Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimization of Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation for Ethanol Production from Steam-Exploded Cotton Stalk

Steam-exploded cotton stalk was used as raw material in ethanol production through simultaneous saccharification and fermentation by Penicillium Q59 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae P1. The fermentative conditions were firstly examined by single factor experiments to determine the central point in Box-Behnken design, which was explored with expectation to get optimized fermentative conditions for enhancement of ethanol production. The results of optimized fermentative conditions were determined as follows: fermentation time was 10.5 days, bran added percent was 15%, initial pH value was 5.5. Under the optimal conditions, the experimental yield of ethanol was 99.85 ± 4.21 g·kg-1SECS (steam-exploded cotton stalk), which was close to the theoretical predicting value, it showed the model was feasible. The research results will provide technical reference for further exploitation of cotton stalk.
H2 stimulated Raman scattering in a multi-pass cell

Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) is an effective means of laser wavelength conversion. Hydrogen is an excellent Raman medium for its high stimulated Raman gain coefficient and good flowability which can rapidly dissipate the heat generated by SRS process. In this paper we reported the H2 SRS in multiple-pass cell pumped by the fundamental frequency output of a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser. Two concave reflection mirrors (with 1000 mm curvature radius and 50 mm diameter) were used in our experiment, both mirrors with a hole near the edge and were positioned to form co-center cavity, therefore the laser could repeatedly pass and refocus in the Raman cell to achieve a high SRS conversion efficiency and reduce SRS threshold for pump laser. By changing the pass number (1～17) of optical path in the Raman cell and the pump power(0～2.5MW), the Stokes conversion efficiency is optimized. Experimental results indicated that the Raman threshold was 0.178MW and the highest photon conversion efficiency was 50 %.
Elliptical Ultrasonic Assisted Grinding (EUAG) of Monocrystal Sapphire – Wear Behaviors of Resin Bond Diamond Wheel

This paper describes the wear behaviors of a resin bond diamond wheel in elliptical ultrasonic assisted grinding (EUAG) of monocrystal sapphire. The EUAG is a new grinding method proposed by the present authors in which an elliptical ultrasonic vibration is imposed on the workpiece by using an elliptical ultrasonic vibrator. In our previous work, an experimental apparatus mainly composed of the vibrator was produced and grinding experiments were conducted involving sapphire workpiece. In this paper, further investigations focusing on the wear behaviors of resin bond diamond wheel in EUAG of sapphire were carried out experimentally. The obtained results showed that: (1) the wheel wear process can be divided to three regions according to the variation trend of grinding forces, i.e., an initial region, a steady region, and a deteriorated region; (2) in the initial and steady regions, the grinding forces and the ratio of the normal grinding force to the tangential grinding force in EUAG are much smaller than that in conventional grinding (CG), but in deteriorated region, the grinding forces in EUAG are increased significantly up to be larger than that in CG whereas the grinding forces ratio has few difference between those in EUAG and CG; (3) in all the regions, the work-surface in EUAG is much smoother than that in CG whereas the wheel wear has little influence on the work-surface roughness; (4) the wheel wear in CG is mainly caused by the attrition wear and the macro-fracture and pullout of abrasive grains, while in EUAG by the micro-fracture and cleavage of abrasive grains.
From Journalism to Information: The Transformation of the Knight Foundation and News Innovation

Amid the digital disruption for journalism, the U.S.-based Knight Foundation has made a highly publicized effort to shape the nature of news innovation. This growing influence raises questions about what it is trying to accomplish for mass communication and society. This qualitative case study shows how and why the Knight Foundation has sought to change journalism by renegotiating its boundaries. Namely, by downplaying its own historical emphasis on professionalism, the foundation has embraced openness to outside influence—for example, the wisdom of the crowd, citizen participation, and a broader definition of “news. ” These rhetorical adaptations have paralleled material changes in the foundation's funding process, typified by the Knight News Challenge innovation contest. In recent times, the foundation has undergone a further evolution from “journalism” to “information. ” By highlighting its boundary-spanning interest in promoting “information” for communities, the Knight Foundation has been able to expand its capital and influence as an agent of change among fields and funders beyond journalism.
Video sharing propagation in social networks: Measurement, modeling, and analysis

