Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Screening of Factors Affecting Pre-Treatment by Ammonia-N Removal from Poultry Manure Wastewater by Using Soil Water to Improve Biogas Production

In this study, best pre-treatment condition of poultry manure wastewater (PMW) was determined from factorial analysis for the purpose of improving biogas production. Five factors were chosen for factorial screening namely: agitation (0 or 200 rpm), reaction time (2 to 5 hours), type of soil (peat soil or poultry farm soil), soil to water ratio (1:1 or 1:4) and PMW to soil water (SW) ratio (1:4 or 2:3). Based on the result, agitation gave highest contribution in pre-treatment of PMW at 38.36% followed by PMW to SW ratio at 29.76% contribution. In term of interaction, agitation and reaction gave the highest contribution to pre-treatment of PMW at 3.33% contribution. The best pre-treatment condition suggested by Design Expert software was using peat soil as source of soil at SW ratio of 1:6, and mixed with PMW at 1:4 ratio without agitation for 5 hours reaction time. Application of this best pre-treatment condition showed improvement in biogas yield by 82 % from 0.0045 L/g COD using untreated PMW to 0.0248 L/g COD using treated PMW.
Fault diagnosis of gearboxes using feature extraction in time domain

In the vibration signals of a faulty gearbox, there exist not only the response excited by source of faults such as rotating frequencies of shafts, mesh frequencies of gear pairs, their higher harmonic components and modulated components, but also natural and random vibrations of system, components and parts, and noise interferences. Thus it is difficult to recognize and capture typical fault frequencies. For this purpose, an approach was proposed for fault diagnosis of gearboxes, by combining temporal feature extraction based on independent component analysis (ICA) and fault classification based on forward least squares approximation support vector machine (FLSA-SVM). Multiple ICA neural networks were batch trained by multi-classes vibration data separately, each corresponding to one of fault patterns of gearboxes. A feature extractor was structurally constructed by the trained ICA networks, followed by a post-processing unit of feature extraction based on one second-order measure, i.e. residual total correlation (RTC). Experimental results show that the proposed approach is efficient and effective for fault diagnosis of gearboxes, even if the used train sets are of small size. The integrated ICA-RTC feature extractor is able to extract low-dimensional representative features from time-domain data, and to overcome some difficulties in traditional frequency-domain feature extraction.
Enhanced Performance of Flexible ZnO Nanowire Based Room‐Temperature Oxygen Sensors by Piezotronic Effect

A flexible oxygen sensor based on individual ZnO nanowires is demonstrated with high sensitivity at room temperature and the influence of the piezotronic effect on the performance of this oxygen sensor is investigated. By applying a tensile strain, the already very high sensitivity due to the Schottky contact and pre-treatment of UV light is even further enhanced.
Comparison in Power Consumption of Static and Dynamic WDM Networks

— Greening of the Internet has become one of the main challenges for the research community. Optical networks can provide an energy efficient solution, but it has become crucial to assess its power efficiency. In this context, dynamic operation of WDM networks is expected to provide significant power savings when compared to static operation; however, its benefits need to be evaluated to determine its actual impact and to analyze future trends. In this paper, a general framework for evaluating energy consumption in WDM networks is introduced. The proposed framework enables the analysis of different node architectures, link capacities and network topologies. In particular, the case of three different node architectures is discussed and compared. Results show that dynamic operation can significantly reduce power consumption when either the traffic load is below 0.4 or when short reach transponders consume significantly lower power than long reach ones. In the latter case, dynamic operation shows significant benefits compared to the static case for traffic loads higher than 0.4. It is also shown that the transponders of the input/output stage of the nodes determine the benefit –in terms of power consumption-of an eventual migration from static to dynamic architecture rather than the transponders of the interface between the WDM and higher layers.
Metabolic abnormalities and oxidative stress in lupus.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Upon antigen exposure, immune cells rely on cell-specific metabolic pathways to mount an efficient immune response. In autoimmunity, failure in critical metabolic checkpoints may lead to immune cell hyperactivation and tissue damage. Oxidative stress in autoimmune patients can also contribute to immune dysregulation and injury to the host. Recent insights into the immune cell metabolism signatures, specifically associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and the consequences of heightened oxidative stress in patients, are discussed herein. RECENT FINDINGS Glucose metabolism inhibitors, mechanistic target of rapamycin pathway modulators, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma-activating compounds demonstrate therapeutic benefit in experimental models of lupus. Mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS) and molecular modifications induced by oxidative stress appear to be detrimental in lupus. Effective therapies tailored toward the reconfiguration of metabolic imbalances in lupus immune cells and the reduction of mitochondrial ROS production/availability are currently being tested. SUMMARY A paucity of knowledge exists regarding the metabolic needs of a number of immune cells involved in the pathogenesis of SLE, including myeloid cells and B cells. Nonetheless, SLE-specific metabolic signatures have been identified and their specific targeting, along with mitochondrial ROS inhibitors/scavengers, could show therapeutic advantage in lupus patients.
Variation of Transparency of Zeolite-Derived Silica Glass Prepared by Spark Plasma Sintering

