Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Highly Sensitive and Multimodal All‐Carbon Skin Sensors Capable of Simultaneously Detecting Tactile and Biological Stimuli

DOI: 10.1002/adma.201501408 Here, we describe the fi rst highly sensitive, wearable, and multimodal all-carbon skin sensors using hierarchically engineered elastic carbon nanotube (CNT) fabrics, which is capable of simultaneously and effectively sensing external multi-stimuli such as tactile, touch, temperature, humidity, and even biological variables in a single pixel. Typically, highly conductive and elastic conductors are required to realize wearable e-skin and effectively manipulate versatile skin functions. Among them, metallic CNTs have been regarded as a good candidate for stretchable conductors to facilitate wearable and ultra-lightweight device arrays, because of their advantages such as low density, high aspect ratio, fl exibility, excellent electrical conductivity, and mechanical strength. [ 17 ] However, economical macroscale applications of individual CNTs have been limited due to the diffi culty in their structure engineering. As a solution, to date, a great deal of attention has been placed on the assembly of CNTs in microscopic or macroscopic 1D fabrics (i.e., CNT microyarns), in which the CNTs are hierarchically engineered to maintain or even exceed the mechanical strength and electrical/thermal conductivity of individual CNTs. [ 18–24 ] Furthermore, owing to the outstanding electrical properties, CNT microyarn shows metallic temperature dependence. [ 25 ] This indicates that CNT microyarn is in particularly high demand for scalable and cost-effective stretchable conductors that are expected to be stretched and conformable in a 3D structure. [ 26 ]
Cardiac-Specific Overexpression of Diacylglycerol Kinase &zgr; Prevents Gq Protein-Coupled Receptor Agonist-Induced Cardiac Hypertrophy in Transgenic Mice

Background— Diacylglycerol is a lipid second messenger that accumulates in cardiomyocytes when stimulated by Gqα protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) agonists such as angiotensin II, phenylephrine, and others. Diacylglycerol functions as a potent activator of protein kinase C (PKC) and is catalyzed by diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) to form phosphatidic acid and inactivated. However, the functional roles of DGK have not been previously examined in the heart. We hypothesized that DGK might prevent GPCR agonist-induced activation of diacylglycerol downstream signaling cascades and subsequent cardiac hypertrophy. Methods and Results— To test this hypothesis, we generated transgenic (DGK&zgr;-TG) mice with cardiac-specific overexpression of DGK&zgr;. There were no differences in heart size and heart weight between DGK&zgr;-TG and wild-type littermate mice. The left ventricular function was normal in DGK&zgr;-TG mice. Continuous administration of subpressor doses of angiotensin II and phenylephrine caused PKC translocation, gene induction of atrial natriuretic factor, and subsequent cardiac hypertrophy in WT mice. However, in DGK&zgr;-TG mice, neither translocation of PKC nor upregulation of atrial natriuretic factor gene expression was observed after angiotensin II and phenylephrine infusion. Furthermore, in DGK&zgr;-TG mice, angiotensin II and phenylephrine failed to increase cross-sectional cardiomyocyte areas and heart to body weight ratios. Phenylephrine-induced increases in myocardial diacylglycerol levels were completely blocked in DGK&zgr;-TG mouse hearts, suggesting that DGK&zgr; regulated PKC activity by controlling cellular diacylglycerol levels. Conclusions— These results demonstrated the first evidence that DGK&zgr; negatively regulated the hypertrophic signaling cascade and resultant cardiac hypertrophy in response to GPCR agonists without detectable adverse effects in in vivo hearts.
VERA: A Platform for Veracity Estimation over Web Data

Social networks and the Web in general are characterized by multiple information sources often claiming conflicting data values. Data veracity is hard to estimate, especially when there is no prior knowledge about the sources or the claims and in time-dependent scenarios where initially very few observers can report first information. Despite the wide set of recently proposed truth discovery approaches, "no-one-fits-all" solution emerges for estimating the veracity of on-line information in open contexts. However, analyzing the space of conflicting information and disagreeing sources might be relevant, as well as ensembling multiple truth discovery methods. This demonstration presents VERA, a Web-based platform that supports information extraction from Web textual data and micro-texts from Twitter and estimates data veracity. Given a user query, VERA systematically extracts entities and relations from Web content, structures them as claims relevant to the query and gathers more conflicting/corroborating information. VERA combines multiple truth discovery algorithms through ensembling returns the veracity label and score of each data value and the trustworthiness scores of the sources. VERA will be demonstrated through several real-world scenarios to show its potential value for fact-checking from Web data.
COBOS: Cooperative backoff adaptive scheme for multirobot task allocation

