Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Advanced Ni–W coatings obtained by the combination of pulse plating and chemometric techniques

Abstract The electroplating of Ni–W alloys could represent one of the most promising environmentally friendly alternatives to replace hard chromium. However, the Ni–W process and coatings still show some limitations such as lower hardness than hard chromium and limited corrosion resistance that need to be overcome in order to be considered a real solution. In this work, a Ni–W electrolyte was proposed and optimised. A chemometric approach was used in order to design pulse plating experiments and study the effect of experimental parameters on the properties of pulse plated Ni–W coatings. In addition, multivariate analysis was proposed to establish a relation among structural and physical characteristics of Ni–W deposits, and the optimum values of the process parameters required to improve their properties were determined. Results indicate that by the combination of pulse plating and chemometric techniques, Ni–W coatings with improved uniformity, efficiency and hardness compared to those obtained by direct current could be obtained, achieving hardness and corrosion resistance values similar to those of hard chromium coatings.
Burkholderia pseudomallei in Unchlorinated Domestic Bore Water, Tropical Northern Australia

To determine whether unchlorinated bore water in northern Australia contained Burkholderia pseudomallei organisms, we sampled 55 bores; 18 (33%) were culture positive. Multilocus sequence typing identified 15 sequence types. The B. pseudomallei sequence type from 1 water sample matched a clinical isolate from a resident with melioidosis on the same property.
Bioconversion of D‐galactose into D‐tagatose by expression of L‐arabinose isomerase

D‐Tagatose is a potential bulking agent in food as a non‐calorific sweetener. To produce D‐tagatose from cheaper resources, plasmids harbouring the L‐arabinose isomerase gene (araA) from Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Salmonella typhimurium were constructed because L‐arabinose isomerase was suggested previously as an enzyme that mediates the bioconversion of galactose into tagatose as well as that of arabinose to ribulose. The constructed plasmids were named pTC101, pTC105 and pTC106, containing araA from E. coli, B. subtilis and S. typhimurium respectively. In the cultures of recombinant E. coli with pTC101, pTC105 and pTC106, tagatose was produced from galactose in 9.9, 7.1 and 6.9% yields respectively. The enzyme extract of E. coli with the plasmid pTC101 also converted galactose into tagatose with a 96.4% yield.
Efficient Wrapper/TAM co-optimization for large SOCs

Core test wrappers and test access mechanisms (TAMs) are important components of a system-on-chip (SOC) test architecture. Wrapper/TAM co-optimization is necessary to minimize the SOC testing time. Most prior research in wrapper/TAM design has addressed wrapper design and TAM optimization as separate problems, thereby leading to results that are sub-optimal. We present a fast heuristic technique for wrapper/TAM co-optimization, and demonstrate its scalability for several industrial SOCs. This extends recent work on exact methods for wrapper/TAM co-optimization based on integer linear programming and exhaustive enumeration. We show that the SOC testing times obtained using the new heuristic algorithm are comparable to the testing times obtained using exact methods. Moreover more than two orders of magnitude reduction can be obtained in the CPU time compared to exact methods. Furthermore, we are now able to design efficient test access architectures with a larger number of TAMs.
Data communication and information security analysis of wide area protection system

To improve the information security level of the wide area protection system, the functions of the system and IED are analyzed. The communication data types of the system and their communication requirement are offered. The main security threatens and key information security technologies are analyzed emphatically. The key information security technologies include digital signature technology, encryption and decryption technologies, fire wall technology, intrusion detection and defending technology, VPN technology, et al. The problems that the information security of the wide area protection system should solve are presented. The information security standards of the power system are analyzed finally.
Does Human Capital Specificity Affect Employer Capital Structure ? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

