Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of hygrothermal environmental conditions on compressive strength of CFRP stitched laminates

Experimental and analytical investigation was conducted to understand the hygrothermal properties of uniweave T300/QY9512 laminates. Tests were performed under hygrothermal and room temperature environment separately. Effect of stitching parameters upon strength performance of laminates was predicted using FEM model. Compressive strength of laminates, under different environmental conditions, was also predicted. Test results have shown that hygrothermal environment condition has a severe effect on the compressive strength of laminates and the reduction in compression strength for stitched laminates reached up to 50%. Stitching might improve the compressive strength of laminates depending upon the environmental conditions and lay-up sequence of stitched laminates.
The evolution of Epstein-Barr virus detection in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

The detection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has evolved over the last 40 years, transitioning from simple serological tests of latent viral infection to extremely sensitive measurements of the circulating tumor virome. Compared to the former, cell-free (cf) EBV DNA quantification is considered superior for population-based screening, and possesses additional advantages of clinical prognostication and surveillance for subclinical recurrences. However, despite its broad utility, the clinical value of cf EBV DNA for prediction of treatment response remains uncertain, and is currently being investigated in prospective clinical trials. These lessons from EBV and NPC have since been tested in another emerging viral-associated head and neck cancer that is linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Transformation of nonlinear discrete-time system into the extended observer form

ABSTRACT The paper addresses the problem of transforming discrete-time single-input single-output nonlinear state equations into the extended observer form, which, besides the input and output, also depends on a finite number of their past values. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of both the extended coordinate and output transformations, solving the problem, are formulated in terms of differential one-forms, associated with the input–output equation, corresponding to the state equations. An algorithm for transformation of state equations into the extended observer form is proposed and illustrated by an example. Moreover, the considered approach is compared with the method of dynamic observer error linearisation, which likewise is intended to enlarge the class of systems transformable into an observer form.
Cholesterol Esterification Inhibition Suppresses Prostate Cancer Metastasis by Impairing the Wnt/β-catenin Pathway

Dysregulation of cholesterol is a common characteristic of human cancers including prostate cancer. This study observed an aberrant accumulation of cholesteryl ester in metastatic lesions using Raman spectroscopic analysis of lipid droplets in human prostate cancer patient tissues. Inhibition of cholesterol esterification in prostate cancer cells significantly suppresses the development and growth of metastatic cancer lesions in both orthotopic and intracardiac injection mouse models. Gene expression profiling reveals that cholesteryl ester depletion suppresses the metastatic potential through upregulation of multiple regulators that negatively impact metastasis. In addition, Wnt/β-catenin, a vital pathway for metastasis, is downregulated upon cholesteryl ester depletion. Mechanistically, inhibition of cholesterol esterification significantly blocks secretion of Wnt3a through reduction of monounsaturated fatty acid levels, which limits Wnt3a acylation. These results collectively validate cholesterol esterification as a novel metabolic target for treating metastatic prostate cancer. Mol Cancer Res; 16(6); 974–85. ©2018 AACR.
GaAs nanowires: Epitaxy, crystal structure-related properties and magnetic heterostructures

The intention of this work is twofold: On the one hand, we explore the controlability of GaAs nanowire growth concerning orientation, shape and crystal structure. These are necessary steps, since the growth of GaAs nanowires proceeds not necessarily uniformly, and in GaAs nanowires the in bulk unstable wurtzite phase, and the usual observed zinc-blende crystal phase may coexist in one and the same nanowire. On the other hand, we include ferromagnetic materials into GaAs nanowires. To do that, we produce either "core/shell" structures, where the GaAs nanowire is coated with a ferromagnetic "shell" material, or grow ferromagnetic nanoscale segments in GaAs nanowires.
Force Exertion Affects Grasp Classification Using Force Myography

