Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High‐Conductivity Elastomeric Electronics

Flexible electronic circuits have recently gained widespread interest for numerous applications including flexible displays (electronic paper) [1,2] and wearable electronics. [3,4] Despite substantial improvements over rigid devices, current flexible electronics cannot fully conform to their surroundings, due to the inability of metals and conductive polymers to stretch significantly. [5,6] Electronics that could undergo stretching as well as bending would provide additional degrees of freedom in range of motion and prevent damage to both devices and surroundings by matching their mechanical impedances. Currently , to produce a material that is both elastomeric and conductive , metal particles are embedded in an elastomer, such as silicone. [7] This approach is widely used to form intercon-nections between rigid materials, but the conductivity of such connectors is lower than that of metals and tends to change significantly with strain. [8] Additionally, miniaturization is limited because microfabricated features must be larger than the particle size to ensure conductivity. Here we demonstrate a general strategy to construct elastomeric electronics using mi-crofabricated tortuous wires encased in a silicone elastomer. After a single iteration of geometric optimization, these wires were able to accommodate linear strains of up to 54 % while maintaining stable conductivity. This approach to elastomeric electronics dramatically improves current performance, enabling a range of applications such as forming a direct interface with delicate living tissues or withstanding extreme stress and vibration. Our strategy for constructing elastomeric electronics is based on the fact that many metals, despite being unable to stretch significantly, are able to bend if their cross sections are sufficiently small. While the common helical spring has been used for centuries to produce a net elongation based on bending , the potential of this simple device to produce stretchable integrated circuits has been largely unexplored. To directly test the hypothesis that integrated circuits made of springs could form the basis of stretchable elastomeric electronics, we used standard lithography techniques [9±11] to embed straight or spring-shaped metal wires in an elastomer (Fig. 1). Circuits, formed by connecting a conductivity meter to exposed contact pads at the ends of the wires, were subjected to linear strain until the point of electrical failure (strain at failure). For ease of microscale manufacture, springs were fabricated in the form of 2D oscillations instead of 3D coils. Gold was the chosen metal, based on its high conductivity, malleability, and chemical inertness. [12] Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) was chosen to form the elastomeric …
Exploiting User Search Sessions for the Semantic Categorization of Question-like Informational Search Queries

This work proposes to semantically classify question-like search queries (e.g., “oil based heel creams”) based on the context yielded by preceding search queries in the same user session. Our novel approach is promising as our initial results show that the classification accuracy improved in congruence with the number of previous queries used to model the question context.
Nonlinear Absorption Techniques and Measurements in Semiconductors

We have conducted a detailed experimental and theoretical study of nonlinear absorption in semiconductors. Experimental measurements were made on a variety of materials at wavelengths of 1.06 and 0.53 microns using a picosecond Nd:YAG laser. Both two- and three-photon processes were investigated. Values of nonlinear absorption coefficients extracted from these measurements show excellent agreement with recent theory and scaling rules. Our theoretical investigation has been carried out for two-, three-,and n-photon absorption, for both continuous and pulsed sources. Expressions are obtained for the transmission of the sample in terms of the incident irradiance for each case. The physical interpretation of these results is discussed. We have also considered the effects of the photogenerated carriers on the measurements. Equations are developed that include linear absorption by these carriers. We have observed severe distortions on the transmitted beam, caused by changes in the refractive index of the material, due to the presence of these carriers. We present a model that accurately describes these effects in terms of the photogenerated carrier density. We have developed several novel techniques for monitoring nonlinear absorption. In particular, we have adapted the photoacoustic technique to the measurement of nonlinear absorption in semiconductors. We have also developed a technique employing irradiance modulation to greatly enhance the sensitivity to nonlinear processes and simultaneously discriminate against linear background signals. A related technique has been used to observe coherent mixing effects in semiconductors with cw, modelocked dye lasers.
Domain Adaptations for Computer Vision Applications

