Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A THERMAL SHOCK FATIGUE STUDY OF TYPE 304 AND 316 STAINLESS STEELS

— –Thermal fatigue crack initiation and propagation promoted by thermal quenches have been studied in AISI 316 and 304 stainless steels and correlated with isothermal strain cycling fatigue. Axially unconstrained specimens of rectangular section were held at bulk temperatures of 250°C to 500°C and symmetrically water-quenched on the narrow faces to give equivalent surface strain ranges from 2.8 ×10−3 to 5.4 ×10−3. Crack initiation in smooth samples showed an apparent threshold at a surface strain range of 2.8×10−3 equivalent to a thermal amplitude of 150°C with no cracking being produced in 500,000 cycles. The crack growth in prenotched samples was evaluated by direct observation and by subsequent fractography and showed two modes of growth. The crack growth was strain controlled during the early stages of propagation where the crack tip was within the surface zone under conditions of fully plastic cyclic yield. At greater depths the propagation rates in the remaining elastically cycled material were found to correlate with calculated stress intensity values. In the chosen symmetrical quenched axially unconstrained configuration the crack growth rates decreased towards the centre of the specimen, indicating a crack arrest condition as expected from analysis. The results indicated a good correlation with the fracture behaviour observed from isothermal strain cycling fatigue behaviour in an air environment.
Orientation invariant 3D object classification using hough transform based methods

In comparison to the 2D case, object class recognition in 3D is a much less researched area. However, with the advent of affordable 3D acquisition technology and the growing popularity of 3D content, its relevance is steadily increasing. Just as in the 2D case, 3D data is often partial, noisy and without prior segmentation. Moreover, the object is rarely observed in a canonical frame of reference with respect to orientation (or scale). We propose a method, using Hough-voting for local 3D features, which is orientation (and scale) invariant.
Structural investigation of polymers by neutron scattering

Abstract Neutron scattering is a unique probe of the structural and dynamic properties of polymeric materials. Two properties of the neutron particle have played a major role in the development of the technique: (i) length and timescales accessed by neutron scattering simultaneously match those of typical molecular processes, and (ii) the capability to manipulate the contrast by deuteration. Starting from what could now be regarded as rather simple experiments on common polymeric systems, the technique has been developed into a tool used to elucidate structure and dynamics of increasingly complex, multi-component materials. Exploiting the high penetration power of the neutron particle, in situ measurements can be performed, so that structural changes can be followed mimicking processing conditions. With continuous improvements in neutron flux and instrumentation, the range of systems that can be investigated is continuously expanding, as well as the accessible spatial and time range instrumentally accessible. Recent years have seen not only advances in synthetic chemistry, but also in molecular modelling and neutron scattering has afforded a way to compare experimental data and computer simulations. With plans being made for next generation neutron sources, e.g. the second target station at ISIS and SNS in the USA, the future is looking very bright for neutron scattering.
Isolation and structural elucidation of a novel homogenous polysaccharide from Tricholoma matsutake

A crude polysaccharide possessing antitumour, radiation-resistant and anti-ageing attributes was extracted from Tricholoma matsutake by water extraction and alcohol precipitation. From this crude polysaccharide, a homogeneous polysaccharide, TMP-5II, was successfully purified by Sephacryl S-300 column chromatography. The average molecular weight (Mw) of TMP-5II was 15.76 kDa. Monosaccharide analysis indicated that the homogeneous polysaccharide contained four different residues: d-glucose, d-galactose, d-mannose and d-fucose. Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy revealed characteristics typical of carbohydrate polymers and a peak typical of a β-type glycosidic bond. TMP-5II was selected for structural characterisation by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis. According to 1H NMR, 13C NMR and two-dimensional-NMR analysis, TMP-5II contains two kinds of linkages, β and α, at a ratio of 4:1. Preliminary results indicated that the polysaccharide had (1-4)-beta-pyran glucose as the main chain, and a branched chain in the O-6 location with fucose (1-2) mannose (1-3)-alpha-pyran galactose.
Additional Contribution of the Malnutrition-Inflammation Score to Predict Mortality and Patient-Reported Outcomes as Compared With Its Components in a Cohort of African Descent Hemodialysis Patients.

