Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigations for the effect of parameters on the weld performance of AA 5083-H111 joined by friction stir welding

In this article, friction stir welding experiments were performed on AA 5083-H111 aluminum alloy using a tool with a triangular pin to study the effect of tool rotational speed and welding speed on the ultimate tensile strength, percentage of elongation (ε), hardness and microstructure. The investigations were done with the optical microscopy, stereomicroscopy, scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectroscopy. In the visual inspection, it was observed that some of nugget zones have an onion ring like features and a basin-shaped profile. The ultimate tensile strength and percentage of elongation (ε) of the welds decrease with decreasing the welding speed for the 800 r/min. On the other hand, as the welding speed increases, the UTS and ε decrease for the 1250 rpm/min, the ultimate tensile strength and percentage of elongation (ε) decrease. The main factor, which affects the reduction in both ultimate tensile strength and percentage of elongation (ε), is defects in the welds. A comparison of ultimate tensile strength and percentage of elongation (ε) as a function of tool rotational speed for the 100 mm/min showed that both ultimate tensile strength and percentage of elongation (ε) decrease with the increase in the tool rotational speed. The weld efficiency varied between 88.3% and 92% in the defect-free welds. The hardness distribution of the zones on the welds revealed that no remarkable differences exist between them. Hence, the variance on the grain sizes of zones is small.
Eliciting Information Requirements for DW Systems

Data Warehouse technology addresses business process analysis. However, it ignores upstream decision-making like formulating policies and policy enforcement rules. We provide a requirements engineering approach for building an integrated data for all types of decisions in an organization. To do this, we develop a two level generic platform with the bottom level having generic models of decisions, information, and decision-information association as well as information elicitation techniques for eliciting information for decisions. The higher level is the source of decision for the lower layer and is exemplified by policy enforcement rule decisions as well as operational decisions for managing the business process. Each source produces its own data warehouse requirements specification and these are integrated together using our integration technique.
Prediction of coating durability: Early detection using electrochemical methods

Corrosion of metals has an enormous economic impact. Fortunately, the rate at which corrosion processes take place can be reduced, often to a point where, at least temporarily, corrosion is virtually non-existent. One of these, corrosion-control methods is barrier protection. The concept of barrier rotection is to separate the metal substrate rom the corrosive environment. These barriers re frequently applied in the form of coatings. Two ways to determine the suitability of a coating for a specific environment can be distinguished. The first approach involves the use of so-called accelerated tests. Accelerated testing aims to reproduce, in a much shorter time than in the field, natural degradation processes without changing the degradation mechanism. The second approach utilizes sensitive electrochemical techniques such as Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Electrochemical Noise Measurement (ENM) to allow early detection of relevant degradation processes under "non-accelerated" conditions. The advantages and disadvantages of both approaches will be addressed in this thesis.
Acquiring Disambiguation Rules From Text

An effective procedure for automatically acquiring a new set of disambiguation rules for an existing deterministic parser on the basis of tagged text is presented. Performance of the automatically acquired rules is much better than the existing hand-written disambiguation rules. The success of the acquired rules depends on using the linguistic information encoded in the parser; enhancements to various components of the parser improves the acquired rule set. This work suggests a path toward more robust and comprehensive syntactic analyzers.
Content-Based Scheduling of Virtual Machines (VMs) in the Cloud

Organizations of all sizes are shifting their IT infrastructures to the cloud because of its cost efficiency and convenience. Because of the on-demand nature of the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds, hundreds of thousands of virtual machines (VMs) may be deployed and terminated in a single large cloud data center each day. In this paper, we propose a content-based scheduling algorithm for the placement of VMs in data centers. We take advantage of the fact that it is possible to find identical disk blocks in different VM disk images with similar operating systems by scheduling VMs with high content similarity on the same hosts. That allows us to reduce the amount of data transferred when deploying a VM on a destination host. In this paper, we first present our study of content similarity between different VMs, based on a large set of VMs with different operating systems that represent the majority of popular operating systems in use today. Our analysis shows that content similarity between VMs with the same operating system and close version numbers (e.g., Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Ubuntu 11.10) can be as high as 60%. We also show that there is close to zero content similarity between VMs with different operating systems. Second, based on the above results, we designed a content-based scheduling algorithm that lowers the network traffic associated with transfer of VM disk images inside data centers. Our experimental results show that the amount of data transfer associated with deployment of VMs and transfer of virtual disk images can be lowered by more than 70%, resulting in significant savings in data center network utilization and congestion.
Identification of Plasmodium falciparum DNA Repair Protein Mre11 with an Evolutionarily Conserved Nuclease Function