A basic assumption of statistical learning theory is that train and test data are drawn from the same underlying distribution. Unfortunately, this assumption doesn't hold in many applications. Instead, ample labeled data might exist in a particular `source' domain while inference is needed in another, `target' domain. Domain adaptation methods leverage labeled data from both domains to improve classification on unseen data in the target domain. In this work we survey domain transfer learning methods for various application domains with focus on recent work in Computer Vision.
Analytical Study of Data Localization Probability in SFBA-Tree Topology

Spreading factor-based addressing (SFBA)-tree protocol makes use of orthogonal codes (OCs) for the node addressing and routing in wireless sensor networks. No data storage method has been suggested for the protocol. Therefore, a distributed storage of the data on the sensor nodes with content-based routing (CBR) is proposed to route requests among peer nodes. A comparison between bloom filters and OC in CBR and SFBA-tree, respectively, is made using simulations, and is validated by deriving analytical success probability of the routing scheme. Due to OC, a significant performance gain is observed in CBR for SFBA-tree.
Editorial

The 2007 guidelines on hypertension of the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) [Mancia et al. 2007] differ for several aspects from the previous hypertension guidelines issued by the two Societies in 2003 [Guidelines Committee ESH/ESC, 2003]. In some instances the difference mainly consists in a reinforcement or extension of what was only suggested by the previous guidelines, based on the increased amount of data obtained in the last four years. In other instances, however, it consists in an actual change from what was recommended in 2003 because of the new data provided by trials and other types of studies. In this paper we will report on some of these differences and discuss their rationale.
Modeling and Simulation for Relay Protection with the CD++ Toolkit

This paper presents a new method of modeling and simulation for relay protection by using a DEVS-based toolkit named CD++. With this toolkit, the modeling of relay will be more easy and straightforward. We takes the digital three zones distances protection as the example, studies the approach of ideal protection relay modeling, and also validate the validity and feasibility of the model through analysis.
Dicyanidobis(thiourea-κS)cadmium(II) monohydrate

In the title compound, [Cd(CN)2(CH4N2S)2]·H2O, the Cd atom lies on a twofold rotation axis and is bonded to two S atoms of thiourea and two C atoms of the cyanide anions in a distorted tetrahedral environment. The crystal structure is stabilized by N—H⋯N(CN), N—H⋯O, O—H⋯N and N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds.
Discriminant Analysis of Haar Features for Accurate Eye Detection

The efficient and discriminating feature extraction is a significant problem in pattern recognition and computer vision. This paper presents a novel Discriminating Haar (D-Haar) features for eye detection. The DHaar feature extraction starts with a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) followed by a whitening transformation on the Haar feature space. A discriminant analysis is then performed on the reduced feature space. A set of basis vectors, based on the novel definition of the within-class and between-class scatter vectors and a new criterion vector, is defined through this analysis. The D-Haar features are derived in the subspace spanned by these basis vectors. We then present an accurate eye detection approach using the D-Haar features. Experiments on Face Recognition Grand Challenge (FRGC) show the promising discriminating power of D-Haar features and the improved detection performance over existing methods.
Fast SSP Solvers Using Short-Sighted Labeling

State-of-the-art methods for solving SSPs often work by limiting planning to restricted regions of the state space. The resulting problems can then be solved quickly, and the process is repeated during execution when states outside the restricted region are encountered. Typically, these approaches focus on states that are within some distance measure of the start state (e.g., number of actions or probability of being reached). However, these short-sighted approaches make it difficult to propagate information from states that are closer to a goal than to the start state, thus missing opportunities to improve planning. We present an alternative approach in which short-sightedness is used only to determine whether a state should be labeled as solved or not, but otherwise the set of states that can be accounted for during planning is unrestricted. Based on this idea, we propose the FLARES algorithm and show that it performs consistently well on a wide range of benchmark problems.
Nasopharyngeal Detection of Respiratory Viruses in Febrile Neutropenic Children

