Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Striped Metal Nanowires as Building Blocks and Optical Tags

Sequential electrodeposition within a porous template can be used to prepare striped nanowires with tailorable dimensions and composition. Variations in composition along the length of the wire can be used to incorporate electrical functionality, optical contrast, and/or desired surface chemistry. Nanowires can be functionalized with chemical or biochemical reagents appropriate for assembly or biosensing. Therefore, these particles are interesting as building blocks for nanoscale electronics and as “barcodes” for both biological and non‐biological tagging applications. In this article, we briefly discuss the synthesis and optical readout of striped metal nanowires, as well as progress towards each of these potential applications.
Hole-Cutting for Three-Dimensional Overlapping Grids

A hole-cutting technique for assembling overlapping grid systems for solving partial differential equations is presented. In the present method, the closed surfaces on the boundary of the three-dimensional computational domain are represented by hybrid surface grids. The hybrid grids are composed of nonoverlapping structured surface grids joined by an unstructured layer of triangles. Each hybrid grid is constructed from a subset of the physical boundary points on the faces of the component grids. The holes in the component grids are made by using a two-step mark-and-fill method. We first locate all grid cells that intersect the hybrid surface grids. We then apply the ray method to determine whether the grid points in these intersected grid cells are inside or outside the region bounded by the hybrid surface grids. As a result, the boundary of the hole region will be marked and it is a simple matter to then remove all points from the hole by starting from the outside points and traversing along all three grid directions until an inside point is found. To locate the intersecting grid cells, we employ the ray method augmented by an octree-based search technique together with Newton's method to invert the mappings corresponding to each component grid. We demonstrate the hole-cutting method by running the code Chalmesh to generate overlapping grids for a sphere in a box, around the stern of a ship, and around a three-bladed ship propeller.
Obtaining Fuzzy Representations of 3 D Objects

This paper presents a method to convert 3D objects into a dense particle representation. To accomplish this we assume a pre-existing 3D object is supplied. Through the use of forces based on Lennard-Jones potentials and Newtonian physics we fill the object with particles of a given size. The result of this filling offers a well defined 3D particle representation of the object which may be used in a variety of ways. Such a representation should allow more effects to be performed on the object than otherwise would be available. This method should easily fit into modeling systems based on particle systems. It may also be extended to make use of the GPU of a graphics card or ported to a parallel processing environment to increase performance.
New insight into the possibilities of estimating secondary distribution transformer taps

This paper researches the future capability of estimating the fixed tap positions of MV/LV distribution transformers under the smart grid framework. The new available measurements allow improving state estimation, not only of system state but also of parameters as turns ratio of transformers, which turns to be essential for any application fed by state estimator. The nature of the measurements needed to estimate the current tap ratio of secondary distribution transformers is analyzed, as well as the quality of the estimated state. The real possibilities of this issue are critically evaluated under the current smart grid paradigm, pointing out the new opportunities arising from the increased visibility of the whole system.
High Levels of β-d-Glucan in Immunocompromised Children with Proven Invasive Fungal Disease

ABSTRACT The plasmatic levels of 1,3-β-d-glucan (BDG) were >523 pg/ml in 4 children, 2 low-birth-weight neonates and 2 stem cell transplant recipients, with the following invasive fungal diseases (IFD) proven apart from this BDG test: 3 cases of Candida parapsilosis candidemias and 1 case of disseminated aspergillosis. The BDG test may be useful for identification of IFD in pediatrics.
Analysis of Gene Expression in Bovine Testis Tissue Prior to Ectopic Testis Tissue Xenografting and During the Grafting Period1

