Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Graphene and modified graphene-based polymer nanocomposites – A review

Graphene has drawn a great attention in the recent research innovations mainly due to its structural geometry, which is composed of one-atom thick planar sheet of hexagonally arrayed sp2 carbon atoms. Development of nanocomposites utilising graphene as the nanofiller offer desired properties to the added polymer matrix. Furthermore, incorporation of functional groups such as hydroxyl, epoxy, carboxyl, etc. on the basal plane of graphene enhances the interaction with the polymer matrices. Better interaction between the nanofiller and the polymer leads to exfoliation of the nanofiller in the matrices, which indeed significantly improves the physical, mechanical, thermal, electrical, electronic properties, etc., of the polymer. The review article explores the recent research findings on the development of polymeric nanocomposites utilising pure and functionalised graphene. The article focuses on the method of synthesis of graphene and functionalised graphene, followed by their characterisation methods and inferences. It also summarises the routes for the preparation of graphene and modified graphene-based polymer nanocomposites. The work highlights the enhancement of properties observed due to the addition of graphene and modified graphene to the polymer matrices. Several surface modifications done on GNS in order to achieve better dispersion of the same in the polymer matrix has been discussed. The review article portrays the recent research reports on graphene and modified graphene-based polymer nanocomposites. Techniques such as cryomilling, latex technology and lyophilisation as applied to polymer nanocomposites have been reviewed. Also, each of the literatures has been reviewed under the synthesis of filler and the preparation of the polymer nanocomposite separately which would serve as a guidance for future research. Literatures in which different carbon nanofillers have been compared to find the optimum filler has also been discussed.
2 Integrated Preparation and Imaging Techniques for the Microstructural and Geochemical Characterization of Shale by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Abstract To better understand the influence of microscale geochemical and microstructural relationships on the bulk petrophysical properties of unconventional shale systems, core samples from four producing North American formations were cross-sectioned with an argon ion polisher and imaged with a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) using a variety of complementary detectors. We demonstrate distinct advantages of the ion-polishing technique for the preservation of the internal shale structure. Moreover, we show how such preparation affords a wider choice of imaging options for both chemical and structural characterization, such as backscatter electron observation at varying beam potentials coupled with x-ray and cathodoluminescence spectroscopic techniques.
Physical Activity and Postural Control in the Elderly: Coupling between Visual Information and Body Sway

Background: Aging is characterized by a decline in the postural control performance, which is based on a coherent and stable coupling between sensory information and motor action. Therefore, changes in postural control in elderlies can be related to changes in this coupling. In addition, it has been observed that physical activity seems to improve postural control performance in elderlies. These improvements can be due to changes in the coupling between sensory information and motor action related to postural control. Objective: The purpose of this study was to verify the coupling between visual information and body sway in active and sedentary elderlies. Methods: Sixteen sedentary elderlies (SE), 16 active elderlies (AE) and 16 young adults (YA) were asked to stand upright inside a moving room in two experimental conditions: (1) discrete movement and (2) continuous movement of the room. Results: In the continuous condition, the results showed that the coupling between the movement of the room and body sway was stronger and more stable for SE and AE compared to YA. In the discrete condition, SE showed larger body displacement compared to AE and YA. Conclusions:SE have more difficulty to discriminate and to integrate sensory information than AE and YA indicating that physical activity may improve sensory integration.
Negative differential resistance in monolayer WTe2 tunneling transistors

We report theoretical investigations of quantum transport in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) tunneling field effect transistors (TFETs). Due to the specific electronic structure of TMDC WTe 2 ? > , a transmission valley is found in the conduction band (CB). For a proper choice of the doping, gate and supply voltages the WTe 2 ? > TFET can produce a giant negative differential resistance (NDR) with a peak to valley ratio as large as 103. The mechanism of NDR is identified to be due to a transport-mode bottleneck, i.e., the band to band tunneling from the valence band of the source is partially blocked by a transmission valley of the CB of the drain. More generally, our calculations show that electronic structures of at least six TMDC materials possess the transmission valley.
Decreased expression of thyrotropin receptor gene suggests a high-risk subgroup for oncocytic adenoma.