OBJECTIVE The malnutrition-inflammation score (MIS) combines ten components to assess nutritional status. Higher MIS has been associated with higher mortality and poorer health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. It is interesting to investigate associations of each component with mortality and patient-reported outcomes (PROs), that is, HRQOL and depression symptoms, and if MIS associations are generalizable for diverse populations. This study assessed associations of MIS and its components with mortality and PROs in an African descent MHD population. DESIGN Prospective cohort for mortality and cross-sectional design for PROs using data of the Prospective Study of the Prognosis of Chronic Hemodialysis Patients (PROHEMO). SUBJECTS A total of 632 MHD patients (92% black or mixed race) treated in Salvador, Brazil. PREDICTORS MIS (range: 0-30, higher worse) and each of its ten components (range: 0-4, higher worse). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Mortality, HRQOL using the KDQOL-SF, and depression symptoms using the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Linear regression for comparing scores and Cox regression for mortality. RESULTS After extensive adjustments, MIS ≥6 was associated with 52% higher mortality (hazard ratio = 1.52; 95% confidence interval = 1.13-2.05), higher depression symptoms, and poorer HRQOL, including physical, mental, and kidney disease-targeted HRQOL measures. Weight change, comorbidity, muscle wasting, and albumin were the MIS components indicating associations between poor nutrition and higher mortality. By contrast, gastrointestinal symptoms and functional capacity were the MIS components denoting detrimental associations of poorer nutritional status with PROs. LIMITATION Causal conclusions are not possible. CONCLUSIONS The PROHEMO results indicate that MIS components associated with mortality are not the same associated with PROs. However, the MIS showed consistent associations with mortality and PROs. These results in a population that were not the target of previous investigations, add support for using tools combining nutritional components, such as MIS, to predict outcomes in MHD populations.
Real-time pedestrian mapping from camera view to world space

Our environment is monitored by increasing number of surveillance cameras every day. Today, real-time automated analysis of surveillance video footages is a growing trend. These algorithms detect, track and analyze humans in videos and generate useful information. However, an analysis undertaken in camera view space yields only a limited amount of information that is relative to the camera view or screen space. We propose a technique that could be used to transform the screen space person detection to world space. Coordinate points generated on world space are independent of camera positions and thus could be used to combine information from multiple cameras. Additionally, such information can be combined with floor planning of considered area to generate additional useful information. Through rigorous testing and tuning, we have reached accuracy within 17 cm or approximately 1/3 the radius of personal space consumed by a person in determining the world space mapping.
Adaptive behaviorin cellular automata using rough set theory

The paper uses ideas from machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide the model of cellular automata based on rough set theory and the response to it in simulated cars. Recently, the examination and modeling of vehicular traffic has become an important subject of research. We propose in this paper, a road-traffic system based on two-dimensional cellular automata combined with rough set theory, to model the flow and jamming that is common in an urban environment. The modeled development process in this paper involves simulated processes of evolution, learning, and self-organization. The main value of the model is that it provides an illustration of how simple learning processes may lead to the formation of the state machine behavior, which can give emergence to the model.
Accurate small object detection via density map aided saliency estimation

Small object detection (SOD) in crowded scenes is a challenging task since objects are densely distributed and partially overlapped. In this paper, we propose a novel SOD method by fully exploring the information provided by the image and its estimated density map. Our proposed SOD method consists of two main stages. Initial object locations are firstly computed based on object spatial distribution information obtained from the estimated density maps. Inspired by the human visual attention mechanism, a saliency map which offers object boundaries is then employed to accurately estimate the bounding boxes with the support of the estimated initial object locations. Experimental results on three public small object datasets and a self-built snipe dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed SOD method, especially under small training set condition. It is encouraged to see that our SOD method only requires the dotted annotation training datasets and is able to estimate the bounding boxes fitting the shape of the objects accurately.
Generalized Global Bandit and Its Application in Cellular Coverage Optimization

Motivated by the engineering problem of cellular coverage optimization, we propose a novel multiarmed bandit model called generalized global bandit. We develop a series of greedy algorithms that have the capability to handle nonmonotonic but decomposable reward functions, multidimensional global parameters, and switching costs. The proposed algorithms are rigorously analyzed under the multiarmed bandit framework, where we show that they achieve bounded regret, and hence, they are guaranteed to converge to the optimal arm in finite time. The algorithms are then applied to the cellular coverage optimization problem to achieve the optimal tradeoff between sufficient small cell coverage and limited macroleakage without prior knowledge of the deployment environment. The performance advantage of the new algorithms over existing bandits solutions is revealed analytically and further confirmed via numerical simulations. The key element behind the performance improvement is a more efficient “trial and error” mechanism, in which any trial will help improve the knowledge of all candidate power levels.
Non-surgical oncology – Guidelines on Parenteral Nutrition, Chapter 19

