Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fracture toughness of LLDPE parts using rotational moulding technology

Rotational moulding is a process of producing hollow plastic products. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) is widely used in rotational moulding process. Many rotationally moulded LLDPE products are widely used in outdoor applications such as boats, automobile fuel tanks, body armours etc. From quality characterisation point of view, fracture properties are considered to be critical for rotationally moulded products. Therefore, it is essential to optimise process parameters for rotational moulding process to yield maximum fracture toughness. In this paper, experimental investigations are carried out by planning and performing trials based on design of experiments (DOE). Experimental runs and design of experiments (DOE) analysis revealed non-linear effects of process parameters on fracture toughness. From the experimental investigation, optimum process parameters are proposed which yields maximum fracture toughness for rotationally moulded products. The optimum process parameters are oven temperature: 210°C, oven time: 32 minutes, and cooling medium: water.
Model-Based General Arcing Fault Detection in Medium-Voltage Distribution Lines

Arcing fault is a special fault in medium-voltage distribution lines which can potentially cause shock hazard, apparatuses failure, and wild fire. Due to its short duration or low fault current, the detection of an arcing fault in distribution lines is highly challenging. In this paper, a model-based general detection method to separate an arcing fault from common nonarcing disturbances is proposed. First, an arcing fault model and a nonarcing disturbance model relating the disturbance characteristics, the load parameters, and the substation voltage and current waveforms are derived. For the accuracy of the models, the voltage drop on the distribution line is taken into consideration. Then, the procedure of arcing fault detection is introduced, including disturbance current calculation, parameters estimation, mean-square-error calculation, and decision making. An arcing fault is claimed when the measured voltage and current signals match the arcing fault model better than the nonarcing disturbance model. The method is tested on a modified standard test system using PSCAD/EMTDC considering different fault locations and scenarios. Simulation results show that the proposed detection method has high accuracy and is robust to fault distance, fault resistance, load current, and sampling rate. Laboratory experiments are also conducted to further validate the proposed method.
Magnitude, Mechanism, and Reproducibility of QT Interval Differences Between Superimposed Global and Individual Lead ECG Complexes

Background: The global QT interval, emerging as a standard measurement provided by digital electrocardiographs, is defined by the earliest QRS onset and latest T‐wave offset that occur in any of the standard leads. Differences between global ECG measurements and those from individual ECG leads have implications for the redefinition of normal values, for recognition of disease, and for drug safety. This study sought to quantify the differences between global QT intervals measured from 12 superimposed ECG leads with QT intervals and from single lead complexes, to examine the separate effects of QRS onset and T‐wave offset on these differences, and to examine the reproducibility of these measurements.
DNA-ploidy and mutant p53 overexpression in primary fallopian tube cancer

Nuclear DNA content and p53 immunoreactivity were determined in 53 cases of primary fallopian tube cancer (PFTC). All tumors showed a distinctly aneuploid DNA distribution pattern, whereas p53 immunoreactivity was observed in 51% of the cases. If the patients were divided into two groups according to survival time, p53 immunoreactivity was present in 40% of the tumors from patients surviving for more than 8 years and in 65% of tumors from patients who died within 2 years. This difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.438). Patient survival was significantly correlated to the clinical stage (FIGO) (P = 0.0009).
Generation of Metal-Binding Staphylococci through Surface Display of Combinatorially Engineered Cellulose-Binding Domains

ABSTRACT Ni2+-binding staphylococci were generated through surface display of combinatorially engineered variants of a fungal cellulose-binding domain (CBD) from Trichoderma reeseicellulase Cel7A. Novel CBD variants were generated by combinatorial protein engineering through the randomization of 11 amino acid positions, and eight potentially Ni2+-binding CBDs were selected by phage display technology. These new variants were subsequently genetically introduced into chimeric surface proteins for surface display on Staphylococcus carnosus cells. The expressed chimeric proteins were shown to be properly targeted to the cell wall of S. carnosus cells, since full-length proteins could be extracted and affinity purified. Surface accessibility for the chimeric proteins was demonstrated, and furthermore, the engineered CBDs, now devoid of cellulose-binding capacity, were shown to be functional with regard to metal binding, since the recombinant staphylococci had gained Ni2+-binding capacity. Potential environmental applications for such tailor-made metal-binding bacteria as bioadsorbents in biofilters or biosensors are discussed.
Evaluation of the First Automated Thyroglobulin Assay

