Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improvement of Surface Roughness in End Milling of Ti6Al4V by Coupling RSM with Genetic Algorithm

Titanium alloys are being widely used in the aerospace, biomedical and automotive industries because of their good strength-to-weight ratio and superior corrosion resistance. Surface roughness is one of the most important requirements in machining of Titanium alloys. This paper describes mathematically the effect of cutting parameters on Surface roughness in end milling of Ti6Al4V. The mathematical model for the surface roughness has been developed in terms of cutting speed, feed rate, and axial depth of cut using design of experiments and the response surface methodology (RSM). Central composite design was employed in developing the surface roughness models in relation to primary cutting parameters. The experimental results indicate that the proposed mathematical models suggested could adequately describe the performance indicators within the limits of the factors that are being investigated. The developed RSM is coupled as a fitness function with genetic algorithm to predict the optimum cutting conditions leading to the least surface roughness value. MATLAB 7.0 toolbox for GA is used to develop GA program. The predicted results are in good agreement with the experimental one and hence the model can be efficiently used to achieve the minimum surface roughness value.
A Real-Time Virtual Environment Rendering System

In this paper, we describe a rendering system that is capable of capturing and rendering dynamic environments at about 20 fps using a commercially available PC (1.8 GHz single processor) and IEEE 1394 cameras (each with resolution of 320times240). It does not rely on any additional custom hardware. Such a system permits streaming applications that involve real-time view synthesis from multiple cameras, such as 3D teleconferencing or chatting. View synthesis is performed using the closest two cameras, and relies on plane sweeping to produce a photoconsistent virtual image. In addition, an alpha matte is estimated at the virtual view in order to improve the rendering quality at the foreground/background boundaries. We illustrate the performance of our system on several dynamic environment examples.
Multi-Object tracking using multi-channel part appearance representation

Appearance based multi-object tracking (MOT) is a challenging task, specially in complex scenes where objects have similar appearance or are occluded by background or other objects. Such factors motivate researchers to propose effective trackers which should satisfy real-time processing and object trajectory recovery criteria. In order to handle both mentioned requirements, we propose a robust online multi-object tracking method that extends the features and methods proposed for re-identification to MOT. The proposed tracker combines a local and a global tracker in a comprehensive two-step framework. In the local tracking step, we use the frame-to-frame association to generate online object trajectories. Each object trajectory is called tracklet and is represented by a set of multi-modal feature distributions modeled by GMMs. In the global tracking step, occlusions and mis-detections are recovered by tracklet bipartite association method based on learning Mahalanobis metric between GMM components using KISSME metric learning algorithm. Experiments on two public datasets show that our tracker performs well when compared to state-of-the-art tracking algorithms.
Video gaming in school children-how much is enough?

Objective : Despite extensive debate, the proposed benefits and risks of video gaming in young people remain to be empirically clarified, particularly in regards an optimal level of use. Methods: In 2,442 children aged 7-11 years, we have investigated relationships between weekly video game use, selected cognitive abilities and conduct-related problems. A large subgroup of these children (N=260) was further examined with MRI approximately one year later to assess the impact of video gaming on brain structure and function. Results: Playing video games for 1 hour per week was associated with faster and more consistent psychomotor responses to visual stimulation. Remarkably, no further change in motor speed was identified in children playing more than 2 hours a week. By comparison, the weekly time spent gaming was steadily associated with conduct problems, peer conflicts and reduced prosocial abilities. These negative implications were clearly visible only in children at the extreme of our game playing distribution with 9 hours or more of video gaming per week. At a neural level, changes associated with gaming were most evident in basal ganglia white matter and functional connectivity. Interpretation: Significantly better visuo-motor skills can be seen in school children playing video games, even with relatively small amounts of use. Frequent weekly use, by contrast, was associated with conduct problems. Further studies are needed to determine whether moderate video gaming causes improved visuo-motor skills and whether excessive video gaming causes conduct problems, or whether children who already have these characteristics simply play more video games.
Productions Diversity of Agriculture Solidwastes Biodegraded

In order to investigate the rice straw lost weight, degradation products and changes of microbial communities in agriculture solid waste degradation course. The normal temperature microbial community could decompose 40% of rice straw gross weight within six days. Propionic acid, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, 4-Amino-1-butanol, butanoic acid, diethoxydimethyl-silane, lactic acid, ethanol-2,2'-oxybis-, diethyl phthalate and glycerin ten kinds compounds detected by GC-MS in the fermented broth. Degradation products changed lots in different fermented period. For analyzing the diversity of the microbial communities, Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) were used to identify the composition diversity. Phylogenetic tree derived from 16S rDNA sequence indicated the microbial community have abundant diversity.
Mapping polymer birefringence in 3D using a polarizing microscope with oblique illumination