In this paper, the cooperative backoff adaptive scheme (COBOS) is proposed for task allocation amongst a team of heterogeneous robots. The COBOS operates in regions with limited communication ranges, and is robust against robot malfunctions and uncertain task specifications, with each task potentially requiring multiple robots. The portability of tasks across teams (or when team demography changes) is improved by specifying tasks using basis tasks in a matrix framework. The adaptive feature of COBOS further increases the flexibility of robot teams, allowing robots to adjust their actions based on past experience. In addition, we study the properties of COBOS: operation domain; communication requirements; computational complexity; and solution quality; and compare the scheme with other task-allocation mechanisms. Realistic simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Effect of testosterone administration and weight training on muscle architecture.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to assess muscle architecture changes in subjects who were administered supraphysiologic doses of testosterone enanthate (TE) and concurrently performed heavy resistance training. METHODS Ten subjects were randomly selected from the 21 subjects who participated in a previously published study (12). Subjects were allocated to one of two groups as per Giorgi et al. (12) and received either a saline-based placebo (nonTE) or a 3.5-mg.kg-1 body weight dose of TE by deep intramuscular injection once a week for 12 wk. Subjects also performed heavy resistance training using exercises that targeted the triceps brachii muscle. Before and after the training period, free-weight one-repetition-maximum (1-RM) bench press strength was tested, muscle thickness and pennation of the triceps brachii lateralis were measured using ultrasound imaging, and fascicle length was estimated from ultrasound photographs. RESULTS There were no significant between-group differences in muscle thickness changes despite a trend toward increased thickness in TE subjects (TE, 23.5%, vs nonTE, 13.8%). However, 1-RM bench press performance and muscle pennation increased significantly in TE subjects compared with nonTE subjects (P < 0.05). There was also a trend toward longer fascicle lengths in the muscles of nonTE subjects. CONCLUSION The results of the present study suggest that the use of TE in conjunction with heavy resistance training is associated with muscle architecture changes that are commonly associated with high-force production. Since there was little difference between the groups in muscle thickness, changes in pennation and possibly fascicle length may have contributed to strength gains seen in TE subjects.
Identifying maternity services in public hospitals in rural and remote Australia.

OBJECTIVE This paper articulates the importance of accurately identifying maternity services. It describes the process and challenges of identifying the number, level and networks of rural and remote maternity services in public hospitals serving communities of between 1000 and 25000 people across Australia, and presents the findings of this process. METHODS Health departments and the national government's websites, along with lists of public hospitals, were used to identify all rural and remote Australian public hospitals offering maternity services in small towns. State perinatal reports were reviewed to establish numbers of births by hospital. The level of maternity services and networks of hospitals within which services functioned were determined via discussion with senior jurisdictional representatives. RESULTS In all, 198 rural and remote public hospitals offering maternity services were identified. There were challenges in sourcing information on maternity services to generate an accurate national picture. The nature of information about maternity services held centrally by jurisdictions varied, and different frameworks were used to describe minimum requirements for service levels. Service networks appeared to be based on a combination of individual links, geography and transport infrastructure. CONCLUSIONS The lack of readily available centralised and comparable information on rural and remote maternity services has implications for policy review and development, equity, safety and quality, network development and planning. Accountability for services and capacity to identify problems is also compromised.
Magnetic resonance separation imaging using a divided inversion recovery technique (DIRT)

The divided inversion recovery technique is an MRI separation method based on tissue T1 relaxation differences. When tissue T1 relaxation times are longer than the time between inversion pulses in a segmented inversion recovery pulse sequence, longitudinal magnetization does not pass through the null point. Prior to additional inversion pulses, longitudinal magnetization may have an opposite polarity. Spatial displacement of tissues in inversion recovery balanced steady‐state free‐precession imaging has been shown to be due to this magnetization phase change resulting from incomplete magnetization recovery. In this paper, it is shown how this phase change can be used to provide image separation. A pulse sequence parameter, the time between inversion pulses (T180), can be adjusted to provide water‐fat or fluid separation. Example water‐fat and fluid separation images of the head, heart, and abdomen are presented. The water‐fat separation performance was investigated by comparing image intensities in short‐axis divided inversion recovery technique images of the heart. Fat, blood, and fluid signal was suppressed to the background noise level. Additionally, the separation performance was not affected by main magnetic field inhomogeneities. Magn Reson Med 63:1007–1014, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Assessment of cross-laminated timber panels by the state-space approach

