Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Catalytic Properties of Ni/CNTs and Ca-Promoted Ni/CNTs for Methanation Reaction of Carbon Dioxide

Nickel/carbon nanotubes (Ni/CNTs), Nickel/alumina (Ni/Al2O3), calcium-promoted Ni/CNTs and calcium-promoted Ni/Al2O3 were synthesized by impregnation method. Methanation of carbon dioxide was used as a probe to evaluate their catalytic performance. The features of these Ni-based catalysts were investigated via XRD, H2-TPR, H2-TPD and the N2 adsorptiondesorption isotherms. H2-TPR showed that nickel species on Ni/CNTs was reduced more easily with respect to that on Ni/Al2O3, and addition of Ca can increase the content of easily reducible Ni species for Ni/CNTs. XRD and H2-TPD indicated that addition of Ca promoted dispersion for CNTs-supported catalyst. These finding ultimately enhanced catalytic activity and stability for Ni/CNTs catalyst modified with Ca.
Thy1+ Nk Cells from Vaccinia Virus-Primed Mice Confer Protection against Vaccinia Virus Challenge in the Absence of Adaptive Lymphocytes

While immunological memory has long been considered the province of T- and B- lymphocytes, it has recently been reported that innate cell populations are capable of mediating memory responses. We now show that an innate memory immune response is generated in mice following infection with vaccinia virus, a poxvirus for which no cognate germline-encoded receptor has been identified. This immune response results in viral clearance in the absence of classical adaptive T and B lymphocyte populations, and is mediated by a Thy1+ subset of natural killer (NK) cells. We demonstrate that immune protection against infection from a lethal dose of virus can be adoptively transferred with memory hepatic Thy1+ NK cells that were primed with live virus. Our results also indicate that, like classical immunological memory, stronger innate memory responses form in response to priming with live virus than a highly attenuated vector. These results demonstrate that a defined innate memory cell population alone can provide host protection against a lethal systemic infection through viral clearance.
CS 224N Default Final Project: Question Answering

This assignment can be completed in groups of up to 3 people. We encourage groups to work together productively so that all students understand the submitted system well. We ask that you abide by the university Honor Code and that of the Computer Science department, and make sure that all of your submitted work (except as acknowledged) is done by yourself and your team members only. Please review the Honor Code section (Section 9) of this document.
A Framework for Extracting Biological Relations from Different Resources

In this research, a framework has been developed to extract different relations between various biological entities from documents. Semi supervised approach has been used to develop the framework. It requires the user to just provide a handful of valid pairs as initial seeds of the target relation, with no other training. Different patterns can be generated from initial seeds, and then from these patterns additional relation pairs can be extracted. The results has showed that different relations can be extracted such as gene-disease, protein-protein.
Recovering software requirements from system-user interaction traces

As software systems age, the requirements that motivated their original development get lost. Requirements documentation is unavailable or obsolete. Recapturing these requirements is critical for software reengineering activities. In our CelLEST process we adopt a data-mining approach to this problem and attempt to discover patterns of frequent similar episodes in the sequential run-time traces of the legacy user-interface behavior. These patterns constitute operational models of the application's functional requirements, from the end-user perspective. We have developed an algorithm, IPM, for interaction-pattern discovery. This algorithm discovers patterns that meet a user-specified criterion and is robust to insertion errors, caused by user mistakes or by the availability of alternative scenarios for the same user task. In this paper, we discuss IPM and we evaluate it with a case study.
MRI measurement of dynamics of the liquid and a dissolved gas during acoustic cavitation

A study was conducted to perform magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurement of dynamics of the liquid and dissolved gas during acoustic cavitation. The study focused on obtaining information on dynamics of molecules that constituted the bubbles and the surrounding liquid. The information was acquired directly using the MRI techniques of measuring the displacement and the relaxation parameters of water along with an NMR-sensitive highly soluble gas as a function of the acoustic pressure and the water preparation procedures. The obtained data were examined using a two-site exchange model to extract estimates of the average residence time of gas molecules inside the cavitating bubbles. The cavitation onset was detected at 0.6 Atm in the tap water and at 0.7 Atm in the filtered water by the appearance of the high frequency noise detected by the hydrophone.
Keeping the home fires burning†: AMP-activated protein kinase