This paper describes a study that explores the force exertion effect on the classification of grasps using a force myography (FMG) technology. Nine participants were recruited to the study; each performed a set of 16 different grasps from a grasp taxonomy using eight different levels of force, respectively. Their wrist muscle pressure was recorded using an array of 16 force sensing resistors. A linear discriminant analysis model was trained by grasps at a single force level using the natural grasping force to classify grasps generated by eight different levels of force. The results show that the grasping force significantly affects the accuracy of grasp classification such that a grasping force closer to the natural force achieves a higher accuracy. A still acceptable classification performance can be achieved for approximately half of the natural grasping force. The findings of this study help the understanding of how force exertion can affect grasp recognition using FMG. Knowledge gained from this study will provide guidance for the implementation of gesture control interfaces in terms of grasping force variations.
Electrical receptive fields of retinal ganglion cells: Influence of presynaptic neurons

Implantable retinal stimulators activate surviving neurons to restore a sense of vision in people who have lost their photoreceptors through degenerative diseases. Complex spatial and temporal interactions occur in the retina during multi-electrode stimulation. Due to these complexities, most existing implants activate only a few electrodes at a time, limiting the repertoire of available stimulation patterns. Measuring the spatiotemporal interactions between electrodes and retinal cells, and incorporating them into a model may lead to improved stimulation algorithms that exploit the interactions. Here, we present a computational model that accurately predicts both the spatial and temporal nonlinear interactions of multi-electrode stimulation of rat retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The model was verified using in vitro recordings of ON, OFF, and ON-OFF RGCs in response to subretinal multi-electrode stimulation with biphasic pulses at three stimulation frequencies (10, 20, 30 Hz). The model gives an estimate of each cell’s spatiotemporal electrical receptive fields (ERFs); i.e., the pattern of stimulation leading to excitation or suppression in the neuron. All cells had excitatory ERFs and many also had suppressive sub-regions of their ERFs. We show that the nonlinearities in observed responses arise largely from activation of presynaptic interneurons. When synaptic transmission was blocked, the number of sub-regions of the ERF was reduced, usually to a single excitatory ERF. This suggests that direct cell activation can be modeled accurately by a one-dimensional model with linear interactions between electrodes, whereas indirect stimulation due to summated presynaptic responses is nonlinear.
Bisphosphonates Inhibit Expression of p63 by Oral Keratinocytes

Osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), a side-effect of bisphosphonate therapy, is characterized by exposed bone that fails to heal within eight weeks. Healing time of oral epithelial wounds is decreased in the presence of amino-bisphosphonates; however, the mechanism remains unknown. We examined human tissue from individuals with ONJ and non-bisphosphonate-treated controlindividuals to identify changes in oral epithelium and connective tissue. Oral and intravenous bisphosphonate-treated ONJ sites had reduced numbers of basal epithelial progenitor cells, as demonstrated by a 13.8 ± 1.1% and 31.9 ± 5.8% reduction of p63 expression, respectively. No significant differences in proliferation rates, vessel density, or macrophage number were noted. In vitro treatment of clonal and primary oral keratinocytes with zoledronic acid (ZA) inhibited p63, and expression was rescued by the addition of mevalonate pathway intermediates. In addition, both ZA treatment and p63 shRNA knock-down impaired formation of 3D Ex Vivo Produced Oral Mucosa Equivalents (EVPOME) and closure of an in vitro scratch assay. Analysis of our data suggests that bisphosphonate treatment may delay oral epithelial healing by interfering with p63-positive progenitor cells in the basal layer of the oral epithelium in a mevalonate-pathway-dependent manner. This delay in healing may increase the likelihood of osteonecrosis developing in already-compromised bone.
Revealing the electronic structure and optical properties of K6[Mo4O8F10] novel molybdenum oxyfluoride materials