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate technical and analytical performance of the first automated thyroglobulin (Tg) assay (DPC-Immulite®; Diagnostic Products Corporation, Los Angeles, USA). In imprecision studies using several human serum pools ranging from 21 to 58 replicates, a coefficient of variation of 9.0 % was obtained at a mean Tg concentration of 0.84 ng/ml and of 6.1 % at a Tg concentration of 62.1 ng/ml. In a method comparison with a non-automated assay (BRAHMS LUMItest Tg®, BRAHMS, Berlin, Germany) using 383 sera of 303 patients with thyroid carcinoma, regression analysis according to Passing and Bablock yielded in the following equation: Immulite Tg=1.6 × BRAHMS Tg−0.1 ng/ml (Pearson's r=0.979). Sera obtained from 59 patients with thyroid carcinoma enabled comparative follow-up studies; in all cases qualitative agreement was found with regard to increase or decrease of serum Tg; in eight cases, however, Tg was detected with the Immulite assay but not with the BRAHMS assay. Further follow-up proved the presence of thyroid tissue in these patients. From these and further methodological data (dilution linearity, interference studies, carry-over study, high-dose hook properties, and short report time) it is concluded that the DPC-Immulite Tg assay meets the requirements of routine diagnostic use.
Improving Discourse Relation Projection to Build Discourse Annotated Corpora

The naive approach to annotation projection is not effective to project discourse annotations from one language to another because implicit relations are often changed to explicit ones and vice-versa in the translation. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on the intersection between statistical word-alignment models to identify unsupported discourse annotations. This approach identified 65% of the unsupported annotations in the English-French parallel sentences from Europarl. By filtering out these unsupported annotations, we induced the first PDTB-style discourse annotated corpus for French from Europarl. We then used this corpus to train a classifier to identify the discourse-usage of French discourse connectives and show a 15% improvement of F1-score compared to the classifier trained on the non-filtered annotations.
The effects of the Education 1 Project on the vocational skills and prospects of students at a secondary school in Swaziland: A case study

ANVER EDMOND CLASSENS. The effects of the education 1 project on the skills and prospects of students at a high school in Swaziland: a case study (Under the direction of DR. COREY LOCK) The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the Education 1 Project on skills development and prospects of students at a secondary school in Swaziland. The Education 1 Project was an educational initiative by the Swaziland government to establish and implement a more hands-on approach to prevocational education at selected high schools. Descriptive case study research methodology was used to gather and analyze data surrounding the Education 1 Project and to answer the question, “What were the effects of the Education 1 Project on the skills and prospects of students graduating from a secondary school in Swaziland. ” The study found that there were no official data available for tracking students once they graduated, which made it difficult to determine if the Education 1 Project was having the desired effects on students. There were responses from the teachers that suggested that they were aware of some students’ accomplishments which they gathered informally from family members and the students themselves. Examination results showed that students were acquiring skills even though the results were not up to the expectations of the teachers and administrators of the school. This they attributed to the aggressiveness of the prevocational program and the large amount of learning matter that was crammed into a short span of time. The skills and prospects of students in prevocational education were also affected by various external factors which included financial support of the program by the government, the
A novel quadruple L-shaped meandered line electromagnetic band gap structure

A novel quadruple L-shaped meandered line electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure is presented in this paper. In this EBG structure, the L-shaped arms help increase capacitances between neighboring elements, while the meandered line produces the parasitical capacitances. As a result, the proposed EBG configuration significantly enlarges the total capacitance that can reduce the size of EBG cell up to about 63% in comparison with the conventional mush-room EBG structure. By using in-house developed computational code based on the FDTD method, simulated results of dispersion diagrams are shown and compared with the results appeared in previously published papers.
Identifying Implicit and Explicit Relationships Through User Activities in Social Media

Social commerce has emerged as a new paradigm of commerce due to the advancement and application of Web 2.0 technologies including social media sites. Social media sites provide a valuable opportunity for social interactions between electronic commerce consumers as well as between consumers and businesses. Although the number of users and interactions is large in social media, the social networks extracted from explicit user interactions are usually sparse. Hence, the result obtained through the analysis of the extracted network is not always useful because many potential ties in the social network are not captured by the explicit interactions between users. In this work, we propose a temporal analysis technique to identify implicit relationships that supplement the explicit relationships identified through the social media interaction functions. Our method is based on the homophily theory developed by McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook [31]. We have conducted experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of the identified implicit relationships and the integration of implicit and explicit relationships. The results indicate that our proposed techniques are effective and achieve a higher accuracy. Our results prove the importance of implicit relationships in deriving complete online social networks that are the foundation for understanding online user communities and social network analysis. Our techniques can be applied to improve effectiveness of product and friend recommendation in social commerce.
Methodology and tool support for micro- and nano product engineering for SMEs

