Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nanoparticle toxicity and molecular mechanisms in fish: A case study with silver nanoparticles

Jiejun, Gao, Ph. D. , Purdue University, December 2016. Nanoparticle Toxicity and Molecular Mechanisms in Fish: A Case Study with Silver Nanoparticles. Major Professor: Dr. Maria S. Sepúlveda. Nanoparticles (NPs) are widely used in a myriad of commercial and industrial products making their entry to the environment a likely event. NPs have unique physical-chemical properties that result from their small size and high surface area to volume ratio, making them highly reactive and potentially toxic. In Chapter 1, we summarize the effects and mechanisms of metal-based NPs on the vascular system. In vitro studies have shown that NPs are anti-angiogenic because they cause inflammation, oxidative stress, and apoptosis of endothelial cells resulting in increased permeability and decreased proliferation and migration. Whole animal studies examining the effects of NPs on the vascular system are scarce and although the few available studies do not disproof the anti-angiogenic properties of NPs, the mechanisms and long-term effects of these changes are poorly understood. Considering the key physiological role of the vascular system, there is a need for more studies in this area. In Chapter 2, we show that blood proteins can quickly bind to the surface of NPs, which might greatly change their biological identity. We present novel data on the formation of a “protein corona” (PC) after incubation of polyvinylpyrrolidone-coated AgNPs (PVP-AgNPs, 50 nm) in fish (smallmouth bass) plasma. Both gender and length of incubation affected the types of proteins identified from PC. The most common proteins were related to immune function, red blood cell function and clotting, and lipid and cholesterol transport. Vitellogenin and zona pellucida egg proteins were only detected in PCs incubated with female plasma. We propose that fish plasma serves as a good media for the characterization of PC in future studies with NPs and that binding of egg proteins to the surface of PVP-AgNPs could result in enhanced movement of particles to developing oocytes and maternal transfer to developing embryos. In Chapter 3, vascular effects of PVP-AgNPs ( 60 nm) were evaluated on transgenic zebrafish (TG fli1a: EGFP) embryos. Exposure to 1 and 10
Enhanced Absorption and <1% Spectrum-and-Angle-Averaged Reflection in Tapered Microwire Arrays

We report ordered, high aspect ratio, tapered Si microwire arrays that exhibit an extremely low angular (0° to 50°) and spectrally averaged reflectivity of <1% of the incident 400–1100 nm illumination. After isolating the microwires from the substrate with a polymer infill and peel off process, the arrays were found to absorb 89.1% of angular averaged incident illumination (0° to 50°) in the equivalent volume of a 20 μm thick Si planar slab, reaching 99.5% of the classical light trapping limit between 400 and 1100 nm. We explain the broadband absorption by enhancement in coupling to waveguide modes due to the tapered microstructure of the arrays. Time-resolved microwave photoconductivity decay measurements yielded charge-carrier lifetimes of 0.75 μs (more than an order of magnitude higher than vapor–liquid–solid-grown Si microwires) in the tapered microwires, resulting in an implied Voc of 0.655 V. The high absorption and high aspect ratio in these ordered microwire arrays make them an attractive platform.
Modification of LED radiation pattern by implementation of 1D Fresnel structure in the surface

In this contribution, we present modification of far field of light emitting diode (LED) with implemented Fresnel structure in the LED surface. Fresnel structures were prepared in one-dimensional arrangement with two different foci f1 = 12.5 μm and f2 = 1 cm. Structures were etched directly in the LED emitting surface using electron beam lithography with the etched depth for the structure with f1 and f2 app. 200 nm and 400 nm, respectively. Due to application of these structures, LED far field narrowing was observed, which is documented by goniophotometer measurements. For the structure with f1 and f2, the intensity decrease for angles ±30° – ±50° is app. 3-4% and 5-6%, respectively, in comparison to the Lambertian profile.
GNOMO: Greater-than-NOMinal Vdd operation for BTI mitigation

This paper presents a novel scheme for mitigating delay degradations in digital circuits due to bias temperature instability (BTI). The method works in two alternating phases. In the first, a greater-than-nominal supply voltage, Vdd,g is used, which causes a task to complete more quickly but causes greater aging than the nominal supply voltage, Vdd,n. In the second, the circuit is power-gated, enabling the BTI recovery phase. We demonstrate, both at the circuit and the architectural levels, that this approach can significantly mitigate aging for a small performance penalty.
Continuous Wave Terahertz Generation From Ultra-Fast InP-Based Photodiodes