Abstract The electronic structure and optical properties of the molybdenum oxyfluoride K6[Mo4O8F10] single crystal were investigated. Based on X-ray diffraction data, the crystal structure was optimised so as to minimise the forces acting on each atom. The calculation reveal that K6[Mo4O8F10] is an indirect band gap semiconductor of about 1.51 eV, using the local density approximation, 1.72 eV, using gradient approximation (PBE-GGA), 1.81 eV using Engel–Vosko generalized gradient approximation and 2.01 eV, from the recently modified Becke–Johnson potential (TB-GGA-mBJ). Partial density of states reveals the orbitals’ contribution and the degree of the hybridisations between the orbitals. The contours of the valence electronic charge density of each atom in K6[Mo4O8F10] reveal that there are some electrons from Mo, K, F and O orbitals that are transferred to the valence bands and participate in the interactions between the Mo, K, F and O atoms to form covalent bonding. The strength of the covalent bond depends on the degree of the hybridisation and the electro-negativity differences between Mo, K, F and O atoms. The calculated bond lengths exhibit good agreement with the experimental data. The optical properties help to get deep insight into the electronic structure and reveal the types of the orbitals that participate in the optical transitions. It has been found that the investigated crystal possesses negative uniaxial anisotropy (δε = −0.102) and positive birefringence ( = 0.2765).
Collective Response of Leaf-Cutting Ants to the Effects of Wind on Foraging Activity

One advantage of sociality is to mitigate environmental restrictions through collective behavior. Here we document a colony-level response of leaf-cutting ants to wind, an environmental factor that impedes foraging. Given that larger ants adhere more strongly to the substrate, increasing forager size in windy conditions should reduce the negative effect of wind. We tested this idea for Acromyrmex lobicornis in windy regions of Patagonia. We examined (1) whether the fraction of larger ants versus smaller ants increased in windy conditions and (2) whether the effect of wind on the ants’ movement was lower for larger ants. The size-frequency distribution of foragers was skewed more toward larger ants in nature under more windy conditions. Under windy conditions in the field, the mobility of smaller ants was more reduced than that of larger ants. The change toward larger foragers in windy conditions reduced the negative effect of wind by 32%, illustrating how a social organism can collectively mitigate the adverse effects of the environment.
Real‐Time GFP Intravital Imaging of the Differences in Cellular and Angiogenic Behavior of Subcutaneous and Orthotopic Nude‐Mouse Models of Human PC‐3 Prostate Cancer

There are two major types of mouse xenograft models of cancer: subcutaneous implantation and orthotopic implantation. Subcutaneous transplant models are widely used with both cancer cell lines and human‐tumor specimens. Recently, subcutaneous models of patient tumors, termed patient‐derived xenographs (PDX) have become highly popular and have acquired such names as “Avatar” and “Xenopatients. ” However, such s.c. models rarely metastasize and are therefore not patient‐like. In contrast, orthotopic models have the capability to metastasize. If intact fragments of tumor tissue are implanted by surgical orthotopic implantation (SOI), the metastatic potential can match that of the donor patient. The present study images in real time, using green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression, the very different tumor behavior at the orthotopic and subcutaneous sites of human prostate cancer PC‐3 in athymic nude mice. By day‐2 after tumor implantation, the orthotopic tumor is already highly vascularized and the cancer cells have begun to migrate out of the tumor. In contrast, the subcutaneous tumor only begins to be vascularized by day‐3 and cells do not migrate from the tumor. Angiogenesis is much more extensive in the orthotopic tumor throughout the 2‐week observation period. The orthotopic PC‐3‐GFP tumor progresses very rapidly and distinct metastasis have appeared in lymph nodes by day‐3 which rapidly appear in many areas of the abdominal cavity including portal lymph nodes by day‐7. At day‐14, no invasion or metastasis was observed with the s.c. tumor even when the animal was extensively explored. These results explain why orthotopic tumors mimimc clinical metastatic tumors in nude mice and why subcutaneous tumors do not. J. Cell. Biochem. 117: 2546–2551, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Management of voltage regulators in unbalanced distribution networks using voltage/tap sensitivity analysis