The eukaryotic Meiotic Recombination protein 11 (Mre11) plays pivotal roles in the DNA damage response (DDR). Specifically, Mre11 senses and signals DNA double strand breaks (DSB) and facilitates their repair through effector proteins belonging to either homologous recombination (HR) or non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) repair mechanisms. In the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, HR and alternative-NHEJ have been identified; however, little is known about the upstream factors involved in the DDR of this organism. In this report, we identify a putative ortholog of Mre11 in P. falciparum (PfalMre11) that shares 22% sequence similarity to human Mre11. Homology modeling reveals striking structural resemblance of the predicted PfalMre11 nuclease domain to the nuclease domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mre11 (ScMre11). Complementation analyses reveal functional conservation of PfalMre11 nuclease activity as demonstrated by the ability of the PfalMre11 nuclease domain, in conjunction with the C-terminal domain of ScMre11, to functionally complement an mre11 deficient yeast strain. Functional complementation was virtually abrogated by an amino acid substitution in the PfalMre11 nuclease domain (D398N). PfalMre11 is abundant in the mitotically active trophozoite and schizont stages of P. falciparum and is up-regulated in response to DNA damage, suggesting a role in the DDR. PfalMre11 exhibits physical interaction with PfalRad50. In addition, yeast 2-hybrid studies show that PfalMre11 interacts with ScRad50 and ScXrs2, two important components of the well characterized Mre11-Rad50-Xrs2 complex which is involved in DDR signaling and repair in S. cerevisiae, further supporting a role for PfalMre11 in the DDR. Taken together, these findings provide evidence that PfalMre11 is an evolutionarily conserved component of the DDR in Plasmodium.
Statistical Modeling and Response Surface Optimization of Extruded HDPE/Wood-Flour Composite Foams

In this paper, a regression model was constructed to optimize the relationships between the void fraction of foamed HDPE/wood-flour composites, the processing conditions (extruder’s die temperature and screw speed rate), and the formulation compositions [chemical foaming agent (CFA) concentration and the moisture content of wood flour] by applying a four-factor central composite design (CCD) statistical approach. Design Expert software was employed to carry out the experimental design, statistical analysis, and numerical optimization. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the model showed that the void fraction of HDPE/wood-flour composites was a strong function of the extruder’s die temperature, the screw speed rate, and the moisture content of wood flour, while independent of the CFA content within the studied range (0 1%). In addition, the moisture content of wood flour and the extruder’s screw speed rate exhibited significant interaction effect on the void fraction of the foamed composites. The response surface optimization generated using the regression model suggests that HDPE/wood-flour composite foams with the highest void fraction can be achieved at the highest levels of extruder’s screw speed rate (120 rpm) and moisture content of wood flour (12%), together with the lowest levels of extruder’s die temperature (170 BC) and no chemical foaming agent.
Isothermal Microcalorimetry, a New Tool to Monitor Drug Action against Trypanosoma brucei and Plasmodium falciparum

Isothermal microcalorimetry is an established tool to measure heat flow of physical, chemical or biological processes. The metabolism of viable cells produces heat, and if sufficient cells are present, their heat production can be assessed by this method. In this study, we investigated the heat flow of two medically important protozoans, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and Plasmodium falciparum. Heat flow signals obtained for these pathogens allowed us to monitor parasite growth on a real-time basis as the signals correlated with the number of viable cells. To showcase the potential of microcalorimetry for measuring drug action on pathogenic organisms, we tested the method with three antitrypanosomal drugs, melarsoprol, suramin and pentamidine and three antiplasmodial drugs, chloroquine, artemether and dihydroartemisinin, each at two concentrations on the respective parasite. With the real time measurement, inhibition was observed immediately by a reduced heat flow compared to that in untreated control samples. The onset of drug action, the degree of inhibition and the time to death of the parasite culture could conveniently be monitored over several days. Microcalorimetry is a valuable element to be added to the toolbox for drug discovery for protozoal diseases such as human African trypanosomiasis and malaria. The method could probably be adapted to other protozoan parasites, especially those growing extracellularly.
ITR/ACS+IM Computational Geometry for Structural Biology and Bioinformatics

The function of all life forms depends on organization in space and time, and the effect of one part of a biological system on another is generally much greater when the two parts are in close proximity in space and/or time. In themselves, these two observations would seem to indicate that geometric methods should be an essential component of any attempt to understand and simulate biological systems. Existing techniques in computational structural biology and bioinformatics, however, rely primarily on sequence information and use statistical and energy-based methods to analyze biological structure and function. They have been developed over three decades and have their roots in methods first applied by computational chemists to much smaller molecular systems. Although there have been significant advancements in the field, a systematic solution of many of the most important biological problems is still elusive, including ab initio protein structure prediction, the protein folding process, and ligand to protein docking. It is widely believed that the geometry of molecules plays a crucial role in these processes, yet geometrical methods are relatively uncommon in computational biology because several unresolved representational and algorithmic issues remain.
Life or Death? A Physiogenomic Approach to Understand Individual Variation in Responses to Hemorrhagic Shock

