Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of all the elastic, dielectric, and piezoelectric constants of uniaxially oriented poled PVDF films

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), a piezoelectric material, has many useful applications, for example, as sensors, transducers, and surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. Models of performance of these devices would be useful engineering tools. However, the benefit of the model is only as accurate as the material properties used in the model. The purpose of this investigation is to measure the elastic, dielectric and piezoelectric properties over a frequency range, including the imaginary part (loss) of these properties. Measurements are difficult because poled material is available as thin films, and not all quantities can be measured in that form. All components of the elastic stiffness, dielectric tensor, and electromechanical coupling tensor are needed in the models. The material studied here is uniaxially oriented poled PVDF that has orthorhombic mm2 symmetry. Presented are the frequency dependence of all nine complex elastic constants, three complex dielectric constants, and five complex piezoelectric constants. The PVDF was produced at Raytheon Research Division, Lexington, MA. Measurements were made on thin films and on stacked, cubical samples. The elastic constants c/sub 44//sup D/ and c/sub 55//sup D/, the dielectric constants e/sub 11//sup T/ and e/sub 22//sup T/, as well as the piezoelectric constants g/sub 15/ and g/sub 24/ reported here have not been published before. The values were determined by ultrasonic measurements using an impedance analyzer and a least square data-fitting technique.
Damage growth detection of composite laminate using embedded FBG sensor/PZT actuator hybrid system

This paper presents a part of the study conducted for developing a damage diagnostic system for an advanced composite material that can be utilized in next-generation aircraft structure. The authors have been working on a detection of elastic wave which can be launched from the PZT actuators, using small- and normal-diameter FBG optical fiber sensors that are bonded to the surface of the CFRP laminate under different conditions. Based on the results, it was verified that it is possible to achieve a high-accuracy detection of elastic wave by using FBG sensors bonded to the surface of the CFRP laminate. It was also verified that the damages generated on the inside of the composite material may be detected by the waveform analysis of the received elastic wave. In this study, the authors succeeded in the embedment of small-diameter FBG optical fiber sensors into the bonding surface of the double-lap type coupon specimen, which simulates the bonding structure of the CFRP composite structure. In this study, we also clarified several issues pertaining to the conditions, methods, and techniques involved in fiber embedding. An optical loss was observed during the embedment process, which may result in the loss of both accuracy and reliability. Based on these observations, the authors developed embedding techniques for optical fiber sensors that can reduce this optical loss. Additionally, the possibility of detecting an elastic wave, which was launched from the PZT actuators bonded to the surface of the coupon and directed to the host material, was verified using double-lap type coupon specimen having embedded small-diameter FBG optical fiber sensors at the bonding surface. Therefore, this specimen has provided an artificial defect that simulates the delamination generated at the bonding interface. Based on the measurements of the elastic wave, it was verified that the change in the elastic wave depends on the damage length, which is caused by the artificial defect. Moreover, based on the analysis of the received elastic wave, the possibility of damage detection was confirmed. The successful development of this damage monitoring system would ease the implementation of structural health monitoring system in aircraft structures in the near future.
Automatic mutli-connectivity interface generation for system designs based on a dataflow description

This paper presents a contribution to the development of rapid prototyping tools based on dataflow description. In this context, a major key goal is to propose a design flow which includes an automatic synthesis of the hardware interfaces. Therefore, this paper presents a methodology to define and generate automatically a system's interface from a data-flow description. To achieve such an ambitious goal, a generic hardware socket has been defined. This paper presents especially the serialization and de-serialization of different data flows between the hardware design and the physical interface. Different strategies are therefore compared and discussed.
Power-efficient variation-aware photonic on-chip network management

