Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-dimensional grain design optimization of solid rocket motors

This study investigates the ballistic design optimization of three-dimensional grains of solid rocket motors (SRMs). The geometric modeling and burnback analysis of grains are performed analytically by using basic geometries like cylinder, cone, prism, sphere, ellipsoid, and torus. For the internal ballistic analysis, a quasi-steady zero-dimensional flow solver is used. Three different optimization methods are considered: real-coded genetic algorithm (GA), binary genetic algorithm and complex method. The optimization methods are applied to the problems of finding the parameters of grain geometry satisfying an objective thrust versus time profile and maximizing the parameter of total impulse satisfying the constraints of chamber pressure and propellant mass.
Vitamin D as a risk factor for premature atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes

Background: Several cardiovascular risk factors have been recognized in patients with diabetes and vitamin D deficiency is emerging as a new risk. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of vitamin D deficiency on the incidence of premature atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: A total of 78 patients with type 2 diabetes were subjected to history taking, physical examination, fasting glucose level, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, lipid profile, 25(OH) vitamin D measurement, and carotid Doppler. Results: Patients with normal carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) had sufficient vitamin D. Of those with increased CIMT 23.1% had insufficient vitamin D while 76.9% had sufficient vitamin D (six patients had plaques, one of them had vitamin D insufficiency, and the other five patients had sufficient vitamin D). There was a statistically significant difference in the serum level of vitamin D between patients with increased CIMT, and those with normal intima, with a decreased level in the first group. There was a significant negative correlation between vitamin D and fasting blood glucose. There was a statistically significant correlation in left CIMT between the vitamin D sufficiency group and the vitamin D insufficiency group, with higher values in the second group. There was no statistically significant difference in serum cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol in patients with increased CIMT and those with normal intima. Conclusions: Decreased vitamin D levels in patients with diabetes lead to increased CIMT. The absence of a statistically significance difference in lipid profile between increased and normal CIMT groups raises the possibility of underlying causes for atherosclerosis in patients with diabetes other than dyslipidemia.
Influence of Progressive Tumor Growth on Glutamine Metabolism in Skeletal Muscle and Kidney

ObjectiveThe effects of progressive malignant growth on glutamine metabolism in skeletal muscle and in kidney were investigated. Summary Background DataFast-growing tumors consume considerable quantities of glutamine and lead to a decrease in circulating glutamine concentrations. MethodsExperiments were performed at various stages of tumor growth in rats implanted subcutaneously with the non-metastasizing methylcholanthrene-induced (MCA) fibrosarcoma and in pair-fed non tumor-bearing controls. ResultsTumor growth stimulated a twofold increase in hindquarter (muscle) glutamine release, which was not due to an increase in blood flow, but rather to a doubling in the fractional release rate. Consequently, a progressive decrease in skeletal muscle glutamine concentrations was observed over time. Simultaneously, the activity of glutamine synthetase (GS), the principal enzyme of de novo glutamine biosynthesis, increased more than twofold. This increase in muscle GS activity was accompanied by an increase in GS mRNA but the augmentation in GS expression apparently could not match the increased rate of efflux since muscle depletion developed. In rats with large tumors and severe glutamine depletion, GS activity was not elevated. Glutamine feeding increased muscle glutamine concentrations and glutamine synthetase specific activity. Although tumor growth led to the development of mild systemic acidemia, the classic renal adaptations normally observed, i.e., elevated glutaminase activity and accelerated renal glutamine utilization, were not present in acidotic tumor-bearing rats. Instead, renal GS activity was increased in tumor-bearing animals and ammoniagenesis was enhanced, in spite of a reduction in net renal glutamine uptake. ConclusionsThese data suggest that marked alterations in muscle and renal glutamine handing occur in the host with cancer; the enhanced muscle glutamine release in conjunction with no increase in renal consumption is consistent with increased glutamine uptake in other organs, most likely the tumor itself and the liver.
Human Capital, Talent, Agglomeration and Regional Growth