Background. Although fever is common in neutropenic children, a microbiological etiology is determined in only 15% to 30% of cases. The authors investigated the frequency of respiratory virus detection in the upper airways of febrile neutropenic children with negative bacterial cultures. Methods. This is a 3-year prospective study of children younger than 19 years, hospitalized with febrile neutropenia and negative bacterial cultures. Respiratory samples were obtained for amplification of viral nucleic acids via Luminex xTAG technology. Results. There were 50 febrile neutropenic episodes among 42 patients. Respiratory viruses were detected in 26 (52%) febrile episodes. A single virus was detected in 22 febrile episodes; multiple viruses were detected in the remaining 4. Rhinovirus/Enterovirus was most frequently detected. Conclusion. Respiratory viruses were detected frequently in nasopharyngeal samples from febrile neutropenic patients with negative bacterial cultures, thus providing an impetus to determine the relationship between virus detection, infection, and pathology in this unique patient population.
Iterative Matrix Decomposition Aided Block Diagonalization for mm-Wave Multiuser MIMO Systems

Considering the dearth for spectrum in the congested microwave band, the next generation of cellular communication systems is envisaged to incorporate part of the millimeter wave (mm-wave) band. Hence, recently, there has been a significant interest in beamforming aided mm-wave systems. We consider a downlink multiuser mm-wave system employing a large number of antennas combined with fewer radio frequency chains both at the base station (BS) and at each of the user equipments (UEs). The BS and each of the UE are assumed to have a hybrid beamforming architecture, where a set of analog phase shifters is followed by digital precoding/combining blocks. In this paper, we propose an iterative matrix decomposition based hybrid beamforming (IMD-HBF) scheme for a single-user scenario, which accurately approximates the unconstrained beamforming solution, we show that the knowledge of the angle of departure (AoD) of the various channel paths is sufficient for the block diagonalization (BD) of the downlink mm-wave channel and hence for achieving interference free channels for each of the UEs, we propose a novel subspace projection based AoD aided BD (SP-AoD-BD) that achieves significantly better performance than the conventional BD, while still only requiring the knowledge of the AoD of various channel paths, and we use IMD-HBF in order to employ SP-AoD-BD in the hybrid beamforming architecture and study its performance with respect to the unconstrained system. We demonstrate using simulation results that the proposed IMD-HBF gives the same spectral efficiency as that of the unconstrained system in the single user scenario. Furthermore, we study the achievable sum rate of the users, when employing SP-AoD-BD with the aid of IMD-HBF and show that the loss in the performance with respect to the unconstrained system as well as the existing schemes is negligible, provided that the number of users is not excessive.
Association of the HLA-DRB1*0701 allele with perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmatic antibodies in Mexican patients with severe ulcerative colitis.

AIM To determine the association between the HLA-DRB1 alleles and perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmatic antibodies (p-ANCA) positive in Mexican patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). METHODS Ninety Mexican mestizo patients (45 females) with UC, confirmed by biopsy, were studied. High resolution HLA typing was performed by PCR-SSO reverse dot blot and PCR-SSP. Molecular typing techniques were applied to define HLA-DRB1 alleles. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence techniques were used to detect p-ANCA. RESULTS Forty-eight (53%) UC patients were positive for p-ANCA by ELISA and IF. We found that p-ANCA-positive UC patients had a significantly increased frequency of HLA-DR7 compared with p-ANCA-negative controls (22% vs 5.1%; pC=0.02, OR=5.2, CI 95%: 1.06-37.82). Disease activity was scored as severe in 20 patients, moderate in 8, mild in 14 and no activity in the remaining 38 patients according to the Truelove and Witts criteria. Subgroup analysis showed a significantly increased frequency of the HLA-DRB1*07 allele in 15 of 20 UC patients with severe activity of UC and p-ANCA positivity [100% vs 0%; pC=0.0000001; OR=35]. No significant differences were found between p-ANCA positive patients, HLA-DR alleles and other clinical features such as extraintestinal manifestations, proctocolectomy and extension. CONCLUSION The HLA-DRB1*07 is associated with p-ANCA positive UC Mexican patients.
A novel strategy for the identification of genomic islands by comparative analysis of the contents and contexts of tRNA sites in closely related bacteria

