulation rates. However, the measured rate is for the first three years of operation and so likely overestimates the long-term accumulation rate. Although the treatment performance of the WWWTP is excellent, the power consumed was high.
Oncilla: A GAS runtime for efficient resource allocation and data movement in accelerated clusters

Accelerated and in-core implementations of Big Data applications typically require large amounts of host and accelerator memory as well as efficient mechanisms for transferring data to and from accelerators in heterogeneous clusters. Scheduling for heterogeneous CPU and GPU clusters has been investigated in depth in the high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud computing arenas, but there has been less emphasis on the management of cluster resource that is required to schedule applications across multiple nodes and devices. Previous approaches to address this resource management problem have focused on either using low-performance software layers or on adapting complex data movement techniques from the HPC arena, which reduces performance and creates barriers for migrating applications to new heterogeneous cluster architectures. This work proposes a new system architecture for cluster resource allocation and data movement built around the concept of managed Global Address Spaces (GAS), or dynamically aggregated memory regions that span multiple nodes.We propose a software layer called Oncilla that uses a simple runtime and API to take advantage of non-coherent hardware support for GAS. The Oncilla runtime is evaluated using two different high-performance networks for microkernels representative of the TPC-H data warehousing benchmark, and this runtime enables a reduction in runtime of up to 81%, on average, when compared with standard disk-based data storage techniques. The use of the Oncilla API is also evaluated for a simple breadth-first search (BFS) benchmark to demonstrate how existing applications can incorporate support for managed GAS.
Polarisation conversion at a textured surface

It has previously been shown that the electric vector of visible-wavelength radiation can be rotated through 90° by reflecting photons from a suitably aligned diffraction grating. The phenomenon has now been directly extended to the microwave regime, and the use of gratings exhibiting a finite number of grooves has been investigated. While efficient conversion has been obtained from gratings consisting of as few as five grooves, the wavelength dependence of the effect is not in good agreement with an unmodified optical model of the system. Several possible explanations were investigated, and it was deduced that the main error was due to the nonplanar wavefronts produced by the source. An experimental solution to this problem is suggested.
A New TCP-Friendly Stabilised CSFQ Mechanism for Layered Multicast

Layered multicasting is an effective technique in distributing large-scale streaming multimedia content over the standard IP networks which form the Internet. Multicasting is effective method whether it is video, voice, or other forms of data when large quantities of receiving users are involved. Multicasting allows a single form of a signal to be transmitted with network protocols managing the mass delivery. The major issue is fairness, which is the desire for the multicast traffic not to overwhelm other usual traffic such as standard TCP traffic. The need for speed of UDP and its designed nature of obtaining as much bandwidth as possible is what causes the issue of negative impact on competing TCP flows. Therefore a goal of operation is to control UDP traffic and use to its potential without disrupting other types of traffic. Shortcomings and any advantageous features of current protocols will be analysed to find mechanisms to assist in improving traffic friendliness. The focus of this dissertation is to analyse aspects of an amalgamation of core stateless fair queuing and stabilised random early drop along with other ideas in an attempt to offer an improved scheme for layered multicast fairness that will form a new protocol called stabilised CSFQ
Clinical impact of the switch from femoral to radial approach for coronary intervention: a single-center experience

Aim: To evaluate the safety profile during a 3-year transition from default transfemoral access to default transradial access (TRA) for percutaneous coronary interventions in a tertiary cardiac center. Methods: Data were collected from electronic databases on all percutaneous coronary interventions from 2007 to 2009. Results: Two thousand eight hundred and forty-five procedures were recorded. TRA increased from 36 to 58% of procedures over the study period. Postprocedure blood transfusion requirements, incidence of hematoma and hospital length of stay were less among TRA cases. Fluoroscopy time, procedure time and mortality were similar in both groups. Access site crossover was higher among TRA cases but not prohibitive. Conclusion: Transitioning from a default transfemoral access to TRA unit was not associated with an adverse clinical or safety profile.
DSGE Model Validation in a Bayesian Framework: an Assessment

This paper presents the concept of Model Validation applied to a Dynamic Stochastic General equilibrium Model (DSGE). The main problem discussed is the approximation of the statistical representation for a DSGE model when not all endogenous variables are observable. MonteCarlo experiments in artificial world are implemented to assess this problem by using the DSGE-VAR. Two Data Generating Processes are compared: a forward-looking and a backward-looking model. These experiments are followed by an empirical analysis with real world data for the US economy.
EFFECT OF ISOTHERMAL AGING ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND CREEP PROPERTIES OF SAC305 SOLDER - A MICROMECHANICS APPROACH

SnAgCu (SAC) solders undergo continuous microstructural coarsening during both storage and service. In this study, we use cross-sectioning and image processing techniques to periodically quantify the effect of isothermal aging quantitatively on phase coarsening and evolution, in SAC305 (Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu) solder. SAC305 alloy is aged for (24–1000) hours at 100C (~ 0.7–0.8Tmelt). The characteristic parameters monitored during isothermal aging include size, volume fraction, and inter-particle spacing of both nanoscale Ag3Sn intermetallic compounds (IMCs) and micronscale Cu6Sn5 IMCs, as well as the volume fraction of pure tin dendrites in SAC305 solder. Effects of above microstructural evolution on secondary creep constitutive response of SAC305 interconnects were modeled using a mechanistic multiscale creep model. The mechanistic phenomena modeled include: (1) dispersion strengthening by coarsened nanoscale Ag3Sn IMCs and reinforcement strengthening by micronscale Cu6Sn5 IMCs, respectively; and (2) load sharing between pure Sn dendrites and the surrounding eutectic Sn-Ag phase. The coarse-grained polycrystalline Sn microstructure in SAC305 solder was not captured in the above model because isothermal aging did not appear to cause any significant change in the initial grain morphology of SAC305 solder joints. The above model is shown to predict the drop in creep resistance due to the influence of isothermal aging on SAC305 solder joints.