We present theoretical analysis and experimental results for an optimized Traveling Wave Uni-Traveling Carrier Photodiode for continuous wave millimeter-wave and Terahertz generation. The devices employed a mode-converting waveguide for efficient coupling from a lensed fiber. A DC responsivity of 0.53 A/W at a wavelength of 1.55 μm and 3-dB electrical bandwidth of 108 GHz were obtained from temperature-controlled coplanar waveguide-integrated devices together with record levels of power from a photomixer in the millimeter-wave range with 1 mW at 200 GHz. High levels of Terahertz output power from broadband, heat sink-mounted antenna-integrated devices were measured with 5 μW at 1.02 THz.
Chinese Organization Name Recognition Using Chunk Analysis

A simplified N-best cascade model is put forward about Chinese organization names automatic recognition. This model can do words segmentation, part-of-speech tag, chunks analysis and Chinese organization names recognition. The N-best cascade method can limit not only the errors propagation but also the search space. In the experiments, we integrate heuristic information and Organization name abbreviations processing into the model to achieve the better experiment results. The last precision and recall of Chinese organization names recognition are 92.31% and 81.01% in IEER99 newswire test set.
A new class of shift-invariant operators

This letter proposes a class of operators with a shift invariance property. These operators are derived from two-dimensional (2-D) complex moment invariants based on the observation that there is a duality between rotation invariance and shift invariance. A general form of the shift invariants belonging to this class is presented, which shows that polyspectral invariants such as the power spectrum and the bispectrum are members of the class. Methods for computing shift invariants for one-dimensional (1-D) and 2-D signals are also presented. The examples given in the paper suggest that the higher order operators can preserve the original signal waveform better than autocorrelation.
Description Languages and Market Mechanisms for Trading Grid Services

Along with the growth of Grid infrastructures, ubiquitous service provision and consumption has received wide attention in literature and practice. Although the number of available services rises rapidly, concepts and standards for an economical efficient service allocation remain in their infancy. Most proposed mechanisms lack of an interdisciplinary analysis that accounts for economical and technical requirements of the underlying trading objects. In this paper we reduce this gap by introducing concepts and prescriptive languages for describing IT services as trading objects. The contribution is a thorough and innovative classification of potential trading objects in Grid markets, an analysis of formal languages to describe these objects and an evaluation of potential market mechanisms for trading them.
DETECTION OF CANINE DISTEMPER VIRUS USING NESTED PCR

Canine Distemper Virus is one of the most contagious RNA virus, which causes many fatal respiratory problems in dogs, seals, Red foxes, lions, badgers etc.,. Detection of CDV poses a very big and important task among veterinarians. This report mainly emphasis on the isolation and detection of the canine distemper virus in a novel way. Nasal and ocular samples from 25 dogs were collected from the clinical ward. Out of that, the first 5 were cultured in cell lines, namely MDCK and VERO. These cultured samples were passaged each for about 7 times which was sufficient enough for PCR detection. Field samples and cultured samples were then processed. The Viral RNA was extracted from cultured samples and the corresponding cDNAs were synthesized. Finally RT-PCR was done and it was followed by nested PCR. Out of the 25 field samples tested, 2 of them were detected positive and out of the 5 cultured samples, 3 were detected positive. Thus, the sensitivity of detection is shown to increase by about 40% when cultured, as the RNA content is prone to increase in cell culture. Surface culture, Banana peel, Biomass, ergillus niger, Fermentation.
Solvent-tolerant bioconversion : Construction and analysis of a phenol producing Pseudomonas putida S12

Organic chemicals play a fundamental role in modern civilization. Today, almost all of these chemicals are produced from oil. This leads to pollution and creates a dependency on often politically unstable oil producing countries. It is possible to make the same chemicals from sugar, using microorganisms. Sugar is produced from plants, and is therefore an environmentally friendlier and almost inexhaustible resource. Unfortunately many interesting chemicals are toxic to microorganims at low concentrations. An exception to this is the solvent-tolerant bacterium Pseudomonas putida S12, which can grow at high concentrations of very toxic chemicals. This thesis describes how, with the aid of genetic engineering and advanced analysis techniques, P. putida S12 were created that efficiently convert sugars into phenol and para-hydroxystyrene. These chemicals are used as a raw material for the production of plastics, medicines and cosmetics. In the future, this work can contribute to the development of "green" production processes for a whole new range of chemicals, which is of great economical and environmental benefit.
RESEARCH INTO MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF MINCED MEAT AND FINISHED PRODUCTS