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify factors that contribute to bovine testis development and donor age-dependent differences in the abilities of bovine ectopic testis tissue grafts to produce elongated spermatids. We used real-time RT-PCR and microarrays to evaluate and to identify the expression of genes that are involved in Sertoli and germ cell development in bovine testis tissues. Testis tissues were obtained from 2-, 4-, and 8-wk-old bull calves and were grafted immediately. Grafted bovine testis tissue was removed from mice, RNA was isolated from the grafts, and real-time RT-PCR was used to evaluate gene expression during the grafting period. In addition, the gene expression in the donor tissue was analyzed using Affymetrix Bovine GeneChips, to identify differentially expressed genes. Examination of the testis tissue grafts indicated that Sertoli cell-specific gene expression was lower in 8-wk donor tissue grafts compared to the donors of other ages. Furthermore, the expression of KIT, which is a germ cell-specific gene, was low in testis tissue grafts. Microarray analysis of the donor tissue showed that several genes that are involved in angiogenesis or tissue growth were differentially expressed in 2-, 4-, and 8-wk-old bovine testes. The levels of expression of the genes for angiogenin, transgelin, thrombomodulin, early growth response 1, insulin-like growth factor 2, and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 were lower in testis tissues from older animals. Using these data, it will be possible in the future to manipulate the testis xenograft microenvironment so as to improve the efficiency of sperm production within the graft.
What did you do today?: discovering daily routines from large-scale mobile data

We present a framework built from two Hierarchical Bayesian topic models to discover human location-driven routines from mobile phones. The framework uses location-driven bag representations of people's daily activities obtained from celltower connections. Using 68,000+ hours of real-life human data from the Reality Mining dataset, we successfully discover various types of routines. The first studied model, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), automatically discovers characteristic routines for all individuals in the study, including "going to work at 10am", "leaving work at night", or "staying home for the entire evening". In contrast, the second methodology with the Author Topic model (ATM) finds routines characteristic of a selected groups of users, such as "being at home in the mornings and evenings while being out in the afternoon", and ranks users by their probability of conforming to certain daily routines.
Environmental Pressure on Software as a Service Adoption: An Integrated Perspective

In this study, we employed institutional theory as a main framework and integrated it with concepts from diffusion of innovation and technology-organization-environment to examine a firm’s intention to adopt software as a service. We operationalized our assessment of a firm’s environmental pressures as mimetic, coercive and normative pressures and examined the moderating role of perceived technology complexity. We empirically tested our research model using data from 289 valid survey responses. The results provide support for the assertion that there are both significant direct and interaction effects that influence a firm’s software as a service adoption intention. Most important was the significant interaction effects between mimetic pressure and perceived technology complexity. This suggests that the complex relationships proposed by institutional theory and diffusion of innovation help to describe how environmental pressures and perceived technology complexity combine to affect intention to adopt.
Leader-follower strategies for robotic patrolling in environments with arbitrary topologies

Game theoretic approaches to patrolling have become a topic of increasing interest in the very last years. They mainly refer to a patrolling mobile robot that preserves an environment from intrusions. These approaches allow for the development of patrolling strategies that consider the possible actions of the intruder in deciding where the robot should move. Usually, it is supposed that the intruder can hide and observe the actions of the patroller before intervening. This leads to the adoption of a leader-follower solution concept. In this paper, mostly theoretical in its nature, we propose an approach to determine optimal leader-follower strategies for a mobile robot patrolling an environment. Differently from previous works in literature, our approach can be applied to environments with arbitrary topologies.
Self-assembled peptide nanomaterials for biomedical applications: promises and pitfalls

Over the last several decades, a great number of advances have been made in the area of self-assembled supramolecules for regenerative medicine. Such advances have involved the design, preparation, and characterization of brand new self-assembled peptide nanomaterials for a variety of applications. Among all biomolecules considered for self-assembly applications, peptides have attracted a great deal of attention as building blocks for bottom-up fabrication, due to their versatility, ease of manufacturing, low costs, tunable structures, and versatile properties. Herein, some of the more exciting new designs of self-assembled peptides and their associated unique features are reviewed and several promising applications of how self-assembled peptides are advancing drug delivery, tissue engineering, antibacterial therapy, and biosensor device applications are highlighted.
Clathrin-and Dynamin-Dependent Coated Vesicle Formation from Isolated Plasma Membranes