This paper is an introductory overview highlighting some of the current knowledge as regards three critical questions related to the emerging knowledge economy: i) Why does human capital and talent tend to agglomerate in large urban regions? , ii) How does this agglomeration affect the location of different types of economic activities? , and iii) How does this agglomeration affect regional growth? There are different underlying agglomerative forces creating spatially concentrated increasing returns to scale. Also, cities become centres of various amenities due to general increases in real incomes offering people spare time activities. One major reason for the agglomeration of production in urban regions and metro¬politan areas today is the existence of various positive externalities, providing good settings for industries and firms with knowledge-intensive and knowledge-creation activities, specialised business service firms and headquarters of multinational firms. There are strong tentative empirical evidences that the agglomeration of human capital contributes to regional development and growth. However, there is uncertainty concerning the size of the human capital externalities.
Signed Digit Representations of Minimal Hamming Weight

The authors give an online algorithm for computing a canonical signed digit representation of minimal Hamming weight for any integer n. Using combinatorial techniques, the probability distributions Pr(K/sub r/=h), where K/sub r/ is taken to be a random variable on the uniform probability space of k-digit integers is computed. Also, using a Markov chain analysis, it is shown that E(K/sub r/) approximately (r-1)k/(r+1) as k to infinity . >
Innovation profiles of outstanding companies in Taiwan: An open innovation perspective

Community Innovation Surveys (CIS) have been widely used in recent years to study open innovation (OI) activities, which have become a hot issue. While most research has aimed for a general overview of the OI activities in a specific country, this study, which pertains to OI activities in Taiwan, focuses on outstandingly innovative firms to benchmark and examine country-specific industrial characteristics, from which implications for innovation policies can be derived. Several findings emerge from our survey. First, Taiwan's outstanding firms have the best scores in regard to search breadth and depth dimensions, which indicate that in a small and export-oriented economy, these firms emphasize diverse information sources. A comparison of breadth and depth dimensions shows that they perform significantly better in the former than in the latter. Second, an analysis of the different categories of firms shows that manufacturing, SMEs and award-winners have more aggressive OI strategies than do service, large and non-award winners. Third, with respect to R&D factors, external innovation breadth is negatively correlated with R&D intensity, whereas depth indicators have a higher explanatory ability in regard to R&D expenditure. Finally, with respect to innovative performance, again external innovation depth is the main driver of the financial performance of companies. The implications for innovation policies are discussed.
Structural Basis for the Exceptional in vivo Efficacy of Bisphosphonate Drugs

To understand the structural basis for bisphosphonate therapy of bone diseases, we solved the crystal structures of human farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPPS) in its unliganded state, in complex with the nitrogen‐containing bisphosphonate (N‐BP) drugs zoledronate, pamidronate, alendronate, and ibandronate, and in the ternary complex with zoledronate and the substrate isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP). By revealing three structural snapshots of the enzyme catalytic cycle, each associated with a distinct conformational state, and details about the interactions with N‐BPs, these structures provide a novel understanding of the mechanism of FPPS catalysis and inhibition. In particular, the accumulating substrate, IPP, was found to bind to and stabilize the FPPS–N‐BP complexes rather than to compete with and displace the N‐BP inhibitor. Stabilization of the FPPS–N‐BP complex through IPP binding is supported by differential scanning calorimetry analyses of a set of representative N‐BPs. Among other factors such as high binding affinity for bone mineral, this particular mode of FPPS inhibition contributes to the exceptional in vivo efficacy of N‐BP drugs. Moreover, our data form the basis for structure‐guided design of optimized N‐BPs with improved pharmacological properties.
Electrokinetic supercharging preconcentration prior to CGE analysis of DNA: Sensitivity depends on buffer viscosity and electrode configuration

