Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cohesive fracture in composite systems: experimental setup and first results

Composite systems are widely used in many engineering applications for new structures and strengthening of existing ones. Within the structural rehabilitation of civil constructions, the plating technique of beams with Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) represents a quick and optimal intervention with respect to traditional ones. The failure of these composite systems usually occurs due to the FRP debonding, which corresponds to a mode II fracture of concrete specimens. In this paper, a new experimental setup for investigating the mode II fracture behavior of FRP-concrete composite structures is presented. The test equipment consists of both conventional equipment and a non-contact optical technique, Digital Image Correlation (DIC), and the test system was realized at the Design Machine Laboratory of the University of Salerno. A preliminary test was performed and the corresponding results are shown and discussed.
Designing value propositions: An exploration and extension of Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle’ model

Organizations feel compelled to tell us ‘what’ they do, without first explaining ‘why’ they do it. Part of the design process is first understanding the need (the why) before focusing on the outcome (the what). An organization’s ‘why’, if successful, can inspire employees and customers to buy-in long term, by resonating on a deeper, emotional level. Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle’ concept has been used to analyse 100 organization’s value propositions across sixteen industries to understand how they are currently communicating their what, how and why. Findings revealed that only 24 per cent of organizations expressed their ‘why’ explicitly compared to the how and what results. This article provides organizations with the tools to better understand their value through an iterative design process, providing an opportunity for organizations to develop their ‘why’ from the inside out. This article explains why the analysis of an organization’s value proposition should be the focus of what should be driving strategy decisions and communicated throughout the organization.
ProgSnap2: A Flexible Format for Programming Process Data

In this paper, we introduce ProgSnap2, a standardized format for logging programming process data. ProgSnap2 is a tool for computing education researchers, with the goal of enabling collaboration by helping them to collect and share data, analysis code, and data-driven tools to support students. We give an overview of the format, including how events, event attributes, metadata, code snapshots and external resources are represented. We also present a case study to evaluate how ProgSnap2 can facilitate collaborative research. We investigated three metrics designed to quantify students' difficulty with compiler errors - the Error Quotient, Repeated Error Density and Watwin score - and compared their distributions and ability to predict students' performance. We analyzed five different ProgSnap2 datasets, spanning a variety of contexts and programming languages. We found that each error metric is mildly predictive of students' performance. We reflect on how the common data format allowed us to more easily investigate our research questions.
Hypermutation in Cryptococcus reveals a novel pathway to 5-fluorocytosine (5FC) resistance

Drug resistance is a critical challenge in treating infectious disease. For fungal infections, this issue is exacerbated by the limited number of available and effective antifungal agents. Patients infected with the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus are most effectively treated with a combination of amphotericin B and 5-fluorocytosine (5FC). Isolates causing infections frequently develop resistance to 5FC although the mechanism of this resistance is poorly understood. Here we show that resistance is acquired more frequently in isolates with defects in DNA mismatch repair that confer an elevated mutation rate. Natural isolates of Cryptococcus with mismatch repair defects have recently been described and defective mismatch repair has been reported in other pathogenic fungi. In addition, whole genome sequencing was utilized to identify mutations associated with 5FC resistance in vitro. Using a combination of candidate-based Sanger and whole genome Illumina sequencing, the presumptive genetic basis of resistance in 16 independent isolates was identified, including mutations in the known resistance genes FUR1 and FCY2, as well as a novel gene, UXS1. Mutations in UXS1 lead to accumulation of a metabolic intermediate that appears to suppress toxicity of both 5FC and its toxic derivative 5FU. Interestingly, while a UXS1 ortholog has not been identified in other fungi like Saccharomyces cerevisiae, where the mechanisms underlying 5FC and 5FU resistance were elucidated, a UXS1 ortholog is found in humans, suggesting that mutations in UXS1 in cancer cells may also play a role in resistance to 5FU when used during cancer chemotherapy in humans.
X-ray Cone-Beam Breast Computed Tomography: Phantom Studies