We devised software tools to systematically investigate the contents and contexts of bacterial tRNA and tmRNA genes, which are known insertion hotspots for genomic islands (GIs). The strategy, based on MAUVE-facilitated multigenome comparisons, was used to examine 87 Escherichia coli MG1655 tRNA and tmRNA genes and their orthologues in E.coli EDL933, E.coli CFT073 and Shigella flexneri Sf301. Our approach identified 49 GIs occupying ∼1.7 Mb that mapped to 18 tRNA genes, missing 2 but identifying a further 30 GIs as compared with Islander [Y. Mantri and K. P. Williams (2004), Nucleic Acids Res., 32, D55–D58]. All these GIs had many strain-specific CDS, anomalous GC contents and/or significant dinucleotide biases, consistent with foreign origins. Our analysis demonstrated marked conservation of sequences flanking both empty tRNA sites and tRNA-associated GIs across all four genomes. Remarkably, there were only 2 upstream and 5 downstream deletions adjacent to the 328 loci investigated. In silico PCR analysis based on conserved flanking regions was also used to interrogate hotspots in another eight completely or partially sequenced E.coli and Shigella genomes. The tools developed are ideal for the analysis of other bacterial species and will lead to in silico and experimental discovery of new genomic islands.
Interactions of Serotoninergic, Cholinergic, and Tachykinin‐Containing Nerve Elements in the Rabbit Small Intestine

This report presents novel results on the effects of serotonin (5‐HT) on longitudinal muscle contractions in the rabbit ileum and the interactions of serotonin with some neuronal elements of the myenteric plexus. We showed previously that serotonin‐triggered contractions involved two mechanisms in the rabbit ileum: neuronal excitation (via 5‐HT2 receptors in the neurons) and direct muscular stimulation (via 5‐HT4 receptors in the muscle). Here, we focus on the neuronal 5‐HT2 receptor pathway and report further pharmacological and immunocytochemical data clarifying the details of the mechanisms. We observed that antagonists for neurokinin (NK1 and NK2) receptors partially blocked the serotonin response, but NK3 receptor antagonists had no effect. Pretreatment by atropine (ATR) eliminated the NK1 receptor antagonist resistant contractions. In contrast, the NK1 antagonist did not depress the ATR‐resistant contraction when ATR was added first. 5‐HT2 receptor agonist‐induced contractions were partially suppressed by ATR, hexamethonium, and NK1 or NK2 receptor antagonists. In conclusion, serotonin acting through 5‐HT2 receptors could stimulate interneurons and excitatory motor neurons. Immunocytochemical staining revealed an extensive tachykinin‐immunoreactive (IR) network in the myenteric plexus. Approximately 52% of all myenteric neurons were labeled. 5‐HT‐IR fibers could be detected around both choline acetyltransferase‐ and tachykinin‐IR cells, suggesting functional relationships between them. Consistent with our pharmacological observations, we found that immunopositive nerve elements for 5‐HT2A receptor and double‐labeled immunostaining revealed a remarkable overlap between tachykinin‐IR neurons and 5‐HT2A‐IR elements. Anat Rec, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Tiered architecture for on-line detection, isolation and repair of faults in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks fuse data from a multiplicity of sensors of different modalities and spatiotemporal scales to provide information for reconnaissance, surveillance, and situational awareness in many defense applications. For decisions to be based on information returned by sensor networks it is crucial that such information be of sustained high quality. While the Quality of Information (QoI) depends on many factors, perhaps the most crucial is the integrity of the sensor data sources themselves. Even ignoring malicious subversion, sensor data quality may be compromised by non-malicious causes such as noise, drifts, calibration, and faults. On-line detection and isolation of such misbehaviors is crucial not only for assuring QoI delivered to the end-user, but also for efficient operation and management by avoiding wasted energy and bandwidth in carrying poor quality data and enabling timely repair of sensors. We describe a two-tiered system for on-line detection of sensor faults. A local tier running at resource-constrained nodes uses an embedded model of the physical world together with a hypothesis-testing detector to identify potential faults in sensor measurements and notifies a global tier. In turn, the global tier uses these notifications on the one hand during fusion for more robust estimation of physical world events of interest to the user, and on the other hand for consistency checking among notifications from various sensors and generating feedback to update the embedded physical world model at the local nodes. Our system eliminates the undesirable attributes of purely centralized and purely distributed approaches that respectively suffer from high resource consumption from sending all data to a sink, and high false alarms due to lack of global knowledge. We demonstrate the performance of our system on diverse real-life sensor faults by using a modeling framework that permits injection of sensor faults to study their impact on the application QoI.
In-Situ Monitoring of Damage in SiC/SiC Composites Using Acousto-Ultrasonics

