Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative study of corneal strip extensometry and inflation tests

Strip extensometry tests are usually considered less reliable than trephinate inflation tests in studying corneal biomechanics. In spite of the evident simplicity of strip extensometry tests, several earlier studies preferred inflation tests in determining the constitutive relationship of the cornea and its other material properties, such as Young's modulus and the hysteresis behaviour. In this research, the deficiencies of the strip tests are discussed and a mathematical procedure presented to take account of these deficiencies when obtaining the corneal material properties. The study also involves testing 10 pairs of porcine corneas using both strip extensometry and trephinate inflation techniques and the results are subjected to mathematical back analysis in order to determine the stress–strain behaviour. The behaviour obtained from the strip extensometry tests and using the new mathematical analysis procedure is shown to match closely the inflation test results.
Dynamic lane reversal routing and scheduling for connected autonomous vehicles

An effective transportation system is part of the core of a modern smart city to support various human activities. Recent developments of Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) have great impact on the automotive industry. Due to its numerous advantages, CAV is expected to get popular in the near future. While most studies focus on standalone CAV technologies, there is much potential on collective CAV control. With the connectivity and automation of CAVs, we can employ Dynamic Lane Reversal (DLR) to enable automatic lane reversal for improving the traffic. We can optimize the travel schedules of CAVs based on DLR for performance enhancement. In this paper, we proposed the Dynamic Lane Reversal-Traffic Scheduling Management (DLR- TSM) Scheme for CAVs. It collects the travel requests from the CAVs and determines their optimal schedules and routes on dynamically reversible lanes. We formulate the routing and scheduling problem as an integer linear program. We evaluate the performance of the scheme with real-world transportation data. The simulation results show that DLR-TSM can significantly improve the travel times of CAVs.
Vision-based pedestrian behavior analysis at intersections

Abstract. This work presents a vision-based data collection system for pedestrian behavior analysis at intersections that include crossing counts, waiting time, crossing speed, and facility utilization. The tracking system uses contextual fusion of motion and appearance cues to more reliably track pedestrians during stop-and-go movements at intersections. Moreover, the pedestrian tracking system is improved through cooperation of two different tracking algorithms: bipartite graph match and optical flow algorithms. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated separately at the detection and tracking steps followed by behavior analyses of pedestrians for three different intersection videos of Las Vegas. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed system and intersection utilization is depicted through heat maps.
Kinetic phases of distribution and tumor targeting by T cell receptor engineered lymphocytes inducing robust antitumor responses

A key issue in advancing the use of adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of T cell receptor (TCR) engineered lymphocytes for cancer therapy is demonstrating how TCR transgenic cells repopulate lymphopenic hosts and target tumors in an antigen-specific fashion. ACT of splenocytes from fully immunocompetent HLA-A2.1/Kb mice transduced with a chimeric murine/human TCR specific for tyrosinase, together with lymphodepletion conditioning, dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccination, and high-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2), had profound antitumor activity against large established MHC- and antigen-matched tumors. Genetic labeling with bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and positron emitting tomography (PET) reporter genes allowed visualization of the distribution and antigen-specific tumor homing of TCR transgenic T cells, with trafficking correlated with antitumor efficacy. After an initial brief stage of systemic distribution, TCR-redirected and genetically labeled T cells demonstrated an early pattern of specific distribution to antigen-matched tumors and locoregional lymph nodes, followed by a more promiscuous distribution 1 wk later with additional accumulation in antigen-mismatched tumors. This approach of TCR engineering and molecular imaging reporter gene labeling is directly translatable to humans and provides useful information on how to clinically develop this mode of therapy.
Performance evaluation of primary-secondary reliable resource-management in vehicular networks

We design and test a distributed and adaptive resource management controller in Vehicular Access Networks, allowing energy and computing-limited car smart phones to opportunistically accede to a spectral-limited wireless backbone. We cast the resource management problem into a suitable constrained stochastic Network Utility Maximization problem and derive the optimal cognitive resource management controller, which dynamically allocates the access time-windows at the serving Roadside Units (i.e., the primary users) and the access rates and traffic flows at the served Vehicular Clients (i.e., the secondary users), allowing hard reliability guarantees to Roadside Units. We validated the controller performances in real-word application scenarios.
Research-Atmospheres Late Cretaceous Ocean : Coupled Simulations with the NCAR CSM