Recent advances in nanophotonic technology have made nanophotonic interconnect an attractive on-chip communication solution for emerging many-core systems. However, fabrication-induced process variation and run-time system thermal effects directly affect nanophotonic device operation, and introduce serious challenges, e.g., signal power loss and crosstalk, to the power, performance and reliability of nanophotonic communication. This article first develops models to characterize nanophotonic process and thermal variation effects. Next, it presents a run-time management solution, an integration of inter-channel hopping, intra-channel wavelength tuning and variation-aware routing. Together, the proposed techniques can optimize the performance and reliability of nanophotonic communication with excellent power efficiency.
Development of a Vibrating Wire Strain Gauge for Measuring Small Strains in Concrete Beams

Abstract: A vibrating wire strain gauge capable of measuring strains in concrete elements to an accuracy of better than 0.5 μɛ is presented. This offers some advantages over conventional electrical resistance gauges, the quoted accuracy of which is typically 3 μɛ, and which are often considered unsuitable for concrete because of their inability to span cracks. While vibrating wire gauges are potentially more accurate, they are prone to significant errors because of temperature changes. In the purpose‐built gauge described here, temperature correction is achieved using an unstrained reference gauge. The vibration data are analysed using a moving‐window Fourier transformation in order to identify and remove the geometrically nonlinear portion of the response. The resulting system is accurate, economical and easy to use. The gauges have been used to study the behaviour of cracked concrete specimens. Typical results are presented and discussed.
Development of Body Oxygen Stores in Harbor Seals: Effects of Age, Mass, and Body Composition

Harbor seal pups are highly precocial and can swim and dive at birth. Such behavioral maturity suggests that they may be born with mature body oxygen stores or that stores develop quickly during the nursing period. To test this hypothesis, we compared the blood and muscle oxygen stores of harbor seal pups, yearlings, and adults. We found that pups had smaller oxygen stores than adults (neonates 57%, weaned pups 75%, and yearlings 90% those of adults), largely because neonatal myoglobin concentrations were low (1.6 ± 0.2 g% vs. 3.8 ± 0.3 g% for adults) and changed little during the nursing period. In contrast, blood oxygen stores were relatively mature, with nursing pups having hematocrit (55% ± 0.2%), hemoglobin (21.7 ± 0.4 g%), and blood volume (12.3 ± 0.5 mL/kg) only slightly lower than the corresponding values for adults (57% ± 0.2%, 23.8 ± 0.3 g %, and 15.0 ± 0.5 mL/kg). Because neonatal pups had relatively high metabolic rates (11.0 mL O2/kg min), their calculated aerobic dive limit was less than 50% that of adults. These results suggest that harbor seals’ early aquatic activity is primarily supported by rapid development of blood, with immature muscle oxygen stores and elevated use rates limiting aerobic diving ability.
A case study in the identification of prosodic cues to turn-taking: back-channeling in Arabic

Discovering and quantifying the prosodic signals that help manage turn-taking is difficult, in part because of the limitations of commonly used methods. This paper presents an integrated method that uses both perceptually-based analysis and quantitative analysis. The eight activities involved in the method — clarification of aims, problem formulation, corpus preparation, feature discovery, feature combination, hypothesis refinement, tuning, and evaluation — are illustrated using task of finding prosodic cues for back-channel feedback in Arabic.
Microenvironmental Regulation of Glioblastoma Radioresponse