I examine how employing workers with specific human capital affects capital structure decisions by employers. Based on plant-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I use the opening of new plants as an exogenous reduction in human capital specificity for incumbent workers in a local labor market. My results indicate that the opening of a new manufacturing plant in a given county leads to a 2.6-3.9% increase in the leverage of existing manufacturing firms in the county, relative to the leverage of manufacturing firms in an otherwise comparable county. Moreover, plant openings have a larger impact on firms that are more likely to share labor with the new plant, that have high labor intensity, and that have high marginal tax benefits of debt. Alternative explanations concerning productivity spillovers, product market competition, and county-wide shocks do not appear to account for the results. I find consistent evidence in a separate sample that contains a broad panel of firms. Overall, these results are supportive of theories of investment in specific human capital. * Address: Duke University Fuqua School of Business, 100 Fuqua Drive, Durham, NC 27708; Email: hyunseob.kim@duke.edu; Phone: (919) 452-1104. I am indebted to the dissertation committee members, Peter Arcidiacono, Alon Brav, John Graham (Chair), Manju Puri, and S. Viswanathan. I also appreciate helpful comments from Hengjie Ai, Gale Boyd, Barney Hartman-Glaser, Jonathan James, Dalida Kadyrzhanova, Justin Murfin, Adriano Rampini, David Robinson, and seminar participants at Duke University and the Triangle Census Research Data Center (TCRDC) 2011 Conference. I thank Bert Grider at the Triangle Census Research Data Center for help with data and clearance requests. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. This research uses data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics Program, which was partially supported by the following National Science Foundation Grants SES-9978093, SES-0339191 and ITR-0427889; National Institute on Aging Grant AG018854; and grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I greatly acknowledge financial support from the Kwanjeong Educational Foundation. All errors are my own.
SACCS: scalable asynchronous cache consistency scheme for mobile environments

In this paper, we propose a novel cache consistency maintenance scheme, called Scalable Asynchronous Cache Consistency Scheme (SACCS), for mobile environments. It relies on the following three key features: (1) Use of flag bits at server and MU's cache to maintain cache consistency; (2) Use of an identifier (ID) for each entry in MUs cache after its invalidation in order to maximize the broadcast bandwidth efficiency; (3) Rendering all valid entries of MUs cache to uncertain state when it wakes up. These three features make the SACCS a highly scalable algorithm with minimum database management overhead. Comprehensive simulation results show that the performance of SACCS is superior to those of existing algorithms.
Noise Elimination from the Web Documents by Using URL Paths and Information Redundancy

Noise data in the Web document significantly affect on the performance of the Web information management system. Many researchers have proposed document structure based noise data elimination methods. In this paper, we propose a different approach that uses a redundant information elimination approach in the Web documents from the same URL path. We propose a redundant word/phrase filtering method for single or multiple tokenizations. We conducted two experiments to examine efficiency and effectiveness of our filtering approaches. Experimental results show that our approach produces a high performance in these two criteria
Validation of the efficacy of the prognostic factor score in the Japanese severity criteria for severe acute pancreatitis: A large multicenter study

Background The Japanese severity criteria for acute pancreatitis (AP), which consist of a prognostic factor score and contrast-enhanced computed tomography grade, have been widely used in Japan. Objective This large multicenter retrospective study was conducted to validate the predictive value of the prognostic factor score for mortality and complications in severe AP patients in comparison to the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score. Methods Data of 1159 patients diagnosed with severe AP according to the Japanese severity criteria for AP were retrospectively collected in 44 institutions. Results The area under the curve (AUC) for the receiver-operating characteristic curve of the prognostic factor score for predicting mortality was 0.78 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.74–0.82), whereas the AUC for the APACHE II score was 0.80 (95% CI, 0.76–0.83), respectively. There were no significant differences in the AUC for predicting mortality between two scoring systems. The AUCs of the prognostic factor scores for predicting the need for mechanical ventilation, the development of pancreatic infection, and severe AP according to the revised Atlanta classification were 0.84 (95% CI, 0.81–0.86), 0.73 (95% CI, 0.69–0.77), and 0.83 (95% CI, 0.81–0.86), respectively, which were significantly greater than the AUCs for the APACHE II score; 0.81 (95% CI, 0.78–0.83) for the need for mechanical ventilation (p = 0.03), 0.68 (95% CI, 0.63–0.72) for the development of pancreatic infection (p = 0.02), and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.77–0.82) for severe AP according to the revised Atlanta classification (p = 0.01). Conclusion The prognostic factor score has an equivalent ability for predicting mortality compared with the APACHE II score. Regarding the ability for predicting the development of severe complications during the clinical course of AP, the prognostic factor score may be superior to the APACHE II score.
Between-Monitor Differences in Step Counts Are Related to Body Size: Implications for Objective Physical Activity Measurement