Voltage regulation in unbalanced distribution networks (UDNs) with increasing the penetration of distributed generation sources (DGs) represents a great challenge for the network operator. The voltage regulation devices in UDNs have different configurations in each area based on line and load configurations. In this paper, an optimal voltage management strategy for UDNs is proposed. This strategy depends on voltage/tap sensitivity analysis, and it considers three, two, and single-phase voltage regulators with different connections (star, delta, and open delta). Numerical results on different IEEE distribution test feeders (13-node, and 37-node) have been performed. The results show that the proposed strategy can optimally manage the different configurations of voltage regulators without excessive tap oscillations. Moreover, the results illustrate that the proposed strategy can effectively mitigate voltage problems (voltage rise, and voltage drop) with high penetration of DGs.
An FPGA-Assisted Cloud Framework for Massive ECG Signal Processing

Current aging society has seen huge increases in portable devices sending massive volume of signals to medical servers. To address inefficient and unscalable signal processing on generic servers and clients, in this paper, we present an FPGA(field programmable gate array)-assisted cloud system providing an efficient framework for electrocardiogram (ECG) telemedicine including real-time data acquisition, transmission and analyzing over the Internet. We explore the requirements of massive cloud signal processing supporting a large number of connections or channels from cloud clients. A prototype system was composed of a client-server platform and an FPGA hardware system with PCI-E endpoint and ECG R-peak detection modules. A streaming micro-architecture for hardware system is proposed to detect ECG pattern from scalable number of channels. Evaluation results show that our streaming system design has good performance in terms of real-time, scalability and latency.
Epilepsy in multiple sclerosis: The role of temporal lobe damage

Background: Although temporal lobe pathology may explain some of the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), its role in the pathogenesis of seizures has not been clarified yet. Objectives: To investigate the role of temporal lobe damage in MS patients suffering from epilepsy, by the application of advanced multimodal 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis. Methods: A total of 23 relapsing remitting MS patients who had epileptic seizures (RRMS/E) and 23 disease duration matched RRMS patients without any history of seizures were enrolled. Each patient underwent advanced 3T MRI protocol specifically conceived to evaluate grey matter (GM) damage. This includes grey matter lesions (GMLs) identification, evaluation of regional cortical thickness and indices derived from the Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging model. Results: Regional analysis revealed that in RRMS/E, the regions most affected by GMLs were the hippocampus (14.2%), the lateral temporal lobe (13.5%), the cingulate (10.0%) and the insula (8.4%). Cortical thinning and alteration of diffusion metrics were observed in several regions of temporal lobe, in insular cortex and in cingulate gyrus of RRMS/E compared to RRMS (p< 0.05 for all comparisons). Conclusions: Compared to RRMS, RRMS/E showed more severe damage of temporal lobe, which exceeds what would be expected on the basis of the global GM damage observed.
pHlash: A New Genetically Encoded and Ratiometric Luminescence Sensor of Intracellular pH

We report the development of a genetically encodable and ratiometic pH probe named “pHlash” that utilizes Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) rather than fluorescence excitation. The pHlash sensor–composed of a donor luciferase that is genetically fused to a Venus fluorophore–exhibits pH dependence of its spectral emission in vitro. When expressed in either yeast or mammalian cells, pHlash reports basal pH and cytosolic acidification in vivo. Its spectral ratio response is H+ specific; neither Ca++, Mg++, Na+, nor K+ changes the spectral form of its luminescence emission. Moreover, it can be used to image pH in single cells. This is the first BRET-based sensor of H+ ions, and it should allow the approximation of pH in cytosolic and organellar compartments in applications where current pH probes are inadequate.
Hallmarks of science missing from North American wildlife management