Studies were conducted of the stressed-strained state of biopolymers of meat, which were exposed to the processes of elastic, residual and highly elastic deformation at cutting and mincing. Analysis of the structure of this natural biopolymer and the evaluation of mechanical characteristics of meat under normal and low temperatures are important factors that are taken into account for the rational selection of meat mincing machines and tools in the production of meat products, minced meat, semi-finished and sausage products. The structure of meat is a system of structured protein fibers, impregnated with tissue fluid, which is protein sol that contains organic and inorganic substances, soluble in it. The tissues that the meat is composed of belong to natural biopolymers, so conducting analytical studies into mechanical properties of meat within the framework of our understanding of the mechanics of polymers will make it possible to improve mincing processes, employed during manufacturing of meat products. In order to prevent meat overheating, the mincing process is performed at several stages. For example, in cutting mechanisms of choppers, they use a row of knives and grids with holes, diameter of which gradually changes from the original size of0.06 mto 0.003-0.002 min the outlet grids. Quality indicators of the finished products are affected by mechanical characteristics of raw materials and the way the cutting process is carried out. In the course of conducted analysis it was found that in modern food production there remain unresolved important problems, which address current issues, related to rheological and structural mechanical properties of meat raw material. First of all, it concerns theoretical and practical developments that enhance an understanding of physico-chemical and mechanical properties of raw materials, which will make it possible to develop theoretical foundations and experimentally substantiate the new conceptual approach to solving the task of improving the quality of semi-finished products and durability of equipment at meat processing enterprises of APC. The research is the basis for constructive and technological solutions, choice of mode, kinematic and dynamic parameters of cutting devices, steel and wear resistant coatings for cutting tools that provide saving of energy and materials at meat mincing, high quality of minced meat. and finished products and appropriate service life of the equipment. It was established that in order to determine characteristics of the strained state of meat, it is necessary to apply a circular diagram of loading-unloading, which allows analysis of behavior of the sample in a closed cycle of changing in external load. An analysis indicates a very large dependence of meat elasticity module on temperature. Dependences of this kind are generally characteristic of polymer bodies.
Ancient Porcelain Shards Classifications Based on Color Features

In this paper we propose an improve algorithm for ancient porcelain classification, which contain three steps. First, image preprocessing. A color quantization method in HSI color space is performed to generate gray image. Second, feature extraction. An approach of color-texture features extraction is proposed based on Gabor filter, which is only depended on frequency. In order to reduce number of features, principal component analysis is adopted. Last, porcelain shards classifications. Nearest Neighbor Method is adopted to classify shards. An ancient shards classification prototype system is developed and help archeologist easily to do research on porcelain and restore the broken porcelain. The system has been practical to the recovery of Yao Zhou's porcelains, which are famous in ancient China.
Please Scroll down for Article International Journal of Production Research Improved Fuzzy Ranking Procedure for Decision Making in Product Design Improved Fuzzy Ranking Procedure for Decision Making in Product Design

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. In this paper, we present a method for ranking any number of normal fuzzy numbers using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers as a general form, where rectangular and triangular fuzzy numbers are particular cases of such a form. This general form is supported by 29 cases, which is enough to consider all the possible situations between two normal fuzzy numbers, such as trapezoidal, triangular, or rectangular. The ranking procedure is performed using four ordering criteria into a pseudo-order preference model considering the type of the fuzzy preference relation. Two examples are given to illustrate and validate the applicability and practicality of this fuzzy ranking method. A comparison and an analysis of the proposed method is presented to demonstrate its usefulness and its contribution to the improvement of the decision making processes as a result of its management of vague or imprecise information, and whether or not that information should be allowed to be entered into such processes. 1. Introduction Manufacturing and service organisations are always making decisions. Although they are made at different levels: strategic, tactical, or operational, in the end, all are highly important to the successful achievement of organisational goals. The decision making process plays an important role in the success of both for-profit and not-for-profit companies, and for that it needs to be improved continuously. Because fuzzy logic is capable of managing imprecise information, and this capability is a critical aspect in the improvement of the decision making process, fuzzy logic has been increasingly used in decision making methods. The application of fuzzy logic to several decision making tools permits the consideration of imprecise information from the input variables which can be given in linguistic terms, such as 'very important', 'very high', 'medium', 'very …
Effects of repeated administration of N-[1-(2-benzo(b)-thiophenyl)cyclohexy]piperidine and cocaine on locomotor activity in C57BL/6 mice.

The present study investigated the effects of repeated administration of the dopamine reuptake inhibitors N-[1-(2-benzo(b)thiophenyl)cyclohexyl]piperidine (BTCP) and cocaine on locomotor activity, as well as their ability to induce or express cross-sensitization. Male mice were injected with a fixed dose of BTCP or cocaine (10,20 or 40 mg/kg i.p.) for 3 consecutive days and challenged on the 4th day with one of several doses of BTCP and/or cocaine. After every daily treatment, locomotor activity was assessed. Repeated administration of cocaine produced sensitization to the locomotor activity produced by different challenge doses of both cocaine (2.5-56.6 mg/kg i.p.) and BTCP (2.5-80 mg/kg, i.p.) on day 4. Repeated administration of low and intermediate doses of BTCP did not significantly affect the locomotor activity produced by different challenge doses of BTCP, whereas tolerance-like effects were observed after the higher dose, 40 mg/kg, particularly during the 3-day regimen. Repeated administration of BTCP dose-dependently produced leftward and downward shifts of the cocaine dose-response curve. The results indicate that, under identical treatment conditions, cocaine and BTCP differ markedly with respect to their ability to cause sensitization, but differ less in terms of their ability to elicit locomotor activity in sensitized animals. The demonstration of cross-sensitization between BTCP and cocaine provides evidence for a shared mechanism of action; however, the present results also suggest that the chronic effects of cocaine and BTCP are not identical.
Robust authentication and data storage with perfect secrecy