OBJECTIVE The malignancy of thyroid oncocytic tumours, or oncocytomas, is higher than that of follicular tumours. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of thyroid-specific genes in oncocytic tumours and papillary carcinomas. DESIGN AND METHODS We compared 29 oncocytic tumours with 12 papillary carcinomas. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to measure the expression of thyroid-specific differentiation markers (thyrotrophin-stimulation hormone receptor (TSHR), thyroglobulin (TG) and Na(+)/I(-) symporter (NIS)), transcription factors (thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1) and paired box gene-8 (PAX8)) and nuclear receptors (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPARgamma1) and thyroid hormone receptor (TRbeta1)) involved in thyroid carcinogenesis. RESULTS TSHR, TTF-1 and TRbeta1 levels were significantly lower in oncocytic tumours than in papillary carcinomas, as a result of specific biological changes in oncocytic tumours. However, PAX8 and PPARgamma1 did not seem to be involved in the process. Applying the criterion of the underexpression of the thyroid-specific differentiation markers, TSHR, TG and NIS, we classified the oncocytic tumours and papillary carcinomas into three groups. In the first, all three markers were underexpressed; in the second, TSHR was normal while TG and NIS were underexpressed; and in the third, only NIS was underexpressed. The expression patterns revealed that 13 of the 24 oncocytic adenomas underexpressing TSHR in our study, as did four of the five oncocytic carcinomas. CONCLUSION Cases of oncocytic adenoma associated with low levels of TSHR could be putative oncocytic carcinomas and should therefore receive adequate follow-up [corrected].
Intravenous aminophylline in patients admitted to hospital with non-acidotic exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a prospective randomised controlled trial

Background: Intravenous aminophylline is commonly used in the treatment of exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), despite limited evidence for its efficacy and known risks of toxicity. We hypothesised that adding intravenous aminophylline to conventional treatment would not produce clinically important changes in the speed of spirometric or symptomatic recovery or shorten hospital stay in patients with exacerbations of COPD. Methods: Eighty patients admitted to hospital with non-acidotic exacerbations of COPD were recruited at admission to a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled study comparing intravenous aminophylline 0.5 mg/kg/hour after an appropriate loading dose with an equivalent volume of 0.9% saline. The primary outcome was the change in post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) over the first 5 days of the admission. Secondary end points were changes in self-reported breathlessness, arterial blood gas tensions, forced vital capacity (FVC), and length of hospital stay. Results: There was no difference in the post-bronchodilator FEV1 over the first 5 days between the aminophylline and placebo groups. In the aminophylline group, 2 hours of treatment produced a small but significant rise in arterial pH (p = 0.001) and a fall in arterial carbon dioxide tension (p = 0.01) compared with placebo treatment. There were no differences in the severity of breathlessness, post-bronchodilator FVC, or length of hospital stay between the groups. Nausea was a more frequent side effect in the aminophylline group (46% v 22%; p<0.05), but palpitations and headache were noted equally in both groups. Conclusions: Although intravenous aminophylline produced small improvements in acid-base balance, these did not influence the subsequent clinical course. No evidence was found for any clinically important additional effect of aminophylline treatment when used with high dose nebulised bronchodilators and oral corticosteroids. Given its known toxicity, we cannot therefore recommend the use of intravenous aminophylline in the treatment of non-acidotic COPD exacerbations.
Rubus Fruticosus L.: Constituents, Biological Activities and Health Related Uses

Rubus fruticosus L. is a shrub famous for its fruit called blackberry fruit or more commonly blackberry. The fruit has medicinal, cosmetic and nutritive value. It is a concentrated source of valuable nutrients, as well as bioactive constituents of therapeutic interest highlighting its importance as a functional food. Besides use as a fresh fruit, it is also used as ingredient in cooked dishes, salads and bakery products like jams, snacks, desserts, and fruit preserves. R. fruticosus contains vitamins, steroids and lipids in seed oil and minerals, flavonoids, glycosides, terpenes, acids and tannins in aerial parts that possess diverse pharmacological activities such as antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial anti-diabetic, anti-diarrheal, and antiviral. Various agrogeoclimatological factors like cultivar, environmental conditions of the area, agronomic practices employed, harvest time, post-harvest storage and processing techniques all influence the nutritional composition of blackberry fruit. This review focuses on the nutrients and chemical constituents as well as medicinal properties of different parts of R. fruticosus. Various cultivars and their physicochemical characteristics, polyphenolic content and ascorbic acid content are also discussed. The information in the present work will serve as baseline data and may lead to new biomedical applications of R. fruticosus as functional food.
Environment information coherence in multi-UAVs cooperative area searching

Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) area searching is an important research area in cooperative control. Firstly, a distributed control framework for multi-UAVs cooperative area searching is established. Based on search map model, the problem of information coherence for multi-UAVs area searching is proposed, the key elements and reasons which cause the information non-coherence are discussed and analyzed. Then to reduce the information error under global communication delay, a Kalman estimation based information non-coherence compensation method is presented. At last, simulation results demonstrate the validity of our approach.
Exploring privacy for ubiquitous computing: Tools, methods and experiments

Ubiquitous computing is about making computers and computerized artefacts a pervasive part of our everyday lifes, bringing more and more activities into the realm of information. The computationalization, informationalization of everyday activities increases not only our reach, efficiency and capabilities but also the amount and kinds of data gathered about us and our activities. In this thesis, I explore how information systems can be constructed so that they handle this personal data in a reasonable manner. The thesis provides two kinds of results: on one hand, tools and methods for both the construction as well as the evaluation of ubiquitous and mobile systems—on the other hand an evaluation of the privacy aspects of a ubiquitous social awareness system. The work emphasises real-world experiments as the most important way to study privacy. Additionally, the state of current information systems as regards data protection is studied. The tools and methods in this thesis consist of three distinct contributions. An algorithm for locationing in cellular networks is proposed that does not require the location information to be revealed beyond the user’s terminal. A prototyping platform for the creation of context-aware ubiquitous applications called ContextPhone is described and released as open source. Finally, a set of methodological findings for the use of smartphones in social scientific field research is reported. A central contribution of this thesis are the pragmatic tools that allow other researchers to carry out experiments.
Probabilistic speech F0 contour model incorporating statistical vocabulary model of phrase-accent command sequence

We have previously proposed a generative model of speech F0 contours, based on the discrete-time version of the Fujisaki model (a model of the mechanisim for controlling F0s through laryngeal muscles). One advantage of this model is that it allows us to apply statistical methods to estimate the Fujisakimodel parameters from speech F0 contours. This paper proposes a new generative model of speech F0 contours incorporating a vocabulary model of intonation patterns. A parameter inference algorithm for the present model is derived. We quantitatively evaluated the performance of our parameter inference algorithm.
Carbohydrate derived‐pseudo‐lignin can retard cellulose biological conversion

Dilute acid as well as water only (hydrothermal) pretreatments often lead to a significant hemicellulose loss to soluble furans and insoluble degradation products, collectively termed as chars and/or pseudo‐lignin. In order to understand the factors contributing to reducing sugar yields from pretreated biomass and the possible influence of hemicellulose derived pseudo‐lignin on cellulose conversion at the moderate to low enzyme loadings necessary for favorable economics, dilute acid pretreatment of Avicel cellulose alone and mixed with beechwood xylan or xylose was performed at various severities. Following pretreatment, the solids were enzymatically hydrolyzed and characterized for chemical composition and physical properties by NMR, FT‐IR, and SEM imaging. It was found that hemicelluloses (xylan) derived‐pseudo‐lignin was formed at even moderate severities and that these insoluble degradation products can significantly retard cellulose hydrolysis. Furthermore, although low severity (CSF ∼ 1.94) dilute acid pretreatment of a xylan–Avicel mixture hydrolyzed most of the xylan (98%) and produced negligible amounts of pseudo‐lignin, enzymatic conversion of cellulose dropped significantly (>25%) compared to cellulose pretreated alone at the same conditions. The drop in cellulose conversion was higher than realized for cellulase inhibition by xylooligomers reported previously. Plausible mechanisms are discussed to explain the observed reductions in cellulose conversions. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 737–753. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Compensation Technique for Two-Stage Differential OTAs

In this brief, a frequency compensation method for operational transconductance amplifiers is proposed, which poses no power overhead compared to Miller compensation, while improving the 3-dB bandwidth, the unity gain frequency, and the slew rate. The technique employees positive feedback to introduce an extra left half plane zero to cancel a pole. The phase margin shows good robustness against process and temperature variations. The proposed technique poses no design constraints on the transconductance or capacitor values, which makes it attractive for low-power applications with low area overhead.
Simulating A File-Sharing P2P Network

Assessing the performance of peer-to-peer algorithms is impossible without simulations since testing new algorithms by deploying them in an existing P2P network is prohibitively expensive. However, some P2P algorithms are sensitive to the network and traffic models that are used in the simulations. In order to produce realistic results, we therefore require simultations that resemble real-world P2P networks as closely as possible. We describe the Query Cycle Simulator, a simulator for file-sharing P2P networks. We link the Query-Cycle Simulator to measurements on existing P2P networks and discuss open issues in simulating these networks.
Structure and thermoelasticity of irradiation grafted nano-inorganic particle filled polypropylene composites in the solid state

