Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A stretchable and highly sensitive chemical sensor using multilayered network of polyurethane nanofibres with self-assembled reduced graphene oxide

Stretchable chemical sensors for detection of gases/vapours are of great interest for wearable applications in healthcare and environmental safety. Here, we demonstrate a simple but effective approach based on layering electro-spun elastomeric polyurethane (PU) nanofibres to produce stretchable chemically responsive nanohybrids of PU nanofibres with self-assembled reduced-graphene oxide (R-GO). The study using a chemiresistive structure reveals the positive effects of layering the elastomeric fibres of R-GO/PU nanohybrids on both stretching and sensing capabilities. The R-GO/PU devices layered four and five times own excellent sensitivity towards NO2 (50 ppb‒5 ppm at room temperature) as well as mechanical sustainability under static and cyclic stretching tests up to 50% of strain. These stretchable chemiresistors based on multilayering of hybrid fibre network of an elastomer and 2D sensing nanomaterials provides a good premise for wearable chemical sensing applications.
ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF NEURAL MODELS USING A MODEL OF FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF FABRICS AS AN EXAMPLE

Abstract In this article, a method for assessing the quality of now-widespread neuron models is presented. Attention has been paid to the significance of analysing individual input quantities in the model constructed. Then, the parameters which are quantitative measures of the neural model’s quality have to be specified. The need for structural verification of the network is stressed, which is the basis for stating that the neural model obtained has been well matched with the investigation results. The assessment of the neural model’s quality has been shown, using a model of the flow characteristics of fabrics as an example.
Plastid genome evolution across the genus Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae): two clades within subgenus Grammica exhibit extensive gene loss

The genus Cuscuta (Convolvulaceae, the morning glory family) is one of the most intensely studied lineages of parasitic plants. Whole plastome sequencing of four Cuscuta species has demonstrated changes to both plastid gene content and structure. The presence of photosynthetic genes under purifying selection indicates that Cuscuta is cryptically photosynthetic. However, the tempo and mode of plastid genome evolution across the diversity of this group (~200 species) remain largely unknown. A comparative investigation of plastid genome content, grounded within a phylogenetic framework, was conducted using a slot-blot Southern hybridization approach. Cuscuta was extensively sampled (~56% of species), including groups previously suggested to possess more altered plastomes compared with other members of this genus. A total of 56 probes derived from all categories of protein-coding genes, typically found within the plastomes of flowering plants, were used. The results indicate that two clades within subgenus Grammica (clades ‘O’ and ‘K’) exhibit substantially more plastid gene loss relative to other members of Cuscuta. All surveyed members of the ‘O’ clade show extensive losses of plastid genes from every category of genes typically found in the plastome, including otherwise highly conserved small and large ribosomal subunits. The extent of plastid gene losses within this clade is similar in magnitude to that observed previously in some non-asterid holoparasites, in which the very presence of a plastome has been questioned. The ‘K’ clade also exhibits considerable loss of plastid genes. Unlike in the ‘O’ clade, in which all species seem to be affected, the losses in clade ‘K’ progress phylogenetically, following a pattern consistent with the Evolutionary Transition Series hypothesis. This clade presents an ideal opportunity to study the reduction of the plastome of parasites ‘in action’. The widespread plastid gene loss in these two clades is hypothesized to be a consequence of the complete loss of photosynthesis. Additionally, taxa that would be the best candidates for entire plastome sequencing are identified in order to investigate further the loss of photosynthesis and reduction of the plastome within Cuscuta.
Three ancient hormonal cues co-ordinate shoot branching in a moss

Shoot branching is a primary contributor to plant architecture, evolving independently in flowering plant sporophytes and moss gametophytes. Mechanistic understanding of branching is largely limited to flowering plants such as Arabidopsis, which have a recent evolutionary origin. We show that in gametophytic shoots of Physcomitrella, lateral branches arise by re-specification of epidermal cells into branch initials. A simple model co-ordinating the activity of leafy shoot tips can account for branching patterns, and three known and ancient hormonal regulators of sporophytic branching interact to generate the branching pattern- auxin, cytokinin and strigolactone. The mode of auxin transport required in branch patterning is a key divergence point from known sporophytic pathways. Although PIN-mediated basipetal auxin transport regulates branching patterns in flowering plants, this is not so in Physcomitrella, where bi-directional transport is required to generate realistic branching patterns. Experiments with callose synthesis inhibitors suggest plasmodesmal connectivity as a potential mechanism for transport. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.06808. 001
Prediction of Magnetic Storms by Nonlinear