We have developed a new rapid cell-free assay for endocytic clathrin-coated vesicle formation using highly purified rat liver plasma membrane sheets. After incubation in the presence of cytosol and nucleotides, released vesicles were collected by high-speed centrifugation and incorporated cargo receptors were detected by Western blotting. Three different cargo receptors were internalized into vesicles while a receptor, known to be excluded from coated pits, was not. The recruitment of cargo receptors into the vesicle fraction was cytosol, ATP and temperature-dependent and was enhanced by addition of GTP. Vesicle formation in this assay was confirmed by subcellular fractionation and EM analysis. Plasma membranes stripped of their endogenous coat proteins with 0.5 M Tris retained vesicle formation activity, which was highly dependent on clathrin and dynamin. Coat proteins and dynamin were not sufficient for clathrin-coated vesicle formation, and other peripheral membrane proteins recruited from the cytosol are required. The nonhydrolyzable ATP analogue, AMPPNP did not support clathrincoated vesicle formation; however, surprisingly, GTPgS was as effective as GTP. This assay will provide a powerful tool to dissect the minimum machinery and to probe the hierarchy of events involved in cargo selection and endocytic clathrin-coated vesicle formation.
Hyphal Wall Synthesis in Aspergillus nidulans: Effect of Protein Synthesis Inhibition and Osmotic Shock on Chitin Insertion and Morphogenesis

Pulse-labeling with N-[acetyl-3H] glucosamine and radioautography were used to follow the sites of chitin incorporation in hyphae of an Aspergillus nidulans mutant blocked in amino sugar synthesis. Growing hyphae incorporated N-acetylglucosamine almost exclusively at the tip. Cycloheximide addition greatly increased the label in subapical regions of the hyphae and reduced that at the tip. This effect of cycloheximide was immediate, could be reversed by removing the inhibitor, and did not appear to be due to chitin turnover. A similar change from apical to subapical N-acetylglucosamine incorporation occurred after hyphae were subjected to an osmotic shock which did not inhibit protein synthesis. The two treatments induced morphogenetic changes in the hyphae which produced abnormally large numbers of branches and septa.
Evidence and Characterization of Crystallographic Defect and Material Quality after SLIM-Cut Process

The SLIM-Cut process is a kerf-free wafering technique to obtain silicon substrates as thin as 50μm. The quality of the resulting material must be assessed to ensure that this innovative Si-foil approach does not jeopardize the potential efficiency of the final solar cell in terms of electronic activity, defect density and location. For that reason, we performed Microwave-Detected Photoconductance Decay (MW-PCD), Deep-Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) and optical inspections after defect etching of the foils surface. Analyses indicate that SLIM-Cut generates crystallographic defects which create deep level traps that have a negative impact on the lifetime of the silicon foil. Nonetheless, a decrease of the thermal budget will lead to a reduction of plasticity and hence lower the amount of defects and increase the foil quality.
Blocked Autophagy Using Lysosomotropic Agents Sensitizes Resistant Prostate Tumor Cells to the Novel Akt Inhibitor AZD5363