Fundamental components of science are often lacking in U.S. state and Canadian provincial hunt management systems. Resource management agencies commonly defend controversial policy by claiming adherence to science-based approaches. For example, proponents and practitioners of the “North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” which guides hunting policy across much of the United States and Canada, assert that science plays a central role in shaping policy. However, what that means is rarely defined. We propose a framework that identifies four fundamental hallmarks of science relevant to natural resource management (measurable objectives, evidence, transparency, and independent review) and test for their presence in hunt management plans created by 62 U.S. state and Canadian provincial and territorial agencies across 667 management systems (species-jurisdictions). We found that most (60%) systems contained fewer than half of the indicator criteria assessed, with more criteria detected in systems that were peer-reviewed, that pertained to “big game,” and in jurisdictions at increasing latitudes. These results raise doubt about the purported scientific basis of hunt management across the United States and Canada. Our framework provides guidance for adopting a science-based approach to safeguard not only wildlife but also agencies from potential social, legal, and political conflict.
Closure Operators and Spam Resistance for PageRank

We study the spammablility of ranking functions on the web. Although graph-theoretic ranking functions, such as Hubs and Authorities and PageRank exist, there is no graph theoretic notion of how spammable such functions are. We introduce a very general cost model that only depends on the observation that changing the links of a page that you own is free, whereas changing the links on pages owned by others requires effort or money. We define spammability to be the ratio between the amount of benefit one receives for one's spamming efforts and the amount of effort/money one must spend to spam. The more effort/money it takes to get highly ranked, the less spammable the function. Our model helps explain why both hubs and authorities and standard PageRank are very easy to spam. Although standard PageRank is easy to spam, we show that there exist spam-resistant PageRanks. Specifically, we propose a ranking method, Min-k-PPR, that is the component-wise min of a set of personalized PageRanks centered on k trusted sites. Our main results are that Min-k-PPR is, itself, a type of PageRank and that it is expensive to spam. We elucidate a surprisingly elegant algebra for PageRank. We define the space of all possible PageRanks and show that this space is closed under some operations. Most notably, we show that PageRanks are closed under (normalized) component-wise min, which establishes that (normalized) Min-k-PPRis a PageRank. This algebraic structure is also key to demonstrating the spam resistance of Min-k-PPR.
Reactivity Patterns of (Protonated) Compound II and Compound I of Cytochrome P450: Which is the Better Oxidant?

The cytochromes P450 are versatile enzymes in human physiology that perform substrate hydroxylation reactions extremely efficiently. In this work, we present results of a computational study on the reactivity patterns of Compound I, Compound II, and protonated Compound II with model substrates, and we address the question of which of these compounds is the most effective oxidant? All calculations, regardless of the substrate, implicated that Compound I is the superior oxidant of the three. However, Compound II and protonated Compound II were found to react with free energies of activation that are only a few kcal mol-1 higher in energy than those obtained with Compound I. Therefore, Compound II and protonated Compound II should be able to react with aliphatic groups with moderate C-H bond strengths. We have analysed all results in detail and have given electronic, thermochemical, valence bond, and molecular orbital rationalizations on the reactivity differences and explained experimental product distributions. Overall, the findings implied that alternative oxidants could operate alongside Compound I in complex reaction mechanisms of enzymatic and synthetic iron porphyrinoid complexes.
Using accumulation to optimize deep residual neural nets

Residual Neural Networks [1] won first place in all five main tracks of the ImageNet and COCO 2015 competitions. This kind of network involves the creation of pluggable modules such that the output contains a residual from the input. The residual in that paper is the identity function. We propose to include residuals from all lower layers, suitably normalized, to create the residual. This way, all previous layers contribute equally to the output of a layer. We show that our approach is an improvement on [1] for the CIFAR-10 dataset.
A Dynamic Window Neural Network for CCG Supertagging

Combinatory Category Grammar (CCG) supertagging is a task to assign lexical categories to each word in a sentence. Almost all previous methods use fixed context window sizes to encode input tokens. However, it is obvious that different tags usually rely on different context window sizes. This motivates us to build a supertagger with a dynamic window approach, which can be treated as an attention mechanism on the local contexts. We find that applying dropout on the dynamic filters is superior to the regular dropout on word embeddings. We use this approach to demonstrate the state-of-the-art CCG supertagging performance on the standard test set.