Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Calibration and Analysis of Mechanical Modeling for Traction Wire Rope of Mountainous Orchard Carrier

Low-cost transporting vehicles are a crucial routine for orchards in the mountainous place. As the core component of the mountainous orchard carrier, the wire rope is easily damaged due to frequent handling of agricultural materials. The mechanical model of carrier wire rope is the prerequisite for studying its damage mechanism. This paper first analyzes the load-bearing characteristics of the wire rope of the carrier and then uses the theory of differential geometry and the elasticity of the wire rope to establish the mechanical model of the wire rope side strand strain ε0 and the axial load T of the wire rope end face in the erect state and the radial contact pressure Fa of the wire rope at the bending section and the mechanical model of the axial tension F and the pulley diameter D of the wire rope end face. On the basis of the mechanical model and the wire rope geometric solid model, the finite element stress analysis of the wire rope in the vertical state was carried out to verify the accuracy of the wire rope stress model. The results show that when the wire rope was in the vertical state, the wire-wire contact stress was linear directly proportional to the load on the end face of the wire rope; the wire-wire contact stress between the strands was about 12 times that within the strand; the average error between the simulated value and calculated value was about 13.6%, proving the correctness of the established wire mechanics model. When the rope and wheel were in contact, the contact pressure of the outer wire of the side strand was only related to the axial tension of the wire rope end face and the diameter of the pulley but not to the elasticity modulus of the pulley.
Analytical Calculations of Some Effects of Tidal Forces on Plants on the International Space Station

Among the phenomena attributable to the Moon’s actions on living organisms, one of them seems to be related to analytical fluid mechanics: along the route of the International Space Station around the Earth, experiments on plants have revealed leaf oscillations. A parametric resonance due to a short period of microgravitational forces could explain these oscillations. Indeed, Rayleigh-Taylor’s instabilities occurring at the interfaces between liquid-water and its vapor verify a second-order Mathieu differential equation. This is the case of interfaces existing in the xylem channels of plant stems filled with sap and air-vapor. The magnitude of the instabilities depends on the distances between the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth. They are analogous, but less spectacular, to those that occur during ocean tides.
Age-dependent immune response in pigs against foot-and-mouth disease virus in vitro

Abstract Foot-and-mouth disease, one of the most contagious diseases in cloven-hoofed animals, causes significant economic losses. The pathogenesis of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) infection is known to differ with age of the animals. In this study, we aimed to reveal the difference in immunological response in the initial stage of FMDV infection between piglets and adult pigs. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated from 3 piglets (8 weeks old) and 3 pigs (35 weeks old) that were not vaccinated against FMDV. O-type FMDV (2 × 102 median tissue culture infectious dose) was inoculated into porcine PBMCs and the cells were incubated at 37.0°C under 5% CO2 for various time periods (0, 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h). The total RNA was obtained from the FMDV-inoculated PBMCs after each time point, and the virus titer was investigated in these RNA samples. Furthermore, dynamics of mRNA expression of the six tested cytokines (interferon [IFN]-α, IFN-γ, ‎interleukin [IL]-6, IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor [TNF]-α) in FMDV-inoculated porcine PBMCs were evaluated by time-series analysis to determine the differences, if any, based on the age of the pigs. The PBMCs of piglets contained the highest quantity of FMDV mRNA at 6 hours post-inoculation (hpi), and the PBMCs of pigs had the highest quantity of FMDV mRNA at 3 hpi. The mean cycle threshold-value in the PBMCs steadily decreased after the peak time point in the piglets and pigs (6 and 3 hpi, respectively). The dynamics of mRNA expression of all cytokines except TNF-α showed age-dependent differences in FMDV-inoculated PBMCs. The mRNA expression of most cytokines was more pronounced in the piglets than in the pigs, implying that the immune response against FMDV showed an age-dependent difference in pigs. In conclusion, within 48 hpi, the 8-week-old piglets responded more rapidly and were more sensitive to FMDV infection than the 35-week-old pigs, which could be associated with the difference in the pathogenesis of FMDV infection among the pigs. These results provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying the age-dependent differences in immune response in pigs against FMDV infection.
Activity and Function of the PRMT8 Protein Arginine Methyltransferase in Neurons