Living cells obtain energy either by oxidizing reduced compounds of organic or mineral origin or by absorbing light. Whichever energy source is used, some of the energy released is conserved by converting adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which are analogous to the chemicals in a rechargeable battery. The energy released by the conversion of ATP back to ADP is used to drive most energy-requiring processes, including cell growth, cell division, communication and movement. It is clearly essential to life that the production and consumption of ATP are always maintained in balance, and the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is one of the key cellular regulatory systems that ensures this. In eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei and other internal membrane-bound structures, including human cells), most ATP is produced in mitochondria, which are thought to have been derived by the engulfment of oxidative bacteria by a host cell not previously able to use molecular oxygen. AMPK is activated by increasing AMP or ADP (AMP being generated from ADP whenever ADP rises) coupled with falling ATP. Relatives of AMPK are found in essentially all eukaryotes, and it may have evolved to allow the host cell to monitor the output of the newly acquired mitochondria and step their ATP production up or down according to the demand. Structural studies have illuminated how AMPK achieves the task of detecting small changes in AMP and ADP, despite the presence of much higher concentrations of ATP. Recently, it has been shown that AMPK can also sense the availability of glucose, the primary carbon source for most eukaryotic cells, via a mechanism independent of changes in AMP or ADP. Once activated by energy imbalance or glucose lack, AMPK modifies many target proteins by transferring phosphate groups to them from ATP. By this means, numerous ATP-producing processes are switched on (including the production of new mitochondria) and ATP-consuming processes are switched off, thus restoring energy homeostasis. Drugs that modulate AMPK have great potential in the treatment of metabolic disorders such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, and even cancer. Indeed, some existing drugs such as metformin and aspirin, which were derived from traditional herbal remedies, appear to work, in part, by activating AMPK.
NSIM: A robust method to discover similar trajectories on cellular network location data

Trajectory analysis is crucial and has been more and more widely used in various fields, such as location-based services, urban traffic control, route plan, etc. The existing methods have certain limitations when applied to cellular network location data. In this paper, we propose NSIM, a novel approach that can effectively discover similar trajectories. In NSIM, we first design an algorithm that can discover all the common moving patterns among trajectories, and then we adopt a vectorization method to abstract each trajectory as a summary vector that composed of specific common moving patterns. Finally we measure the similarity of trajectories by computing the distance between the summary vectors. Extensive experiments on real-world dataset show that, compared with three other approaches, NSIM achieves good effectiveness in most test cases and achieves better efficiency when applied to small or medium length trajectories.
Survival of LA-MRSA in Dust from Swine Farms

Abstract Dust is suspected to be an important factor in transmission of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) between pigs and pig farmers and their families. The aim of this study was to determine the rate of decay for Staphylococcus aureus and LA-MRSA in dust from swine farms. Electrostatic dust fall collectors (EDCs) were used for passive sampling of settling airborne dust in 11 stable sections from six swine farms. Extraction, plating, identification, and enumeration of cultivable S. aureus and LA-MRSA from the EDCs were performed after storage for 0–30 days postsampling. The survival of S. aureus was measured in 196 dust samples from all farms, and data were used to estimate the decay constant λ according to a model for exponential decay: N(t) = N0 × e−λt. The number of S. aureus colonies was up to 600-fold higher than the number of LA-MRSA colonies on MRSA selective agar. The data showed a good fit to the model (λ = 0.13, r2 = 0.86) even with a large difference in initial concentrations of S. aureus between stables. The loads of S. aureus and LA-MRSA in the dust were significantly reduced by storage time, and the half-life was 5 days for both S. aureus and LA-MRSA. In dust samples with high initial concentrations, LA-MRSA and S. aureus could still be cultivated 30 days after sampling. On all farms MRSA isolates belonged to the clonal complex (CC) 398, and at one farm some isolates also belonged to CC30. A screening for other Staphylococcus species in the farm dust revealed 13 different species numerically dominated by Staphylococcus equorum. Based on the exponential decay model, S. equorum had a half-life of 4 days. In conclusion, the presence of MRSA in airborne dust from five of six farms indicates that dust might be an important vehicle for transmission of LA-MRSA. LA-MRSA and S. aureus was found to survive well in farm dust with half-lives of 5 days, and dependent on the initial concentration they could be found in farm dust for weeks. The 99.9% die-off rate was 66 days for LA-MRSA. Thus, farm dust can pose an exposure risk for humans in the farm environment, but also when transported to other environments. On the other hand, the risk will decrease by time. These results provide important knowledge to diminish spread from farm environments to other environments on, e.g., tools or clothing, and in relation to cleaning of emptied LA-MRSA-positive stables.
Clinical assessment of activities of daily living in acute stroke: Validation of the Persian version of Katz Index