In this article, cross-laminated timber panels are investigated as a novel engineering application of the state-space approach. As cross-laminated timber is a laminated composite panel, the three-dimensional analytical method provided by the state-space approach offers the potential for improved accuracy over existing common approaches to the analysis of cross-laminated timber. Before focusing on the specific application to cross-laminated timber, the general theory of the state-space approach is outlined. The method is then applied to describe the behaviour of a number of cross-laminated timber panel configurations previously examined experimentally and analytically. In order to demonstrate the capability of the state-space approach in this application, the results are compared with those from various two-dimensional and three-dimensional analytical approaches and finite element modelling briefly. With a view to design, different failure criteria are explored to assess the ultimate strength of the cross-laminated timber panels. The state-space approach demonstrates its superior capability in capturing the nonlinear distribution of the elastic stresses through the thickness of the cross-laminated timber panels over a range of span-to-thickness ratios common in practical applications.
Elliptical Cavity Shape Optimization for Acceleration and HOM Damping

We report a survey of center cell shapes developed for Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) multi-cell cavities for different projects. Using a set of normalized parameters, we compare the designs for different frequencies and particle velocities for the fundamental mode. Using dispersion curves of High Order Modes (HOM) (frequency verse phase advance) calculated by MAFIA for a single cell, we further optimize the cavity shape to avoid a light cone line crossing at the dangerous resonance frequencies determined by the beam bunch structure and eliminate the trapped (or high R/Q) modes with a low group velocity. We developed this formulation to optimize a 5-cell, 750MHz cavity shape, with good real-estate accelerating gradient and a strong HOM damping waveguide structure for the JLab 1MW ERL-FEL project.
Developmental prosopagnosia with normal configural processing

The configural processing hypothesis proposes that prosopagnosia results from a domain-general impairment in configural processing, and so predicted that all prosopagnosics would have impaired configural processing. In order to test this prediction, tests of face recognition and configural processing were presented to a developmental prosopagnosic. He was severely impaired in face recognition, but his normal performance on three tests of configural processing disconfirmed the configural processing hypothesis. Additional tests of low-level vision and object recognition found no evidence of impairments with material other than faces. The pattern of spared and impaired face recognition indicates that this case of developmental prosopagnosia is caused by a domain-specific inability to match novel views of faces with previously derived representations.
Quality Formation of Working Life of the Youth

From the middle of the twentieth century the continuous growth of interest to a problem of quality of working life is observed. However, despite of active discussion and studying of a problem, there is no understanding, which factors influence the formation and development of quality of working life, both in separate organization and in separate categories of employees. The purpose of this study is to research a problem of formation and development of quality of working life of youth in the modern conditions and to determine the main tendencies which define the quality of working life of young generation. Authors study the status of youth employment on the example of Russia, as the basic element of quality of working life. Scientific novelty of research consists of formulation of the important theoretical and scientifically practical problem, how the conditions of quality of working life influence decision-making process of the youth in the sphere of employment.
Rethinking the pornography debate in Greece: a country-specific reading of an ‘old’ argument

Given the widely circulated anxieties about the consumption of pornography and its presumed effects on adults and youngsters, as well as the intensification of moral, social and feminist campaigns to counter its spread, especially through online technologies, this article wishes to offer a country-specific contextualization of the pornography debate in Greece. Taking into account the pro-effects reading of the culture of pornography that permeates the Greek context, and a media agenda that mainly concentrates public discussion on children who are ‘at risk’ from the consumption of porn, we wish to argue that it is the legacy of the Greek erotic cinema of the mid-seventies and the particular way the feminist movement developed in the country which account for the public debate on pornography in Greece.
The Keystone Scavenger Team

Stereo vision for small mobile robots is a challenging problem, particularly when employing embedded systems with limited processing power. However, it holds the promise of greatly increasing the localization, mapping, and navigation ability of mobile robots. To help in scene understanding, objects in the field of vision must be extracted and represented in a fashion useful to the system. At the same time, methods must be in place for dealing with the large volume of data that stereo vision produces, in order that a practical frame rate may be obtained. We have been working on stereo vision as the sole form of perception for Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) domains over the last three years. Recently, we have extended our work to include domains with more complex human robot interactions. Our entry in the 2006 AAAI Robotics competition embodies these ideas.
A study of simulated annealing techniques for multi-objective optimisation