The strong correlation between magnetic storms and southward interplanetary magnetic eld (IMF) is well known from linear prediction lter studies using the Dst and IMF data. However, the linear lters change signiicantly from one storm to another and thus are limited in their predicting ability. Previous studies have indicated nonlinearity in the magneto-spheric response as the ring current decay rate varies with the Dst value during storms. We present in this letter nonlinear models for the evolution of the Dst based on the OMNI database for 1964-1990. When solar wind data are available in advance, the evolution of storms can be predicted from the Dst and IMF data. Solar wind data, however, are not available most of the time or are available typically an hour or less in advance. Therefore, we have developed non-linear predictive models based on the Dst data alone. In the absence of solar wind data, these models cannot predict the storm onset, but can predict the storm evolution, and may identify intense storms from moderate ones. The input-output model based on IMF and Dst data, the autonomous model based on Dst alone, and a combination of the two can be used as forecasting tools for space weather.
Posture Detection Based on Smart Cushion for Wheelchair Users

The postures of wheelchair users can reveal their sitting habit, mood, and even predict health risks such as pressure ulcers or lower back pain. Mining the hidden information of the postures can reveal their wellness and general health conditions. In this paper, a cushion-based posture recognition system is used to process pressure sensor signals for the detection of user’s posture in the wheelchair. The proposed posture detection method is composed of three main steps: data level classification for posture detection, backward selection of sensor configuration, and recognition results compared with previous literature. Five supervised classification techniques—Decision Tree (J48), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Naive Bayes, and k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN)—are compared in terms of classification accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. Results indicate that the J48 classifier provides the highest accuracy compared to other techniques. The backward selection method was used to determine the best sensor deployment configuration of the wheelchair. Several kinds of pressure sensor deployments are compared and our new method of deployment is shown to better detect postures of the wheelchair users. Performance analysis also took into account the Body Mass Index (BMI), useful for evaluating the robustness of the method across individual physical differences. Results show that our proposed sensor deployment is effective, achieving 99.47% posture recognition accuracy. Our proposed method is very competitive for posture recognition and robust in comparison with other former research. Accurate posture detection represents a fundamental basic block to develop several applications, including fatigue estimation and activity level assessment.
Evaluation of the memory page migration influence in the system performance: the case of the SGI O2000

Current shared-memory multiprocessor CC-NUMA architectures provide a global address space to applications by hardware. However, even though the memory is virtually shared, it is actually physically distributed. Since memory nodes are distributed across the system, the cost of the memory accesses depends on the distance between the node that accesses the data and the node that physically contains the data. To reduce the impact of a bad initial memory placement, some operating systems offer a dynamic memory migration mechanism.In this paper, we want to demonstrate that memory migration mechanisms are a useful approach, but that their performance depends more on related issues, such as the processor scheduling, than on the mechanism itself. To show that, we evaluate the case of the automatic memory migration mechanism provided by IRIX, in Origin systems.We have evaluated several workloads of OpenMP applications under different system conditions such as the processor scheduling policy or the system load. In particular, we have focused on the effects of the page migration mechanism on the CPU time consumed by each application, the processor allocation received, and the speedup, when applying performance-driven scheduling policies.Results show that, if the scheduler is memory conscious, that is, it maintains as much as possible the system stable, the automatic memory page migration mechanism provided by IRIX will improve the execution time of OpenMPapplications. Experiments also show that the combination of performance-driven policies and the memory migration mechanism results in a system that can be automatically self-evaluated and self-configured.
RBC Barcoding Allows for the Study of Erythrocyte Population Dynamics and P. falciparum Merozoite Invasion

Plasmodium falciparum invasion of host erythrocytes is essential for the propagation of the blood stage of malaria infection. Additionally, the brief extracellular merozoite stage of P. falciparum represents one of the rare windows during which the parasite is directly exposed to the host immune response. Therefore, efficient invasion of the host erythrocyte is necessary not only for productive host erythrocyte infection, but also for evasion of the immune response. Host traits, such as hemoglobinopathies and differential expression of erythrocyte invasion ligands, can protect individuals from malaria by impeding parasite erythrocyte invasion. Here we combine RBC barcoding with flow cytometry to study P. falciparum invasion. This novel high-throughput method allows for the (i) direct comparison of P. falciparum invasion into different erythrocyte populations and (ii) assessment of the impact of changing erythrocyte population dynamics on P. falciparum invasion.
Evaluation of Deuterated 18 Fand 11 C-Labeled Choline Analogs for Cancer Detection by Positron Emission Tomography