The social networking services (SNS) have drastically changed the information distribution landscape and people's daily life. With the development in broadband accesses, video has become one of the most important types of objects spreading among social networking service users, yet presents more significant challenges than other types of objects, not only to the SNS management, but also to the network traffic engineering. In this paper, we take an important step towards understanding the characteristics of video sharing propagation in SNS, based on the real viewing event traces from a popular SNS in China. We further extend the epidemic models to accommodate the diversity of the propagation, and our model effectively captures the propagation process of video sharing in SNS.
Sarcopenia in COPD: relationship with COPD severity and prognosis

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of sarcopenia in COPD patients, as well as to determine whether sarcopenia correlates with the severity and prognosis of COPD. Methods: A cross-sectional study with COPD patients followed at the pulmonary outpatient clinic of our institution. The patients underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The diagnosis of sarcopenia was made on the basis of the skeletal muscle index, defined as appendicular lean mass/height2 only for low-weight subjects and adjusted for fat mass in normal/overweight subjects. Disease severity (COPD stage) was evaluated with the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) criteria. The degree of obstruction and prognosis were determined by the Body mass index, airflow Obstruction, Dyspnea, and Exercise capacity (BODE) index. Results: We recruited 91 patients (50 females), with a mean age of 67.4 ± 8.7 years and a mean BMI of 25.8 ± 6.1 kg/m2. Sarcopenia was observed in 36 (39.6%) of the patients, with no differences related to gender, age, or smoking status. Sarcopenia was not associated with the GOLD stage or with FEV1 (used as an indicator of the degree of obstruction). The BMI, percentage of body fat, and total lean mass were lower in the patients with sarcopenia than in those without (p < 0.001). Sarcopenia was more prevalent among the patients in BODE quartile 3 or 4 than among those in BODE quartile 1 or 2 (p = 0.009). The multivariate analysis showed that the BODE quartile was significantly associated with sarcopenia, regardless of age, gender, smoking status, and GOLD stage. Conclusions: In COPD patients, sarcopenia appears to be associated with unfavorable changes in body composition and with a poor prognosis.
Solvolyses of Benzoyl Chlorides in Weakly Nucleophilic Media

Rate constants and activations parameters are reported for solvolyses of p-Z-substituted benzoyl chlorides (1, Z = OMe, Me, H, and Cl) in 97% w/w hexafluoroisopropanol-water (97H). Additional kinetic data are reported for solvolyses in acetic and formic acids. Plots of log k vs. σp in 97H are consistent with previous research showing that a cationic reaction channel is dominant, even for solvolyses of 1, Z = NO2. A benzoyl cation intermediate was trapped by Friedel-Crafts reaction with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene in hexafluoroisopropanol. The results are explained by an SN2-SN1 spectrum of mechanisms with variations in nucleophilic solvent assistance. Ab initio calculations of heterolytic bond dissociation energies of various chloro- and fluoro-substituted and other benzoyl chlorides are correlated with log k for solvolyses.
Electrophysiology of Memory-Updating Differs with Age

In oddball tasks, the P3 component of the event-related potential systematically varies with the time between target stimuli—the target-to-target interval (TTI). Longer TTIs result in larger P3 amplitudes and shorter latencies, and this pattern of results has been linked with working memory-updating processes. Given that working memory and the P3 have both been shown to diminish with age, the current study aimed to determine whether the linear relationship between P3 and TTI is compromised in healthy aging by comparing TTI effects on P3 amplitudes and latencies, and reaction time (RT), in young and older adults. Older adults were found to have an overall reduction in P3 amplitudes, longer latencies, an anterior shift in topography, a trend toward slower RTs, and a flatter linear relationship between P3 and TTI than young adults. Results suggest that the ability to maintain templates in working memory required for stimulus categorization decreases with age, and that as a result, neural compensatory mechanisms are employed.
Plasma aided flame retardation of wood, wooden products and cellulosic materials

