Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A critical examination of the relationship between plastic deformation zone size and Young’s modulus to hardness ratio in indentation testing

Existing indentation models (both analytical models and numerical analysis) show a linear relationship between δ _r /δ _m and H/E _r, where δ _r and δ _m are the residual and maximum indentation depth, and E _r and H are the reduced Young’s modulus and hardness of the test material. Based on the analysis of Oliver and Pharr, a new relationship between δ _r /δ _m and H/E _r has been derived in a different way without any additional assumptions, which is nonlinear, and this has been verified by finite element analysis for a range of bulk materials. Furthermore, this new relationship for residual depth is used to derive an analytical relationship for the radius of the plastic deformation zone R _p in terms of the residual depth, Young’s modulus, and hardness, which has also been verified by finite element simulations for elastic perfectly plastic materials with different work hardening behavior. The analytical model and finite element simulation confirms that the conventional relationship used to determine R _p developed by Lawn et al. overestimates the plastic deformation, especially for those materials with high E/H ratio. The model and finite element analysis demonstrate that R _p scales with δ _r, which is sensible given the self-similarity of the indentations at different scales, and that the ratio of R _p/ δ _r is nearly constant for materials with different E/H , which contradicts the conventional view.
Cerebellar Granule Cell-Specific and Inducible Expression of Cre Recombinase in the Mouse

To develop a cell type-specific and temporal regulation system of gene targeting in the cerebellum, we used the NMDA-type glutamate receptor GluRε3 subunit gene and Cre recombinase-progesterone receptor fusion (CrePR) gene in combination. Injection of the CrePR gene placed under the control of the 10 kb 5′ region of the GluRε3 gene into C57BL/6 eggs yielded the ECP25 line that strongly expressed the CrePR mRNA selectively in the granule cells of the cerebellum. Using a transgenic mouse carrying a reporter gene for Cre-mediated recombination, we showed that antiprogestins could induce the recombinase activity of CrePR protein in the cerebellar granule cells of the ECP25 line. Thus, the established mouse line will provide a valuable tool to investigate the mechanism of cerebellar function by manipulating molecules in the temporally regulated and granule cell-specific manner.
Supporting the Process of Exploring and Interpreting Space–Time Multivariate Patterns: The Visual Inquiry Toolkit

While many data sets carry geographic and temporal references, our ability to analyze these datasets lags behind our ability to collect them because of the challenges posed by both data complexity and tool scalability issues. This study develops a visual analytics approach that leverages human expertise with visual, computational, and cartographic methods to support the application of visual analytics to relatively large spatio-temporal, multivariate data sets. We develop and apply a variety of methods for data clustering, pattern searching, information visualization, and synthesis. By combining both human and machine strengths, this approach has a better chance to discover novel, relevant, and potentially useful information that is difficult to detect by any of the methods used in isolation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach by applying the Visual Inquiry Toolkit we developed to analyze a data set containing geographically referenced, time-varying and multivariate data for U.S. technology industries.
Superhydrophobic surface obtained using pyramidal PTFE film fabricated on RIE etched silicon

We have developed a surface texturing process using a polytetrafluoroethylene coating with a pyramidal structure for obtaining superhydrophobic surfaces. In order to investigate the hydrophobic properties of the surface, we measured the contact angle and roughness values. The calculated roughness factor and root mean square roughness ranged from 2.47 to 2.6 and from 0.25 μm to 0.4 μm, respectively. The contact angle of a water droplet on the surface was greater than 150°; moreover, this angle was maintained for over 7 weeks. This observation implies that extremely low wettability is achievable on superhydrophobic surfaces.
SoftHand Pro-D: Matching dynamic content of natural user commands with hand embodiment for enhanced prosthesis control

State of the art of hand prosthetics is divided between simple and reliable gripper-like systems and sophisticate hi-tech poly-articular hands which tend to be complex both in their design and for the patient to operate. In this paper, we introduce the idea of decoding different movement intentions of the patient using the dynamic frequency content of the control signals in a natural way. We move a step further showing how this idea can be embedded in the mechanics of an underactuated soft hand by using only passive damping components. In particular we devise a method to design the hand hardware to obtain a given desired motion. This method, that we call of the dynamic synergies, builds on the theory of linear descriptor systems, and is based on the division of the hand movement in a slow and a fast components. We use this method to evolve the design of the Pisa/IIT SoftHand in a prototype prosthesis which, while still having 19 degrees of freedom and just one motor, can move along two different synergistic directions of motion (and combinations of the two), to perform either a pinch or a power grasp. Preliminary experimental results are presented, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed design.
Type-based categorization of relational attributes