Background The quantification of the relationships between walking and health requires that walking is measured accurately. We correlated different measures of step accumulation to body size, overall physical activity level, and glucose regulation. Methods Participants were 25 men and 25 women American Indians without diabetes (Age: 20-34 years) in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. We assessed steps/day during 7 days of free living, simultaneously with three different monitors (Accusplit-AX120, MTI-ActiGraph, and Dynastream-AMP). We assessed total physical activity during free-living with doubly labeled water combined with resting metabolic rate measured by expired gas indirect calorimetry. Glucose tolerance was determined during an oral glucose tolerance test. Findings Based on observed counts in the laboratory, the AMP was the most accurate device, followed by the MTI and the AX120, respectively. The estimated energy cost of 1000 steps per day was lower in the AX120 than the MTI or AMP. The correlation between AX120-assessed steps/day and waist circumference was significantly higher than the correlation between AMP steps and waist circumference. The difference in steps per day between the AX120 and both the AMP and the MTI were significantly related to waist circumference. Interpretation Between-monitor differences in step counts influence the observed relationship between walking and obesity-related traits.
Contour-based multidirectional intra coding for HEVC

Intra coding is an indispensable part of all video coding systems. However, the intra prediction in the HEVC standard has several limitations with respect to the available amount of information which is exploited for the prediction and the limited number of prediction directions per block. In this paper, we propose a novel contour-based multidirectional intra coding mode which combines computer vision technologies with conventional video coding technologies to overcome these limitations. Structural parts and smooth parts of the video signal are predicted separately. While the structural parts are predicted based on contour detection, parameterization and extrapolation algorithms, the smooth areas are filled by means of low complexity technologies like sample value continuation. Thereby, the coding efficiency is considerably increased, with weighted average BD-rate gains of up to 1.9% compared to HM-16.3. A stand-alone codec implementation achieves average bit rate savings of 29.7% over JPEG and outperforms related work.
INTRODUCTION OF THE REUSE METHOD: RETRIEVING KNOWLEDGE FROM EXISTING PRODUCT DESIGNS

In today’s marketplace, most products must better satisfy customers’ needs in the shortest time and be competitively priced. In this context, the reuse of knowledge about the targeted product is critical for developing potential product platforms. One can facilitate the reuse of existing knowledge to achieve a desired design by establishing a method that considers the layout of modules (or components) with identified flow interfaces, volume and the fundamental functional description. The problem grows with the number of candidate modules and with information-rich descriptions. The proposed REUSE (Reuse Existing Unit for Shape and Efficiency) Method greatly facilitates this search by filtering candidates based on their similarity to desired characteristics and their performance efficiency. By reusing existing information from components and modules, this approach allows the detailed specification of cost (e.g., investment and production cost for a module) along with other desired characteristics. This method applies to the complete product realization enterprise from conception through product launch. It also enables traceability of design decisions to help capture rationale and justification. A case study involving a family of cameras illustrates the proposed method.Copyright © 2005 by ASME
Zero-sum semi-Markov games in Borel spaces: discounted and average payoff

We study two-person zero-sum semi-Markov games in Borel spaces with possibly unbounded payofffunction, under discounted and average payoffcriteria. Conditions are given for the existence of the valué of the game, the existence of optimal strategies for both players, and for a characterization of the discounted optimal stationary strategies.
Integrating Heterogeneous Data Source Using Ontology