Plasma aided flame retardation of wood, wooden products and cellulosic materials The plasma aided flame retardation of wood, wooden products and cellulosic fibrous materials has been conceived and developed as a result of a plasma aided process of capillary impregnation. The dielectric barrier discharge surface pre-treatment modifies the chemical and capillary activity and improves such characteristics of the impregnation process as the penetration depth, speed of solution spreading and adsorption, and capacity of adsorbed solution. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was applied to study the changed surface composition after plasma pre-treatment. The surface compositions of solid wood products, paper and board are critical to their end use performance. XPS is a powerful non-destructive surface analytical technique which provides valuable data on chemical surface composition and surface reorganization after plasma-chemical pre-treatment. The binding energy as a main characteristic of the atoms was used for elemental identification. Thermal analysis (TGA, DTA and DSC) was used to characterize the impact of the plasma surface activation on flame retardancy of Douglas fir wood. This study was developed as a part of large investigation on chemically activated wood surface and flame retarded wood.
Sidewall materials for Hall-Haroult process

The performance of current sidewalls made of carbon and silicon based materials relies on the existence of a frozen electrolyte layer. The development of the Hall-Heroult cell technologies such as inert anodes and wettable cathodes, call for new sidewall materials since the frozen ledge may no longer be applicable. Nickel ferrite has been identified as a possible sidewall material, particularly in relation to its resistance to cryolite and air attack. The presentation proposes some strategies to tackle the combined corrosive action of cryolite, molten aluminium and oxygen upon sidewalls. A multi-layer approach is proposed that optimizes both the chemical and heat flux requirements of a sidewall. Issues relating to joining of materials, process control, manufacturing, maintenance and cost need to be addressed before new sidewall designs can be implemented.
Thermal stresses in carbon-coated optical fibers at low temperature

The thermal stresses in carbon-coated optical fibers at low temperature have been analyzed. The thermally induced lateral pressure in the glass fiber would produce microbending loss. In order to minimize such a microbending loss, the thickness, Young’s modulus, and Poisson’s ratio of the carbon coating should be decreased. On the other hand, the maximum thermal stress is the tangential stress in the carbon coating that occurs at the interface of the carbon coating and glass fiber. It was experimentally observed that if the maximum thermal stress is larger than the tensile strength of the carbon coating, the carbon coating will be broken along the axial direction. In order to minimize such a maximum thermal stress, the thickness of the carbon coating should be increased, but Young’s modulus, thermal expansion coefficient, and Poisson’s ratio of the carbon coating should be decreased. Finally, an optimal selection of the carbon coating for optical fiber is discussed.
Fast algorithm for distortion-based error protection of embedded image codes

We consider a joint source-channel coding system that protects an embedded bitstream using a finite family of channel codes with error detection and error correction capability. The performance of this system may be measured by the expected distortion or by the expected number of correctly decoded source bits. Whereas a rate-based optimal solution can be found in linear time, the computation of a distortion-based optimal solution is prohibitive. Under the assumption of the convexity of the operational distortion-rate function of the source coder, we give a lower bound on the expected distortion of a distortion-based optimal solution that depends only on a rate-based optimal solution. Then, we propose a local search (LS) algorithm that starts from a rate-based optimal solution and converges in linear time to a local minimum of the expected distortion. Experimental results for a binary symmetric channel show that our LS algorithm is near optimal, whereas its complexity is much lower than that of the previous best solution.
Univariate Polynomials: Nearly Optimal Algorithms for Numerical Factorization and Root-finding

