Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Aluminium Content on Behaviour of Magnesium Cast Alloys in Bentonite Sand Mould

In this paper there is presented the structure and proprieties of the modeling cast magnesium alloys as cast state and after heat treatment, depending on the cooling medium (furnace, water, air), with different chemical composition. The improvement of the manufacturing technique and chemical composition as well as of heat treatment and cooling methods leads to the development of a material designing process for the optimal physical and mechanical properties of a new developed alloy. In the analysed alloys a structure of solid solution and fragile phase  (Mg17Al12) occurred mainly on grain borders as well as eutectic and AlMnFe, Mg2Si phase. The investigation is carried out to testy the influence of the chemical composition and precipitation processes on the structure and mechanical properties of the magnesium cast alloys with different chemical composition in its as cast alloys and after heat treatment.
Reconstitution of COPII vesicle fusion to generate a pre-Golgi intermediate compartment

What is the first membrane fusion step in the secretory pathway? In mammals, transport vesicles coated with coat complex (COP) II deliver secretory cargo to vesicular tubular clusters (VTCs) that ferry cargo from endoplasmic reticulum exit sites to the Golgi stack. However, the precise origin of VTCs and the membrane fusion step(s) involved have remained experimentally intractable. Here, we document in vitro direct tethering and SNARE-dependent fusion of endoplasmic reticulum–derived COPII transport vesicles to form larger cargo containers. The assembly did not require detectable Golgi membranes, preexisting VTCs, or COPI function. Therefore, COPII vesicles appear to contain all of the machinery to initiate VTC biogenesis via homotypic fusion. However, COPI function enhanced VTC assembly, and early VTCs acquired specific Golgi components by heterotypic fusion with Golgi-derived COPI vesicles.
Interventions for alcohol and drug problems in outpatient settings: a systematic review.

ISSUES Research evidence indicates a high prevalence of substance abuse among patients presenting in general hospital settings. Such misuse of alcohol and illicit drugs has a major impact on population health and on costs to health services and to society at large. This review aimed to identify the interventions for alcohol or illicit drug misuse problems that have been evaluated for hospital outpatient populations. APPROACH Thirteen electronic databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycInfo were searched for published and unpublished studies in any language up to August 2011. Reference lists of included studies and reviews were also hand-searched. We included randomised and controlled clinical trials of any intervention for adult participants identified as having alcohol and/or drug problems presenting to hospital outpatient settings other than addiction or psychiatric units. Participants could be attending hospital for any reason other than treatment for substance abuse. A narrative synthesis was conducted. KEY FINDINGS There is some evidence to suggest that interventions based on motivational techniques might be effective in treatment of alcohol misuse in oral-maxillofacial clinics but not in general outpatient departments. The evidence is insufficient to allow any conclusions to be derived on the effectiveness of interventions in the treatment of drug misuse and combined alcohol-drug misuse in outpatient settings. CONCLUSIONS Further research is needed to investigate interventions for alcohol and drug misuse in outpatient settings. Additionally, problems remain in terms of study quality. Procedures to ensure the rigour of a study were often poorly reported.
A Design Approach for a Universal Group Support System Using Thinklets and Thinxels

Group Support Systems (GSS) can increase the productivity of Decision Making by offering a variety of tools to assist a virtual group across geographical distances. But experience shows that the value of a GSS depends on how purposefully and skilfully it is used. We present a design approach for a universal GSS which supports the participants in designing, executing and exchanging collaboration techniques. Our approach is based on a modelling language which uses the well-known concept of a thinkLet and the new concept of a thinXel. A ThinXel is defined as an atomic instruction leading to one activity of the participant which has a well-defined function in the context of the group's goal. ThinXels can be sequenced according to formal rules to form patterns of collaboration, called thinkLets. The name "thinXel" (thinking element) is formed analogously to the well-known "pixel" (picture element) in Computer Graphics. We claim that a thinkLet-based modelling language using the concept of thinXels can provide the following advantages: to describe a group process in a simple way, to generate an algorithm that guides the participants through the process and to increase the usability of GSS for practitioners without expertise. We will present a graphical representation for modelling a group process and use the discussion technique " Six Hats " as an example to illustrate the elements of our modelling language.
Measurement of exhaled alveolar nitrogen oxide in patients with lung cancer: a friend from the past still precious today