Severe hemorrhage due to trauma is a major cause of death throughout the world. It has often been observed that some victims are able to withstand hemorrhage better than others. For decades investigators have attempted to identify physiological mechanisms that distinguish survivors from nonsurvivors for the purpose of providing more informed therapies. As an alternative approach to address this issue, we have initiated a research program to identify genes and genetic mechanisms that contribute to this phenotype of survival time after controlled hemorrhage. From physiogenomic studies using inbred rat strains, we have demonstrated that this phenotype is a heritable quantitative trait, and is therefore a complex trait regulated by multiple genes. Our work continues to identify quantitative trait loci as well as potential epigenetic mechanisms that might influence survival time after severe hemorrhage. Our ultimate goal is to improve survival to traumatic hemorrhage and attendant shock via regulation of genetic mechanisms and to provide knowledge that will lead to genetically-informed personalized treatments.
A Scalable Two Phase Top Down Specialization Approach For Data Anonymization Using Mapreduce On Cloud

: A large number of cloud services require users to share private data like electronic health records for data analysis or mining, bringing privacy concerns. Anonymizing data sets via generalization to satisfy certain privacy requirements such as k anonymity is a widely used category of privacy preserving techniques. At present, the scale of data in many cloud applications increases tremendously in accordance with the Big Data trend, thereby making it a challenge for commonly used software tools to capture, manage, and process such large-scale data within a tolerable elapsed time. As a result, it is a challenge for existing anonymization approaches to achieve privacy preservation on privacy-sensitive large-scale data sets due to their insufficiency of scalability. In this paper, we propose a scalable two-phase top-down specialization (TDS) approach to anonymize large-scale data sets using the MapReduce framework on cloud. In both phases of our approach, we deliberately design a group of innovative MapReduce jobs to concretely accomplish the specialization computation in a highly scalable way. Experimental evaluation results demonstrate that with our approach, the scalability and efficiency of TDS can be significantly improved over existing approaches.
Surface integrity and material transfer investigation of pure titanium for rough cut surface after wire electro discharge machining

This article presents an experimental investigation of wire cut electro discharge machining of pure titanium. The marvelous characteristics of pure titanium such as its compatibility and noticeable physical, mechanical and biological performances have led to their increased application in various industries especially in seawater pipings, heat exchangers, implants, prosthesis, airframe and aircraft engine parts over the last 50 years. However, due to low thermal conductivity of titanium and their reactivity with cobalt in most tool materials, there are some difficulties in machining titanium and its alloys by conventional machining. On the other hand, unconventional machining processes especially wire cut electro discharge machining are more appropriate techniques for machining difficult-to-machine materials like pure titanium. This research work is mainly focused on microstructure analysis in terms of machining parameters such as pulse on time, pulse off time, peak current, spark gap using energy-dispersive X-ray, scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction techniques. The present results reveal that pulse on time and peak current significantly deteriorate the microstructure of machined samples, which produces the deeper, wider overlapping craters, pockmarks, globules of debris and micro-cracks. The microstructure analysis of rough cut surface was based upon the theory of electrical discharge phase and metallurgical physics.
Stationarity of the tropical pacific teleconnection to North America in CMIP5/PMIP3 model simulations

The temporal stationarity of the teleconnection between the tropical Pacific Ocean and North America (NA) is analyzed in atmosphere‐only, and coupled last‐millennium, historical, and control runs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 data archive. The teleconnection, defined as the correlation between December‐January‐February (DJF) tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and DJF 200 mb geopotential height, is found to be nonstationary on multidecadal timescales. There are significant changes in the spatial features of the teleconnection over NA in continuous 56‐year segments of the last millennium and control simulations. Analysis of atmosphere‐only simulations forced with observed SSTs indicates that atmospheric noise cannot account for the temporal variability of the teleconnection, which instead is likely explained by the strength of, and multidecadal changes in, tropical Pacific Ocean variability. These results have implications for teleconnection‐based analyses of model fidelity in simulating precipitation, as well as any reconstruction and forecasting efforts that assume stationarity of the observed teleconnection.
Combined Anterior Cruciate Ligament and Medial Collateral Ligament Injuries in Adolescents