Reduced nutritional state is associated with unfavourable outcomes and a lower quality of life in patients with malignancies. Patients with active tumour disease frequently have insufficient food intake. The resting energy expenditure in cancer patients can be increased, decreased, or remain unchanged compared to predicted values. Tumours may result in varying degrees of systemic pro-inflammatory processes with secondary effects on all significant metabolic pathways. Therapeutic objectives are to stabilise nutritional state with oral/enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition (PN) and thus to prevent or reduce progressive weight loss. The maintenance or improvement of quality of life, and the increase in the effectiveness and a reduction in the side-effects of antitumor therapy are further objectives. Indications for PN in tumour patients are essentially identical to those in patients with benign illnesses, with preference given to oral or enteral nutrition when feasible. A combined nutritional concept is preferred if oral or enteral nutrition are possible but not sufficient. There are generally no accepted standards for ideal energy and nutrient intakes in oncological patients, particularly when exclusive artificial nutrition is administered. The use of PN as a general accompaniment to radiotherapy or chemotherapy is not indicated, but PN is indicated in chronic severe radiogenic enteritis or after allogenic transplantation with pronounced mucositis or GvH-related gastrointestinal damage for prolonged periods, with particular attention to increased risk of bleeding and infection. No PN is necessary in the terminal phase.
Risk variants in the S 100 B gene , associated with elevated S 100 B levels , are also associated with visuospatial disability of schizophrenia

Rs9722 and rs1051169 have been reported as affecting the levels of S100B in the serum or the brain, and haplotypes containing these two SNPs have been associated with schizophrenia. The current study investigated the role of the S100B gene in an endophenotype of schizophrenia—spatial disability. 304 schizophrenia patients and 196 healthy controls were given a block design task and a mental rotation task. Results showed that the two aforementioned SNPs and related haplotypes were associated with the spatial disability of schizophrenia patients. Specifically, risk factors for the elevated S100B levels, including the A allele of rs9722, the G allele of rs1051169, and the AG haplotype, were associated with a poorer performance on both tests of spatial ability, especially the mental rotation task. These results implicate a role for S100B gene polymorphisms in the cognitive functions of schizophrenia patients and encourage further investigation into spatial disability as an endophenotype of schizophrenia. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The use of m-sequences in the analysis of visual neurons: Linear receptive field properties

Abstract We have used Sutter's (1987) spatiotemporal m-sequence method to map the receptive fields of neurons in the visual system of the cat. The stimulus consisted of a grid of 16 X 16 square regions, each of which was modulated in time by a pseudorandom binary signal, known as an m-sequence. Several strategies for displaying the m-sequence stimulus are presented. The results of the method are illustrated with two examples. For both geniculate neurons and cortical simple cells, the measurement of first-order response properties with the m-sequence method provided a detailed characterization of classical receptive-field structures. First, we measured a spatiotemporal map of both the center and surround of a Y-cell in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The time courses of the center responses was biphasic: OFF at short latencies, ON at longer latencies. The surround was also biphasic—ON then OFF—but somewhat slower. Second, we mapped the response properties of an area 17 directional simple cell. The response dynamics of the ON and OFF subregions varied considerably; the time to peak ranged over more than a factor of two. This spatiotemporal inseparability is related to the cell's directional selectivity (Reid et al., 1987, 1991; McLean & Palmer, 1989; McLean et al., 1994). The detail with which the time course of response can be measured at many different positions is one of the strengths of the m-sequence method.
Loans, Interest Rates and Guarantees: Is There a Link?

This paper aims at shedding light on the influence of guarantees on the loan pricing. After reviewing the literature on the role of guarantees in bank lending decisions, we estimate a bank interest rate model that explicitly includes collateral and personal guarantees as explanatory variables. We show that banks follow different lending policies according to the type of customer. In the case of firms banks seem to efficiently screen and monitor customers, and guarantees (real and personal) are used to reduce moral hazard problems. In the case of consumer households and sole proprietorships banks behave “lazily” by replacing screening and monitoring activities with personal guarantees. Collateral, instead, is used to separate good from bad customers (i.e., to mitigate adverse selection problems).
Bayesian nonparametric inference for the three-class Youden index and its associated optimal cutoff points

The three-class Youden index serves both as a measure of medical test accuracy and a criterion to choose the optimal pair of cutoff values for classifying subjects into three ordinal disease categories (e.g. no disease, mild disease, advanced disease). We present a Bayesian nonparametric approach for estimating the three-class Youden index and its corresponding optimal cutoff values based on Dirichlet process mixtures, which are robust models that can handle intricate features of distributions for complex data. Results from a simulation study are presented and an application to data from the Trail Making Test to assess cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease patients is detailed.
Multi-device collaborative management through knowledge sharing

