Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modification of cellulosic fibers by carboxymethyl cellulose : effects on fiber and sheet properties

OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY P.O. BOX 1000, FI-02015 TKK http://www.tkk. fi Author Minna Blomstedt Name of the dissertation Modification of cellulosic fibers by carboxymethyl cellulose effects on fiber and sheet properties Manuscript submitted 17.08. 2007 Manuscript revised 12.11. 2007 Date of the defence 30.11. 2007 Monograph Article dissertation (summary + original articles) Department Forest Products Technology Laboratory Forest Products Chemistry Field of research Chemistry of Forest Products Technology Opponent(s) Prof. Martin Hubbe Supervisor Prof. Tapani Vuorinen Instructor Ph.D. Eero Kontturi Abstract The main purpose of this study was to determine whether fiber and sheet properties can be improved by modifying the surface of ECF-bleached softwood and hardwood pulps with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). The main objectives of the study were to evaluate; the effect of CMC modification and modification conditions on handsheet and fiber properties the combined effect of CMC and surfactant modification on softwood handsheet properties the effect of different drying techniques (freely/restrained) on the handsheets properties of hardwood pulp the effect of fiber morphology on CMC modification of hardwood pulp the effect of fines and beating on CMC-modified pulps Fiber properties were investigated by fiber analysis, measurement of water retention values (WRV) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Sheet properties were studied by testing the sheets and by imaging the CMC-modified sheets with environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM). The role of fines was studied by fractionating hardwood pulps before and after CMC modification. All CMC treatments were made for both beaten and unbeaten pulps, in order to examine the significance of beating. In general, the sorption degree of CMC on pulp increased with more extensive beating whereas it decreased with a higher degree of substitution of CMC. After CMC modification the water retention value (WRV) increased for both hardwood pulps and especially for softwood pulps, which accounted for a significant improvement in the internal and tensile strength properties of the handsheets. A unique feature in these experiments was that tensile properties improved remarkably for the CMC-modified hardwood handsheets when dried under restraint, which is considered closer to the drying process in real papermaking conditions. The addition of CMC and surfactant increased the internal and tensile strength properties further. Specific microfibril bonds on the surface of the handsheets revealed by electron microscopy could partly explain the improved strength properties of the CMC-modified softwood sheets. As the sorption conditions used in this study were similar to those in a commercial papermaking system, the surface modification method may be useful in practice, for example, after the refining stage. Preliminary results show that also the vessel picking tendency of eucalyptus pulp could be significantly reduced through CMC modification.
Preliminary study of utilizing Internet of Things for monitoring energy use in building to support energy audit process

Energy conservation in building especially for electricity energy can be conducted by implementing energy audit. Energy audit has objective not only for saving energy use but also reducing CO2 emission. Energy audit also can analyze energy consumption intensity and identify energy saving opportunities. However process of energy audit does not take a short time, because initially it must be done by some procedures e.g. survey of energy management and detail survey of energy. The process time can be minimalized by utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) to collect data of energy use in every electric appliances and integrating the information system of electronic energy audit to analyze energy use of building. This paper proposes the preliminary study of IoT combined with Wireless Sensor Network to support traditional energy audit process. Energy use data is monitored and collected in real time by IoT. Generally electronic appliances are located in several places, thus the data transmission from energy monitoring system uses wireless communication instead of wire communication. Every wireless IoT is sensor node in wireless sensor network that sends data to gateway/broker then finally send to server. The electronic energy audit is installed in this server to record data from every sensor node in real time and analyze energy saving opportunity.
Semi-Automatic Extraction of Straight Roads from Very High Resolution Remotely Sensed Imagery by a Fusion Method