Background: Katz Index is a well-known index for assessing basic activities of daily living. The aim was to determine validity and reliability of the Katz Index in Iranian patients with acute stroke. Methods: Eighty-seven patients (56 male, 31 female) with acute stroke (1-30 days post-stroke) participated in this psychometric properties study. Interval time for retest was 14 days. All participants were Iranian with Persian as native language, had no other major diseases (e.g. cancer, Alzheimer) and no psychiatric disorder. Cognitive mental score of all participants was above 18 (according to Mini-Mental State Examination). If they had another stroke during the following-up period, they were excluded from the study. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) and Minimum Detectable Change (MDC) were calculated to investigate the reliability of the KI. Criterion validity of the KI was assessed by Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient (ρ). Moreover, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were performed to investigate the construct validity of the KI. Results: Inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of Persian Katz Index were reasonable (ICC2,1=0.93, ICC2,1=0.83; respectively). Internal consistency of this index was high (cronbach’s alpha=0.79). The high to excellent correlation was found between Katz Index and the motion (ρ=0.88), self-care (ρ=0.98), and total scores (ρ=0.92) of Barthel Index. Factor analysis of the Persian Katz Index indicated two factors including motion (bathing, toileting, and transferring) and self-care (dressing, bowel & bladder control, and feeding). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that Persian version of Katz Index in patients with acute stroke can be considered as an acceptable clinical instrument in practice and research.
Enrichment of Human-Computer Interaction in Brain-Computer Interfaces via Virtual Environments

Tridimensional representations stimulate cognitive processes that are the core and foundation of human-computer interaction (HCI). Those cognitive processes take place while a user navigates and explores a virtual environment (VE) and are mainly related to spatial memory storage, attention, and perception. VEs have many distinctive features (e.g., involvement, immersion, and presence) that can significantly improve HCI in highly demanding and interactive systems such as brain-computer interfaces (BCI). BCI is as a nonmuscular communication channel that attempts to reestablish the interaction between an individual and his/her environment. Although BCI research started in the sixties, this technology is not efficient or reliable yet for everyone at any time. Over the past few years, researchers have argued that main BCI flaws could be associated with HCI issues. The evidence presented thus far shows that VEs can (1) set out working environmental conditions, (2) maximize the efficiency of BCI control panels, (3) implement navigation systems based not only on user intentions but also on user emotions, and (4) regulate user mental state to increase the differentiation between control and noncontrol modalities.
Utilizing gait traits to improve e-border watchlist performance

The objective of this study is to develop a framework to quantify gait characteristics that can be used in biometric-enabled watchlist technologies. One of such applications is a border control passage equipped with sensors that are used for acquiring biometric traits. As a proof-of-concept, we consider gait trait data which is collected in real-time and used to classify certain gait patterns. Specifically, we aim at identifying gait abnormalities such as a limp in either leg, which often exists as metadata in watchlists or forensic records. This paper examines a few techniques for gait analysis, as well as feature extraction and classification aimed at distinguishing normal gait from abnormal gait. The concept of expanded watchlist technology is explained, in which the gait characteristics can be used in an inference engine for risk assessment in biometric-enabled border control.
A possible role of neuropeptide Y in the control of the onset of puberty in female rhesus monkeys.

The onset of puberty is heralded by an increase in pulsatile LHRH release. Since neuropeptide Y (NPY) has been implicated as a major regulator in the control of pulsatile LHRH release in mature monkeys, we have hypothesized that maturational changes in the NPY neuronal system play an important role in puberty. To test this hypothesis, three experiments were conducted in female rhesus monkeys using a push-pull perfusion method. In the first experiment, changes in NPY release in the stalk-median eminence (S-ME) during puberty were determined in 9 prepubertal, 7 early pubertal and 8 midpubertal monkeys. NPY and LHRH levels were measured in aliquots of the same perfusate samples obtained from the S-ME. NPY release was pulsatile in all three groups. Mean NPY release and pulse frequency increased significantly from the prepubertal through the midpubertal stage. These developmental changes in NPY release were parallel to those observed for LHRH release in the same monkeys. In order to examine whether NPY infusion into the S-ME influences LHRH release during puberty, in the second experiment, NPY (10(-6) or 10(-8) M) or vehicle was infused into the S-ME for 10 min at 90-min intervals in 5 prepubertal and 9 midpubertal monkeys. In the midpubertal stage, infusion of NPY at doses of 10(-8) and 10(-6) M resulted in significant (p < 0.01) increases in LHRH release, while vehicle administration had no effect. In contrast, in prepubertal monkeys, neither NPY nor vehicle infusion altered LHRH release. In order to test whether endogenous NPY plays a role in the maintenance of pulsatile LHRH release, in the third experiment, a specific antiserum to NPY (aNPY) was infused into the S-ME of 6 prepubertal and 8 midpubertal monkeys. Infusion of aNPY (1:100, 1:1,000 dilution) significantly suppressed LHRH release in midpubertal but not prepubertal monkeys. The results are summarized as follows. (1) In prepubertal monkeys, NPY release is low, and the presence of NPY in the S-ME does not influence LHRH release. (2) At the onset of puberty, NPY release begins to increase, and NPY probably starts to stimulate LHRH release. (3) In the midpubertal period, NPY release increases further, and NPY in the S-ME is highly stimulatory to LHRH release. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Trust-PCL: An Off-Policy Trust Region Method for Continuous Control