Integrating data from multiple heterogeneous sources entail dealing with different data models, schemas and query languages. The burgeoning Semantic Web has provided several new methods for data integration. This paper focuses on integration of relational database and XML data. To solve the problem we propose an ontology-based approach. A semantic integration infrastructure for heterogeneous data sources is presented. In this infrastructure, ontology is used as the mediated schema for the representation of the data source semantics. To model different source schemas, we propose a describing method based on RDF graph patterns. The semantic mappings between source schema and RDF ontology are described declaratively using SPARQL queries. The semantic of query rewriting is further discussed and a query rewriting algorithm is presented.
Molecular epidemiology of influenza A virus infection in Cyprus in four consecutive seasons (2009 pandemic–2013)

SUMMARY The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of influenza A virus infection in Cyprus from the 2009 pandemic until 2013. Pandemic influenza A(H1N1)2009 virus infections outnumbered infections with other respiratory viruses until the end of 2009. The pandemic virus was also the prevalent influenza strain during influenza season 2010–2011; however, it was completely replaced by H3N2 subtype in the next season. During the most recent influenza season, 2012–2013, the pandemic strain was once again the only influenza A virus circulating in Cyprus. Full-length neuraminidase gene sequencing revealed mutations that had previously been identified as permissive. No significant difference in the expression of the IFN-inducible genes OAS and IFIT1 were observed. The phylogenetic analysis of the neuraminidase gene sequences revealed a picture of continuous importation of influenza strains in the island of Cyprus with local circulation playing only a minor role in determining the prevalent strain of the next influenza season.
Agent-based resource discovery

Presents a distributed discovery method allowing individual nodes to gather information about resources in a wide-area distributed system made up of autonomous systems linked together by a network technology substrate. We introduce an algorithm and a model for distributed awareness and a framework for the dynamic assembly of agents monitoring network resources. Whenever an agent needs detailed information about the individual components of another system, it uses the information gathered by the distributed awareness mechanism to identify the target system, then creates a description of a monitoring agent that is capable of providing the information about remote resources, and sends this description to the remote site. There, an agent factory dynamically assembles the monitoring agent. This solution is scalable and is suitable for heterogeneous environments where the architecture and the hardware resources of individual nodes differ, where the services provided by the system are diverse, and where the bandwidth and latency of the communication links cover a broad range.
Changes in heart rate and heart rate variability during transportation of horses by road and air.

OBJECTIVE To determine the influence of transportation by road and air on heart rate (HR) and HR variability (HRV) in horses. Animals-6 healthy horses. PROCEDURES ECG recordings were obtained from horses before (quarantine with stall rest [Q]; 24 hours) and during a journey that included transportation by road (RT; 4.5 hours), waiting on the ground in an air stall (W; 5.5 hours), and transportation by air (AT; 11 hours); HR was determined, and HRV indices of autonomic nervous activity (low-frequency [LF; 0.01 to 0.07 Hz] and high-frequency [HF; 0.07 to 0.6 Hz] power) were calculated. RESULTS Mean ± SD HRs during Q, RT, W, and AT were 38.9 ± 1.5 beats/min, 41.7 ± 5.6 beats/min, 41.5 ± 4.3 beats/min, and 48.8 ± 5.6 beats/min, respectively; HR during AT was significantly higher than HR during Q. The LF power was significantly higher during Q (3,454 ± 1,087 milliseconds(2)) and AT (3,101 ± 567 milliseconds(2)) than it was during RT (1,824 ± 432 milliseconds(2)) and W (2,072 ± 616 milliseconds(2)). During Q, RT, W, and AT, neither HF powers (range, 509 to 927 milliseconds(2)) nor LF:HF ratios (range, 4.1 to 6.2) differed significantly. The HR during RT was highly correlated with LF power (R(2) = 0.979), and HR during AT was moderately correlated with the LF:HF ratio (R(2) = 0.477). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE In horses, HR and HRV indices during RT and AT differed, suggesting that exposure to different stressors results in different autonomic nervous influences on HR.
Paraganglioma of the Filum Terminale: Case Report, Pathology and Review of the Literature