To approximate all roots (zeros) of a univariate polynomial, we develop two effective algorithms and combine them in a single recursive process. One algorithm computes a basic well isolated zero-free annulus on the complex plane, whereas another algorithm numerically splits the input polynomial of the nth degree into two factors balanced in the degrees and with the zero sets separated by the basic annulus, Recursive combination of the two algorithms leads to computation of the complete numerical factorization of a polynomial into the product of linear factors and further to the approximation of the roots. The new root-finder incorporates the earlier techniques of Schonhage, Neff/Reif, and Kirrinnis and our old and new techniques and yields nearly optimal (up to polylogarithmic factors) arithmetic and Boolean cost estimates for the computational complexity of both complete factorization and root-finding. The improvement over our previous record Boolean complexity estimates is by roughly the factor of n for complete factorization and also for the approximation of well-conditioned (well isolated) roots, whereas the same algorithm is also optimal (under both arithmetic and Boolean models of computing) for the worst case input polynomial, whose roots can be ill-conditioned, forming clusters. (The worst case complexity bounds for root-finding are supported by our previous algorithms as well.) All algorithms allow processor efficient acceleration to achieve solution in polylogarithmic parallel time.
Nature of cells forming erythroid colonies in agar after stimulation by spleen conditioned medium

Erythroid colony formation in agar cultures of CBA cells was stimulated by the addition of pokeweed mitogen‐stimulated C57BL spleen conditioned medium. Both 48‐hour colonies (“48‐hour benzidine‐positive aggregates”) and day 7 large burst or unicentric erythroid colonies (“erythroid colonies”) developed, together with many neutrophil and/or macrophage colonies.
Study of ultrasonically assisted turning of stainless steel and brass alloys

Ultrasonically assisted turning (UAT) is a hybrid machining technique employing high-frequency small-amplitude vibration superimposed on the tool movement during turning. It is superior to conventional turning (CT) with regard to cutting forces, surface quality and machining accuracy. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of different machining parameters on stainless steel and brass alloys, during both UAT and CT, and evaluate improvements of cutting forces, surface roughness, surface integrity, and machining accuracy. An experimental setup for UAT at Loughborough University was used to accomplish this investigation. This setup used a Picoscope data acquisition add-on with Kistler three-component dynamometer, Seco DNMG cutting inserts were utilized, a surface tester from Taylor Hobson was used to evaluate surface roughness, Alicona Infinite Focus microscope was used to evaluate surface roughness and surface integrity, while Metris CMM with Renishaw probe was employed to evaluate machining accuracy. Cylindrical workpieces of steel and brass alloys were turned under CT and UAT conditions; cutting forces, surface roughness, and machining accuracy produced with both techniques where compared. Significant improvements were noticed in the ultrasonically assisted machining when compared to the CT for both alloys.
Engaging viewers through social TV games

IPTV platforms have revealed a great potential for the viewers' involvement by allowing the development of services and applications related with the TV content. Taking advantage of both the potentialities of these platforms and game related dynamics new ways to promote interaction between viewers may be achieved. This research focuses on searching and validating innovative forms of entertainment through television. In this context we designed, developed and evaluated the Wize application that combines some social games characteristics with interactive television features. This paper presents the functional specification of this application, implemented in an IPTV platform and describes a Field Trial carried out with 22 users. To accomplish this evaluation those persons were provided at their homes with a sub-set of the Wize features integrated in an iTV application of a popular TV show. The results provide a better understanding of the expectations towards social TV related games and reveal that users have strong motivation to continue to use such an application and a strong interest in doing it with their friends. The results also showed the potential of this type of applications to engage in a deeper manner the viewers with the TV content.
Uric acid levels have no significant effect on renal function in adult renal transplant recipients: evidence from the symphony study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Uric acid (UA) has been linked to renal damage in experimental models of kidney failure. In humans, no definitive link between UA and renal function has been established, but several epidemiologic studies have suggested that higher UA levels are associated with accelerated loss of renal function, higher incidence of dialysis, and death. Many of the associations have been limited by the colinearity between UA levels and renal function. Renal transplantation is no exception, and limited information is available concerning the independent role of UA on progression of renal function in transplant recipients. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, AND MEASUREMENTS We investigated the association between UA and renal function progression during the first 3 yr after transplantation, adjusted for baseline renal function, in 1645 patients who were enrolled in the Symphony study. RESULTS When corrected for baseline renal function, UA levels 1 mo after transplantation were not associated with 3-yr renal function (P = 0.62). There was a strong colinearity between calculated renal function and UA levels 1 mo after transplantation. In fact, when not corrected for baseline renal function, there was a significant association between UA and renal function at 3 yr (P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS Low renal function is associated with higher UA levels, but higher UA levels are not independently associated with progression of renal dysfunction after kidney transplantation.
Regulatory domain or CpG site variation in SLC12A5, encoding the chloride transporter KCC2, in human autism and schizophrenia