A series of zeolite-derived silica glasses have been fabricated through the order-disorder transition process of zeolites using spark plasma sintering (SPS). The samples were characterized by UV-VIS-NIR transmittance, Raman spectra and Vicker’s hardness. Results showed that the transmittance of zeolite-derived silica glass samples increased with the sintering temperature increasing. The transmittance of the sample prepared at 1300°C was lower than 5%. The highly transparent samples could be obtained when the sintering temperature was above 1350°C. The transmittance of these samples was higher than 80% in the range of 780~1700nm and 60% in the UV-vis range of 250~780nm. One absorption band at 300nm can also be observed in the spectrum. The reason of this phenomenon could be ascribed to a few left crystallite fragments of ZSM-5. The Raman spectra showed that the bands at 378 and 292cm-1of ZSM-5 were significantly weakened and then disappeared with increasing the sintering temperature and the bands at 489 and 600cm-1 of silica glass became more apparent. The Raman spectra of the samples obtained above 1350°C were the same as that of the fused silica glass. The Vicker’s hardness of as-prepared samples increased with the rising of the sintering temperature. The maximum hardness of 7.31 GPa was achieved for the sample sintered at 1400°C. The fracture toughness of samples increased from 0.83 MPa·m1/2 to 2.37 MPa·m1/2 with the sintering temperature increasing.
Synthetic quantitative MRI through relaxometry modelling

Quantitative MRI (qMRI) provides standardized measures of specific physical parameters that are sensitive to the underlying tissue microstructure and are a first step towards achieving maps of biologically relevant metrics through in vivo histology using MRI. Recently proposed models have described the interdependence of qMRI parameters. Combining such models with the concept of image synthesis points towards a novel approach to synthetic qMRI, in which maps of fundamentally different physical properties are constructed through the use of biophysical models. In this study, the utility of synthetic qMRI is investigated within the context of a recently proposed linear relaxometry model. Two neuroimaging applications are considered. In the first, artefact‐free quantitative maps are synthesized from motion‐corrupted data by exploiting the over‐determined nature of the relaxometry model and the fact that the artefact is inconsistent across the data. In the second application, a map of magnetization transfer (MT) saturation is synthesized without the need to acquire an MT‐weighted volume, which directly leads to a reduction in the specific absorption rate of the acquisition. This feature would be particularly important for ultra‐high field applications. The synthetic MT map is shown to provide improved segmentation of deep grey matter structures, relative to segmentation using T1‐weighted images or R1 maps. The proposed approach of synthetic qMRI shows promise for maximizing the extraction of high quality information related to tissue microstructure from qMRI protocols and furthering our understanding of the interrelation of these qMRI parameters.
Substrate, Doping and Annealing Effects on Sputtered Zinc Oxide Thin Films

Zinc Oxide is a promising material for reducing the price of solar cells since its high abundance and low cost makes it attractive in replacing the more commonly used and more expensive Indium Tin Oxide as a transparent front contact. Using co-sputtering of Zinc Oxide and Silicon, highly transparent (>80% transmittance in visible range) and low-resistive (∼ 1×10−3Ωcm) films have been prepared. Annealing of the films in air at temperatures ranging from 550◦C to 1050◦C leads to an improved crystal quality, but the heat treatment is seen to have an adverse effect on the electrical characteristics of the films. Both the electrical characteristics and the crystal quality of the samples improve with Si doping up to a concentration of 1.5±0.5%. Above this concentration, these properties degrade. The films have been deposited on different substrates, and it is found that deposition on crystalline Silicon and glass produce films of good electrical and crystal quality while deposition on amorphous Zinc Oxide leads to films of poor quality. Although this substrate leads to films of low crystal quality (close to amorphous), the films still have satisfactory electrical and optical properties. It is also found that Silicon and Aluminium addition to the films leads to lower grain sizes suggesting that Silicon and Aluminium act as mobility inhibiting surfactants. Attempts to manufacture Silicon nanocrystals embedded in a Zinc Oxide matrix have been made but they proved to be unsuccessful. This is most likely due to the low formation energy of Silicon Dioxide.
The numerical comparison of flow patterns and propulsive performances for the hydromedusae Sarsia tubulosa and Aequorea victoria