Nitric oxide (NO) is a marker of airway inflammation and indirectly a general indicator of inflammation and oxidative stress. NO is a contributing factor in lung cancer at an early stage and also after chemotherapy treatment of lung cancer. We studied whether exhaled NO levels were altered by three cycles of chemotherapy at diagnosis and after chemotherapy, and whether, directly or indirectly, these changes were related to the course of disease. Also, a correlation of NO levels with other markers of inflammation was performed. We studied 42 patients diagnosed early: 26 men and 16 women with lung cancer. We analyzed blood tests for control of inflammatory markers, functional pulmonary tests, and alveolar exhaled NO. We recorded a decrease in exhaled NO after three cycles of chemotherapy in all patients, regardless of histological type and stage: there were 42 patients with mean 9.8 NO after three cycles (average 7.7). Also, a strong correlation appeared between NO measurements before and after chemotherapy and C-reactive protein (P < 0.05, r = 0.42, before) and (P < 0.045, r = 0.64, after). NO alveolar measurement as an indicator of airway inflammation indicates response to chemotherapy in lung cancer. Also, the inflammatory process in lung cancer was confirmed and indicated response to chemotherapy through an index that is sensitive to inflammatory disease of the airways.
CLUSTERING LARGE DATA SETS WITH MIXED NUMERIC AND CATEGORICAL VALUES

Efficient partitioning of large data sets into homogenous clusters is a fundamental problem in data mining. The standard hierarchical clustering methods provide no solution for this problem due to their computational inefficiency. The k-means based methods are promising for their efficiency in processing large data sets. However, their use is often limited to numeric data. In this paper we present a k-prototypes algorithm which is based on the k-means paradigm but removes the numeric data limitation whilst preserving its efficiency. In the algorithm, objects are clustered against k prototypes. A method is developed to dynamically update the k prototypes in order to maximise the intra cluster similarity of objects. When applied to numeric data the algorithm is identical to the kmeans. To assist interpretation of clusters we use decision tree induction algorithms to create rules for clusters. These rules, together with other statistics about clusters, can assist data miners to understand and identify interesting clusters.
Clinical and genetic features of a dominantly-inherited microphthalmia pedigree from China

Purpose To evaluate the clinical, histopathologic, and genetic characteristics of a microphthalmia pedigree. Methods A five-generation Chinese family with microphthalmia was recruited. Clinical and histological examinations were performed in the affected patients and their family members. Cyrillic software was used to map the pedigree. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood, and linkage analysis was performed using short tandem repeat polymorphism markers. Two-point LOD scores were calculated using the MLINK program. Results Microphthalmia was inherited in an autosomal dominant manner in this family. All nine affected members had hyperopia (mean: +8.00 diopters) and physiologically reduced axis oculi (mean: 19.29 mm) with a visual acuity of less than 0.5. Refractory angle-closure glaucoma occurred in three of them and atrophia bulbi in two. Histological examination showed diffuse degenerated collagen fibers in the scleral stroma. Two-point LOD score linkage analysis excluded all known genetic loci associated with simple microphthalmia in all patients. Conclusions Simple microphthalmia was dominantly inherited in this Chinese pedigree with typical phenotypes, which resulted in severe visual deterioration by middle age. A novel locus is predicted to be responsible for the microphthalmia in this family, which may prove a high genetic heterogeneity in microphthalmia.
Changes in intimate relationships following treatment for head and neck cancer—A qualitative study

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine how patients with head and neck cancer experience changes within their intimate relationships at the end of treatment and detect detrimental and facilitating factors in the process of resuming intimate relationships. Interviews were conducted with 131 patients. A core category – “being open versus not sharing the cancer journey” – emerged from the patients' narratives and was based on the experiences of engagement/disengagement, openness/fear, and patronizing attitudes/sharing the burden. The findings point to the necessity of patients being open about the disease trajectory and might be understood in the light of theories about potential changes in identity and self-concept.
A static analysis approach to data race detection in SystemC designs

One of the common methods for system behavior verification and performance estimation is high-level modeling using SystemC. A SystemC design represents parallel components of the system and their interconnections, so it is important to ensure that the design does not have synchronization errors: deadlocks, livelocks, and data races. In this paper we propose a novel approach to data races detection in SystemC designs. Our approach is based on static analysis methods and allows to detect data race errors automatically. The approach provides sound results. It includes special approximations and heuristics for a good balance between scalability and precision.We show the efficiency of our approach by evaluating it on basis of artificial and real-world SystemC designs.
Quantitative analysis of task selection for brain–computer interfaces

Objective. To assess quantitatively the impact of task selection in the performance of brain–computer interfaces (BCI). Approach. We consider the task-pairs derived from multi-class BCI imagery movement tasks in three different datasets. We analyze for the first time the benefits of task selection on a large-scale basis (109 users) and evaluate the possibility of transferring task-pair information across days for a given subject. Main results. Selecting the subject-dependent optimal task-pair among three different imagery movement tasks results in approximately 20% potential increase in the number of users that can be expected to control a binary BCI. The improvement is observed with respect to the best task-pair fixed across subjects. The best task-pair selected for each subject individually during a first day of recordings is generally a good task-pair in subsequent days. In general, task learning from the user side has a positive influence in the generalization of the optimal task-pair, but special attention should be given to inexperienced subjects. Significance. These results add significant evidence to existing literature that advocates task selection as a necessary step towards usable BCIs. This contribution motivates further research focused on deriving adaptive methods for task selection on larger sets of mental tasks in practical online scenarios.
The Existence of Concatenated Codes List-Decodable up to the Hamming Bound