This paper reflects the product engineering of MEMS with a focus on the involvement of SMEs. Based on a comprehensive MEMS product engineering methodology taking into account the concurrent MEMS technology and structure design as well as the SME requirements an adequate tool support is presented. We take into account opon source tools, as well as EDA programms that are commercially available. The paper ends with the presentation of a design flow control based on a consept of design meta data.
ProICET: a cost-sensitive system for prostate cancer data

Cancer is the second most threatening disease in the world today, not only because of its mortality rate, but also due to the brutal changes it imposes on the patient's life, and the fact that its exact causes of progression remain to be discovered. Recent evolution in computer technology has resulted in the emergence of a combined approach to the diagnosis and prognosis process, with a data driven analytical approach complementing biomedical and clinical methods. Cost-sensitive learning is one such data mining method, particularly well suited for medical problems. This paper investigates the performance of a new system based on a hybrid cost-sensitive algorithm (ProICET) on a prostate cancer medical dataset, while trying to produce new medical knowledge. The target of such a system is to reduce the total cost while keeping a high classification accuracy.
S100 B: A new concept in neurocritical care

After brain injuries, concentrations of some brain markers such as S100B protein in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are correlated with the severity and outcome of brain damage. To perform an updated review of S100B roles in human neurocritical care domain, an electronic literature search was carried among articles published in English prior to March 2017. They were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, EMBSCO, CINAHL, ISC and the Cochrane Library using keywords including “brain”, “neurobiochemical marker”, “neurocritical care”, and “S100B protein”. The integrative review included 48 studies until March 2017. S100B protein can be considered as a marker for blood brain barrier damage. The marker has an important role in the development and recovery of normal central nervous system (CNS) after injury. In addition to extra cerebral sources of S100B, the marker is principally built in the astroglial and Schwann cells. The neurobiochemical marker, S100B, has a pathognomonic role in the diagnosis of a broad spectrum of brain damage including traumatic brain injury (TBI), brain tumor, and stroke. Moreover, a potential predicting role for the neurobiochemical marker has been presumed in the efficiency of brain damage treatment and prognosis. However further animal and human studies are required before widespread routine clinical introduction of S100 protein.
The DB Underpin Hybrid Pension Plan

Abstract In this paper the defined benefit underpin guarantee is valued as a financial option, within the traditional funding paradigms of actuarial science. Assuming fixed interest rates, and assuming that salaries can be treated as a tradable asset, we value the guarantee using fair value principles. Contribution rates are developed for the Entry Age Normal, Projected Unit Credit, and Traditional Unit Credit funding methods. In addition, for the accruals methods, we demonstrate the implied hedging strategy. The traditional unit credit offers the best method of these three, as it is consistent with the principles of financial economics, and the resulting contributions more naturally follow the cost of the emerging benefit, without creating expensive barriers to new hires. The method generates significant contribution volatility, and we demonstrate how this can be reduced with suitable benefit design and ongoing risk management.
Modulation of Oscillatory Power and Connectivity in the Human Posterior Cingulate Cortex Supports the Encoding and Retrieval of Episodic Memories

Existing data from noninvasive studies have led researchers to posit that the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) supports mnemonic processes: It exhibits degeneration in memory disorders, and fMRI investigations have demonstrated memory-related activation principally during the retrieval of memory items. Despite these data, the role of the PCC in episodic memory has received only limited treatment using the spatial and temporal precision of intracranial EEG, with previous analyses focused on item retrieval. Using data gathered from 21 human participants who underwent stereo-EEG for seizure localization, we characterized oscillatory patterns in the PCC during the encoding and retrieval of episodic memories. We identified a subsequent memory effect during item encoding characterized by increased gamma band oscillatory power and a low-frequency power desynchronization. Fourteen participants had stereotactic electrodes located simultaneously in the hippocampus and PCC, and with these unique data, we describe connectivity changes between these structures that predict successful item encoding and that precede item retrieval. Oscillatory power during retrieval matched the pattern we observed during encoding, with low-frequency (below 15 Hz) desynchronization and a gamma band (especially high gamma, 70–180 Hz) power increase. Encoding is characterized by synchrony between the hippocampus and PCC, centered at 3 Hz, consistent with other observations of properties of this oscillation akin to those for rodent theta activity. We discuss our findings in light of existing theories of episodic memory processing, including the information via desynchronization hypothesis and retrieved context theory, and examine how our data fit with existing theories for the functional role of the PCC. These include a postulated role for the PCC in modulating internally directed attention and for representing or integrating contextual information for memory items.
Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Human to Cattle