We consider a Physical-Unclonable-Function (PUF)-based authentication process. We define achievable secret-key rate versus privacy-leakage rate pairs featuring perfect secrecy and uniform distribution of the secret-key. We derive the capacity region corresponding to this definition of achievability and thus show that it equals the known capacity region corresponding to weak secrecy. We define achievability requiring a small false acceptance probability and show that the corresponding capacity region is the same. We generalize our result for perfect secrecy to the case of a compound source. We also discuss the problem of secure data storage using data from a PUF when the statistics of the PUF are not perfectly known.
Total phenol content and antioxidant activity of water solutions of plant extracts

Water solutions of extracts were investigated for total phenol content, flavonoid content and antioxidant activity. Susceptibility to degradation of water solutions of plant extracts, under light and in the dark, during storage at room temperature was investigated in order to determine their stability prior to their application for fortification of food products. Large dispersion of total phenol (TP) content in the investigated model solutions of selected extracts (olive leaves, green tea, red grape, red wine, pine bark PE 5:1, pin bark PE 95 %, resveratrol), ranging from 11.10 mg GAE/100 mL to 92.19 mg GAE/100 mL was observed. Consequently, large dispersion of total flavonoids (TF) content (8.89 mg to 61.75 mg CTE/100 mL) was also observed. Since phenols have been mostly responsible for antioxidant activity of extracts, in most cases, antioxidant activity followed the TP content. That was proven by estimation of correlation coefficient between the total phenol content and antioxidant activity. Correlation coefficients between investigated parameters ranged from 0.5749 to 0.9604. During storage of 5 weeks at room temperature loss of phenols and flavonoids occurred. Antioxidant activity decreased with the decrease of TP and TF content. Degradations of phenols and flavonoids were more pronounced in samples stored at light.
2-D-3-D crossover in single asymmetric quantum wells: investigation of the electric field and temperature effects

The 2-D-3-D crossover in n-doped GaAs-Ga/sub 0.63/Al/sub 0.37/As single asymmetric quantum wells is theoretically investigated. The coupled one-dimensional Schrodinger and Poisson equations are solved self-consistently, in the frame of the finite-difference method. The present study shows that the 2-D-3-D crossover depends upon the geometrical parameters, as for instance, the quantum well width and spacer layer width. It also depends on the temperature and the gate voltage applied on an asymmetric quantum-well-based device. The 2-D-3-D crossover diagrams involving the well width dependence of both the electric field and the temperature are presented and discussed.
Optical Delusions: A Study of Malicious QR Codes in the Wild

QR codes, a form of 2D barcode, allow easy interaction between mobile devices and websites or printed material by removing the burden of manually typing a URL or contact information. QR codes are increasingly popular and are likely to be adopted by malware authors and cyber-criminals as well. In fact, while a link can "look" suspicious, malicious and benign QR codes cannot be distinguished by simply looking at them. However, despite public discussions about increasing use of QR codes for malicious purposes, the prevalence of malicious QR codes and the kinds of threats they pose are still unclear. In this paper, we examine attacks on the Internet that rely on QR codes. Using a crawler, we performed a large-scale experiment by analyzing QR codes across 14 million unique web pages over a ten-month period. Our results show that QR code technology is already used by attackers, for example to distribute malware or to lead users to phishing sites. However, the relatively few malicious QR codes we found in our experiments suggest that, on a global scale, the frequency of these attacks is not alarmingly high and users are rarely exposed to the threats distributed via QR codes while surfing the web.
Global and Integrated Processor , Memory and Disk Management in a Cluster of SMP ’ s

Due to the increasing power of microprocessors and the evolution of networking technology, clusters of SMP’s are now attractive for executing data and/or computation intensive applications. A key problem is to ensure both high performance and high availability properties that are needed for proper execution of long-running parallel applications on a cluster. In this paper, we present the design of Gobelins, a cluster operating system, aiming at providing these two properties to parallel applications based on the shared memory programming model. Gobelins relies on global and integrated management of all memory, disk and processor resources in a cluster. It is currently under development as an extension of Linux operating system for a cluster of dual processor PCs interconnected by a low latency high bandwidth network.