We have been developing a polarized light microscope with liquid crystal universal compensator and circular polarizer (the LC-PolScope) for recording images, which are independent of the orientation of birefringent objects. Separate images show the retardance and the slow axis azimuth distributions of the in-plane birefringence of the focused region in the specimen. However the measured (apparent) retardance still depends on the angle between the crystal optic axis and the axis of the illuminating beam of light. If the illuminating beam is close to parallel to the optic axis the measured retardance value decreases dramatically and becomes zero when the two axes are parallel. The description of birefringent objects oriented in 3-dimensional space requires the introduction of two additional parameters: the principal retardance and the inclination angle. Together with the azimuth angle they completely characterize the birefringence properties of a specimen, assuming the specimen has a uniaxial optical indicatrix. We devised a new technique for measuring the three birefringence parameters without moving the specimen. For exploring the out-of-plane birefringence the new instrument which is based on the LC-PolScope technique contains an additional spatial light modulator, implemented here as a liquid crystal mask. The mask is located in the aperture plane of the condenser lens. Partial occlusion of the condenser aperture changes the direction of the central ray of the cone of light converging on the specimen. So we can obtain the retardance and azimuth images using different sets of illumination rays. For experimental verification we used a biological object called an aster. An aster consists of nearly parallel arrays of microtubules, a stiff biopolymer, radiating from a common organizing center called a centrosome. The object is spherically symmetric, and its 3 dimensional distribution of birefringence orientation can be predicted. Experimental results have shown the developed polarizing microscope can successfully be used for imaging and measuring three-dimensional orientation of birefringent objects
Dose distribution from x-ray microbeam arrays applied to radiation therapy: An EGS4 Monte Carlo study.

We present EGS4 Monte Carlo calculations of the spatial distribution of the dose deposited by a single x-ray pencil beam, a planar microbeam, and an array of parallel planar microbeams as used in radiation therapy research. The profiles of the absorbed dose distribution in a phantom, including the peak-to-valley ratio of the dose distribution from microbeam arrays, were calculated at micrometer resolution. We determined the dependence of the findings on the main parameters of photon and electron transport. The results illustrate the dependence of the electron range and the deposited in-beam dose on the cut-off energy, of the electron transport, as well as the effects on the dose profiles of the beam energy, the array size, and the beam spacing. The effect of beam polarization also was studied for a single pencil beam and for an array of parallel planar microbeams. The results show that although the polarization effect on the dose distribution from a 3cm×3cm microbeam array inside a water phantom is large enough to be measured at the outer side of the array (16% difference of the deposited dose for x-ray beams of 200 keV), it is not detectable at the array's center, thus being irrelevant for the radiation therapy purposes. Finally we show that to properly compare the dose profiles determined with a metal oxide semiconductor field emission transistor detector with the computational method predictions, it is important to simulate adequately the size and the material of the device's Si active element.
Discrete sliding mode control for a non-minimum phase electro-hydraulic actuator system

The main objective of this paper is to perform a robust controller design using discrete-time sliding mode control (DSMC). In the control scheme, two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) control strategy turns the DSMC, which generally utilized state feedback into output feedback controller. The designed control scheme is considered with feedback and feedforward combination by implementing the zero phase error tracking control (ZPETC), which particularly intended for the nonminimum phase electro-hydraulic actuator (EHA) system application. In the experimental works, a sinusoidal trajectory with different frequencies is employed to assess the DSMC performance under nonlinear and uncertain condition. Experimental results show the DMSC with perfect tracking control approach is capable to reduce the phase lag occurred due to nonlinear phenomenon. The proposed controller also is highly robust under various points of trajectories and significantly shows enhancement in tracking control performance as compared to the conventional controllers.
An improvement of Energy-Efficient for Hierarchical Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

The advances and many new works have been made in sensor technologies and communication in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Almost hierarchical routing protocols are based in the separated area zone and clustering. In this work, we propose an improvement of energy aware of nodes in wireless sensor networks for a hierarchical routing protocol. The proposed improvement is based on taking into account the number of nodes that are dead which can create an empty space with any functional nodes. Here we proposed the simulation results with some different parameters. We have simulated and analyzed LEACH, and then we have compared a performance concerning a network lifetime. We noticed a gain of around 16%.
Uplink HARQ CoMP with ZF receivers in limited backhaul