Purpose: Prostate cancer development is often associated with deletion or silencing of tumor suppressor phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), a negative regulator of the phosphoinositide 3 kinase (PI3K)–Akt pathway, leading to resistance to various therapies in both the preclinical and clinical setting. Therefore, the PI3K–Akt pathway plays a central role in various cellular processes promoting survival signaling that can contribute to the malignant phenotype, and, consequently, is an attractive pharmacologic target. However, as single agents, the efficacy of AKT inhibitors may be limited by resistance mechanisms that result in minimal cell death in tumor cells. Experimental Design: We investigated the effects of the Akt inhibitor AZD5363 on cell proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis, and Akt downstream pathway proteins. Survival mechanisms induced by AZD5363 were investigated. We then examined the impacts of inhibition of autophagy in combination with AZD5363 on cell proliferation and apoptosis. Furthermore, the anticancer activity of combination treatment of the lysosomotropic inhibitor of autophagy (chloroquine) with the Akt inhibitor AZD5363 was evaluated in PC-3 prostate cancer xenografts. Results: Here, we show that the Akt inhibitor AZD5363 affected the Akt downstream pathway by reducing p-mTOR, p-P70S6K, and p-S6K. While AZD5363 monotherapy induced G2 growth arrest and autophagy, it failed to induce significant apoptosis in PC-3 and DU145 prostate cancer cell lines. Blocking autophagy using pharmacologic inhibitors (3-methyladenine, chloroquine, and bafilomycin A) or genetic inhibitors (siRNA targeting Atg3 and Atg7) enhanced cell death induced by Akt inhibitor AZD5363 in these tumor prostate cell lines. Importantly, the combination of AZD5363 with chloroquine significantly reduced tumor volume by 84.9% compared with the control group and by 77.5% compared with either drug alone in PC3 xenografts. Conclusion: Taken together, these data show that the Akt inhibitor AZD5363 synergizes with the lysosomotropic inhibitor of autophagy chloroquine to induce apoptosis and delay tumor progression in prostate cancer models that are resistant to monotherapy AZD5363, providing a new therapeutic approach potentially translatable to patients. Clin Cancer Res; 19(4); 833–44. ©2012 AACR.
Plasma Cell Dyscrasia with Kappa Light-chain Crystals in Proximal Tubular Cells: A Histological, Immunofluorescent, and Ultrastructural Study

This is a case report of a 56-year-old man with plasma cell dyscrasia who presented with proximal tubulopathy manifested as kappa light-chain crystal deposition in the proximal convoluted tubular cells. This was associated with mild cellular damage. The crystals were seen as negative images with the hematoxylin–eosin and periodic acid–Schiff (PAS) stains. They were identified as kappa light-chains by immunofluorescent imaging and confirmed by immunoelectron microscopy. Ultrastructurally, the crystals appear to be located within lysosomes. No deposits of light-chains were seen elsewhere in the kidney biopsy.
Effects of anisotropy and curvature on free vibration characteristics of laminated composite cylindrical shallow shells

This paper presents effects of anisotropy and curvature on free vibration characteristics of cross-ply laminated composite cylindrical shallow shells. Shallow shells have been considered for different lamination thickness, radius of curvature and elasticity ratio. First, kinematic relations of strains and deformation have been showed. Then, using Hamilton`s principle, governing differential equations have been obtained for a general curved shell. In the next step, stress-strain relation for laminated, cross-ply composite shells has been given. By using some simplifications and assuming Fourier series as a displacement field, differential equations are solved by matrix algebra for shallow shells. The results obtained by this solution have been given tables and graphs. The comparisons made with the literature and finite element program (ANSYS).
Privacy patterns for online interactions

A proper security architecture is an essential part of implementing robust and reliable networked applications. Security patterns have shown how reoccurring problems can be best solved with proven solutions. However, while they are critical for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computing systems, security patterns do not specifically (or necessarily) address the privacy of individuals. Building on existing privacy pattern work, we identify three privacy patterns for web-based activity: INFORMED CONSENT FOR WEB-BASED TRANSACTIONS, MASKED ONLINE TRAFFIC, and MINIMAL INFORMATION ASYMMETRY. The first pattern addresses a system architecture issue and draws on Friedman's model for informed consent. The second and third patterns provide support for end users and extend Jiang's 'Principle of Minimum Asymmetry. ' These patterns describe how users can protect their privacy by both revealing less about themselves, and acquiring more information from the party with whom they are communicating.
WIRE ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE MACHINING FOR MICROFABRICATION