Abstract: Although literature supports bracing of most medial collateral ligament (MCL) injuries followed by arthroscopic repair of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears in adults with combined ACL-MCL injuries, little is published regarding the treatment of these injuries in the pediatric population. The purpose of this study was to present our outcomes after treatment of combined ACL-MCL injuries in a series of adolescents. All 180 patients who underwent ACL reconstruction at our children's hospital from January 1997 to January 2003 were reviewed to identify those patients with concomitant grade II or III MCL injuries. Clinical data were obtained from chart review. All patients were treated with a hinged brace for their MCL injury followed by delayed arthroscopic reconstruction of their ACL using a transphyseal technique with Achilles tendon soft tissue allograft. Patients were contacted by phone to complete Lysholm knee questionnaires and assess return to athletic competition. Data were compared with a control cohort of patients who underwent isolated ACL reconstruction using the same technique. Twelve (6.7%) of 180 patients had combined ACL-MCL injuries. There were 6 boys and 6 girls; the mean age was 15.6 years (range, 14-17 years). Follow-up averaged 5.3 years (range, 2.6-8.2 years), and no patients were lost to follow-up. At last examination, all patients had a stable knee on both Lachman and valgus stress tests; the mean Lysholm knee score was 96 (range, 94-100). All patients were able to return to their preinjury level of athletics. One patient required manipulation for arthrofibrosis. When compared with the control group of 19 isolated ACL reconstructions, there was no significant difference with regards to Lysholm scores or return to athletics. Bracing of grade 2 or 3 MCL injuries followed by ACL reconstruction was an effective means of treating combined ACL-MCL injuries in this small series of adolescent patients.
Transient Mitochondrial Depolarizations Reflect Focal Sarcoplasmic Reticular Calcium Release in Single Rat Cardiomyocytes

Digital imaging of mitochondrial potential in single rat cardiomyocytes revealed transient depolarizations of mitochondria discretely localized within the cell, a phenomenon that we shall call “flicker. ” These events were usually highly localized and could be restricted to single mitochondria, but they could also be more widely distributed within the cell. Contractile waves, either spontaneous or in response to depolarization with 50 mM K+, were associated with propagating waves of mitochondrial depolarization, suggesting that propagating calcium waves are associated with mitochondrial calcium uptake and consequent depolarization. Here we demonstrate that the mitochondrial flicker was directly related to the focal release of calcium from sarcoplasmic reticular (SR) calcium stores and consequent uptake of calcium by local mitochondria. Thus, the events were dramatically reduced by (a) depletion of SR calcium stores after long-term incubation in EGTA or thapsigargin (500 nM); (b) buffering intracellular calcium using BAPTA-AM loading; (c) blockade of SR calcium release with ryanodine (30 μM); and (d) blockade of mitochondrial calcium uptake by microinjection of diaminopentane pentammine cobalt (DAPPAC), a novel inhibitor of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter. These observations demonstrate that focal SR calcium release results in calcium microdomains sufficient to promote local mitochondrial calcium uptake, suggesting a tight coupling of calcium signaling between SR release sites and nearby mitochondria.
Vowel Classification based on LPC and ANN

The vowel sounds are perhaps the most interesting class of sound in English. Their importance to the classification and representation of written text is very low; however, most practical speech recognition systems rely heavily on vowel recognition to achieve high performance. In this paper we propose a technique for the vowel classification using Linear Prediction Coefficient with combination of statistical approach and Artificial Neural Network. The proposed technique achieves the 98.7% accuracy rate for vowel classification.
Analysis of Uniparental Lineages in Two Villages of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Seat of Pueblos de Indios in Colonial Times

Abstract Based on the analysis of the mitochondrial control region and seven biallelic markers of the Y chromosome, we investigated the genetic composition of two rural populations of southern Santiago del Estero, Argentina, that were seats in colonial times of pueblos de indios, a colonial practice that consisted of concentrating the indigenous populations in organized and accessible settlements, to facilitate Christianizing and policing. We found the Native American Y chromosome haplogroup Q1a3a in only 11% (3 of 27) of the males. Haplogroup R, common in European populations, is the most frequent haplogroup in Santiago del Estero (55%). In contrast, the persistence of Native American maternal lineages is extremely high (95%). This finding is most likely due to the low incidence in that region of the 20thcentury European wave of migration and to the existence of pueblos de indios from 1612 to the first decades of the 19th century. In contrast to archeological records that suggest Santiago del Estero late pre-Hispanic groups were strongly influenced by the Andean world, we did not find genetic evidence in support of significant gene flow. On the other hand, these populations share many mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region I (HVRI) haplotypes with other populations from the Sierras Pampeanas (particularly with Córdoba) and the Gran Chaco regions.