Semi-automatic road tracking methods are regarded as more practical than automatic methods to obtain and update the vector road data. However, road tracking methods lose efficiency when they are applied to extract the straight roads compared to manual digitalizing. An efficient semi-automatic method is proposed for extraction of the straight roads in this paper. Particularly, spoke wheel algorithm and region growing algorithm are combined and fused together to extract a rectangle corresponding to a short road segment. The above process is performed at each pixel along the line segment between two seed points, which derives some rectangles. Moreover, statistical analysis of histograms of directions and widths of the obtained rectangles is made to determine the optimal rectangle. Then a precise road model is determined by the above optimal rectangle. Experiments show that our fused method is capable of efficiently extracting straight roads with a high spatial accuracy, even various types of noises existing.
Using Qualitative Methods to Inform Scale Development

This article describes the process by which one study utilized qualitative methods to create items for a multi dimensional scale to measure twelve step program affiliation. The process included interviewing fourteen addicted persons while in twelve step focused treatment about specific “pros” (things they like or would miss out on by not being involved in twelve-step programs) and “cons” (things they dislike or would benefit from if they did not engage in twelve-step programs). The triangular process used in qualitative research is described, which generated items for the subsequent instrument to measure ambivalence toward recovery programs. Mixed-method strategies included qualitative interviewing to inform scale development and three analytical approaches to produce specific codes, themes, and domains. Key Words: Mixed Method Research, Scale Development, and Twelve Step Programs
Tolerance to Copper and to Salinity in Daphnia longispina: Implications within a Climate Change Scenario

Considering IPPC climate change scenarios, it is pertinent to predict situations where coastal ecosystems already impacted with chemical contamination became exposed to an additional stressor under a future scenario of seawater intrusion. Accordingly, the present study aimed at evaluating if a negative association between tolerance to a metal and to saltwater exists among genotypes of a freshwater organism. For this, five clonal lineages of the cladoceran Daphnia longispina O.F. Müller, exhibiting a differential tolerance to lethal levels of copper, were selected. Each clonal lineage was exposed to lethal and sublethal concentrations of sodium chloride (assumed as a protective surrogate to evaluate the toxicity of increased salinity to freshwater organisms). Mortality, time to release the first brood and total number of neonates per female were monitored and the somatic growth rate and intrinsic rate of natural increase were computed for each clonal lineage. Data here obtained were compared with their lethal responses to copper and significant negative correlations were found. These results suggest that genetically eroded populations of D. longispina, due to copper or salinity, may be particularly susceptible to a later exposure to the other contaminant supporting the multiple stressors differential tolerance.
Effect of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction Parameters on the Biological Activities and Metabolites Present in Extracts from Arthrospira platensis

Arthrospira platensis was used to obtain functional extracts through supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SFE-CO2). Pressure (P), temperature (T), co-solvent (CX), static extraction (SX), dispersant (Di) and dynamic extraction (DX) were evaluated as process parameters through a Plackett–Burman design. The maximum extract yield obtained was 7.48 ± 0.15% w/w. The maximum contents of bioactive metabolites in extracts were 0.69 ± 0.09 µg/g of riboflavin, 5.49 ± 0.10 µg/g of α-tocopherol, 524.46 ± 0.10 µg/g of β-carotene, 1.44 ± 0.10 µg/g of lutein and 32.11 ± 0.12 mg/g of fatty acids with 39.38% of palmitic acid, 20.63% of linoleic acid and 30.27% of γ-linolenic acid. A. platensis extracts had an antioxidant activity of 76.47 ± 0.71 µg GAE/g by Folin–Ciocalteu assay, 0.52 ± 0.02, 0.40 ± 0.01 and 1.47 ± 0.02 µmol TE/g by DPPH, FRAP and TEAC assays, respectively. These extracts showed antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 and Candida albicans ATCC 10231. Overall, co-solvent was the most significant factor for all measured effects (p < 0.05). Arthrospira platensis represents a sustainable source of bioactive compounds through SFE using the following extraction parameters P: 450 bar, CX: 11 g/min, SX: 15 min, DX: 25 min, T: 60 °C and Di: 35 g.
Hydrothermal synthesis and luminescent properties of BaMoO_4：Sm~（3＋） red phosphor