Aiming to high sensitivity DNA analysis by CGE, electrokinetic supercharging (EKS) approach was adopted in this article. EKS is known as an online preconcentration technique that combines electrokinetic sample injection (EKI) with transient ITP (tITP). Herein, two factors of buffer viscosity and electrode configuration were studied to further improve EKS performance. An ultralow‐viscosity Tris‐Boric acid‐EDTA (TBE) buffer solution, consisted of 2% low‐molecular‐weight hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) and 6% mannitol and with pH 8.0 adjusted by boric acid, was applied. The boric acid would make a complex with mannitol and generates borate polyanion, which acts as the leading ion for tITP process. The new electrode configuration, a Pt ring around capillary, was modified on Agilent CE system to lead large amount sample introduction during EKS. The standard DNA sample of φX174/HaeIII digest was used to evaluate the qualitative and quantitative abilities of the proposed strategy. The 170 000‐fold highly diluted sample at concentration of 3.0 ng/mL was enriched by EKS and detected by normal UV detection method. The obtained LOD of the weakest peak of 72 bp fragment was around 7.7 pg/mL, apparently improved more than 10 000‐fold in comparison with conventional CGE with UV detection.
Sex differences in affective response to opioid withdrawal during adolescence

Drug withdrawal is suggested to play a role in precipitating mood disorders in individuals with familial predisposition. Age-related differences in affective responses to withdrawal might explain the increased risk of mental illnesses when drug use begins during adolescence. Recently we observed that, in contrast to adult male mice, adolescent males exhibited a decrease in immobility in the forced swim test on the third day of withdrawal, as compared with controls. Thus, the present study examined forced swim test behaviors of adolescent female mice during opioid withdrawal. Similar to the male study, adolescent female mice were injected with two morphine regimens which differed in dosage. Three and nine days following discontinuation of morphine administration, forced swim test immobility time and locomotion were evaluated. In contrast to males, which exhibited a decrease in immobility, no significant differences in immobility were observed in female adolescents undergoing withdrawal as compared with saline-injected controls. This sex difference in forced swim test behaviors was not due to changes in overall motor activity, since differences in locomotion were not observed in either male or female adolescent mice. Thus, this study demonstrates sex differences in forced swim test behavior during opioid withdrawal. Forced swim test behaviors are classically used to evaluate mood in rodents, thus this study suggests that opioid withdrawal might affect mood differentially across sexes.
Cheminformatics Approach to Gene Silencing: Z Descriptors of Nucleotides and SVM Regression Afford Predictive Models for siRNA Potency

Short interfering RNA mediated gene silencing technology has been through tremendous development over the past decade, and has found broad applications in both basic biomedical research and pharmaceutical development. Critical to the effective use of this technology is the development of reliable algorithms to predict the potency and selectivity of siRNAs under study. Existing algorithms are mostly built upon sequence information of siRNAs and then employ statistical pattern recognition or machine learning techniques to derive rules or models. However, sequence‐based features have limited ability to characterize siRNAs, especially chemically modified ones. In this study, we proposed a cheminformatics approach to describe siRNAs. Principal component scores (z1, z2, z3, z4) have been derived for each of the 5 nucleotides (A, U, G, C, T) from the descriptor matrix computed by the MOE program. Descriptors of a given siRNA sequence are simply the concatenation of the z values of its composing nucleotides. Thus, for each of the 2431 siRNA sequences in the Huesken dataset, 76 descriptors were generated for the 19‐NT representation, and 84 descriptors were generated for the 21‐NT representation of siRNAs. Support Vector Machine regression (SVMR) was employed to develop predictive models. In all cases, the models achieved Pearson correlation coefficient r and R about 0.84 and 0.65 for the training sets and test sets, respectively. A minimum of 25 % of the whole dataset was needed to obtain predictive models that could accurately predict 75 % of the remaining siRNAs. Thus, for the first time, a cheminformatics approach has been developed to successfully model the structure–potency relationship in siRNA‐based gene silencing data, which has laid a solid foundation for quantitative modeling of chemically modified siRNAs.
Theory and implementation of sliding mode control with perturbation estimation (SMCPE)