Among the nine mammalian protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs), PRMT8 is unusual because it has restricted expression in the nervous system and is the only membrane-bound PRMT. Emerging studies have demonstrated that this enzyme plays multifaceted roles in diverse processes in neurons. Here we will summarize the unique structural features of PRMT8 and describe how it participates in various neuronal functions such as dendritic growth, synapse maturation, and synaptic plasticity. Recent evidence suggesting the potential role of PRMT8 function in neurological diseases will also be discussed.
Esophageal Motility Disorders in the Natural History of Acid-Dependent Causes of Dysphagia and Their Influence on Patients’ Quality of Life—A Prospective Cohort Study

Background: Esophageal dysmotility may be the cause or a secondary effect of gastric acid-dependent diseases: erosive reflux disease (ERD), Schatzki ring (SR) and eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). Methods: This study aims to compare concomitant dysphagia with ERD, SR and EoE, considering manometric patterns, their role in the natural history and their impact on assessing quality of life. Fifty-eight patients with dysphagia underwent high-resolution manometry and esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy (EGD) with an assessment of SR, ERD and sampling for EoE, completed a questionnaire with the Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10) and the Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index. Based on endoscopic images and the histopathological criterion of EoE (≥15 eosinophils/high-power field), patients were assigned to groups with ERD, EoE, SR and with normal endoscopic and histopathological images. In the data analysis, p ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (no. NCT04803162). Results: Both EoE, SR and ERD correlate with ineffective motility. In ERD, normal peristalsis precedes the development of the disease, unlike EoE, which develops later and leads to absent contractility. The development of SR is associated with disorders of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES). In the group with SR and ERD, UES insufficiency significantly reduces the quality of life. Patients with normal esophagus in EGD scored the lowest quality of life and those with SR had the most severe dysphagia. Conclusion: The esophageal motility disorders co-occurring with endoscopic and histological anomalies do not significantly affect the severity of dysphagia, however, in the case of patients with ERD and SR and concomitant UES insufficiency, this motor dysfunction has a significant impact on the reduction in the patients’ quality of life. Although no specific esophageal motility pattern typical of EoE, ERD and SR has been identified, comparative assessment of manometric features may have a potential role in differential diagnosis.
A molecular roundabout : triple cyclically arranged hydrogen bonds in light of experiment and theory

The paper dwells on the synthesis and diverse studies of cyclically arranged hydrogen bridges in tris-hydroxy aryl Schiff bases. Experimental (IINS, IR, Raman and X-ray) and theoretical (CPMD, DFPT and DFT) studies of tris-hydroxy aryl Schiff bases have been performed in the solid state. This is the pioneer spectroscopic investigation of mutual interactions between hydrogen bridges in a cyclic arrangement. The spectroscopic studies have been carried out by IR, Raman and IINS experimental methods and supported by density functional theory (DFT), plane-wave periodic theory (DFPT) and Car–Parrinello Molecular Dynamics (CPMD) calculations. A study of the impact of steric squeezing on the strength of hydrogen bonds is presented. The remarkable dynamics of the bridged protons in the studied Short Strong Hydrogen Bond (SSHB) has been investigated on the basis of first-principles CPMD calculations. The fundamental investigations of the hydrogen bridge vibrations have been accomplished on the basis of isotopic substitutions (NH → ND and OH → OD) and vibrational Potential Energy Distribution (PED) analysis.
Multi-scale Trajectory Clustering to Identify Corridors in Mobile Networks