Trivalent samarium doped barium molybdate（BaMoO_4：Sm~（3＋）） red phosphor was successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method. The crystal structure, morphology and photoluminescent property were characterized by X-ray diffraction, field environmental scanning electron microscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The results indicated that the synthesized BaMoO_4：Sm~（3＋）phosphor consisted of a pure phase with an octahedral structure. The main excitation peaks were located at 362, 404, 445 and 477 nm, respectively, and were obviously observed. The main emission peaks were located at 533, 566, 602 and 646 nm, respectively. The phosphors exhibited a red performance at 646 nm, which was appropriate for the ultraviolet-light emitting diode（UV-LED） and blue LED. The luminescent intensity of BaMoO_4：Sm~（3＋） increased with an increase in the doping amount of Sm~（3＋）. The luminescent intensity had the optimal value for x=0.03. When the doping amount of Sm~（3＋） was further increased, the concentration quenching phenomenon was observed. Monovalent lithium（Li＋） cation was used as a charge compensator. The luminescence intensity first increased with increasing Li＋ doping concentration, and then decreased. The optimal content of Li＋ was about 2%. The BaMoO_4：Sm~（3＋） phosphor prepared in this study could act as superior red phosphor for white LEDs.
Humanlike Behavior Generation in Urban Environment Based on Learning-Based Potentials With a Low-Cost Lane Graph

It is crucial to understand the surrounding cars with respect to the road context and interact with them harmoniously for the success of autonomous cars used in the mixed urban traffic. In this paper, a vision-based approach is proposed to implement the humanlike autonomous driving function along a predefined lane-level route in the complex urban environment with daily traffic. At first, the surrounding cars are located in the lane level by a deep neural network based detector with a low-cost lane graph. Subsequently, a Bayesian network is employed to classify the detected cars into six categories based on their states of operation, i.e., leader car, parked car, tail-end car, exiting car, merging car, and other car. Finally, a hybrid potential map, consisting of a trajectory-induction potential and a risk-prevention potential, is constructed for each of the cars according to their categories, which will be combined to be used for generating an appropriate behavior. Particularly, both of the trajectory-induction potentials and the risk-prevention potentials are learned from naturalistic driving data of the same situations in the daily urban traffic to encode the human driving skills and experiences. Therefore, the behavior generated based on the proposed learning-based potentials is close to a humanlike performance, which is important to achieve harmony in the mixed traffic. Experimental results in various typical but challenging urban traffic scenes have substantiated the effectiveness of the proposed system.
Three-microRNA signature identified by bioinformatics analysis predicts prognosis of gastric cancer patients

AIM To identify multiple microRNAs (miRNAs) for predicting the prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) patients by bioinformatics analysis. METHODS The original microarray dataset GSE93415, which included 20 GC and 20 tumor adjacent normal gastric mucosal tissues, was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and used for screening differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs). The cut-off criteria were P < 0.05 and fold change > 2.0. In addition, we acquired the miRNA expression profiles and clinical information of 361 GC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas database to assess the prognostic role of the DEMs. The target genes of miRNAs were predicted using TargetScan, miRDB, miRWalk, and DIANA, and then the common target genes were selected for functional enrichment analysis. RESULTS A total of 110 DEMs including 19 up-regulated and 91 down-regulated miRNAs were identified between 20 pairs of GC and tumor adjacent normal tissues, and the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis found that a three-miRNA signature (miR-145-3p, miR-125b-5p, and miR-99a-5p) had an obvious correlation with the survival of GC patients. Furthermore, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses indicated that the three-miRNA signature could be a significant prognostic marker in GC patients. The common target genes of the three miRNAs are added up to 108 and used for Gene Functional Enrichment analysis. Biological Process and Molecular Function analyses showed that the target genes are involved in cell recognition, gene silencing and nucleic acid binding, transcription factor activity, and transmembrane receptor activity. Cellular Component analysis revealed that the genes are portion of nucleus, chromatin silencing complex, and TORC1/2 complex. Biological Pathway analysis indicated that the genes participate in several cancer-related pathways, such as the focal adhesion, PI3K, and mTOR signaling pathways. CONCLUSION This study justified that a three-miRNA signature could play a role in predicting the survival of GC patients.
ACCURACY COMPARISON OF OSCILLOMETRIC AND ELECTRONIC PALPATION BLOOD PRESSURE MEASURING METHODS USING INTRA-ARTERIAL METHOD AS A REFERENCE