Focusing on reliable and low-complexity backhaul-limited uplink coordinated multi-point (CoMP) systems, we propose two hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-based protocols using incremental MIMO (IMIMO) approach for both centralized processing (CP) and distributed processing (DP). Using outage probability and throughput metrics, we compare the proposed protocols and the other HARQ-based MIMO approaches with both Chase combining (CC) and incremental redundancy (IR) schemes. Zero-forcing (ZF) receivers and limited capacity of backhaul are considered as practical assumptions. Effects of user locations, backhaul capacity, number of antennas, and low SNR regime are highlighted. The results indicate that IMIMO outperforms MIMO at low SNR region in both non-CoMP/CoMP scenarios, and approaches the performance of MIMO-HARQ in CoMP scenario.
Power conversion efficiency-aware mapping of multithreaded applications on heterogeneous architectures: A comprehensive parameter tuning

Heterogeneous Multicore Processors (HMPs) are comprised of multiple core types (small vs. big core architectures) with various performance and power characteristics which offer the flexibility to assign each thread to a core that provides the maximum energy-efficiency. Although this architecture provides more flexibility for the running application to determine the optimal run-time settings that maximize energy-efficiency, due to the interdependence of various tuning parameters such as the type of core, run-time voltage and frequency, and the number of threads, the scheduling becomes more challenging. More importantly, the impact of Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of the On-Chip Voltage Regulators (OCVRs) is another important parameter that makes it more challenging to schedule multithreaded applications on HMPs. In this paper, the importance of concurrent optimization and fine-tuning of the circuit and architectural parameters for energy-efficient scheduling on HMPs is addressed to harness the power of heterogeneity. In addition, the scheduling challenges for multithreaded applications are investigated for HMP architectures that account for the impact of power conversion efficiency. A highly accurate learning-based model is developed for energy-efficiency prediction to guide the scheduling decision. Using the predictive model, we further develop a PCE-aware scheduling scheme is developed for effective mapping of multithreaded applications onto an HMP. The results indicate that the proposed learning-based scheme outperforms the state of the art solution by 10% when there is no PCE gap between big and little cores. The energy-efficiency improves up to 60% when the PCE gap between big and little cores increases.
SilkRoad: a multithreaded runtime system with software distributed shared memory for SMP clusters

Constructing multithreaded parallel systems with software distributed shared memory (DSM) is an attractive trend in cluster computing. Distributed Cilk (Cilk 5.1) is a multithreaded runtime system for SMP clusters with support for the divide-and-conquer programming paradigm. However, it lacks support for user-level shared memory. We describe SilkRoad, an extension of Distributed Cilk which implements the lazy release consistency (LRC) memory model. In the SilkRoad runtime system, system control information is kept consistent by means of a backing store, just as it is in the original Distributed Cilk, while the user's cluster wide shared data is kept consistent by LRC. LRC enables SilkRoad programmers to define and use shared variables between the threads running on different nodes in a cluster This greatly enlarges the scope of supported programming paradigms in Cilk. Besides testing its performance, we also compared SilkRoad with TreadMarks, an LRC software DSM system for clusters with no support of multithreading. The results show that with the hybrid memory model of dag-consistency and LRC, multithreaded SilkRoad programs written in a divide-and-conquer fashion with good data locality can achieve comparable performance with the corresponding multiple-process TreadMarks programs.
Ring Chromosome 17 Not Involving the Miller-Dieker Region: A Case with Drug-Resistant Epilepsy

Chromosomal abnormalities are often identified in people with neurodevelopmental disorders including intellectual disability, autism, and epilepsy. Ring chromosomes, which usually involve gene copy number loss, are formed by fusion of subtelomeric or telomeric chromosomal regions. Some ring chromosomes, including ring 14, 17, and 20, are strongly associated with seizure disorders. We report an individual with a ring chromosome 17, r(17)(p13.3q25.3), with a terminal 17q25.3 deletion and no short arm copy number loss, and with a phenotype characterized by intellectual disability and drug-resistant epilepsy, including a propensity for nonconvulsive status epilepticus.
Towards Quantified Data Analysis of Information Flow Tracking for Secure System Design

Computing hardware has become an attractive attack surface due to the globalization of semi-conductor design and supply chain, and the wide integration of third-party intellectual property cores. Recently, gate-level information flow tracking (GLIFT) has been proposed to monitor the flow of information in secure hardware design by associating data objects with sensitivity labels and tracking the flow of labeled data. GLIFT can be used to model and verify security-related properties, such as confidentiality and integrity. However, existing work in this realm only considers binary labels. These are inadequate for understanding simultaneous information flow behaviors and the root source information flows. In this paper, we propose a precise multi-bit GLIFT method to perform simultaneous multi-bit flow tracking for understanding exactly which bits are affecting a data object at the same time. The proposed method provides more detailed insights into simultaneous information flow behaviors and thus allows proof of quantitative information flow data properties. We compare the complexity and verification performance for different information flow models using primitive gates, IWLS benchmarks, several cryptographic cores, and trust-HUB benchmarks. Experimental results have demonstrated that our method can reason about multi-bit information flow behaviors and identify potential security flaws.
Purinergic receptors P2RX4 and P2RX7 in familial multiple sclerosis