Deployment and management of large-scale mobile edge computing infrastructure in 5G networks has created a major challenge for mobile operators. The ability to extract common users' trajectories (i.e., corridors) in mobile networks helps mobile operators to better manage and orchestrate the allocation of network resources. However, compared with other types of trajectories, mobile trajectories are coarse, and their granularity varies due to the inconsistent density of cell towers. To identify the underlying geographical corridors of users in mobile networks, we propose a hierarchical multi-scale trajectory clustering algorithm for corridor identification by analyzing the non-homogeneity of the spatial distribution of cell towers and users' movements. To measure trajectory similarity on different scales we propose a distance measure based on Hausdorff distance that considers the cell density distribution. Common corridors are represented as weighted graphs as the final results, which can not only highlight users' frequent paths but also users' movement pattern between cell towers. The proposed method is validated using real-life datasets provided by China Mobile. Results show that by considering the heterogeneity of mobile networks, our method can achieve the best performance with more than 10% improvement in clustering quality compared with state-of-the-art algorithms.
Supplementation with Spirulina platensis Prevents Uterine Diseases Related to Muscle Reactivity and Oxidative Stress in Rats Undergoing Strength Training

Strength training increases systemic oxygen consumption, causing the excessive generation of reactive oxygen species, which in turn, provokes oxidative stress reactions and cellular processes that induce uterine contraction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible protective effect of Spirulina platensis (SP), an antioxidant blue algae, on the contractile and relaxation reactivity of rat uterus and the balance of oxidative stress/antioxidant defenses. Female Wistar rats were divided into sedentary (CG), trained (TG), and T + supplemented (TG50, TG100) groups. Reactivity was analyzed by AQCAD, oxidative stress was evaluated by the malondialdehyde (MDA) formation, and the antioxidant capacity was measured by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. Strength training increased contractile reactivity and decreased the pharmaco-mechanical component of relaxing reactivity in rat uterus. In addition, training decreased oxidation inhibition in the plasma and exercise increased oxidative stress in the uterine tissue; however, supplementation with algae prevented this effect and potentiated the increase in antioxidant capacity. Therefore, this study demonstrated that food supplementation prevents changes in reactivity and oxidative stress induced by strength training in a rat uterus, showing for the first time, that the uterus is a target for this exercise modality and antioxidant supplementation with S. platensis is an alternative means of preventing uterine dysfunction.
A Privacy Awareness System for Software Design

There have been concerting policy and legal initiatives to mitigate the privacy harm resulting from badly designed software technology. But one main challenge to realizing these initiatives is the difficulty in translating proposed principles and regulations into concrete and verifiable evidence in technology. This is partly due to the lack of systematic techniques and tools to address privacy in the software design, hence making it difficult for the designer to measure disclosure risk in a more intuitive way, taking into account the privacy objective that matters to each end user. To bridge this gap, we propose a framework for verifying the satisfaction of user privacy objectives in software design. Our approach is based on the (un)awareness that users acquire when information is disclosed, as it relates to the communication properties of objects in a design. This property is used to determine the expected privacy utility that users will derive from the design for a specified privacy objective. We demonstrate through case studies how this approach can help designers determine which design decision undermines users’ privacy expectations and better design alternatives.
Outage Performance Analysis of Cooperative PDMA with the Full-Duplex Relay

Pattern division multiple access (PDMA), which can exploit time, frequency, spatial resources or any combination of these resources, has been a promising candidate multiple access technology for the fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. Addressing the high-reliability, low-latency and massive-connectivity requirements of 5G systems is becoming one of the most promising research trends. In this paper, we combine the PDMA with the full-duplex relay and propose a cooperative PDMA (Co-PDMA) system to improve the reliability of cell-edge users with a short delay. We analyze the outage performance of the Co-PDMA system when the instantaneous channel state information could or could not be available at the transmitter. In addition, we also compare the outage performance in the cooperative and the non-cooperative PDMA system when the selection combining (SC) or the maximum ratio combining (MRC) scheme is utilized at the receiver. The numerical results show that the proposed Co-PDMA system can obviously improve the outage performance, and the MRC scheme can further improve the system reliability. Moreover, when the instantaneous channel state information is known at the transmitter, the PDMA with successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding has a great advantage on improving reliability compared with the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA).
A 2-stage, 50Ω RF-DC Charge-pump with Load Lines for high RF-DC Voltage Conversion