Purpose: C-Choline–positron emission tomography (PET) has been exploited to detect the aberrant cholinemetabolism in tumors. Radiolabeled choline uptakewithin the imaging time is primarily a function of transport, phosphorylation, and oxidation. Rapid choline oxidation, however, complicates interpretation of PET data. In this study, we investigated the biologic basis of the oxidation of deuterated choline analogs and assessed their specificity in human tumor xenografts. Experimental Design: C-Choline, C-methyl-[1,2-H4]-choline ( C-D4-choline), and F-D4-choline were synthesized to permit comparison. Biodistribution, metabolism, small-animal PET studies, and kinetic analysis of tracer uptake were carried out in human colon HCT116 xenograft–bearing mice. Results: Oxidation of choline analogs to betaine was highest with C-choline, with reduced oxidation observed with C-D4-choline and substantially reduced with F-D4-choline, suggesting that both fluorination and deuteration were important for tracer metabolism. Although all tracers were converted intracellularly to labeled phosphocholine (specific signal), the higher rate constants for intracellular retention (Ki and k3) of C-choline and C-D4-choline, compared with F-D4-choline, were explained by the rapid conversion of the nonfluorinated tracers to betaine within HCT116 tumors. Imaging studies showed that the uptake of F-D4-choline in three tumors with similar radiotracer delivery (K1) and choline kinase a expression—HCT116, A375, and PC3-M—were the same, suggesting that F-D4-choline has utility for cancer detection irrespective of histologic type. Conclusion:Wehave shown here that both deuteration and fluorination combine to provide protection against choline oxidation in vivo. F-D4-choline showed the highest selectivity for phosphorylation and warrants clinical evaluation. Clin Cancer Res; 18(4); 1–10. 2012 AACR.
Magnetic monopoles in field theory and cosmology

The existence of magnetic monopoles is predicted by many theories of particle physics beyond the standard model. However, in spite of extensive searches, there is no experimental or observational sign of them. I review the role of magnetic monopoles in quantum field theory and discuss their implications for particle physics and cosmology. I also highlight their differences and similarities with monopoles found in frustrated magnetic systems.
On the Complexity of Verifying Concurrent Transition Systems

In implementation verification, we check that an implementation is correct with respect to a specification by checking whether the behaviors of a transition system that models the program's implementation correlate with the behaviors of a transition system that models its specification. In this paper, we investigate the effect of concurrency on the complexity of implementation verification. We consider trace-based and tree-based approaches to the verification of concurrent transition systems, with and without fairness. Our results show that in almost all cases the complexity of the problem is exponentially harder than that of the sequential case. Thus, as in the model-checking verification methodology, the state-explosion problem cannot be avoided.
Design and Implementation of Fuzzing Technology for OPC Protocol

With the rapid development of information and automatic control technology, more and more industrial control system(ICS) like SCADA, is interconnected with Ethernet and directly connected to internet, which greatly improve the efficiency of data sharing and introduced in security threats at the same time. As the important components of critical infrastructure, if attacked, will behave abnormal and result in disasters to society countries and national economy. As one of the most import industrial protocols applied widely in the industry field, OPC is responsible to provide producing related data to HMI and database gathered from field devices like PLC and RTU. Because of the unique nature of industrial control system, traditional fuzzing technology cannot be applied to vulnerability detecting of OPC protocols directly. So it is urgent to develop a novel fuzzing technology for OPC protocol. This paper first described motivation of vulnerability detecting for OPC with fuzzing tool, then introduced the design and implementation of fuzzing technology for OPC protocol, the structure, workflow and algorithm is also described in detail. Finally, a experiment for OPC protocol fuzzing is proposed and the result is analyzed, some conclusion can be reached that the fuzzing technology proposed in this paper can fully satisfy the requirement of vulnerability detecting of OPC protocol.
Activation of nomadic relay nodes in dynamic interference environment for energy saving

This paper presents an optimization framework for energy savings in nomadic relay networks, where interference and load are changing over time due to varying assignments. We prove the existence of an explicit load function taking assignments as arguments and we show the function is continuously differentiable. Based on the properties of the load function, we design iterative relay and user association algorithm for energy savings, where the non-convex load constraints are linearly approximated such that each sub-problem is a linear program and hence can be solved efficiently. Simulation results confirm that our proposed algorithmic approach leads to a significant reduction of the energy consumption when compared with algorithms considering the worst-case interference.
Neural Machine Translation with Characters and Hierarchical Encoding

Most existing Neural Machine Translation models use groups of characters or whole words as their unit of input and output. We propose a model with a hierarchical char2word encoder, that takes individual characters both as input and output. We first argue that this hierarchical representation of the character encoder reduces computational complexity, and show that it improves translation performance. Secondly, by qualitatively studying attention plots from the decoder we find that the model learns to compress common words into a single embedding whereas rare words, such as names and places, are represented character by character.
Designing an easy-to-use executive conference room system