A novel approach, sliding mode control with perturbation estimation (SMCPE), is presented to remove the restrictions of SMC about the a priori upperbound knowledge for the perturbations and to improve the tracking performance. It does not require the a priori knowledge of the upper bounds of the uncertainties and it offers much better tracking accuracies. However, SMCPE requires that the control loop speeds be reasonably faster than the perturbation dynamics. The success of SMCPE applications is closely related to the precision of the state measurements. Experimental justifications are presented from the applications of SMCPE on a SCARA-type Hitachi robot. <<ETX>>
Washington State Public Teachers' Ambient Positional Instability From A Statistical Approach of Retrospective Study & Prospective Study

The purpose of this research is to study the movements of teachers’ churn rate in the state of Washington over the past 14 years. The research of teachers’ churn rate is an integrative study, with retrospective part and prospective part. Retrospective study includes the analysis of descriptive statistics (level I), statistical inference (level II) and causal inference (level III) (Berk, R.A. (2016) Statistical Learning from a Regression Perspective. Philadelphia, PA: Springer). Prospective study is mainly about forecasting and statistical inference that generated from the predictions. In this research, we are using longitudinal data analysis. The good point of longitudinal data analysis is that it provides us with the data in the past fifteen years with keeping track of the status of all K-12 teachers in the State of Washington. A Comprehensive meta-analysis research on teacher career trajectories conducted by Borman and Dowling shows that very a few previous studies used long-term longitudinal data to properly track the movement of teachers (Borman & Dowling, 2008). From statistical respect, longitudinal studies always provide better results than other approaches when time is a factor in the analysis. Our research is the holistic contribution from the whole project panel, especially under the advising of Professor Robert Boruch, who is also the director of the whole research project series. Bowen Cai takes the responsibility of retention & churn rate calculating, statistical modeling (including machine learning algorithms and time series forecasting) and statistical analysis from the respects of survey methods and design.
Exploring innovation model for business technology incubator in developing countries

There are a few qualitative studies for successful businesses-technology incubator (BTI). Developing countries still investigate a successful design for business technology incubator, but have not identified an appropriate one. This study examines the secondary data focusing on 10 developed and 20 developing countries. The data analysis bases on scenario method underlying an importance of the linkage between Government, BTI, university and SMEs. The finding indicates a significant importance of the innovation model to provide a solid support and a full contribution for BTIs in the technological world.
Traveling-wave electrooptic modulator.

An integrated-optics Mach-Zehnder interferometric modulator in LiNbO3 has been designed and fabricated. The electrodes are 3-μm thick asymmetric coplanar striplines formed by ion-beam etching techniques. The push–pull design and the r33 electrooptic coefficient of LiNbO3 are utilized for efficient modulation. Complete modulation is achieved with 6.5 V for the 6-mm long device at 0.83-μm wavelength and with 18 V at 1.3-μm wavelength. The 3-dB bandwidth of the modulator is 3.5 GHz, being limited by the excessive resistive loss of the stripline electrodes. Since this particular modulator retains a dc electrical bias, it performs either as an intensity modulator by applying a π/2 dc phase bias to achieve maximum linearity or as a frequency shifter by changing the dc bias point to π. In addition, we analyzed the principle of operation of the Y junction by observing both the in-phase and the out-of-phase modes of a multimode waveguide modulator.
Cardiac fat navigator‐gated steady‐state free precession 3D magnetic resonance angiography of coronary arteries

Motion artifacts and the lack of accurate detection of cardiac motion present a major challenge for high‐resolution cardiac MRI. Recently a multidimensional cardiac fat navigator was proposed to provide a fast and direct measurement of bulk cardiac motion. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of employing the cardiac fat navigator in balanced steady‐state free precession (SSFP) free‐breathing 3D coronary MRA (CMRA). The cardiac fat navigator echo is optimized to provide both motion monitoring and epicardial fat suppression. Steady‐state magnetization preparation, which is needed for SSFP CMRA, is optimized by comparing three preparation schemes: α/2, linear ramp with 20 RF pulses (20LR), and Kaiser ramp with six RF pulses (6KR). The present preliminary human study shows that the 6KR preparation provides better image quality than both the α/2 (P < 0.0025) and the 20LR preparations (P < 0.025) for free‐breathing SSFP 3D CMRA (N = 11). Magn Reson Med, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Sensorless full-digital PMSM drive with EKF estimation of speed and rotor position

