Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Numerical simulation of wave propagation in media with discrete distributions of fractures: effects of fracture sizes and spatial distributions

SUMMARY We model seismic wave propagation in media with discrete distributions of fractures using the pseudospectral method. The implementation of fractures with a vanishing width in the 2-D finite-difference grids is done using an effective medium theory (that is, the Coates and Schoenberg method). Fractures are treated as highly compliant interfaces inside a solid rock mass. For the physical representation of the fractures the concept of linear slip deformation or the displacement discontinuity method is used. According to this model, the effective compliance of a rock mass with one or several fracture sets can be found as the sum of the compliances of the host (background) rock and those of all the fractures. To first order, the background rock and fracture parameters can be related to the effective anisotropic coefficients, which govern the influence of anisotropy on various seismic signatures. We test the validity of the method and examine the accuracy of the synthetic seismograms by a comparison with theoretical ray traveltimes. We present three numerical examples to show the effects of different fracture distributions. The first example shows that different spatial distributions of the same fractures produce different wavefield characteristics. The second example examines the effects of variation of fracture scale length (size) compared with the wavelength. The final example examines the case of fractures with a power-law (fractal) distribution of sizes and shows how that affects the wavefield propagation in fractured rock. We conclude that characterization of fractured rock based on the concept of seismic anisotropy using effective medium theories must be used with caution. Scale length and the spatial distributions of fractures, which are not properly treated in such theories, have a strong influence on the characteristics of wave propagation.
Efficacy of insulin and sulfonylurea combination therapy in type II diabetes. A meta-analysis of the randomized placebo-controlled trials.

BACKGROUND Numerous studies demonstrate the efficacy of the combination therapy of insulin and sulfonylurea in subjects with type II diabetes mellitus. However, two recent meta-analyses of randomized trials during the last decade provided inconsistent conclusions and failed to resolve the controversy. OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of insulin and sulfonylurea combination therapy in type II diabetes mellitus by performing meta-analysis of only the controlled studies selected according to specific strict criteria. METHODS A computerized literature survey was conducted using the MEDLINE database from January 1980 through March 1992 with the search headings of "sulfonylurea" and "insulin" and "combination therapy in diabetes mellitus. "A manual search was also performed using references from each retrieved report. Case reports, review articles, editorials, and citations reported in non-English-language journals without English translations were excluded. Forty-three citations were obtained. Four strict inclusion criteria were used to select studies: randomized, placebo-controlled trials (oral agent plus insulin vs placebo plus insulin); homogeneous target population (subjects with type II diabetes); intervention using the same sulfonylurea agent in a combination therapy; and uniform outcome measures to evaluate efficacy such as body weight; values for serum glucose, glycohemoglobin, and C peptide; daily insulin dosage; and lipid concentrations. More stringent qualitative subcriteria were then used to eliminate bias in the final unanimous selection by two blinded reviewers. Data were pooled and analyzed using Student's t test and Winer's combined test. RESULTS Sixteen studies satisfied the inclusion criteria. Metabolic control improved with the combination therapy as reflected by a significant lowering of fasting serum glucose values (P < .01) and glycohemoglobin concentrations (P < .025). Moreover, improved metabolic control was achieved with a significantly smaller daily insulin dose (P < .01) and without a significant change in body weight. Finally, the combination therapy enhanced the endogenous insulin secretion as expressed by an increase in fasting serum C peptide concentration (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS Combination therapy with insulin and sulfonylurea may be a more appropriate and a suitable option to insulin monotherapy in subjects with non-insulin-dependent diabetes in whom primary or secondary failure to sulfonylurea developed. It may also be a more cost-effective way of long-term management in this group of subjects, especially in the elderly.
All of Nonparametric Statistics

Chapter 3 deals with probability distributions, discrete and continuous densities, distribution functions, bivariate distributions, means, variances, covariance, correlation, and some random process material. Chapter 4 is a detailed study of the concept of utility including the psychological aspects, risk, attributes, rules for utilities, multidimensional utility, and normal form of analysis. Chapter 5 treats games and optimization, linear optimization, and mixed strategies. Entropy is the topic of Chapter 6 with sections devoted to entropy, disorder, information, Shannon’s theorem, demon’s roulette, Maxwell– Boltzmann distribution, Schrodinger’s nutshell, maximum entropy probability distributions, blackbodies, and Bose–Einstein distribution. Chapter 7 is standard statistical fare including transformations of random variables, characteristic functions, generating functions, and the classic limit theorems such as the central limit theorem and the laws of large numbers. Chapter 8 is about exchangeability and inference with sections on Bayesian techniques and classical inference. Partial exchangeability is also treated. Chapter 9 considers such things as order statistics, extreme value, intensity, hazard functions, and Poisson processes. Chapter 10 covers basic elements of risk and reliability, while Chapter 11 is devoted to curve fitting, regression, and Monte Carlo simulation. There is an ample number of exercises at the ends of the chapters with answers or comments on many of them in an appendix in the back of the book. Other appendices are on the common discrete and continuous distributions and mathematical aspects of integration.
Modulation of cell adhesion molecules on human endothelial cells by eosinophil‐derived mediators