Rapidly evolving embedded applications continuously demand more functionality and better performance under tight energy and thermal budgets, and maintaining high energy efficiency has become a significant design challenge for mobile devices. Although learning-based runtime power management can adapt to dynamic conditions, it is a challenging issue to quickly find an efficient management policy under ever-increasing hardware and software complexity. In this work, we propose a multi-device collaborative power management approach to address this issue. The collaborative power management periodically shares knowledge among multiple devices to accelerate the learning process and improve the quality of learned policies. We integrate the proposed method with dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) on the multicore processors in mobile devices. Experimental results on realistic applications show that the collaborative power management can achieve on average 8x speedup and 10% energy saving compared with state-of-the-art learning-based approaches.
Mapping Monomeric Threading to Protein-Protein Structure Prediction

The key step of template-based protein-protein structure prediction is the recognition of complexes from experimental structure libraries that have similar quaternary fold. Maintaining two monomer and dimer structure libraries is however laborious, and inappropriate library construction can degrade template recognition coverage. We propose a novel strategy SPRING to identify complexes by mapping monomeric threading alignments to protein-protein interactions based on the original oligomer entries in the PDB, which does not rely on library construction and increases the efficiency and quality of complex template recognitions. SPRING is tested on 1838 nonhomologous protein complexes which can recognize correct quaternary template structures with a TM score >0.5 in 1115 cases after excluding homologous proteins. The average TM score of the first model is 60% and 17% higher than that by HHsearch and COTH, respectively, while the number of targets with an interface RMSD <2.5 Å by SPRING is 134% and 167% higher than these competing methods. SPRING is controlled with ZDOCK on 77 docking benchmark proteins. Although the relative performance of SPRING and ZDOCK depends on the level of homology filters, a combination of the two methods can result in a significantly higher model quality than ZDOCK at all homology thresholds. These data demonstrate a new efficient approach to quaternary structure recognition that is ready to use for genome-scale modeling of protein-protein interactions due to the high speed and accuracy.
Fabrication of micro-patterned titanium dioxide nanotubes thin film and its biocompatibility

In this study, in order to obtain a novel biomaterials surface which possesses the functions of an anticoagulant, inhibiting smooth muscle proliferation and pro-endothelialisation simultaneously, a micro-patterned titanium dioxide (TiO2)-nanotubes (P-TiO2-nanotubes) thin film was prepared on titanium (Ti) surface by photolithography combining with anodising method. The authors found that the P-TiO2-nanotubes could reduce platelet attachment and conformational change of fibrinogen (FGN) as well as promoting endothelial cells (ECs) growth compared with the TiO2-nanotubes. Notably, P-TiO2-nanotubes could significantly reduce smooth muscle cells (SMCs) proliferation compared with TiO2-nanotubes and TiO2, and the ECs and SMCs cultured on the P-TiO2-nanotubes thin film were elongated, which was suggested to be beneficial for maintaining the cell function. Therefore it is suggested that the P-TiO2-nanotubes thin film can contribute more to biocompatible functions of regulating and coordinating the behaviour of platelets, ECs and SMCs.
Monitoring the progress in cross-linking of spore coat proteins during maturation of Bacillus subtilis spores

Resistance characteristics of the bacterial endospores towards various environmental stresses such as chemicals and heat are in part attributed to their coat proteins. Heat resistance is developed in a late stage of sporulation and during maturation of released spores. Using our gel-free proteomic approach and LC-FT-ICR-MS/MS analysis we have monitored the efficiency of the tryptic digestion of proteins in the coat during spore maturation over a period of 10 days, using metabolically N labeled mature spores as a reference. The results showed that during spore maturation the loss of digestion efficiency of outer coat and crust proteins synchronized with the increase in heat resistance. This implicates that spore maturation involves chemical cross-linking of outer coat and crust layer proteins leaving the inner coat layer proteins unmodified. It appears that digestion efficiencies of spore surface proteins can be linked to their location within the coat and crust layers. We also attempted to study a possible link between spore maturation and the observed heterogeneity in spore germination.
On compact median graphs

A median graph is called compact if it does not contain an isometric ray. This property is shown to be equivalent to the finite intersection property for convex sets. We show that a compact median graph contains a finite cube that is fixed by all of its automorphisms, and that each family of commuting endomorphisms of a compact median graph fixes a common cube.