Nanoparticles (mean size around 7 nm) of the standard pyrogenic Aerosil 1380 (Degussa) pregrafted by γ-irradiation with styrene were melt-compounded with the general purpose isotactic polypropylene homopolymer (PP) to prepare nanocomposites with filler volume contents up to 4.68%. Solid-state properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS), small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), differential scanning calorimetry, and stretching calorimetry. The nearly identical overall patterns, the angular positions of the crystalline reflections on the WAXS diagrams as well as the WAXS degrees of crystallinity of both the neat polymer PP-0 and all nanocomposites suggested that the structure of the crystalline PP lamellae remained unchanged, irrespective of the filler content. However, a well-resolved SAXS reflection seen for PP-0 was not detectable on the SAXS curves of nanocomposites with low filler contents due to the sharp increase of SAXS intensity in the same range of scattering vectors. These results implied a significant increase in structural heterogeneity due to the appearance of new and strongly scattering entities (presumably polymer–nanoparticle interfaces and microvoids) with a broad distribution of sizes. In contrast to the basically composition-invariant WAXS crystallinities for nanocomposites, higher the filler volume content, the calorimetric crystallinities for the polymer matrix tended to increase, while the apparent densities of the polymer matrix decreased. Moreover, the Young's moduli of nanocomposites were considerably in excess of, whereas thermal expansivities, limiting strains for elastic behavior, and breaking strains, were much below the reasonable theoretical predictions. These experimental observations were explained by a model assuming that a nonnegligible portion of PP chains in the melt state would be anchored by each end to the available absorption-active sites of two different neighboring nanoparticles. The restricted chain mobility in these sites should facilitate the crystal nucleation in the undercooled PP melt; hence, the same PP chain might be involved in two nucleation events at the surfaces of two adjacent nanoparticles. Presumably, subsequent crystallization in the undercooled melts of both neat PP and nanocomposites would proceed via the usual growth of chain-folded lamellae (therefore, the WAXS patterns should be similar). However, the tie-chains in the interlamellar space of the neat PP are expected to remain in the relaxed, coiled state, whereas in the latter case, a simultaneous lamellar growth at fixed positions of the same PP chains on adjacent nanoparticles would end up with not only a considerable extension of tie-chains but also with a concomitant fall in the local packing density in the interlamellar space. *Dedicated to Prof. F. J. Baltá Calleja on the occasion of his 65th birthday.
Bis(1,3-dimesitylimidazolyl)gold(I) 2,4,8,10-tetraphenyl-1,3,5,7,9,11-hexaoxa-2,4,8,10-tetrabora-6-borataspiro[5.5]undecane

The AuI atom in the title compound, [Au(C21H24N2)2](C24H20B5O6), adopts a slightly distorted linear AuC2 coordination geometry arising from its coordination by two mesitylenic N-heterocyclic carbene ligands, forming an overall cationic complex. The dihedral angle between the imidazole rings is 57.3 (6)°. In the crystal, the components are linked by weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds.
Flowable Fibrous Concrete For Thin Pavement Inlays

A flowable fibrous concrete (FFC) mixture was developed, for thin concrete inlay pavements, having enhanced toughness properties due to fiber alignment and with an improved workability to enable rapid construction. A full-scale demonstration project verified the feasibility of constructing the FFC as a 5 cm thick inlay bonded to an existing asphalt pavement. The benefit of using the fiber-reinforcement was quantified through unnotched toughness and notched fracture beam testing. The measured properties can be linked to the flexural capacity of the slabs and are useful in fracture modeling. The measured toughness confirmed a dependency on the test specimen size and construction, specifically when the beam height was of the same magnitude as the fiber length. This size dependency was found to correspond to the fiber distribution and orientation distinctly near cast and molded boundaries. Constructed as a thin plate, the fibers in FFC were more likely to align and thus contributed to higher measured total fracture energies. To identify and locate the synthetic fibers within the concrete, x-ray computed tomography and shape-based image processing filters were performed. Random placement of the FFC containing a stiffer synthetic fiber resulted in higher variability in the orientation of the fibers, and led to a large range of computed fracture energy. Under a directional casting, the fibers were found on average to become more aligned with the orientation of the flow. The fiber’s proximity to a surface boundary of the thin plate specimens had a greater impact on the alignment of the fiber. This improved understanding of fiber distribution and alignment promotes the use of in rehabilitating pavements with sustainable thin FFC inlays.