This paper concerns the realization of a sensorless permanent magnet (PM) synchronous motor drive. Position and angular speed of the rotor are obtained through an extended Kalman filter. The estimation algorithm does not require either the knowledge of the mechanical parameters or the initial rotor position, overcoming two of the main drawbacks of other estimation techniques. The drive also incorporates a digital d-q current control, which can be easily tuned with locked rotor. The experimental setup includes a PM synchronous motor, a pulsewidth modulation voltage-source inverter, and floating-point digital-signal-processor-based control system.
Implementation of H.264 intra-frame encoding on clustered stream architectures

Most videos are encoded by using H.264 standard to obtain a high compression ratio. However, the high computation complexity and strong data dependency make the real-time encoding difficult. Since stream architectures have abundant arithmetic units and are flexible programmable, they are more suitable for media applications than ASICs and DSPs. This paper presents the real-time implementation of H.264 intra-frame encoding on the clustered stream architecture. Optimizations at both stream level and kernel level are considered to improve the utilization of arithmetic units and then the encoding performance. At stream level, the parallelisms between blocks, macroblocks, and slices are exploited. At kernel level, kernel partition and kernel fusion are combined to get optimized kernels. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed optimizing techniques enhance the performance significantly. The intra-frame encoding of 1080p video could achieve encoding rate of 50.2 fps.
A 2-30 GHz ring mixer with active baluns in 0.18-µm CMOS technology for vital sign detection application

A 2-30 GHz ring mixer with built-in active baluns for vital sign detection application is presented in this paper. This mixer was fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS process. Two topologies of active baluns are utilized to increase the isolation between the LO and the RF ports to mitigate the dc-offset problem. With bandwidth-enhancement circuit [9] and the active load, the phase errors of both RF and LO baluns are less than 7 degree. The input return loss is better than 10 dB over 20-GHz bandwidth. The measured conversion gain is -18.5 ±2 dB from 2 to 30 GHz at 3-dBm LO power. The input third-order intercept point (IIP3) is 4 dBm at 16GHz. The proposed mixer with built-in active baluns consumes 20 mW dc power within a compact chip size of 0.81 × 0.63 mm2.
Cerebral blood flow changes after endovascular treatment of cerebrovascular stenoses.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Symptomatic cerebral hyperperfusion has an incidence of 5% after endovascular stent placement. We hypothesized that increases in cerebral blood flow (CBF) after endovascular stent placement are positively correlated with the severity of stenosis. METHODS We studied patients with carotid (n=20) or vertebrobasilar (n=3) stenosis who were undergoing endovascular stent placement. Hemispheric CBF was measured by using intra-arterial xenon-133 technique (initial slope). RESULTS CBF increased from 29 +/- 10 to 35 +/- 12 mL/100 g/min (P=.0003) at 39 +/- 12 minutes (range 13-60 minutes) after endovascular stent placement. Baseline characteristics or type of anesthesia did not affect the findings. Physiologic parameters remained constant between measurements: PaCO2 was 43 +/- 6 mmHg and arterial pressure was 89 +/- 16 mmHg. The degree of vascular stenosis (70% +/- 13%, range, 40-99%) was not correlated with change in CBF (r2=0.007, P=.70) or baseline CBF (r2=0.005, P=.31). CONCLUSION CBF increased by 21% +/- 10% after treatment in the absence of clinical symptoms and without intracranial hemorrhage. Modest increases in CBF were common after endovascular revascularization. However, the increased CBF appeared to be unrelated to the degree of vascular stenosis, suggesting a relationship to availability of collateral flow pathways or a neurogenic influence.