Many areas in which computational optimisation may be applied are multi-objective optimisation problems; those where multiple objectives must be minimised (for minimisation problems) or maximised (for maximisation problems). Where (as is usually the case) these are competing objectives, the optimisation involves the discovery of a set of solutions the quality of which cannot be distinguished without further preference information regarding the objectives. A large body of literature exists documenting the study and application of evolutionary algorithms to multi-objective optimisation, with particular focus being given to evolutionary strategy techniques which demonstrate the ability to converge to desired solutions rapidly on many problems. Simulated annealing is a single-objective optimisation technique which is provably convergent, making it a tempting technique for extension to multi-objective optimisation. Previous proposals for extending simulated annealing to the multi-objective case have mostly taken the form of a traditional single-objective simulated annealer optimising a composite (often summed) function of the objectives. The first part of this thesis deals with introducing an alternate method for multiobjective simulated annealing, dealing with the dominance relation which operates without assigning preference information to the objectives. Non-generic improvements to this algorithm are presented, providing methods for generating more desirable suggestions for new solutions. This new method is shown to exhibit rapid convergence to the desired set, dependent upon the properties of the problem, with empirical results on a range of popular test problems with comparison to the popular NSGA-II genetic algorithm and a leading multi-objective simulated annealer from the literature. The new algorithm is applied to the commercial optimisation of CDMA mobile telecommunication networks and is shown to perform well upon this problem. The second section of this thesis contains an investigation into the effects upon convergence of a range of optimiser properties. New algorithms are proposed with the properties desired to investigate. The relationship between evolutionary strategies and the simulated annealing techniques is illustrated, and explanation of the differing performance of the previously proposed algorithms across a standard test suite is given. The properties of problems on which simulated annealer approaches are desirable are investigated and new problems proposed to best provide comparisons between different simulated annealing techniques.
Advanced Spectrum Management in Multicell OFDMA Networks Enabling Cognitive Radio Usage

In this work, an approach to an advanced spectrum management (ASM) framework in a multicell OFDMA network is given. The aim of this paper is to illustrate that an ASM operation over a multicell OFDMA scenario enables the efficient use of the available spectrum. Then, some spectrum bands could be released by primary or licensed spectrum holders in a geographical area to be shared with or rented to other secondary markets in a cognitive radio environment.
Translation Regulation by Eukaryotic Initiation Factor-2 Kinases in the Development of Latent Cysts in Toxoplasma gondii*

A key problem in the treatment of numerous pathogenic eukaryotes centers on their development into latent forms during stress. For example, the opportunistic protist Toxoplasma gondii converts to latent cysts (bradyzoites) responsible for recrudescence of disease. We report that Toxoplasma eukaryotic initiation factor-2α (TgIF2α) is phosphorylated during stress and establish that protozoan parasites utilize translation control to modulate gene expression during development. Importantly, TgIF2α remains phosphorylated in bradyzoites, explaining how these cells maintain their quiescent state. Furthermore, we have characterized novel eIF2 kinases; one in the endoplasmic reticulum and a likely regulator of the unfolded protein response (TgIF2K-A) and another that is a probable responder to cytoplasmic stresses (TgIF2K-B). Significantly, our data suggest that 1) the regulation of protein translation through eIF2 kinases is associated with development, 2) eIF2α phosphorylation is employed by cells to maintain a latent state, and 3) endoplasmic reticulum and cytoplasmic stress responses evolved in eukaryotic cells before the early diverging Apicomplexa. Given its importance to pathogenesis, eIF2 kinase-mediated stress responses may provide opportunities for novel therapeutics.
Broadband bow-tie antenna with tapered balun

This letter presents a new broadband Bow Tie Antenna with high performance characteristics, such as high gain and wideband to cover wireless applications at 2.4 GHz (ISM) band. Tee-Junction Balun technique is used to reduce the power loss due to the radiation which occurs on feed excitation of the antenna. Tapering technique is used on the Balun to reduce the effect of discontinuity on the power flow. From the simulation results of a Bow Tie Antenna we can conclude that our proposed antenna has met the desired specifications; antenna bandwidth 1.89-3.25 GHz and 3.5-3.67 GHz for operating frequency 2.45 GHZ. Maximum gain achieved at 2 GHz is 4.8 dB and the gain for 2.5 GHz, 3 GHz and 3.5 GHz are 4.8 dB, 4.1 dB and 3.8 dB respectively.