Many encoded gene products responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs) like autism spectrum disorders (ASD), schizophrenia (SCZ), intellectual disability (ID), and idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) converge on networks controlling synaptic function. An increase in KCC2 (SLC12A5) Cl− transporter activity drives the developmental GABA excitatory-inhibitory sequence, but the role of KCC2 in human NDs is essentially unknown. Here, we report two rare, non-synonymous (NS), functionally-impairing variants in the KCC2 C-terminal regulatory domain (CTRD) in human ASD (R952H and R1049C) and SCZ (R952H) previously linked with IGE and familial febrile seizures, and another novel NS KCC2 variant in ASD (R1048W) with highly-predicted pathogenicity. Exome data from 2517 simplex families in the ASD Simon Simplex Collection (SSC) revealed significantly more KCC2 CTRD variants in ASD cases than controls, and interestingly, these were more often synonymous and predicted to disrupt or introduce a CpG site. Furthermore, full gene analysis showed ASD cases are more likely to contain rare KCC2 variants affecting CpG sites than controls. These data suggest genetically-encoded dysregulation of KCC2-dependent GABA signaling may contribute to multiple human NDs.
The “Normal” Endocrine Cell of the Gut: Changing Concepts and New Evidences

Abstract: The endocrine cells of the gut are a highly specialized mucosal cell subpopulation. Within the gastrointestinal tract at least 14 different cell types produce a wide range of hormones with a specific regional distribution. The gut endocrine cells belong to the diffuse endocrine system. These cells present two regulated pathways of secretion characterized by large dense core vesicles (LDCV) and synaptic‐like microvesicles (SLMV). Gut endocrine cells are recognized by the expression of several “general” markers, including the LDCV marker chromogranin A and the SLMV marker synaptophysin, in addition to the cytosolic markers neuron‐specific enolase and protein gene product 9.5. The expression of different hormones identifies specific cell types. The gut endocrine cells are reputed to be terminally differentiated and incapable of proliferation. However, some data suggest that the number of gut endocrine cells may adapt in response to tissue‐specific physiological stimuli. Gut endocrine cell differentiation appears to follow a “constitutive” tissue‐specific pathway, which may be disrupted and investigated by genetic manipulation in mice. It is suggested that endocrine cell homeostasis is maintained by the entry of new endocrine‐committed cells along the differentiation pathway and that such intermediate cells may be sensitive to physiological stimuli as well as transforming agents.
Synthesis of full-body 3-D human gait using optimal control methods

In this paper we present a method that uses optimal control for offline human gait synthesis that does not depend on motion capture data or task-specific controllers. Our method is based on efficient simulation of rigid multibody systems and a direct multiple-shooting method to solve the underlying space-time optimization problem. We formulated different optimization criteria and synthesized gaits for a fullbody 3-D human model with 34 degrees of freedom and compared the resulting movements with human data. By combining different criteria we are able to improve the similarity of the synthesized motions with respect to recorded human motioncapture motions.