This paper discusses the application of conventional wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) for fabrication of miniaturized components using low pulse energy. The surface finish of the fabricated microparts was investigated for different level of discharge current at constant gap voltage and pulse-on time. Miniaturized gears of 3.58 mm outside diameter were fabricated from copper blank as an example. The fabricated microgears were inspected by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) (JSM-5600, JEOL, Japan) where higher accuracy and geometrical integrity were observed. The surface roughness of the microgear was measured by using surface profiler (Surftest SV-500, Mitutoyo, Japan). An average surface roughness (Ra) of 1.8 μm and dimensional accuracy of 1-2% were achieved.
Enhancement performance of road recognition system of autonomous robots in shadow scenario

Road region recognition is a main feature that is gaining increasing attention from intellectuals because it helps autonomous vehicle to achieve a successful navigation without accident. However, different techniques based on camera sensor have been used by various researchers and outstanding results have been achieved. Despite their success, environmental noise like shadow leads to inaccurate recognition of road region which eventually leads to accident for autonomous vehicle. In this research, we conducted an investigation on shadow and its effects, optimized the road region recognition system of autonomous vehicle by introducing an algorithm capable of detecting and eliminating the effects of shadow. The experimental performance of our system was tested and compared using the following schemes: Total Positive Rate (TPR), False Negative Rate (FNR), Total Negative Rate (TNR), Error Rate (ERR) and False Positive Rate (FPR). The performance result of the system improved on road recognition in shadow scenario and this advancement has added tremendously to successful navigation approaches for autonomous vehicle.
Ethanol Byproduct Feeds: Determining Accurate Fiber Content, Nutrient Composition and Variability, Storing with Low-Quality Forages, and Fiber Utilization in Finishing Diets

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate nutrient content and DM determination methods of dry milling byproducts. In Exp. 1, nutrient composition was determined for wet distillers grains plus solubles (WDGS) and modified distillers grains plus solubles (MDGS) from 6 ethanol plants with 10 samples collected per day, across 5 d, and sampling was repeated over 4 separate mo. Mean composition was 31.0% CP, 11.9% fat, 0.84% P, and 0.77% S (DM basis). Coefficients of variation for DM content were greater for some plants than others and variation occurred within and across days. Variability was small for CP and P whereas fat differed among ethanol plants. Large variation in means and CV were observed for S in period 1, but variation subsequently decreased. Coefficients of variation for S were similar for samples collected within the same day and across days. In Exp. 2, samples of WDGS, MDGS, Dakota Bran Cake, and distillers solubles were used to determine DM content by drying samples at 105oC for 3, 8, and 24 h and 60oC for 24 and 48 h, vacuum oven drying, toluene distillation, and Karl Fischer titration. Compared to toluene distillation, drying at 105oC resulted in less DM (P ≤ 0.10), and vacuum drying and Karl Fischer titration resulted in greater DM (P < 0.01). In Exp. 3, additional WDGS, MDGS, and wet grains with no solubles were used to determine DM with oven drying at 60oC for 48 h, 105oC for 3 h, or toluene distillation. Drying at 60oC for 48 h was similar to toluene distillation (P ≤ 0.60).
Differential elastic actuator for robotic interaction tasks

For complex robotic tasks (e.g., manipulation, locomotion), the lack of knowledge of precise interaction models, the difficulties to precisely measure the task associated physical quantities (e.g., position of contact points, interaction forces) in real-time, the finite sampling time of digital control loops and the non-collocation of sensors and transducers have negative effects on performance and stability of robots when using simple force or simple movement controllers. To cope with these issues, a new compact design for high performance actuators specifically adapted for integration in robotic mechanisms is presented. This design makes use of a mechanical differential as its central element. Results shown that differential coupling between an intrinsically high impedance transducer and an intrinsically low impedance mechanical spring provides the same benefits as serial coupling, but in a more compact and simple design. This new actuator, named Differential Elastic Actuator (DEA), provides interesting design implementations, especially for rotational actuators used for mobile robot locomotion.