Purpose: Brain tumor xenografts initiated from human glioblastoma (GBM) stem-like cells (TSC) simulate the biological characteristics of GBMs in situ. Therefore, to determine whether the brain microenvironment affects the intrinsic radiosensitivity of GBM cells, we compared the radioresponse of GBM TSCs grown in vitro and as brain tumor xenografts. Experimental Design: As indicators of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB), γH2AX, and 53BP1 foci were defined after irradiation of 2 GBM TSC lines grown in vitro and as orthotopic xenografts in nude mice. Microarray analysis was conducted to compare gene expression patterns under each growth condition. Results: Dispersal of radiation-induced γH2AX and 53BP1 foci was faster in the tumor cells grown as orthotopic xenografts compared with cells irradiated in vitro. In addition, cells irradiated in vivo were approximately 3-fold less susceptible to foci induction as compared with cells grown in vitro. Microarray analysis revealed a significant number of genes whose expression was commonly affected in the 2 GBM models by orthotopic growth conditions. Consistent with the decrease in sensitivity to foci induction, genes related to reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism were expressed at higher levels in the brain tumor xenografts. Conclusion: γH2AX and 53BP1 foci analyses indicate that GBM cells irradiated within orthotopic xenografts have a greater capacity to repair DSBs and are less susceptible to their induction than tumor cells irradiated under in vitro growth conditions. Because DSB induction and repair are critical determinants of radiosensitivity, these results imply that the brain microenvironment contributes to GBM radioresistance.Clin Cancer Res; 16(24); 6049–59. ©2010 AACR.
Prediction of Promiscuous P-Glycoprotein Inhibition Using a Novel Machine Learning Scheme

Background P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an ATP-dependent membrane transporter that plays a pivotal role in eliminating xenobiotics by active extrusion of xenobiotics from the cell. Multidrug resistance (MDR) is highly associated with the over-expression of P-gp by cells, resulting in increased efflux of chemotherapeutical agents and reduction of intracellular drug accumulation. It is of clinical importance to develop a P-gp inhibition predictive model in the process of drug discovery and development. Methodology/Principal Findings An in silico model was derived to predict the inhibition of P-gp using the newly invented pharmacophore ensemble/support vector machine (PhE/SVM) scheme based on the data compiled from the literature. The predictions by the PhE/SVM model were found to be in good agreement with the observed values for those structurally diverse molecules in the training set (n = 31, r 2 = 0.89, q 2 = 0.86, RMSE = 0.40, s = 0.28), the test set (n = 88, r 2 = 0.87, RMSE = 0.39, s = 0.25) and the outlier set (n = 11, r 2 = 0.96, RMSE = 0.10, s = 0.05). The generated PhE/SVM model also showed high accuracy when subjected to those validation criteria generally adopted to gauge the predictivity of a theoretical model. Conclusions/Significance This accurate, fast and robust PhE/SVM model that can take into account the promiscuous nature of P-gp can be applied to predict the P-gp inhibition of structurally diverse compounds that otherwise cannot be done by any other methods in a high-throughput fashion to facilitate drug discovery and development by designing drug candidates with better metabolism profile.
Evidence That Replication-Associated Mutation Alone Does Not Explain Between-Chromosome Differences In Substitution Rates

Since Haldane first noticed an excess of paternally derived mutations, it has been considered that most mutations derive from errors during germ line replication. Miyata et al. (1987) proposed that differences in the rate of neutral evolution on X, Y, and autosome can be employed to measure the extent of this male bias. This commonly applied method assumes replication to be the sole source of between-chromosome variation in substitution rates. We propose a simple test of this assumption: If true, estimates of the male bias should be independent of which two chromosomal classes are compared. Prior evidence from rodents suggested that this might not be true, but conclusions were limited by a lack of rat Y-linked sequence. We therefore sequenced two rat Y-linked bacterial artificial chromosomes and determined evolutionary rate by comparison with mouse. For estimation of rates we consider both introns and synonymous rates. Surprisingly, for both data sets the prediction of congruent estimates of α is strongly rejected. Indeed, some comparisons suggest a female bias with autosomes evolving faster than Y-linked sequence. We conclude that the method of Miyata et al. (1987) has the potential to provide incorrect estimates. Correcting the method requires understanding of the other causes of substitution that might differ between chromosomal classes. One possible cause is recombination-associated substitution bias for which we find some evidence. We note that if, as some suggest, this association is dominantly owing to male recombination, the high estimates of α seen in birds is to be expected as Z chromosomes recombine in males.
The stress intensity factor of the crack on the interface between homogeneous material and FGMs