ABSTRACT We describe the first transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from human to cattle confirmed by molecular typing of isolates involved in the transmission. IS6110-based restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis showed that the isolates from the cattle and farm worker who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis 1 year prior to this case were the same strains.
A Robust Adaptive Fuzzy CMAC Controller for Nonlinear Systems

In this paper, a redesign of an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode cerebellar model articulation controller (FSCMAC) is presented. Adaptation laws for proposed FSCMAC are used to estimate the system models for approximating an ideal controller, and then a compensated controller is appended to guarantee the system stability for eliminating the effect of the approximation error. The redesign of FSCMAC is used to attenuate the chattering control signal and promote the robustness of adaptation laws. An illustrated example is utilized to show the performance of the proposed control scheme.
Plasma Levels of Middle Molecules to Estimate Residual Kidney Function in Haemodialysis without Urine Collection

Background Residual Kidney Function (RKF) is associated with survival benefits in haemodialysis (HD) but is difficult to measure without urine collection. Middle molecules such as Cystatin C and β2-microglobulin accumulate in renal disease and plasma levels have been used to estimate kidney function early in this condition. We investigated their use to estimate RKF in patients on HD. Design Cystatin C, β2-microglobulin, urea and creatinine levels were studied in patients on incremental high-flux HD or hemodiafiltration(HDF). Over sequential HD sessions, blood was sampled pre- and post-session 1 and pre-session 2, for estimation of these parameters. Urine was collected during the whole interdialytic interval, for estimation of residual GFR (GFRResidual = mean of urea and creatinine clearance). The relationships of plasma Cystatin C and β2-microglobulin levels to GFRResidual and urea clearance were determined. Results Of the 341 patients studied, 64% had urine output>100ml/day, 32.6% were on high-flux HD and 67.4% on HDF. Parameters most closely correlated with GFRResidual were 1/β2-micoglobulin (r2 0.67) and 1/Cystatin C (r2 0.50). Both these relationships were weaker at low GFRResidual. The best regression model for GFRResidual, explaining 67% of the variation, was: GFRResidual=160.3⋅(1β2m)−4.2 Where β2m is the pre-dialysis β2 microglobulin concentration (mg/L). This model was validated in a separate cohort of 50 patients using Bland-Altman analysis. Areas under the curve in Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis aimed at identifying subjects with urea clearance≥2ml/min/1.73m2 was 0.91 for β2-microglobulin and 0.86 for Cystatin C. A plasma β2-microglobulin cut-off of ≤19.2mg/L allowed identification of patients with urea clearance ≥2ml/min/1.73m2 with 90% specificity and 65% sensitivity. Conclusion Plasma pre-dialysis β2-microglobulin levels can provide estimates of RKF which may have clinical utility and appear superior to cystatin C. Use of cut-off levels to identify patients with RKF may provide a simple way to individualise dialysis dose based on RKF.
Compensatory selection for roads over natural linear features by wolves in northern Ontario: Implications for caribou conservation

Woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario are a threatened species that have experienced a substantial retraction of their historic range. Part of their decline has been attributed to increasing densities of anthropogenic linear features such as trails, roads, railways, and hydro lines. These features have been shown to increase the search efficiency and kill rate of wolves. However, it is unclear whether selection for anthropogenic linear features is additive or compensatory to selection for natural (water) linear features which may also be used for travel. We studied the selection of water and anthropogenic linear features by 52 resident wolves (Canis lupus x lycaon) over four years across three study areas in northern Ontario that varied in degrees of forestry activity and human disturbance. We used Euclidean distance-based resource selection functions (mixed-effects logistic regression) at the seasonal range scale with random coefficients for distance to water linear features, primary/secondary roads/railways, and hydro lines, and tertiary roads to estimate the strength of selection for each linear feature and for several habitat types, while accounting for availability of each feature. Next, we investigated the trade-off between selection for anthropogenic and water linear features. Wolves selected both anthropogenic and water linear features; selection for anthropogenic features was stronger than for water during the rendezvous season. Selection for anthropogenic linear features increased with increasing density of these features on the landscape, while selection for natural linear features declined, indicating compensatory selection of anthropogenic linear features. These results have implications for woodland caribou conservation. Prey encounter rates between wolves and caribou seem to be strongly influenced by increasing linear feature densities. This behavioral mechanism–a compensatory functional response to anthropogenic linear feature density resulting in decreased use of natural travel corridors–has negative consequences for the viability of woodland caribou.