In this work we concentrate on categorization of relational attributes based on their data type. Assuming that attribute type/characteristics are unknown or unidentifiable, we analyze and compare a variety of type-based signatures for classifying the attributes based on the semantic type of the data contained therein (e.g., router identifiers, social security numbers, email addresses). The signatures can subsequently be used for other applications as well, like clustering and index optimization/compression. This application is useful in cases where very large data collections that are generated in a distributed, ungoverned fashion end up having unknown, incomplete, inconsistent or very complex schemata and schema level meta-data. We concentrate on heuristically generating type-based attribute signatures based on both local and global computation approaches. We show experimentally that by decomposing data into q-grams and then considering signatures based on q-gram distributions, we achieve very good classification accuracy under the assumption that a large sample of the data is available for building the signatures. Then, we turn our attention to cases where a very small sample of the data is available, and hence accurately capturing the q-gram distribution of a given data type is almost impossible. We propose techniques based on dimensionality reduction and soft-clustering that exploit correlations between attributes to improve classification accuracy.
Understanding remote presence

In this paper, we discuss a study of new media for interpersonal communication. The paper motivates, designs and presents a small evaluation of a technology that is intended to support intimacy at a distance. It first presents an ethnographic study examining family communication and the role of artifacts in supporting emotional closeness, e.g. heirlooms, activities and places in the house. The paper then describes a couple of prototypes that were designed to support different types of closeness and how we evaluated one of these prototypes in a study of 3 families (6 households), for two weeks each. The interview data that the study presents show that people were generally positive about the technology, although this depended on the nature of the users' pre-existing communication patterns. One critical point is the importance of pairing blue sky design with down-to-earth deployment: we demonstrate how ethnographic-like work can inform design practice. Finally we discuss user experiences of "telematic emotional communication" and how this has enriched our understanding of remote presence.
Nonspecific bridging-induced attraction drives clustering of DNA-binding proteins and genome organization

Significance We use molecular dynamics to simulate reversible binding of proteins to DNA and uncover an unexpected force driving DNA compaction and protein aggregation. In the absence of any explicit interactions between proteins, or between templates, we find proteins aggregate spontaneously to locally organize the genome. The simulations reproduce the structures seen experimentally when small bivalent proteins assemble into rows (like bacterial H-NS protein), larger proteins with eight binding sites into irregular strings (like octameric nucleosomal cores in chromatin fibers), and still-larger complexes representing RNA polymerase II and a transcription factor (NFκB) into clusters surrounded by loops (like transcription factories). We suggest clustering is driven by an entropic bridging-induced attraction that minimizes bending and looping penalties in the template. Molecular dynamics simulations are used to model proteins that diffuse to DNA, bind, and dissociate; in the absence of any explicit interaction between proteins, or between templates, binding spontaneously induces local DNA compaction and protein aggregation. Small bivalent proteins form into rows [as on binding of the bacterial histone-like nucleoid-structuring protein (H-NS)], large proteins into quasi-spherical aggregates (as on nanoparticle binding), and cylinders with eight binding sites (representing octameric nucleosomal cores) into irregularly folded clusters (like those seen in nucleosomal strings). Binding of RNA polymerase II and a transcription factor (NFκB) to the appropriate sites on four human chromosomes generates protein clusters analogous to transcription factories, multiscale loops, and intrachromosomal contacts that mimic those found in vivo. We suggest that this emergent behavior of clustering is driven by an entropic bridging-induced attraction that minimizes bending and looping penalties in the template.
Inhibition of calcification of polymer–ceramic composites incorporating nanocrystalline TiO2

An emerging problem related to the development of polymer surfaces resistant to calcification was addressed in this work. Multiblock copolymers containing poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) (30 wt-%) as hard segment and dilinoleic acid (DLA) as soft segment were prepared in the presence of two concentrations of TiO2 particles (23 nm diameter) as nanofiller (0˙2 and 0˙4 wt-%) via in situ polycondensation process. Changes of thermal properties as well as investigations of topography of these nanocomposites suggest that addition of small amount of TiO2 nanoparticles resulted in higher crystallinity and roughness of the copolymer surface. Incubation in simulated body fluid (SBF) increased the roughness of all copolymers characterised by root mean square (rms) values; however, no hydroxyapatite layer was formed on the samples surface. The highest difference of rms values was found for the neat PET/DLA material. The addition of nanocrystalline TiO2 seems to prevent the material surface from calcification which represents a positive effect when such nanocomposite is intended for medical applications, especially for uses in contact with soft tissue.
A reexamination of the O1 lipopolysaccharide antigen group of Escherichia coli