This paper evaluates blood pressure measurements by the electronic palpation method (EP) and compares their accuracy to that of the oscillometric method (OSC) using average intra-arterial (IA) blood pressure as a reference. All of these three measurements were made simultaneously for each patient. The EP method, based on noninvasively detecting the amplitude of pressure pulsations in the radial artery, differs from the ordinary palpation method by allowing also diastolic pressure to be determined from the pulse delay produced by cuff pressure. In one test group, measurements were conducted on healthy volunteers in sitting and supine position during increasing and decreasing cuff pressure. Another group, comprising older, cardiac patients, was measured only in the supine position during cuff inflation. The results showed that the EP method was approximately as accurate as the OSC method with the healthy subjects and slightly more accurate with the cardiac patient group. The advantage of the EP method is that also the wave shape and velocity of arterial pressure pulses is available for further analysis like the assessment of arterial stiffness.
Improving stemming for Arabic information retrieval: light stemming and co-occurrence analysis

Arabic, a highly inflected language, requires good stemming for effective information retrieval, yet no standard approach to stem¿ming has emerged. We developed several light stemmers based on heuristics and a statistical stemmer based on co-occurrence for Arabic retrieval. We compared the retrieval effectiveness of our stemmers and of a morphological analyzer on the TREC-2001 data. The best light stemmer was more effective for cross-lan¿guage retrieval than a morphological stemmer which tried to find the root for each word. A repartitioning process consisting of vowel removal followed by clustering using co-occurrence analy¿sis pro¿duced stem classes which were better than no stemming or very light stemming, but still inferior to good light stemming or mor¿phological analysis.
FootprintID

We present FootprintID, an indoor pedestrian identification system that utilizes footstep-induced structural vibration to infer pedestrian identities for enabling various smart building applications. Previous studies have explored other sensing methods, including vision-, RF-, mobile-, and acoustic-based methods. They often require specific sensing conditions, including line-of-sight, high sensor density, and carrying wearable devices. Vibration-based methods, on the other hand, provide easy-to-install sparse sensing and utilize gait to distinguish different individuals. However, the challenge for these methods is that the signals are sensitive to the gait variations caused by different walking speeds and the floor variations caused by structural heterogeneity. We present FootprintID, a vibration-based approach that achieves robust pedestrian identification. The system uses vibration sensors to detect footstep-induced vibrations. It then selects vibration signals and classifiers to accommodate sensing variations, taking step location and frequency into account. We utilize the physical insight on how individual step signal changes with walking speeds and introduce an iterative transductive learning algorithm (ITSVM) to achieve robust classification with limited labeled training data. When trained only on the average walking speed and tested on different walking speeds, FootprintID achieves up to 96% accuracy and a 3X improvement in extreme speeds compared to the Support Vector Machine. Furthermore, it achieves up to 90% accuracy (1.5X improvement) in uncontrolled experiments.
PARAMETERS EFFECTS ON CONDUCTION-CONVECTION HEAT TRANSFER IN RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURE SANDWICHED BY FINITE THICKNESS WALLS

The effect of wall heat conduction on natural convection heat transfer in cavities has gained attention of many researchers in recent years due to its wide application areas in engineering such that building heating and cooling and thick enclosures , etc . In this work , we consider a two-dimensional numerical study of a rectangle cavity filled with an air with two vertical conductive walls of finite thickness . The enclosure is subjected to horizontal temperature gradient , the vertical boundaries are isothermal at different temperatures whereas the remaining walls are adiabatic . The theoretical study involved the numerical solution of the Navier-stokes and energy equations by using finite difference method . The stream-vorticity formulation was used in the mathematical model . The physical problem depends on five parameters : Rayleigh number (1000˂Ra˂1000000) , the Prandtl number (Pr=0.7) , the wall to fluid thermal conductivity ratio (0.1≤Kr≤10) , solid to fluid thickness ratio (0.5≤L1/L2≤1.5) , the ratio of (left or right) solid thickness to the height ) and the aspect ratio (H/L= 0.5,1,1.5) . The main focus of the study is on examining the effect of conduction in the wall on the natural convection flow . The results are presented to show the effect of these parameters on the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics .
Insulin Receptor Substrate 2 Controls Insulin-Mediated Vasoreactivity and Perivascular Adipose Tissue Function in Muscle