Genetic variants in the purinergic receptors P2RX4 and P2RX7 have been shown to affect susceptibility to multiple sclerosis (MS). In this study, we set out to evaluate whether rare coding variants of major effect could also be identified in these purinergic receptors. Sequencing analysis of P2RX4 and P2RX7 in 193 MS patients and 100 controls led to the identification of a rare three variant haplotype (P2RX7 rs140915863:C>T [p.T205M], P2RX7 rs201921967:A>G [p.N361S], and P2RX4 rs765866317:G>A [p.G135S]) segregating with disease in a multi‐incident family with six family members diagnosed with MS (logarithm of odds = 3.07). Functional analysis of this haplotype in HEK293 cells revealed impaired P2X7 surface expression (P < 0.01), resulting in over 95% inhibition of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)‐induced pore function (P < 0.001) and a marked reduction in phagocytic ability (P < 0.05). In addition, transfected cells showed 40% increased peak ATP‐induced inward current (P < 0.01), and a greater Ca2+ response to the P2X4 135S variant compared with wild type (P < 0.0001). Our study nominates rare genetic variants in P2RX4 and P2RX7 as major genetic contributors to disease, further supporting a role for these purinergic receptors in MS and the disruption of transmembrane cation channels leading to impairment of phagocytosis as the pathological mechanisms of disease.
Acoustically Targeted Chemogenetics for Noninvasive Control of Neural Circuits

Neurological and psychiatric diseases often involve the dysfunction of specific neural circuits in particular regions of the brain. Existing treatments, including drugs and implantable brain stimulators, aim to modulate the activity of these circuits, but are typically not cell type-specific, lack spatial targeting or require invasive procedures. Here, we introduce an approach to modulating neural circuits noninvasively with spatial, cell-type and temporal specificity. This approach, called acoustically targeted chemogenetics, or ATAC, uses transient ultrasonic opening of the blood brain barrier to transduce neurons at specific locations in the brain with virally-encoded engineered G-protein-coupled receptors, which subsequently respond to systemically administered bio-inert compounds to activate or inhibit the activity of these neurons. We demonstrate this concept in mice by using ATAC to noninvasively modify and subsequently activate or inhibit excitatory neurons within the hippocampus, showing that this enables pharmacological control of memory formation. This technology allows a brief, noninvasive procedure to make one or more specific brain regions capable of being selectively modulated using orally bioavailable compounds, thereby overcoming some of the key limitations of conventional brain therapies.
A Paradoxical Perspective on Contradictions in Agile Software Development

An ongoing debate on agile methods focuses on the contradictions in software development, especially responding to change vs. following a plan, and people vs. processes. Unlike the 'either-or' perspective adopted in the existing agile literature, this paper introduces a paradoxical view on the contradictions in agile software development and uses two agile processes to illustrate it, arguing that a paradoxical perspective can help to gain a better understanding of the nature of and ways of dealing with the contradictions in agile software development. Taking a paradoxical perspective on responding to change vs. following a plan, and people vs. processes, this paper reveals that an agile process is a planning-driven process geared to responding to change, and it is a process that provides a supporting structure for people to learn and to improve their competences.
A simple method for determining linear thermal expansion coefficients of thin films

In this paper we present a simple method for determining the linear thermal expansion coefficients (LTECs) of thin films using compact micromachined structures and common experimental apparatus. The structures can be fabricated by simple silicon-based micromachining techniques with one mask process and in situ along with active devices on the same chip for monitoring the LTECs of the thin film. An analytical expression is derived to relate the LTECs of thin films with the lateral displacements of microstructures. The displacements can be measured directly under an optical microscope with the specimen placed in a heating stage. The analytical expression is free from any correction factor. Furthermore, the accuracy of LTEC determination is significantly enhanced because the analytical expression is not necessary to know the Young's modulus, the Poisson's ratio and the thickness of the thin film. A finite element model is used herein to support the analytical model and also to perform nonlinear analysis. In this research, experimental results with a heavily phosphorus-doped low-pressure chemical vapour deposition polycrystalline silicon film are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. According to the results, the LTEC is dependent on temperature and increases as the temperature rises. The average value of the obtained LTEC is 2.7 × 10−6 °C−1 from room temperature to 400 °C.