SUMMARY The thrust-generating mechanism of a prolate hydromedusa Sarsia tubulosa and an oblate hydromedusa Aequorea victoria was investigated by solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in the swirl-free cylindrical coordinates. The calculations clearly show the vortex dynamics related to the thrust-generating mechanism, which is very important for understanding the underlying propulsion mechanism. The calculations for the prolate jetting hydromedusa S. tubulosa indicate the formation of a single starting vortex ring for each pulse cycle with a relatively high vortex formation number. However, the calculations for the oblate jet-paddling hydromedusa A. victoria indicate shedding of the opposite-signed vortex rings very close to each other and the formation of large induced velocities along the line of interaction as the vortices move away from the hydromedusa in the wake. In addition to this jet propulsion mechanism, the hydromedusa's bell margin acts like a paddle and the highly flexible bell margin deforms in such a way that the low pressure leeward side of the bell margin has a projected area in the direction of motion. This thrust is particularly important during refilling of the subumbrella cavity where the stopping vortex causes significant pressure drag. The swimming performances based on our numerical simulations, such as swimming velocity, thrust, power requirement and efficiency, were computed and support the idea that jet propulsion is very effective for rapid body movement but is energetically costly and less efficient compared with the jet-paddling propulsion mechanism.
Elementary Quantum Mechanics

This is the first graduate course on elementary quantum mechanics in Internet written in Romanian for the benefit of Romanian speaking students (Romania and Moldova). It is a translation (with corrections) of the Spanish version of the course (physics/9808031, English translation physics/0004072), which I did at the request of students of physics in Bucharest. The topics included refer to the postulates of quantum mechanics, one-dimensional barriers and wells, angular momentum and spin, WKB method, harmonic oscillator, hydrogen atom, quantum scattering, and partial waves
Study on Imitation of Yarn's Material Texture

Luster is an important surface property of the fabric material. The different material texture yarn with different fabric structure and ranking mode in the aggregation leads to the dissimilar luster in fabric surface. By analyzing the brightness distribution of yarns' images of the different material texture, yarn was simulated with the brightness function, which was made by extracting the value of the brightness and fitting them by least square method. Experiment results show that this method can reflect the appearance's difference of the different material texture yarn effectively.
Toughening epoxy adhesives with multi-walled carbon nanotubes

ABSTRACT In this paper, the effect of adding multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with an outer diameter of less than 8 nm to an epoxy adhesive was studied on the adhesive fracture resistance and damage behaviour. The fracture energies of the neat and toughened adhesives were measured by testing double-cantilever beam specimens. Moreover, a cohesive zone model (CZM) was used to numerically study the effect of MWCNTs on the damage behaviour of the toughened adhesives. The maximum improvement of 58.4% in the adhesive fracture energy was obtained when the adhesive was toughened with 0.3 wt% of MWCNTs. The fracture surfaces were analysed using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique. It was found that the presence of MWCNTs in the toughened adhesives caused rougher fracture surfaces. Moreover, some fracture mechanisms including nanotube pull-out and de-bonding were observed in the fracture surfaces. The numerical analyses showed that the damage process zone length was also influenced by MWCNTs. The longest damage process zone was obtained for the toughened adhesive with 0.3 wt% of MWCNTs.
Polyandry Has No Detectable Mortality Cost in Female Mammals

In several taxonomic groups, females mate with several males during a single reproductive cycle. Although there is evidence that polyandry provides some benefits to females, it often involves mortality costs. However, empirical evidences of mortality costs of polyandry have so far been reported only in invertebrates. Whether polyandry has mortality costs in vertebrates is currently unknown. In the present study, we aimed to fill the gap by investigating the relationships between the level of polyandry (measured either by male relative testes mass or the percentage of multiple paternities) and female patterns of mortality across mammals. While we found that the two metrics of female mortality co-varied with pace of life, we did not find any evidence that polyandry leads to either decreased median lifespan or increased aging rate in mammals. We discuss such an absence of detectable mortality costs of polyandry in female mammals in light of recent advances in the study of mammalian reproductive biology and life-history tactics.
Optical properties of arrays of five-pointed nanostars

The optical properties of nanostructures control the performance of applications that are based on localized surface plasmon resonances. Here we use finite-difference time-domain calculations to explore the effect of geometry and material-of-construction on the transmission and near-field optical intensity of arrays of closely-spaced five-pointed nano-star shapes. We compared isolated solid star shapes to star-shaped nano-gaps set within a surrounding square metal shape. The materials investigated were silver, gold, copper and aluminum. The study showed that both the geometry and material chosen had a significant effect on the resulting transmittance spectra. Transmittance spectra of arrays of solid five-pointed nano-stars did not show any strong absorption peaks in the visible region whereas, in contrast, the arrays of star-shaped nano-gaps set within the metal squares did show strong absorption peaks. However, on closer examination it became obvious that the enhanced electric field of the latter was mostly on the corners of the square metal domains and not actually in or on the star-shaped nano-gaps. Therefore we deduce that arrays of simple metal squares will be more suitable as substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy than arrays of stars or star-shaped nano-gaps. Gold, silver and copper were suitable choices for the latter type of array. Aluminum was unsuitable, at least for applications in the visible part of the spectrum, because it was associated with relatively weak electric fields.
First-Principles Simulations of FETs Based on Two-Dimensional InSe