Acousto-ultrasonics (AU) is a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technique that utilizes two ultrasonic transducers to interrogate the condition of a test specimen. The sending transducer introduces an ultrasonic pulse at a point on the surface of the specimen while a receiving transducer detects the signal after it has passed through the material. The aim of the method is to correlate certain empirical parameters of the detected waveform to characteristics of the material between the two transducers. The waveform parameter of interest is the attenuation due to internal damping for which information is being garnered from the frequency domain. Here, the three parameters utilized to indirectly quantify the attenuation are the ultrasonic decay rate, the mean square value of the power spectrum, and the centroid of the power spectrum. The sensitivity for each of these AU parameters was assessed with respect to the damage state of two types of SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites (CMC). The two composite systems both had Hi-NicalonTM fibers with a carbon interface but had different matrix compositions that led to considerable differences in damage accumulation. Load/unload/reload tensile tests were performed and in-situ AU measurements were made over the entire stress range. After analyzing the AU parameters, the overall sensitivity of the AU technique to material change or damage was quantified and shown to correlate well with the observed damage mechanisms for both material systems. In addition, the AU response was shown to be dependent on the stress state of the composites. This stress dependent behavior was observed while unloading the specimens from the maximum stress, thereby, maintaining a constant damage state.Copyright © 2004 by ASME
User behavior, social networking, and playing style in online and face to face bridge communities

Traditional games have recently started to become online social games. Once accessible only through face to face encounters or slow mail exchanges, games such as bridge, chess, and go are now played online by millions of gamers. Other online social games, such as FarmVille and Cafe World, already exploit the characteristics of the social network formed by gamers to improve and grow the online communities. For example, FarmVille routinely gives high-level (expert) players new items and broadcasts gameplay achievements through the social links. User behavior, social network, and play style analysis are not new research topics [1]–[4], but the study of online social gaming communities provides a new domain of application with the potential to influence millions of lives. In this work we analyze and compare two communities of bridge players, Locomotiva and BBO Fans.
Ideal-observer computation in medical imaging with use of Markov-chain Monte Carlo techniques.

The ideal observer sets an upper limit on the performance of an observer on a detection or classification task. The performance of the ideal observer can be used to optimize hardware components of imaging systems and also to determine another observer's relative performance in comparison with the best possible observer. The ideal observer employs complete knowledge of the statistics of the imaging system, including the noise and object variability. Thus computing the ideal observer for images (large-dimensional vectors) is burdensome without severely restricting the randomness in the imaging system, e.g., assuming a flat object. We present a method for computing the ideal-observer test statistic and performance by using Markov-chain Monte Carlo techniques when we have a well-characterized imaging system, knowledge of the noise statistics, and a stochastic object model. We demonstrate the method by comparing three different parallel-hole collimator imaging systems in simulation.