A total of 64 Escherichia coli strains of the O1 serogroup were tested for the migration pattern of their lipopolysaccharides (LPS) on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. O1:K1 and O1:K51 strains of the OMP5 outer membrane protein pattern possessed LPS with a doublet pattern (O1A1) or the lowermost band of the O1A1 doublet (O1A2). O1:K1 strains of the OMP9 pattern possessed LPS referred to as O1A, which corresponded to the uppermost band of the O1A1 doublet pattern. A few O1:K? strains possessed LPS of different migration patterns (O1B and O1C). O1A and O1A1 LPS were indistinguishable by chemical techniques, and both reacted with each of 10 different monoclonal antibodies tested. However, O1A1 had an additional epitope within the additional band in each doublet, as demonstrated by adsorption experiments with hyperimmune rabbit sera followed by Western blotting. Furthermore, purified polysaccharide from O1A bacteria was incapable of inhibition in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays performed with O1A1 LPS as antigen and adsorbed, specific anti-O1A1 antibodies, whereas O1A1 polysaccharide inhibited this reaction. O1B and O1C LPS differed in all respects tested, including chemical composition, from O1A and O1A1 LPS.
Learning Temporal Alignment Uncertainty for Efficient Event Detection

In this paper we tackle the problem of efficient video event detection. We argue that linear detection functions should be preferred in this regard due to their scalability and efficiency during estimation and evaluation. A popular approach in this regard is to represent a sequence using a bag of words (BOW) representation due to its: (i) fixed dimensionality irrespective of the sequence length, and (ii) its ability to compactly model the statistics in the sequence. A drawback to the BOW representation, however, is the intrinsic destruction of the temporal ordering information. In this paper we propose a new representation that leverages the uncertainty in relative temporal alignments between pairs of sequences while not destroying temporal ordering. Our representation, like BOW, is of a fixed dimensionality making it easily integrated with a linear detection function. Extensive experiments on CK+, 6DMG, and UvA-NEMO databases show significant performance improvements across both isolated and continuous event detection tasks.
Individual differences in students' use of optional learning resources

We investigated ways in which undergraduates use optional learning resources in a typical blended learning environment. Specifically, we recorded how often students attended live face-to-face lectures, accessed online recorded lectures, and visited a mathematics learning support centre during a multivariate calculus course. Four distinct study strategies emerged, but surprisingly none involved making heavy use of more than one resource. In contrast with some earlier research, the general strategy a student adopted was related to their academic achievement, both in the multivariate calculus course, and in their degree programme more widely. Those students who often accessed online lectures had lower attainment than those who often attended live lectures or the support centre. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest that ‘blended teaching environments’ may be a more accurate description for what have previously been called ‘blended learning environments’.
An Ultradeep High-Resolution X-Ray Image of M101: The X-Ray Source Population in a Late-Type Spiral

We have studied the X-ray source population of the face-on spiral galaxy M101 (NGC 5457). Within a field of radius 17' (36 kpc at the distance of 7.2 Mpc), covered by an ultradeep (229 ks) ROSAT HRI image, 51 X-ray sources are detected with signal-to-noise ratios greater than 3.5. About half of these sources are associated with the galaxy. The luminosity of these galactic sources individually ranges from ~4 × 1037 to 2 × 1039 ergs s-1 in the 0.5-2 keV band. The average luminosity distribution of the sources can be characterized by a power-law function: dN/dLX = 9.5L-1.9X sources per 1038 ergs s-1. Combined with archival data from the ROSAT PSPC, the Einstein IPC, and the ASCA GIS, we have examined spatial, spectral, and timing properties of the X-ray sources. In particular, we have explored the nature of various superluminous X-ray sources with luminosities significantly greater than the Eddington limit (~2 × 1038 ergs s-1) for a ~1.6 M☉ object (a neutron star). These X-ray sources, detected in various ROSAT HRI and PSPC observations, are not transients and appear to result from recent massive star formation in outer spiral arms. Three superluminous PSPC sources are associated with giant H II complexes and are clearly resolved. Two other superluminous ROSAT HRI sources are likely associated with shell-like supernova (or more likely hypernova) remnants, which are known to be abnormally luminous in optical and/or radio. We further identify two superluminous sources, which all show highly absorbed X-ray spectra and time variability during and/or between the observations, as candidates for X-ray binary systems that contain black holes. A comparison of seven nearby spirals shows that their X-ray source luminosity distributions, normalized by total H I masses, are very similar. But both the number of superluminous X-ray sources and the total X-ray luminosity appear to be correlated with the star-forming rate of a galaxy.
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamic Analysis of Transport Properties in the Nanofiltration of Ionic Liquid-Water Solutions

The nanofiltration of aqueous solutions of the ionic liquids (ILs) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([Bmim]BF4), and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ([Bmim]Br) with a polyamide nanofiltration membrane was investigated. The practical transport coefficients, including hydrodynamic permeability (Lp), reflection (σ) and solute permeability (ω) were calculated in terms of a non-equilibrium thermodynamics approach. It was found that Lp and σ diminished as the concentration of the IL solutions increased. These characteristics are similar to those observed in inorganic electrolyte-water systems. In addition, it was shown that the rejection and volume flux for both ionic liquid solutions rose with feed pressure, while it decreased with feed concentration. The maximum rejection efficiencies for [Bmim]Br and [Bmim]BF4 are 67 % and 60 %, respectively, on our experimental scale. All the data suggests that a highly efficient process for IL separation could be developed when the operating conditions are optimized further.
Producing Synergy: Innovation, IT and Productivity