The Usable Smart Environment project (USE) aims at designing easy-to-use, highly functional next-generation conference rooms. Our first design prototype focuses on creating a "no wizards" room for an American executive; that is, a room the executive could walk into and use by himself, without help from a technologist. A key idea in the USE framework is that customization is one of the best ways to create a smooth user experience. Since the system needs to fit both with the personal leadership style of the executive and the corporation's meeting culture, we began the design process by exploring the work flow in and around meetings attended by the executive. Based on our work flow analysis and the scenarios we developed from it, USE developed a flexible, extensible architecture specifically designed to enhance ease of use in smart environment technologies. The architecture allows customization and personalization of smart environments for particular people and groups, types of work, and specific physical spaces. The first USE room was designed for FXPAL's executive "Ian" and installed in Niji, a small executive conference room at FXPAL. The room Niji currently contains two large interactive whiteboards for projection of presentation material, for annotations using a digital whiteboard, or for teleconferencing; a Tandberg teleconferencing system; an RFID authentication plus biometric identification system; printing via network; a PDA-based simple controller, and a tabletop touch-screen console. The console is used for the USE room control interface, which controls and switches between all of the equipment mentioned above.
Evaluation of structural, mechanical, and cellular behavior of electrospun poly-3-hydroxybutyrate scaffolds loaded with glucosamine sulfate to develop cartilage tissue engineering

ABSTRACT Considering the role of glucosamine sulfate (GS) in the biosynthetic pathways of chondrocytes, an attempt was made to design an electrospun poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) scaffold loaded with GS to develop cartilage tissue engineering. The study was initiated using the optimal electrospun scaffold conditions for the synthesis of PHB/GS. The resulting scaffolds have shown excellent pore architectures and mechanical behavior compared to pure PHB. UV spectrophotometric analysis, for the evaluation of the GS release behavior, showed zero-order kinetics release. In vitro results indicated excellent cell viability, cell adhesion, and cell penetration of PHB/GS scaffolds compared to pure PHB. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space

GDP growth is often measured poorly for countries and rarely measured at all for cities or subnational regions. We propose a readily available proxy: satellite data on lights at night. We develop a statistical framework that uses lights growth to augment existing income growth measures, under the assumption that measurement error in using observed light as an indicator of income is uncorrelated with measurement error in national income accounts. For countries with good national income accounts data, information on growth of lights is of marginal value in estimating the true growth rate of income, while for countries with the worst national income accounts, the optimal estimate of true income growth is a composite with roughly equal weights. Among poor-data countries, our new estimate of average annual growth differs by as much as 3 percentage points from official data. Lights data also allow for measurement of income growth in sub- and supranational regions. As an application, we examine growth in Sub Saharan African regions over the last 17 years. We find that real incomes in non-coastal areas have grown faster by 1/3 of an annual percentage point than coastal areas; non-malarial areas have grown faster than malarial ones by 1/3 to 2/3 annual percent points; and primate city regions have grown no faster than hinterland areas. Such applications point toward a research program in which "empirical growth" need no longer be synonymous with "national income accounts. "
Impact of Bioflavonoids from Berryfruits on Biomarkers of Metabolic Syndrome

The phytochemical constituents which comprise many edible berry fruits have increasingly been linked to modulation of biomarkers associated with conditions of diabetes, overweight/obesity, and cardiovascular disease (CVD), all components of metabolic syndrome. While many wild berries have long been valued in traditional medicine as health protective, it is only recently that the ability of berry bioactives to affect particular clinical targets has been demonstrated. In addition to the widely recognized antioxidant power of berry extracts, both commercial berry varieties and wild species have been linked to hypoglycemic activity, inhibition of adipogenesis, amelioration of CVD risk factors, anti-inflammatory capacity, and ability to induce satiety/counteract overweight. In some cases, proanthocyanidin constituents or anthocyanin pigments have been shown to be the active agents, but in many other cases, interactions between co-occuring phytochemical constituents potentiate bioactivity of berry extracts.
Characterization of amorphous silicon

S‐parameter positron beam measurements have been done on several kinds of a‐Si: Kr‐sputtered a‐Si, PECVD a‐Si, MeV ion beam amorphized Si and a‐Si grown in an MBE‐system at a low deposition temperature. Kr sputtered a‐Si becomes denser for higher Kr concentration. PECVD a‐Si:H contains micro‐cavities with a size depending on growth temperature. MeV ion beam amorphized Si contains 1.2 at. % small vacancies, which decreases upon annealing (relaxation) to 0.4 at. %. This effect can be mimicked by H‐implantation and subsequent annealing, showing that at least some of the dangling bonds in a‐Si are located at these vacancy‐type defects. Finally positron measurements show that MBE‐system grown a‐Si contains large open‐volume defects. The positron annihilation data are supplemented by data from some other techniques.