Mechanisms that allow a selective eosinophil emigration in different eosinophilic lung diseases remain poorly understood. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that eosinophils might participate in their own recruitment, particularly through adhesion molecule expression on human endothelial cells (EC). Blood eosinophils from donors with blood eosinophilia were purified and maintained in culture medium for 1 and 18 h. The expression of ICAM‐1, E‐selectin, and VCAM‐1 on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) was evaluated by ELISA and flow cytometry analysis after addition of eosinophil supernatants. Eosinophil supernatants collected after 1 h induced a weak increase of CAM expression on HUVEC. In contrast, supernatants from eosinophils cultured for 18 h considerably amplified ICAM‐1, E‐selectin, and VCAM‐1 expression on the surface of EC. These levels of CAM expression (in optical density determined by ELISA) were about two‐ or threefold more important than those obtained with eosinophil supernatants collected after a 1‐h culture. The characterization of the implicated molecules showed that anti‐IL‐1β antibodies significantly inhibited ICAM‐1, E‐selectin, and VCAM‐1 expression, whereas anti‐TNF‐α antibodies only induced a moderate inhibition. Our data support the hypothesis that eosinophils, through the release of at least IL‐1β and TNF‐α, might participate in the amplification of the inflammatory reaction by activating the vascular endothelium. J. Leukoc. Biol. 63: 351–358; 1998.
Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.
Establishment of an evaluation model for corporate culture construction

To set up an evaluation model for corporate culture construction,it is beneficial to analyze and evaluate the level, structure and function of the corporate culture construction.In light of this,a thorough analysis was done that showed the importance of establishing an index system for corporate culture construction evaluation.At the same time, using the repertory grid and the fuzzy Borda ,the weight of a second and third class evaluation index of the corporate culture construction was obtained.Using the direct assignation method ,the weight of a four class evaluation index of the corporate culture construction was also obtained.Using this model to evaluate the corporate culture construction of an enterprise,one can clearly point out the key factors,basic countermeasures and concrete measures an enterprise needs to construct its corporate culture.
Depressed parents' attachment: effects on offspring suicidal behavior in a longitudinal family study.

OBJECTIVE To investigate relationships of depressed parents' attachment style to offspring suicidal behavior. METHOD 244 parents diagnosed with a DSM-IV depressive episode completed the Adult Attachment Questionnaire at study entry. Baseline and yearly follow-up interviews of their 488 offspring tracked suicidal behavior and psychopathology. Survival analysis and marginal regression models with correlated errors for siblings investigated the relationship between parent insecure attachment traits and offspring characteristics. Data analyzed were collected 1992-2008 during a longitudinal family study completed January 31, 2014. RESULTS Parental avoidant attachment predicted offspring suicide attempts at a trend level (P = .083). Parental anxious attachment did not predict offspring attempts (P = .961). In secondary analyses, anxious attachment in parents was associated with offspring impulsivity (P = .034) and, in offspring suicide attempters, was associated with greater intent (P = .045) and lethality of attempts (P = .003). Avoidant attachment in parents was associated with offspring impulsivity (P = .025) and major depressive disorder (P = .012). Parental avoidant attachment predicted a greater number of suicide attempts (P = .048) and greater intent in offspring attempters (P = .003). Results were comparable after adjusting for parent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. CONCLUSIONS Insecure avoidant, but not anxious, attachment in depressed parents may predict offspring suicide attempt. Insecure parental attachment traits were associated with impulsivity and major depressive disorder in all offspring and with more severe suicidal behavior in offspring attempters. Insecure parental attachment merits further study as a potential target to reduce risk of offspring psychopathology and more severe suicidal behavior.
Synchronization of delayed complex networks with hybrid coupling via pinning impulsive control