Deep ocean circulation may be a significant factor in determining climate. Here, we describe two long, fully coupled atmosphere-ocean simulations with the NCAR Climate System Model (CSM) for the late Cretaceous (80 Ma). Our results suggest that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 and the altered paleogeography of the late Cretaceous resulted in a surface ocean state temperature, salinity, and circulation, significantly different than present. This, in turn, resulted in deep-water features, although formed by mechanisms similar to present, that were quite different from present. The simulations exhibit large overturning cells in both hemispheres extending from the surface to the ocean bottom and with intensity comparable to the present-day North Atlantic simulated overturning. In the Northern Hemisphere, the sinking takes place in the Pacific due to cooling of the much warmer and saltier waters compared to present-day. In the Southern Hemisphere, the sinking occurs primarily in the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans. For a simulation with atmospheric CO2 reduced from 6 times to 4 times pre-industrial concentrations, the southern branch is reduced by 35% due to less poleward transport of salty waters in the South Atlantic Ocean. Warm waters inferred from proxy data in deep-sea cores can be explained by the high-latitude sites of overturning. These results contradict the traditional hypothesis that warm Cretaceous ocean bottom waters must have formed by sinking in shallow low-latitude seas.
Interaction and doping dependence of optical spectral weight of the two-dimensional Hubbard model.

Calcul de la conductivite optique du modele de Hubbard bidimensionnel pour differentes valeurs de la force d'interaction et de la concentration en porteurs. Pour des valeurs generales des parametres on obtient des estimations par simulations Monte Carlo. Les resultats ne concordent pas avec ceux obtenus par diagonalisation exacte des systemes petits, ce qui est attribue aux effets de taille finie
Electrospun TiO2 Nanorods with Carbon Nanotubes for Efficient Electron Collection in Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

A high power conversion efficiency of 10.24% can be obtained in a dye-sensitized solar cell by incorporating multiwall carbon nanotubes inside a TiO2 nanorod photoanode. The multiwall carbon nanotubes in the nanorod can effectively collect and transport photogenerated electrons reducing the recombination as well as improving efficiency of the device.
Oral Bacterial Adhesion and Biocompatibility of Silver-Amorphous Carbon Films: A Surface Modification for Dental Implants

Bacterial adhesion and the subsequent biofilm formation on dental implants is a persistent problem that can cause implant failure. Once biofilm is formed, bacterial cells become highly resistant to antibiotics and host defences (Costerton et al., 1999, Patel, 2005), and clinical experience has shown that biofilms must be removed physically before the infection can be resolved (Costerton, 2005). There is an apparent clinical and microbiological similarity between peri-implantitis and periodontitis (Listgarten and Lai, 1999, Papaioannou et al., 1996). The first indication of the specific role of bacteria in peri-implant infections was originated from microscopic analysis of samples taken from failing implants that shown an abundance of motile rods, fusiform bacteria and spirochetes, whereas samples from successful implants contained only a small number of coccoid cells and very few rods (Mombelli, 2002, Mombelli et al., 1987, Rams and Link, 1983). These findings revealed a site-specific disease process with microorganisms associated in patterns known from chronic periodontitis of natural teeth. The term periimplantitis introduced in the 1980s, describe a destructive inflammatory process affecting the soft and hard tissues around osseointegrated implants, leading to the formation of a peri-implant pocket and loss of supporting bone (Mombelli et al., 1987). Adhesion to a surface is the essential first step in the development of a biofilm and the sequential colonization and formation of the dental plaque is highly orchestrated (Xie et al., 2000). The association of bacteria within mixed biofilms is not random; it has been shown that there are specific associations (complexes) among bacteria in dental biofilms (Socransky and Haffajee, 2005, Socransky et al., 1998, Kolenbrander et al., 2006). In addition, these microbial complexes, can be used to describe the sequential colonization of the subgingival plaque. Some bacterial strains, mainly belonging to the genus Actinomyces (blue complex) and Streptococcus (yellow complex) have been identified as early colonizers of the dental surface, attaching and proliferating at an early stage. A second group of bacteria that functions as bridge between the early and late colonizers are formed by species belonging to the green, purple and orange complexes (i.e. Fusobacterium nucleatum, Capnocytophaga sputigena, Eikenella corrodens). Finally, the third group of species that appears at late stages in
Well-formed and scalable invasive software composition