Based on higher-order asymptotic stress fields for the interfacial crack between homogeneous material and functionally graded materials (FGMs), stress intensity factors were calculated by finite element and node collocation methods. The method was verified by comparing the results with numerical solutions obtained in other studies, with varying degrees of homogeneity. The comparison showed that the obtained results agree well with the numerical solutions.
Kernel target alignment for feature kernel selection in universal steganographic detection based on multiple kernel SVM

Merging multiple features can achieve higher detection rate than single feature in universal steganalysis, however there are drawbacks in most merged feature steganalysis methods: it is only a simple combination of features without analysing the relation of constisten and afoul among these features, besides there is no unified standard for features selection. This paper introduces a quantity to capture the quantitative measure of agreement between different features, which we call alignment, for feature kernel selection in steganographic detection of JPEG images based on Multiple Kernel SVM(MK-SVM). We apply orthogonal feature sets with low alignment value as the “basis kernels on features” in multiple kernel learning model, the linear combination of kernels is optimized using SimpleMKL algorithm. We compare the performance of merged feature method with multiple kernel method to detect six popular steganographic algorithms, result indicates that multiple kernel method outperforms merged feature method for 0.2%-1.7%, and most importantly with theory evidence for features selection.
High purity diamond films synthesised by chemical vapour deposition

Defect free diamond films have tremendous potential in a variety of areas including optoelectronics and have been the focus of several studies. Before diamond growth, a seeding treatment to substrate is mandatory, which itself is a source of contamination and degrades the quality of diamond. In the present study, diamond films without seeding treatment were grown on silicon using hot filament chemical vapour deposition. As a result of dry ultrasonic process, the diamond film with continuous layer was grown over unseeded substrate. At nucleation stage, carbon containing species were trapped by the uniformly created network of pits. Film grown at 2·0 vol.-% CH4 in H2 and substrate temperature of 850°C showed higher purity than that grown at 3·0 vol.-%CH4 in H2 and substrate temperature of 1000°C. Films grown over seedless substrates were also compared with those grown with seeding treatment.
Enhanced Cartoon and Comic Rendering

AbstractIn this work we present an extension to common cel shading techniques, and describe four new cartoon-like ren-dering styles applicable for real-time implementations: stylistic shadows, double contour lines, soft cel shading,and pseudo edges. Our work was mainly motivated by the rich set of stylistic elements and expressional possibili-ties within the medium comic. In particular, we were inspired by Miller’s “Sin City ” and McFarlane’s “Spawn”. We designed algorithms for these styles, developed a real-time implementationand integrated it into a regular 3Dgame engine.Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS) : I.3. 7 [Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism]:Color, shading, shadowing, and texture1. IntroductionFor some years, the ﬁeld of non-photorealistic rendering(NPR) has also focused on the representation of comic-likecomputer graphics, being limited to typical characteristicsof cel shading. The gap in the expressiveness of traditionalcomics over their adoption in computer applications still re-mains, because only little research has been done in reﬂect-ing, which artistic style is appropriate for a certain purpose,being with [Hal03] the only exception. Additionally, moreenhanced comic rendering techniques, such as double con-tour lines, stylistic shadows or a soft cel shading, hardly ex-ist. In this paper, we will focus on presenting our results re-garding the second aspect.1. 1. Non-Photorealistic Rendering techniquesThe ﬁeld of NPR aims at simulating handmade illustrationswith computer algorithms. It is mainly motivated by tradi-tional illustration techniques used in the area of medicine,archeology, and architecture. In the ﬁrst instance this in-cludes feature line algorithms [ST90,Her99,BS00,IFH
Synthesis of Glutamate-Zinc-Aluminium-Layered Double Hydroxide Nanobiocomposites and Cell Viability Study