This paper studies the synchronization problem of delayed complex networks with hybrid coupling, which is composed of current-state coupling and distributed time-varying delay coupling among the nodes of the complex networks. By means of pinning impulsive control, some conditions are derived to ensure global exponential synchronization of the complex networks through introducing pinning ratio. The main result of this letter has extended some existing related works. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.
Vibration of PM Brushless Machines Having a Fractional Number of Slots Per Pole

In this paper, a method for predicting the electromagnetic vibration of permanent magnet (PM) brushless motors is presented. It calculates the electromagnetic force on individual stator teeth by the Maxwell stress method, based on two-dimensional finite-element analysis of the electromagnetic field. The resulting radial force contour is then used in an analytical shell model to predict the stator vibration. The method is validated experimentally, and is used to investigate the vibration in various PM brushless motors with different fractional slot/pole number combinations. The relationship between the slot/pole number combination and the dominant vibration frequency and mode order is also established
The Current Status of Sago Production in South Sulawesi: Its Market and Challenge as a New Food-Industry Source

This paper gathers information on the current status of sago production in South Sulawesi (Indonesia) including its market and the challenge as a new food-industry source. A case study approach was used for this study. The case studies are a producer of dried sago in Palopo City and a Kapurung (sago processed food) Restaurant in Makassar City. In-depth interviews, observation and sales data collection were conducted for this study. The results show that even though sago production in South Sulawesi has decreased significantly by 86% within 8 years (20062013), demand of sago has increased. This is demonstrated by sales of dried sago which tends to increase by 25% as well as the number of sales spots has increased significantly within a year. Furthermore, the number of our case study`s restaurant outlet has also increased from 1 outlet in 1999 to 4 outlets in 2011, yet, all of these outlets are located in Makassar City. These observations can be used as a parameter of sago demand, and it is predicted that demand will increase in the future. As a new foodindustry source, the sustainability of sago supply as a raw material will be a challenge in the future.
A Dead-Beat Control for Bridgeless Inverter Systems to Reduce the Distortion of Grid Current

This paper proposes a method to reduce the distortion of the grid current using a dead-beat control (DBC) scheme for bridgeless inverter systems. In the case of the general proportional integral (PI) current controller for power factor correction (PFC) scheme, the grid current is generally distorted due to the slow dynamic response of the PI controller. If the bandwidth of the PI controller increases to overcome this characteristic, the system shows a fast dynamic response. However, it becomes unstable as wide bandwidth leads to the control of unnecessary values such as a grid current noise. On the contrary, the proposed PFC-DBC method has a fast response for the reference current and accuracy compared to the conventional PFC-PI method owing to the optimal duty cycle for the next state current. In addition, the proposed PFC-DBC method can operate robust control by using the estimation method for actual filter inductance. Therefore, the proposed method can reduce the grid current distortion. The proposed method is verified through powersim simulations and experiments.
Evolving Multi-Variate Time-Series Patterns for the Discrimination of Fraudulent Financial Filings

ABSTRACT This paper considers an application of evolutionary computation (EC) to classification and pattern discovery. In particular we present a genetic algorithm (GA) utilized to discriminate cases of potential financial statement fraud. Of key interest to us is the ability to distinguish multidimensional patterns over time. The GA evolves strings over a pattern definition language to define class boundaries and to select classification features. The language defined allows for 1) the integration of data across time and across a number of variables 2) the integration of quantitative as well as qualitative data 3) the direct evolution by genetic algorithm and 4) easy interpretation by human experts. The data and method are described and results presented. Results offer a 63% true positive rate with a false positive rate of 5%. These results compare favorably with other published results on comparable data. Our technique captures behaviors not evident from traditional data analysis methods. The output from our system has the additional benefit of being easily understood and utilized by experts and practitioners in the field. This makes our approach more desirable than other black-box solutions. These techniques provide a foundation for multidimensional behavior analysis of data from a variety of domains including, financial, biological, manufacturing and clinical.
Blocking performances for fixed/flexible-grid and sub-band conversion in optical networks

With the rapid growth of data rate, the optical network is evolving from fixed-grid to flexible-grid to provide spectrum-efficient and scalable transport of 100Gb/s services and beyond. In this paper, we analyzed the blocking performances for fixed/flexible-grid and sub-band conversion in optical networks. Flexible-grid and sub-band conversion demonstrated the good performances on traffic blocking and spectral utilization. Moreover, wavelength converter plays a key role in improving the blocking performances of fixed/flexible-grid networks.
Ascorbate‐induced differentiation of embryonic cortical precursors into neurons and astrocytes