Software components provide essential means to structure and organize software effectively. However, frequently, required component abstractions are not available in a programming language or system, or are not adequately combinable with each other. Invasive software composition (ISC) is a general approach to software composition that unifies component-like abstractions such as templates, aspects and macros. ISC is based on fragment composition, and composes programs and other software artifacts at the level of syntax trees. Therefore, a unifying fragment component model is related to the context-free grammar of a language to identify extension and variation points in syntax trees as well as valid component types. By doing so, fragment components can be composed by transformations at respective extension and variation points so that always valid composition results regarding the underlying context-free grammar are yielded. However, given a language’s context-free grammar, the composition result may still be incorrect. Context-sensitive constraints such as type constraints may be violated so that the program cannot be compiled and/or interpreted correctly. While a compiler can detect such errors after composition, it is difficult to relate them back to the original transformation step in the composition system, especially in the case of complex compositions with several hundreds of such steps. To tackle this problem, this thesis proposes well-formed ISC—an extension to ISC that uses reference attribute grammars (RAGs) to specify fragment component models and fragment contracts to guard compositions with context-sensitive constraints. Additionally, well-formed ISC provides composition strategies as a means to configure composition algorithms and handle interferences between composition steps. Developing ISC systems for complex languages such as programming languages is a complex undertaking. Composition-system developers need to supply or develop adequate language and parser specifications that can be processed by an ISC composition engine. Moreover, the specifications may need to be extended with rules for the intended composition abstractions. Current approaches to ISC require complete grammars to be able to compose fragments in the respective languages. Hence, the specifications need to be developed exhaustively before any component model can be supplied. To tackle this problem, this thesis introduces scalable ISC—a variant of ISC that uses island component models as a means to define component models for partially specified languages while still the whole language is supported. Additionally, a scalable workflow for agile composition-system development is proposed which supports a development of ISC systems in small increments using modular extensions. All theoretical concepts introduced in this thesis are implemented in the Skeletons and Application Templates framework SkAT. It supports “classic”, well-formed and scalable ISC by
Semantic Web, Digital Libraries and the future of Cultural Heritage

This paper provides an overview regarding the application of the Semantic Web oriented technologies we have developed as part of the EPOCH and AMA projects for Cultural Heritage Digital Libraries. We wanted to enhance interoperability among diverse archives and to make disperse digital information available through the web in a standard format. Our toolset includes an application for mapping existing archive schemas to ontology schemas (AMA Mapping Tool), a tool to recursively markup unstructured text documents (AMA Text Tool) and a Semantic Web Database able to store, query and return simple and complex semantic information (MAD). We used the CIDOC-CRM core ontology to define the entities we dealt with and to describe concepts and relations among them.
Multilevel Integrative Business Examination and Approval System in Provincial Class Territory Resources——A case of territory resources information system construction in Guangxi

Current situation in business function,business process,single business information system and supported foundation database construction in Guangxi territory resources management are analyzed in this paper.On the basis of uniform E-government affair platform and data center,the conception of multilevel integrative business is presented.Total framework of multilevel integrative business in territory resources,sharing and exchanging of many different data resources,and the data model based on metadata to be operated on each other are discussed.The framework and model not only overcome the disadvantase of direct reading and traditional data conversion mode,but also develop the advantage of the data to be operated with each other model
Searching for the Best Test

Random testing has been controversial throughout the history. In the early 70s opinions about random testing were divided: Girard and Rault (1973) call it a valuable test case generation scheme [11]. This is confirmed by Thayer, Lipow and Nelson (1978) in their book on software reliability [21] they say it is the necessary final step in the testing activities. However, Glenford Myers (1979) in his seminal work on the art of Software Testing [18] denominates random testing as probably the poorest testing method.
Task-level robot learning

The functionality of robots can be improved by programming them to learn tasks from practice. Task-level learning can compensate for the structural modeling errors of the robot's lower-level control systems and can speed up the learning process by reducing the degrees of freedom of the models to be learned. The authors demonstrate two general learning procedures-fixed-model learning and refined-model learning-on a ball-throwing robot system. Both learning approaches refine the task command based on the performance error of the system, while they ignore the intermediate variables separation the lower-level systems. The authors also provide experimental and theoretical evidence that task-level learning can improve the functionality of robots. <<ETX>>
Forecasting the View of Mt. Fuji Using Earth Observation Data