Bringing innovations to market is critical to industrial progress and economic growth. We explore the potential for IT to enable innovations, and thus improve productivity. We hypothesize that a knowledge stock of process-oriented R&D increases total factor productivity growth by leveraging traditional forms of capital and labor, and further enhances the ability of IT capital to increase productivity. We estimate these relationships using two broad panels of US industries covering the periods 1987–1998 and 1998–2005. The results indicate qualified support for a synergistic effect of R&D and IT investment in both periods.
A Recursive Statistical Translation Model

A new model for statistical translation is presented. A novel feature of this model is that the alignments it produces are hierarchically arranged. The generative process begins by splitting the input sentence in two parts. Each of the parts is translated by a recursive application of the model and the resulting translation are then concatenated. If the sentence is small enough, a simpler model (in our case IBM's model 1) is applied. The training of the model is explained. Finally, the model is evaluated using the corpora from a large vocabulary shared task.
What controls the interannual variation of the wet season onsets over the Amazon?

Previous studies have established that sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic are the main forcing of the interannual variation of the wet season onsets in the Amazon. However, this variation appears to be complex and not uniquely determined by SSTAs. What causes such a complexity and to what extent the interannual variation of the wet season onsets is predictable remain unclear. This study suggests that such a complex relationship is the result of several competing processes, which are nonlinearly related to the SSTAs. In particular, three dry season conditions are crucial for determining interannual variation of the wet season onset. (i) A poleward shift of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical jet (SHSJ) over the South American sector, initiated from a wave train‐like structure possibly forced by south central Pacific SST patterns, can prevent cold frontal systems from moving northward into the Amazon. This delays cold air incursion and results in late wet season onset over the southern Amazon. (ii) An anomalous anticyclonic center, which enhances westerly wind at 850 hPa over the southern Amazon and also the South American low‐level jets, leads to moisture export from the southern Amazon to La Plata basin and reduces convective systems that provide elevated diabatic heating. (iii) Smaller convective available potential energy (CAPE) limits local thermodynamically driven convection. Based on the stepwise and partial least squares regressions, these three selected preseasonal conditions (Niño 4, SHSJ, and CAPE) can explain 57% of the total variance of the wet season onset.
Impact of the diagnostic changes to post-traumatic stress disorder for DSM-5 and the proposed changes to ICD-11

Background There have been changes to the criteria for diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in DSM-5 and changes are proposed for ICD-11. Aims To investigate the impact of the changes to diagnostic criteria for PTSD in DSM-5 and the proposed changes in ICD-11 using a large multisite trauma-exposed sample and structured clinical interviews. Method Randomly selected injury patients admitted to four hospitals were assessed 72 months post trauma (n = 510). Structured clinical interviews for PTSD and major depressive episode, as well as self-report measures of disability and quality of life were administered. Results Current prevalence of PTSD under DSM-5 scoring was not significantly different from DSM-IV (6.7% v. 5.9%, z = 0.53, P = 0.59). However, the ICD-11 prevalence was significantly lower than ICD-10 (3.3% v. 9.0%, z =–3.8, P<0.001). The PTSD current prevalence was significantly higher for DSM-5 than ICD-11 (6.7% v. 3.3%, z = 2.5, P = 0.01). Using ICD-11 tended to show lower rates of comorbidity with depression and a slightly lower association with disability. Conclusions The diagnostic systems performed in different ways in terms of current prevalence rates and levels of comorbidity with depression, but on other broad key indicators they were relatively similar. There was overlap between those with PTSD diagnosed by ICD-11 and DSM-5 but a substantial portion met one but not the other set of criteria. This represents a challenge for research because the phenotype that is studied may be markedly different according to the diagnostic system used.
Synthesizing Realistic Image-based Avatars by Body Sway Analysis

We propose a method for synthesizing body sway to give human-like movement to image-based avatars. This method is based on an analysis of body sway in real people. Existing methods mainly handle the action states of avatars without sufficiently considering the wait states that exist between them. The wait state is essential for filling the periods before and after interaction. Users require both wait and action states to naturally communicate with avatars in interactive systems. Our method measures temporal changes in the body sway motion of each body part of a standing subject using a single-camera video sequence. We are able to synthesize a new video sequence with body sway over an arbitrary length of time by randomly transitioning between points in the sequence when the motion is close to zero. The results of a subjective assessment show that avatars with body sway synthesized by our method appeared more alive to users than those using baseline methods.