It is proven that binary linear concatenated codes with an outer algebraic code (specifically, a folded Reed-Solomon code) and independently and randomly chosen linear inner codes achieve, with high probability, the optimal tradeoff between rate and list-decoding radius. In particular, for any 0 <; ρ <; 1/2 and ε > 0, there exist concatenated codes of rate at least 1-H(ρ)-ε that are (combinatorially) list-decodable up to a fraction of errors. (The Hamming bound states that the best possible rate for such codes cannot exceed 1-H(ρ), and standard random coding arguments show that this bound is approached by random codes with high probability. ) A similar result, with better list size guarantees, holds when the outer code is also randomly chosen. The methods and results extend to the case when the alphabet size is any fixed prime power q ≥ 2.
ALCA: a new scheme for power control on 802.11 ad hoc networks

The paper presents the ALCA (asymmetric link collision avoidance) protocol, which was designed to deal with a known deficiency of basic schemes for power control in IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. The performance of ALCA is investigated and results indicate that ALCA outperforms a known solution to the problem while being a considerably less complex solution.
DARK MATTER HALO MERGERS: DEPENDENCE ON ENVIRONMENT

This paper presents a study of the specific major merger rate as a function of group membership, local environment, and redshift in a very large, 500 h−1 Mpc, cosmological N-body simulation, the Millennium Simulation. The goal is to provide environmental diagnostics of major merger populations in order to test simulations against observations and provide further constraints on major merger driven galaxy evolution scenarios. A halo sample is defined using the maximum circular velocity, which is both well defined for subhalos and closely correlated with galaxy luminosity. Subhalos, including the precursors of major mergers, are severely tidally stripped. Major mergers between subhalos are therefore rare compared to mergers between subhalos and their host halos. Tidal stripping also suppresses dynamical friction, resulting in long major merger timescales when the more massive merger progenitor does not host other subhalos. When other subhalos are present, however, major merger timescales are several times shorter. This enhancement may be due to inelastic unbound collisions between subhalos, which deplete their orbital angular momentum and lead to faster orbital decay. Following these results, we predict that major mergers in group environments are dominated by mergers involving the central galaxy, that the specific major merger rate is suppressed in groups when all group members are considered together, and that the frequency of fainter companions is enhanced for major mergers and their remnants. We also measure an “assembly bias” in the specific major merger rate in that major mergers of galaxy-like halos are slightly suppressed in overdense environments while major mergers of group-like halos are slightly enhanced. A dynamical explanation for this trend is advanced which calls on both tidal effects and interactions between bound halos beyond the virial radii of locally dynamically dominant halos.
Compatibilization of NBR/SBR blends using amphiphilic montmorillonites

Sodium-montmorillonite (Mont-0) was partially/completely cation exchanged with appropriate amounts of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide to yield amphiphilic montmorillonites bearing different ratios of both hydrophilic and lipophilic segments. The lipophilicity/hydrophilicity range extended progressively up to the highly hydrophobic form (Mont-100), where all of the sodium cation content was replaced by the cetyltrimethylammonium cation. The produced amphiphilic forms can be arranged in the order of Mont-0 > Mont-25 > Mont-50 > Mont-75 > Mont-100, according to the decrease in hydrophilicity. Subsequently, the different montmorillonites were employed as reinforcing agents for acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber/styrene-butadiene rubber (50/50) rubber blend, which is known to be physically incompatible. We found from our previous reports that the mechanical properties of blends comprising a fixed loading of each montmorillonite form (20 phr) displayed remarkable improvements up to different levels indicating different compatibility influences between the rubber components by the inserted clays. In the current report, these results are intensively studied using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis and complemented by differential scanning calorimetry. Additionally, the network characteristics of the vulcanized rubber networks were determined for the neat blends (in absence of any clay) as well as for reinforced blends with different clay forms. Based on the obtained data, it could be concluded that the montmorillonite forms can bind both phases of the blend through interfacial interactions at the boundaries between the blend components but with different potentials. This effect was associated in the mean time by the hindrance of phase separation thus enhancing the compatibility. These findings were further supported using scanning electron microscopy, which confirmed that the compatibilization effect may have been achieved through lowering of the interfacial tension between the components.
Fiber probe for nonlinear imaging applications