In this paper, we present a forecasting method for the view of Mt. Fuji as an application of Earth observation data (EOD) obtained by satellites. We defined the Mt. Fuji viewing index (FVI) that characterises how well the mountain looks on a given day, based on photo data produced by a fixed-point observation. A long-term predictor of FVI, ranging from 0 to 30 days, was constructed through support vector machine regression on climate and earth observation data. It was found that the aerosol mass concentration (AMC) improves prediction performance, and such performance is particularly significant in the long-term range.
Requirement of STE50 for Osmostress-Induced Activation of the STE11 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Kinase Kinase in the High-Osmolarity Glycerol Response Pathway

ABSTRACT Exposure of yeast cells to increases in extracellular osmolarity activates the HOG1 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade, which is composed of three tiers of protein kinases: (i) the SSK2, SSK22, and STE11 MAP kinase kinase kinases (MAPKKKs), (ii) the PBS2 MAPKK, and (iii) the HOG1 MAP kinase. Activation of the MAP kinase cascade is mediated by two upstream mechanisms. The SLN1-YPD1-SSK1 two-component osmosensor activates the SSK2 and SSK22 MAPKKKs by direct interaction of the SSK1 response regulator with these MAPKKKs. The second mechanism of HOG1 MAP kinase activation is independent of the two-component osmosensor and involves the SHO1 transmembrane protein and the STE11 MAPKKK. Only PBS2 and HOG1 are common to the two mechanisms. We conducted an exhaustive mutant screening to identify additional elements required for activation of STE11 by osmotic stress. We found that strains with mutations in the STE50 gene, in combination with ssk2Δ ssk22Δ mutations, were unable to induce HOG1 phosphorylation after osmotic stress. Both two-hybrid analyses and coprecipitation assays demonstrated that the N-terminal domain of STE50 binds strongly to the N-terminal domain of STE11. The binding of STE50 to STE11 is constitutive and is not affected by osmotic stress. Furthermore, the two proteins relocalize similarly after osmotic shock. It was concluded that STE50 fulfills an essential role in the activation of the high-osmolarity glycerol response pathway by acting as an integral subunit of the STE11 MAPKKK.
Chlorine in Breath Condensate – A Measure of Airway Affection in Pollinosis?

Background: Infiltration of inflammatory cells in bronchial mucosa and glandular hypersecretion are hallmarks of asthma. It has been postulated that exhaled breath condensate (EBC) mirrors events in epithelial lining fluid of airways, such as presence of local inflammation as well as glandular hypersecretion. It is also well known that eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) and cysteinyl-leukotrienes (cys-LT) are released by circulating inflammatory cells when triggered by antigen stimulation in asthma patients. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether chlorine and/or cys-LT in EBC would reflect changes of exposure of airborne pollen in patients with asthma. Methods: EBC and serum were collected from 23 patients with allergic asthma during a pollen season and repeated 5 months later during a period with no aeroallergens. Chlorine was measured by means of a sensitive coulometric technique and cys-LT by an EIA technique. Serum ECP was measured and lung function tests were performed and symptoms noted during both occasions. Results: Significantly higher concentrations of chlorine in EBC (p = 0.007) and ECP in serum (p = 0.003) were found during the pollen season compared to post-season. Chlorine levels tended to be higher in patients who reported of chest symptoms compared to those who denied symptoms during the pollen season (p = 0.06). Areas under the receiver-operated characteristic curves (AUCROC) were compared and similar discriminative power to identify exacerbations of asthma was recorded by chlorine in EBC (range 0.67–0.78) and ECP in serum (range 0.64–0.78). Conclusion: It is concluded that chlorine in EBC and ECP in serum decreased significantly post-season, and this is suggested to mirror the decrement in airborne antigen. It is furthermore proposed that chlorine in EBC and ECP in serum tend to have a similar capacity to identify seasonal variations in airborne pollen in patients with asthma.
Solar Energy Harvesting and Management in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless networks comprise of small devices that are typically deployed in environments where paucity of energy seriously restricts essential operations. The energy source of these devices decreases very quickly during continuous operation and it is pivotal to replace or recharge frequently the power sources. Sometimes, it is very difficult to perform these functions through conventional methods. One attractive solution to this problem is the use of the energy, scattered around us in the environment. The availability of energy from the environment is random and uncertain. In this paper, we present a model, schematically and analytically, for solar energy harvesting with appropriate energy management. We provide analysis and simulations for a solar cell for standard and different irradiance levels. The power of the storage device is also simulated for different times of the day. The proposed model not only scavenges the energy but also assures the connectivity of the network by optimizing the energy consumption.