Introduction: Insulin signaling in adipose tissue has been shown to regulate insulin's effects in muscle. In muscle, perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) and vascular insulin signaling regulate muscle perfusion. Insulin receptor substrate (IRS) 2 has been shown to control adipose tissue function and glucose metabolism, and here we tested the hypothesis that IRS2 mediates insulin's actions on the vessel wall as well as the vasoactive properties of PVAT. Methods: We studied PVAT and muscle resistance arteries (RA) from littermate IRS2+/+ and IRS2−/− mice and vasoreactivity by pressure myography, vascular insulin signaling, adipokine expression, and release and PVAT morphology. As insulin induced constriction of IRS2+/+ RA in our mouse model, we also exposed RA's of C57/Bl6 mice to PVAT from IRS2+/+ and IRS2−/− littermates to evaluate vasodilator properties of PVAT. Results: IRS2−/− RA exhibited normal vasomotor function, yet a decreased maximal diameter compared to IRS2+/+ RA. IRS2+/+ vessels unexpectedly constricted endothelin-dependently in response to insulin, and this effect was absent in IRS2−/− RA due to reduced ERK1/2activation. For evaluation of PVAT function, we also used C57/Bl6 vessels with a neutral basal effect of insulin. In these experiments insulin (10.0 nM) increased diameter in the presence of IRS2+/+ PVAT (17 ± 4.8, p = 0.014), yet induced a 10 ± 7.6% decrease in diameter in the presence of IRS2−/− PVAT. Adipocytes in IRS2−/− PVAT (1314 ± 161 μm2) were larger (p = 0.0013) than of IRS2+/+ PVAT (915 ± 63 μm2). Adiponectin, IL-6, PAI-1 secretion were similar between IRS2+/+ and IRS2−/− PVAT, as were expression of pro-inflammatory genes (TNF-α, CCL2) and adipokines (adiponectin, leptin, endothelin-1). Insulin-induced AKT phosphorylation in RA was similar in the presence of IRS2−/− and IRS2+/+ PVAT. Conclusion: In muscle, IRS2 regulates both insulin's vasoconstrictor effects, mediating ERK1/2-ET-1 activation, and its vasodilator effects, by mediating the vasodilator effect of PVAT. The regulatory role of IRS2 in PVAT is independent from adiponectin secretion.
Distributed Nonlinear Control With Event-Triggered Communication to Achieve Current-Sharing and Voltage Regulation in DC Microgrids

A distributed nonlinear controller is presented to achieve both accurate current-sharing and voltage regulation simultaneously in dc microgrids (MGs) considering different line impedances effects among converters. Then, an improved event-triggered principle for the controller is introduced through combining the state-dependent tolerance with a nonnegative offset. In order to design the event-triggered principle and guarantee the global stability, a generalized dc MG model is proposed and proven to be positive definite, based on which Lyapunov-based approach is applied. Furthermore, considering the effects from constant power loads, the damping performance of proposed controller is further improved which is comparative with the traditional $V\hbox{--}I$ droop controller. The proposed event-triggered-based communication strategy can considerably reduce the communication traffic and significantly relax the requirement for precise real-time information transmission, without sacrificing system performance. Experimental results obtained from a dc MG setup show the robustness of the new proposal under normal, communication failure and communication delay operation conditions. Finally, communication traffic under different communication strategies is compared, showing a drastic traffic reduction when using the proposed approach.