Spinal paragangliomas are very rare neuroendocrine tumors often presenting with low back pain and radicular symptoms; once resected, they often show benign clinical outcomes. Radiographically spinal paragangliomas mimic more commonly described tumors, such as ependymomas, schwannomas, meningiomas, and even hemangiomas, but a “salt and pepper” appearance related to a serpiginous vascular structure is instructive. Indeed, the rarity of this tumor makes the diagnosis rather challenging radiographically. Graded as a WHO Grade I tumor, they are slow-growing with low proliferation indices. Gross total resection is the mainstay of operative treatment but is often limited by tumor adherence to functional nerves. Here, we present a case of this rare tumor and its management, including a review of the pathology and literature related to this tumor.
Mechanical properties of 1950's vintage 304 stainless steel weldment components after low temperature neutron irradiation

The reactor vessels of the nuclear production reactors at the Savannah River Site (SRS) were constructed in the 1950`s from Type 304 stainless steel plates welded with Type 308 stainless steel filler using the multipass metal inert gas process. An irradiated mechanical properties database has been developed for the vessel with materials from archival primary coolant system piping irradiated at low temperatures (75 to 150{degrees}C) in the State University of New York at Buffalo reactor (UBR) and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) to doses of 0.065 to 2.1 dpa. Fracture toughness, tensile, and Charpy-V impact properties of the weldment components (base, weld, and weld heat-affected-zone (HAZ)) have been measured at temperatures of 25{degrees}C and 125{degrees}C in the L-C and C-L orientations for materials in both the irradiated and unirradiated conditions for companion specimens. Fracture toughness and tensile properties of specimens cut from an SRS reactor vessel sidewall with doses of 0.1 and 0.5 dpa were also measured at temperatures of 25 and 125{degrees}C. The irradiated materials exhibit hardening with loss of work hardenability and a reduction in toughness relative to the unirradiated materials. The HFIR-irradiated materials show an increase in yield strength between about 20% and 190% with a more » concomitant tensile strength increase between about 15% to 30%. The elastic-plastic fracture toughness parameters and Charpy-V energy absorption both decrease and show only a slight sensitivity to dose. The irradiation-induced decrease in the elastic-plastic fracture toughness (J{sub def} at 1 mm crack extension) is between 20% to 65%; the range of J{sub 1C} values are 72.8 to 366 kJ/m{sup 2} for the irradiated materials. Similarly, Charpy V-notch results show a 40% to 60% decrease in impact energies. « less
The effect of patellar taping on the onset of vastus medialis obliquus and vastus lateralis muscle activity in persons with patellofemoral pain.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of patellar taping on the onset of activity of the vastus medialis obliquus muscle (VMO) and the vastus lateralis muscle (VL). SUBJECTS AND METHODS Fourteen female subjects with patellar pain walked up and down stairs in two conditions: (1) with the patellofemoral joint of the painful lower extremity taped so that the pain was reduced by at least 50% on a pain provocation test and (2) without patellar taping. RESULTS When the patellofemoral joint was not taped, there was no difference in the onset of activity between the VMO and the VL during the step-up and step-down tasks. During the step-up task, the onset of VMO activity occurred earlier with taping but there was no change in the onset of VL activity with taping. During the step-down task, the onset of VMO activity occurred earlier and the onset of VL activity was delayed with taping. When the patellofemoral joint was taped, the VMO was activated earlier than the VL during the step-up and step-down tasks. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION Taping of the patellofemoral joint in the manner used in this study changed the timing of VMO and VL activity in subjects with patellofemoral pain during step-up and step-down tasks. The earlier activation of the VMO may alter the movement of the patella, and further research is needed to determine whether this occurs and whether it is beneficial.