A specific role for ascorbate (AA) in brain development has been postulated based on a rise of AA levels in fetal brain (Kratzing et al., 1985). To evaluate the role of AA during CNS development, we analyzed the survival, proliferation, and differentiation of AA‐treated CNS precursor cells isolated from rat embryonic cortex. Immunocytochemical analyses revealed that AA promoted the in vitro differentiation of CNS precursor cells into neurons and astrocytes in a cell density‐dependent manner. Additionally, AA increased the frequency and amplitude of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) of postmitotic neurons in primary neuronal cultures. Differential expression analysis of genes specific to neuronal or glial differentiation revealed an AA‐dependent increase in the expression of genes that could potentially compound the effects of AA on cell differentiation. These data suggest that AA may act in the developing brain to stimulate the generation of CNS neurons and glia, thereby assisting in the formation of neural circuits by promoting the acquisition of neuronal synaptic functions. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
GPUNFV: a GPU-Accelerated NFV System

This paper presents GPUNFV, a high-performance NFV system providing flow-level micro services for stateful service chains with Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) acceleration. GPUNFV exploits the massively-parallel processing power of GPU to maximize the throughput of the NFV system. Combined with the customized flow handler, GPUNFV achieves a much better throughput than the existing NFV systems. With a carefully designed GPU-based virtualized network function framework, GPUNFV is able to efficiently support both stateful and stateless network functions. We have implemented a number of GPU-based network functions and a preliminary GPUNFV system to demonstrate the lexibility and potential of our design.
Influence of ion bombardment on microcrystalline silicon material quality and solar cell performances

Microcrystalline hydrogenated silicon growth with VHF-PECVD was examined in an industrial type parallel plate KAI™ reactor. The influence of pressure on material quality was studied in single junction solar cells. Solar cells with their intrinsic layer prepared at higher pressures exhibit remarkable improvements, reaching 8.2% efficiency at 3.5 mbar. Further analyzes showed that μc-Si:H intrinsic layers grown at higher pressures have a significantly lower defect density. These results are attributed to lower ion bombardment energies due to higher working pressures, which improve the microcrystalline material quality. Layer amorphization with increasing power density is observed at low pressure. Calculations show that the average ion energy drops from roughly 20 eV to a few eV in the pressure range studied.
Concurrent effects of cold and hyperkalaemia cause insect chilling injury

Chilling injury and death are the ultimate consequence of low temperature exposure for chill susceptible insects, and low temperature tolerance is considered one of the most important factors determining insect distribution patterns. The physiological mechanisms that cause chilling injury are unknown, but chronic cold exposure that causes injury is consistently associated with elevated extracellular [K+], and cold tolerant insects possess a greater capacity to maintain ion balance at low temperatures. Here, we use the muscle tissue of the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria) to examine whether chill injury occurs during cold exposure or following return to benign temperature and we specifically examine if elevated extracellular [K+], low temperature, or a combination thereof causes cell death. We find that in vivo chill injury occurs during the cold exposure (when extracellular [K+] is high) and that there is limited capacity for repair immediately following the cold stress. Further, we demonstrate that that high extracellular [K+] causes cell death in situ, but only when experienced at low temperatures. These findings strongly suggest that that the ability to maintain ion (particularly K+) balance is critical to insect low temperature survival, and highlight novel routes of study in the mechanisms regulating cell death in insects in the cold.
Hybrid coding: combined harmonic and waveform coding of speech at 4 kb/s

A new hybrid speech coding technique is presented in this paper, which combines a frequency-domain parametric coder (for stationary voiced and stationary unvoiced speech) with a time-domain waveform coder (for transition speech). Our hybrid coder uses a parametric representation for the excitation of a linear-prediction filter. The excitation of stationary voiced speech is a sum of harmonic cosines with interpolated magnitudes and a synthetic phase model, the excitation for stationary unvoiced speech is a spectrally shaped noise, and the excitation for transition speech is a set of signed pulses. Signal alignment when switching between the harmonic excitation of stationary voiced speech and the pulse model used for transition speech is required, and achieved by special alignment procedures. A 4 kb/s hybrid coder, which achieves high-quality reconstructed speech, is described. The 4 kb/s hybrid coder employs a neural network classifier, and a novel pitch detection and harmonic bandwidth estimation algorithm. The locations of excitation pulses for coding transitions are determined by analysis-by-synthesis. A simple and efficient dimension conversion and quantization of the harmonic. Spectral magnitudes of voiced speech was devised, combining the general nonsquare transform (NST) or dimension conversion and a weighted vector quantization (VQ) approach. Subjective listening tests demonstrate that the 4 kb/s hybrid coding scheme competes favorably with CELP coders at low bit-rates.