Abstract: A layered compound of zinc-aluminium layered double hydroxide (LDH) to be used as a host for a guest amino acid, gluta-mate was synthesized. Different parameters were used and optimized to form amino acid-intercalated pure phase materials. The resulting Bio-Inorganic Nanohybrid (BINH) was chosen for further characterization. BINH exhibits the glutamate to be in vertical or perpendicular orientation to the inorganic layer. Cytotoxicty test indicates that the IC 50 value was observed at 3.125 g/ml. Results from this study will be used in the development of a new delivery system for therapeutic agents comprising amino acids or peptides. Key Words: Nanobiotechnology, glutamate, layered double hydroxide, bio-inorganic nanohybrid. INTRODUCTION One of the targeted research areas for scientists worldwide in this new millennium is in the field of nanobiotechnology. Intense research has been conducted to investigate the possibilities of in-corporating the field of nanotechnology with molecular biology. It is anticipated that this new field would revolutionize areas related to biosensors, medical diagnostics, biomechanics and bioelectronics [1, 2]. Nanobiotechnology is based on nanomaterials and technology involving molecular biology techniques. This involves the exploita-tion of various molecular modified nanomaterial components such as dendrimer, nanotube, and nanoparticles. This area of research can be applied significantly for medical examination and treatment, drug delivery, biomimetic sensors, gene therapy, and immunologi-cal diagnosis [3-5]. Although nanobiotechnology is still in its in-fancy stage of development, it is moving at a very fast pace as indi-cated by the establishment of many nanotechnology centers world-wide. In 2005, a report in
Semantic Technologies to Support the User-Centric Analysis of Activity Data

There is currently a trend in giving access to users of on- line services to their own data. In this paper, we consider in particular the data which is generated from the interaction between a user and an organisation online: activity data as held in websites and Web applica- tions logs. We show how we use semantic technologies including RDF integration of log data, SPARQL and lightweight ontology reasoning to aggregate, integrate and analyse activity data from a user-centric point of view.
Identifying the exact fixing actions of static rule violation

We study good programming practices expressed in rules and detected by static analysis checkers such as PMD or FindBugs. To understand how violations to these rules are corrected and whether this can be automated, we need to identify in the source code where they appear and how they were fixed. This presents some similarities with research on understanding software bugs, their causes, their fixes, and how they could be avoided. The traditional method to identify how a bug or a rule violation were fixed consists in finding the commit that contains this fix and identifying what was changed in this commit. If the commit is small, all the lines changed are ascribed to the fixing of the rule violation or the bug. However, commits are not always atomic, and several fixes and even enhancements can be mixed in a single one (a large commit). In this case, it is impossible to detect which modifications contribute to which fix. In this paper, we are proposing a method that identifies precisely the modifications that are related to the correction of a rule violation. The same method could be applied to bug fixes, providing there is a test illustrating this bug. We validate our solution on a real world system and actual rules.
Evidence that a transcription factor regulatory network coordinates oxidative stress response and secondary metabolism in aspergilli

The mycotoxin aflatoxin is a secondary metabolite and potent human carcinogen. We investigated one mechanism that links stress response with coordinate activation of genes involved in aflatoxin biosynthesis in Aspergillus parasiticus. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays demonstrated that AtfB, a basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factor, is a master co‐regulator that binds promoters of early (fas‐1), middle (ver‐1), and late (omtA) aflatoxin biosynthetic genes as well as stress‐response genes (mycelia‐specific cat1 and mitochondria‐specific Mn sod) at cAMP response element motifs. A novel conserved motif 5′‐T/GNT/CAAG CCNNG/AA/GC/ANT/C‐3′ was identified in promoters of the aflatoxin biosynthetic and stress‐response genes. A search for transcription factors identified SrrA as a transcription factor that could bind to the motif. Moreover, we also identified a STRE motif (5′‐CCCCT‐3′) in promoters of aflatoxin biosynthetic and stress‐response genes, and competition EMSA suggested that MsnA binds to this motif. Our study for the first time provides strong evidence to suggest that at least four transcription factors (AtfB, SrrA, AP‐1, and MsnA) participate in a regulatory network that induces aflatoxin biosynthesis as part of the cellular response to oxidative stress in A. parasiticus.