Trust region methods, such as TRPO, are often used to stabilize policy optimization algorithms in reinforcement learning (RL). While current trust region strategies are effective for continuous control, they typically require a prohibitively large amount of on-policy interaction with the environment. To address this problem, we propose an off-policy trust region method, Trust-PCL. The algorithm is the result of observing that the optimal policy and state values of a maximum reward objective with a relative-entropy regularizer satisfy a set of multi-step pathwise consistencies along any path. Thus, Trust-PCL is able to maintain optimization stability while exploiting off-policy data to improve sample efficiency. When evaluated on a number of continuous control tasks, Trust-PCL improves the solution quality and sample efficiency of TRPO.
Numerical-Experimental Correlation of Distortions Induced by Machining Process on Thin-Walled Nickel Super Alloy Forged Components

AeroEngines main components made by nickel super alloys are mainly obtained by machining of large forged components. The work piece machining process generates some distortions that may also be relevant. In this contest, in many cases the removed volume in the machining operations represents a large percentage of the forged component in order to obtain the thin-walled wanted geometry. Due to this reason, the residual bulk stresses induced by the process history can lead to significant 3D geometric distortions in the machined component with unacceptable dimensions and shapes of the obtained product for comparison with the wanted geometry. Moreover, it is a matter of fact how, the final component distortions depend by the cutting strategy adopted in the machining process. The experimental study of such cutting strategies on real components are particularly time consuming and costly and for this reason the chance to study the problem using reliable numerical models it is particularly welcome. In the present work authors reports the numerical model development of the forging and machining processes needed for the production of a aircraft engine component and the comparison of the obtained results with the ones physically measured. The objective is to develop and validate a modeling method able to predicts the shape and the magnitude of the distortion induced by the machining operation on the considered component and to establish a possible strategy to suggest machining working steps able to improve the quality of the manufactured component reducing the needed production time.
Fiber Reinforced Composite Structure with Bolted Joint – A Review

Fiber reinforced composite structures are widely used in the aerospace, aircraft, civil and automotive applications due to their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios and these applications require joining composite either to composite or to metal. There are three main methods for joining composite structures namely, bonding, mechanically fastened or a combination of the two. Bolted joint are preferred in structures where the disassembly is required for the purpose of maintenance and repair. Due to the stress concentration around the holes, bolted joints often represents the weakest part in the structure, and therefore it is important to design them safely. A review on the study of bolted joints in fiber reinforced composite structure is presented. It was found that the behavior of bolted joints in composite structure is affected by many factors, such as geometry, joint material, clamping–load provided by the bolts, ply orientations, etc. Accordingly, various researches have been conducted on the analyses of stress distribution, failure prediction, and strength properties of bolted joint both experimentally and numerically. Accurate prediction of stresses in bolted joints is essential for reliable design of the whole structure; if it is not optimally designed, premature and unexpected failures may be occurred.
Trained Cohorts of University Students are a Useful Resource for Conducting Dietary Surveys in Mongolia

Background: Population-based dietary assessment is important for informing national nutrition policy. The developing country setting presents challenges for robust implementation of dietary surveys, yet effective nutrition interventions are often urgently required. Objective: To develop and evaluate a low-cost approach to epidemiologic dietary assessment in Mongolia, involving the use of large cohorts of local public health and medical students as research assistants for collecting diet records. Methods: From 2011 to 2016, over 200 Mongolian medical and public health university students were trained to collect paired summer and winter 3-day weighed diet records from urban and rural study populations across the geographic expanse of Mongolia. Students were supervised during data collection, and their performance and experience during training and data collection were qualitatively evaluated from their own perspectives as well as those of the investigators. Results: Students collected detailed and thorough diet records and generally reported positive feedback regarding training and data collection. Frequent supervision of students during data collection proved to be extremely worthwhile. While rural participants were amenable to having students follow them, students faced several challenges in assessing the diets of urban participants. These challenges may best be addressed by separately training these participants beforehand. Conclusions: With adequate training and supervision, university students may be a useful and cost-effective resource for large-scale dietary surveys in regions where their use would be practical and culturally appropriate. Further research is warranted to study how well this approach may be adapted outside Mongolia and to other dietary assessment methods and technologies.