We explore the performance limits of monolayer InSe <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${n}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-type and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${p}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-type FETs by means of first-principle simulations of carrier transport in nanoscale devices. We evaluate the impact on device performance of different device parameters, such as channel length, oxide thickness, and gate underlap. Finally, we assess the operation of a 32-bit CMOS ALU, based on InSe FETs with 10-nm channel length, for both high-performance and low-power applications, and find promising figures of merit with respect to CMOS and other beyond-CMOS proposals.
Imagine the Superiority of Dry Powder Inhalers from Carrier Engineering

Inhalation therapy has strong history of more than 4000 years and it is well recognized around the globe within every culture. In early days, inhalation therapy was designed for treatment of local disorders such as asthma and other pulmonary diseases. Almost all inhalation products composed a simple formulation of a carrier, usually α-lactose monohydrate orderly mixed with micronized therapeutic agent. Most of these formulations lacked satisfactory pulmonary deposition and dispersion. Thus, various alternative carrier's molecules and powder processing techniques are increasingly investigated to achieve suitable aerodynamic performance. In view of this fact, more suitable and economic alternative carrier's molecules with advanced formulation strategies are discussed in the present review. Furthermore, major advances, challenges, and the future perspective are discussed.
Effect of adrenocorticotropic hormone on UCP1 gene expression in brown adipocytes

Abstract Background: Like other tissues, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) can produce its effect on brown adipose tissue (BAT). This study was taken to understand the direct effect of ACTH action on thermogenin gene expression and possible relation with α receptors and caffeine with this hormone. Methods: Brown fat precursor cells were isolated from interscapular BAT of young mice and grown in culture. The cells were exposed to norepinephrine (NE) and other agents. Total RNA was isolated after harvesting the cells, and northern blot analysis was performed. Hybridization was performed with nick translated cDNA probes. Filters were exposed to film, and results were evaluated by scanning. Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) was measured by using Amersham assay kit. Results: ACTH stimulates thermogenin gene expression in brown adipocytes. Initiation and maximum stimulations are observed with 0.01 μM and 10 μM (about 45%) of ACTH, respectively, in comparison to 0.1 μM of NE. Maximum response of cAMP is also observed with 10 μM of ACTH (about 64%). Studies with cirazoline and ACTH show that UCP1 mRNA expression is increased significantly with 10 μM of ACTH, whereas cAMP generation is decreased. In the presence of caffeine, ACTH increases cAMP generation and UCP1 gene expression more than twofold. Conclusions: ACTH stimulates thermogenin gene expression in cultured brown adipocytes. The complex interrelationship of ACTH with cirazoline indicates the possibility of relation between the activity of ACTH and α receptors in brown adipocytes. Further stimulation of cAMP generation and thermogenin gene expression is possible with ACTH in conjugation with caffeine and RO 20-1724.
Emergence of Connectivity Motifs in Networks of Model Neurons with Short- and Long-Term Plastic Synapses

Recent experimental data from the rodent cerebral cortex and olfactory bulb indicate that specific connectivity motifs are correlated with short-term dynamics of excitatory synaptic transmission. It was observed that neurons with short-term facilitating synapses form predominantly reciprocal pairwise connections, while neurons with short-term depressing synapses form predominantly unidirectional pairwise connections. The cause of these structural differences in excitatory synaptic microcircuits is unknown. We show that these connectivity motifs emerge in networks of model neurons, from the interactions between short-term synaptic dynamics (SD) and long-term spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). While the impact of STDP on SD was shown in simultaneous neuronal pair recordings in vitro, the mutual interactions between STDP and SD in large networks are still the subject of intense research. Our approach combines an SD phenomenological model with an STDP model that faithfully captures long-term plasticity dependence on both spike times and frequency. As a proof of concept, we first simulate and analyze recurrent networks of spiking neurons with random initial connection efficacies and where synapses are either all short-term facilitating or all depressing. For identical external inputs to the network, and as a direct consequence of internally generated activity, we find that networks with depressing synapses evolve unidirectional connectivity motifs, while networks with facilitating synapses evolve reciprocal connectivity motifs. We then show that the same results hold for heterogeneous networks, including both facilitating and depressing synapses. This does not contradict a recent theory that proposes that motifs are shaped by external inputs, but rather complements it by examining the role of both the external inputs and the internally generated network activity. Our study highlights the conditions under which SD-STDP might explain the correlation between facilitation and reciprocal connectivity motifs, as well as between depression and unidirectional motifs.