Over the past years it had been demonstrated that multimodal imaging combining the nonlinear modalities coherent anti‐Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), two‐photon excited auto‐fluorescence (TPEF) and second harmonic generation (SHG) show a great potential for tissue diagnosis and tumor identification. To extend the applicability of this multimodal imaging approach for in‐vivo tissue screening of difficult to access body regions the development of suitable fiber optic probes is required. Here we report about a novel CARS imaging fiber probe consisting of 10,000 coherent light guiding elements preserving the spatial relationship between the entrance and the output of the fiber. Therefore the scanning procedure can be shifted from the distal to the proximal end of the fiber probe and no moving parts or driving current are required to realize in‐vivo CARS endoscopy. Back scattered CARS image of rabbit aorta with plaques (white) using a laser scanning microscope and an imaging fiber.
Interface preserving coarsening multigrid for elliptic problems with highly discontinuous coefficients

We propose an interface preserving coarsening, a geometric technique for solving discontinuous coefficient partial differential equations by multigrid. It selects coarse grid points so that all the coarse grids are aligned with the interfaces for regular interface problems on structured grids, and so that the interfaces are resolved as much as possible for irregular interface problems. As a result, multigrid with linear interpolation is sufficient to obtain fast convergence. We show by one-dimensional and two-dimensional interface problems that the convergence rate of the resulting multigrid method is independent of the mesh size and the size of the jump at the interfaces. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Voxel-Based Thickness Analysis of Intricate Objects

Thickness is a commonly used parameter in product design and manufacture. Its intuitive definition as the smallest dimension of a cross-section or the minimum distance between two opposite surfaces is ambiguous for intricate solids, and there is very little reported work in automatic computation of thickness. We present three generic definitions of thickness: interior thickness of points inside an object, exterior thickness for points on the object surface, and radiographic thickness along a view direction. Methods for computing and displaying the respective thickness values are also presented. The internal thickness distribution is obtained by peeling or successive skin removal, eventually revealing the object skeleton (similar to medial axis transformation). Another method involves radiographic scanning normal to a viewing direction, with minimum, maximum and total thickness options, displayed on the surface of the object. The algorithms have been implemented using an efficient voxel based representation that can handle up to one billion voxels (1000 per axis), coupled with a near-real time display scheme that uses a look-up table based on voxel neighborhood configurations. Three different types of intricate objects: industrial (press cylinder casting), sculpture (Ganesha idol), and medical (pelvic bone) were used for successfully testing the algorithms. The results are found to be useful for early evaluation of manufacturability and other lifecycle considerations.
Robust Multi-Hop Time Synchronization in Sensor Networks

The possibility of establishing the chronology of events in a widely distributed network, or even stronger, the clock synchronization of all nodes in the network is often needed for applications of wireless sensor networks (WSN). In this paper we describe the Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) that provides clock synchronization service in such networks. The protocol was designed to utilize low communication bandwidth, scale well for medium sized multi-hop networks, and be robust against topology changes and node failures. The robustness of the protocol is due to the periodic radio broadcast of synchronization messages and the implicit dynamic topology update. MAC-layer time-stamping, comprehensive compensation of errors and linear regression are used to achieve high accuracy of the clock synchronization. The data from a comprehensive multi-hop experiment shows that the average network-wide synchronization error is less than two microseconds per hop. The protocol was further validated as part of our countersniper system that was field tested in a US military facility.
A Novel Audio Watermarking Algorithm for Copyright Protection of Digital Audio

Digital watermark technology is now drawing attention as a new method of protecting digital content from unauthorized copying. This paper presents a novel audio watermarking algorithm to protect against unauthorized copying of digital audio. The proposed watermarking scheme includes a psychoacoustic model of MPEG audio coding to ensure that the watermarking does not affect the quality of the original sound. After embedding the watermark, our scheme extracts copyright information without access to the original signal by using a whitening procedure for linear prediction filtering before correlation. Experimental results show that our watermarking scheme is robust against common signal processing attacks and it introduces no audible distortion after watermark insertion.
Assessment of Cadmium , Chromium and Lead in Some Common Anti-Malaria Drugs in Ibadan North Local Government Area , Ibadan , Oyo State , Nigeria

Elemental impurities levels in drug products should be controlled within acceptable limits since they do not have any therapeutic use. Concentration of cadmium, chromium, and lead was determined in ten(10) common anti-malaria drugs in Ibadan North local government area of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria, using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. It was discovered that chromium was highest in the drugs in the range 0.011ppm and 0.025 ppm followed by lead which was found to be between 0.004 ppm and 0.018 ppm, cadmium concentration was least, and it was between 0.001 ppm and0.013 ppm. The result obtained showed that, these drugs are safe for use as regards their trace metals levels since the concentration of each metal determined was below 1ts permisible level.