A novel 2-stage RF-DC charge-pump circuit (RFCP) with a 50 ohm input impedance and higher RF-DC voltage conversion without an external input-matching network or output DC-filter for ambient wireless energy-harvesting (WEH) in the 2.4 GHz band is presented. The novelty of this RFCP is the use of near quarter-wavelength transmission lines on the load-side of each half-wave rectifying stage in the RFCP to induce a standing wave maxima at each of the diode inputs at 2.4 GHz. Doing so minimizes diode losses and maximize RF-DC voltage conversion of the charge-pump while still achieving a near 50 ohm input impedance. Simulations and measurements show the proposed design generating a higher DC output of 2.12V and energy efficiency of 18% with just −6dBm of RF input; an RF sensitivity of −7.2dBm for 1.8V output; and a 50Ω input impedance (reflection coefficient = −11dB) in the 2.4 GHz band.
A Regulated-Cascode Based Current-Integrating TIA RX with 1-tap Speculative Adaptive DFE

In this paper, an energy efficient receiver(Rx) with a regulated-cascode based current-integrating TIA (RGC-CI-TIA) has been presented. Use of RGC-CI-TIA over conventional common-gate (CG) CI-TIA eliminates the need of additional passive termination improving the current efficiency and also results in substantial power reduction of the Rx. The Rx also deploys a speculative 1-tap current-integrating decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) which along with a 2-tap Tx feed-forward equalizer (Tx-FFE) compensate 18 dB of loss at 2.5 GHz of a 41" FR4 PCB trace. The proposed Rx achieves a channel signal-swing of 20 mVppd and input sensitivity of 1.2 mVppd by means of a significant voltage gain of 15 offered by the RGC-CI-TIA. The Rx has been designed in 180 nm CMOS technology and consumes 5.25 mW from a 1.8 V supply for a data rate of 5 Gb/s resulting in an energy efficiency of 1.05 pJ/bit.
Going Beyond Content Richness: Verified Information Aware Summarization of Crisis-Related Microblogs

High-impact catastrophic events (bomb attacks, shootings) trigger posting of large volume of information on social media platforms such as Twitter. Recent works have proposed content-aware systems for summarizing this information, thereby facilitating post-disaster services. However, a significant proportion of the posted content is unverified, which restricts the practical usage of the existing summarization systems. In this paper, we work on the novel task of generating verified summaries of information posted on Twitter during disasters. We first jointly learn representations of content-classes and expression-classes of tweets posted during disasters using a novel LDA-based generative model. These representations of content & expression classes are used in conjunction with pre-disaster user behavior and temporal signals (replies) for training a Tree-LSTM based tweet-verification model. The model infers tweet verification probabilities which are used, besides information content of tweets, in an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) framework for generating the desired verified summaries. The summaries are fine-tuned using the class information of the tweets as obtained from the LDA-based generative model. Extensive experiments are performed on a publicly-available labeled dataset of man-made disasters which demonstrate the effectiveness of our tweet-verification (3-13% gain over baselines) and summarization (12-48% gain in verified content proportion, 8-13% gain in ROUGE-score over state-of-the-art) systems. We make implementations of our various modules available online.
SIMILANT: An Analytic Tool for Similarity Modeling

We present SIMILANT, a data analytics tool for modeling similarity in content-based retrieval scenarios. In similarity search, data elements are modeled using black-box descriptors, where a pair-wise similarity function is the only way how to relate data elements to each other. Only these relations provide information about the dataset structure. Data analysts need to identify meaningful combinations of descriptors and similarity functions effectively. Therefore, we proposed a tool enabling a data analyst to systematically browse, tune, and analyze similarity models for a specific domain.
Max-Min Power Optimization in Multigroup Multicast Cell-Free Massive MIMO

In this paper, a multigroup multicast cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) system with conjugate beamforming (CB) precoding is considered. In this system, M N-an-tennas access points (APs) distribute in the serving area and coherently serve J×K single-antenna users. All users are randomly divided into J multicast groups. A novel closed-form downlink rate's expression for any M, N, J, and K is derived, which motivates us to propose a weighted max-min power optimization algorithm. In designing this algorithm, the high rate requirements of the high priority groups and the egalitarianism principle are considered. Numerical results demonstrate that the performance improvement achieved by increasing N is visibly better than increasing M. Furthermore, the proposed weighted maxmin fairness algorithm performs well in many respects.
An efficient edge-assisted mobile system for video photorealistic style transfer: poster abstract

In the past decade, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved great practical success in image transformation tasks, including style transfer, semantic segmentation, etc. CNN-based style transfer, which denotes transforming an image into a desired output image according to a user-specified style image, is one of the most popular techniques in image transformation. It has led to to many successful industrial applications with significant commercial impacts, such as Prisma and DeepArt. Figure 1 shows the general workflow of the CNN-based style transfer. Given a content image and a user-specified style image, the content features and style features can be extracted using a pre-trained CNN, and then be merged to generate the stylized image. The CNN model is trained for generating a stylized image that has similar content features as the content image's and similar style features as the style image's. In this example, we can see the content image is captured at a lake in the daytime, while the style image is another similar scene captured at dusk. After performing style transfer, the content image is successfully transformed to the dusky scene while keeping the content unchanged as the content image.
Angry Tweets and Interest Groups

Social media have become a primary vehicle through which interest groups have sought influence on the U.S. political system. While the relationship between social media and politics has been studied, little research has been conducted into which posts, specifically from interest groups, receive the most public feedback. Through a content analysis, I coded more than 2,000 tweets from two pairs of diametrically opposed interest groups according to the type of language that was employed in the tweet (argumentative, agreeable, action-oriented) and the multimedia that was utilized (plain, photo, link, video). Tweets with argumentative language tended to receive more likes, retweets, and replies than tweets without argumentative language. Additionally, linear regression analysis showed there were statistically significant positive relationships between retweets and argumentative language and replies and argumentative language. The positive statistically significant relationship between retweets and argumentative language persisted when the data was disaggregated by organization. Tweets with video tended to receive more public feedback than tweets without video. Multivariable linear regression analysis showed that a tweet’s inclusion of video had a larger impact on its likelihood of receiving more public feedback than its inclusion of argumentative language. The implication of this is that future research should consider the related influences that multiple variables have on a tweet’s success in receiving public feedback. Acknowledgements Thank you to Dr. Daniel Birdsong, who has helped me with this through COVID-19, a tornado, and no power. Thanks to Dr. Grant Neeley and Eileen Maloney in the Department of Political Science. Thank you to Dr. Christopher Devine who taught me the foundations of social science research. Much appreciation to Emma Kapp and Joey Glasgow, and thank you to Dr. Nancy Miller, Dr. McCombe, and the entire Honors program.
Option Pricing Theory: Is "Risk-Free" Hedging Feasible?

John E. Gilster, Jr., is an Associate Professor of Finance, Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University. This paper separates the risk of an unbalanced hedge into the risk of the perfectly balanced hedge which would exist if the hedge were rebalanced, plus the risk of the unhedged stock position which remains because the hedge was not rebalanced. The resulting risks are so large that for some of the longer rebalancing intervals suggested in the literature, the risk of a stock "hedged" by an option can exceed the risk of the unhedged stock position by itself. Instability of this magnitude in a risk-free hedge calls into question the applicability of theories based on such a hedge.