We present the design and preliminary imaging evaluation of a bench-top apparatus for X-ray cone-beam breast computed tomography (CBBCT), assembled for technical evaluation and for laboratory tests of various optimization techniques for CBBCT. The prototype is characterized by the computer control of the X-ray tube (W anode, 35-80 kVp, 0.25 mA, 50 &nbsp;¿m focal spot size), CsI:Tl CMOS flat panel detector (12&times;12&nbsp;cm2 area, 50&nbsp;¿m pitch, up to 9 fps at 4&nbsp;&times;&nbsp; 4 binning), motorized translation and rotation stages with eight degrees of freedom, and fan-beam or cone-beam backprojection software. First cone-beam tomographic images of two 14-cm diameter hemiellipsoidal PMMA breast phantoms are presented.
Amelioration of lead-induced hepatotoxicity by Allium sativum extracts in Swiss albino mice

Lead is a blue–gray and highly toxic divalent metal that occurs naturally in the earth's crust and is spread throughout the environment by various human activities. The efficacy of garlic (Allium sativum) to reduce hepatotoxicity induced by lead nitrate was evaluated experimentally in male mice. Oral treatment with lead nitrate at a dose of 50 mg/kg body weight daily for 40 days (1/45 of LD50) induced a significant increase in the levels of hepatic aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, acid phosphatase, cholesterol, lipid peroxidation, and lead nitrate. In parallel, hepatic protein levels in lead-exposed mice were significantly depleted. Lead nitrate exposure also produced detrimental effects on the redox status of the liver indicated by a significant decline in the levels of liver antioxidants such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione. After exposure to lead nitrate (50 mg/kg body weight for 10 days), the animals received aqueous garlic extract (250 mg/kg body weight and 500 mg/kg body weight) and ethanolic garlic extract (100 mg/kg body weight and 250 mg/kg body weight), and partially restored the deranged parameters significantly. Histological examination of the liver also revealed pathophysiological changes in lead nitrate-exposed group and treatment with garlic improved liver histology. Our data suggest that garlic is a phytoantioxidant that can counteract the deleterious effects of lead nitrate.
Collision-Free Coverage Control of Swarm Robotics Based on Gaussian Process Regression to Estimate Sensory Function in non-Convex Environment

In this paper, Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) is used to estimate the time-invariant sensory function by multi-robots while performing coverage control in an environment with known obstacles. Multi-robots are deployed to explore and exploit the unknown sensory function in a given area based on their centroid of Voronoi partition. The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is weighted based on the maximum posterior variance calculated using GPR. Each robot uses the Hybrid Reciprocal Velocity Obstacle (HRVO) method to navigate without having a collision with either its neighbors or the obstacles. The presence of the obstacles may cause the Voronoi polygon is not convex so that the centroid is probably located inside the obstacle. Consequently, the centroid must be moved to the reachable point. Then, the reachable point is chosen to make the cost of coverage function, which is a function of the reachable distance and its sensory function, to be minimum. The two main contributions in this paper are: (1) Integrating estimation and coverage control based on GPR with HRVO method and (2) An enhanced strategy which adds termination iteration rule to increase the estimation and coverage time performance. Software simulations are conducted to compare the performance results by using different the number of obstacles and their locations, the number of robots, and the strategies.
One-step facile synthesis of poly(N-vinylcarbazole)-polypyrrole/graphene oxide nanocomposites: enhanced solubility, thermal stability and good electrical conductivity

Abstract Poly (N-vinylcarbazole)-polypyrrole/graphene oxide (PNVC-Ppy/GO) nanocomposites have been successfully prepared by one-step chemical oxidative polymerization using ferric chloride hexahydrate in the presence of dodecyl benzene sulfonic acid. The composite formation, morphology and the crystallinity of the composite have been characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, FESEM, and XRD, respectively. The incorporation of graphene oxide into the PNVC-Ppy matrix induces interaction between graphene oxide and PNVC-Ppy via hydrogen bonding and π–π* stacking. This π–π* stacking between the GO layers and PNVC-Ppy produces longer conjugation length leading to a higher solubility in organic solvents and enhanced electron mobility. The information of conjugation chain length and charge transfer capacity at the interface of the composite has been obtained from the Raman spectroscopy and photolumincience spectroscopy. The improved thermal stability and electrical d.c. conductivity (0.123 S/cm) of the resulting PNVC-Ppy/GO composite compared to the PNVC–Ppy copolymer (0.08 S/cm) is attributed to the incorporation of graphene oxide in the composite.
Seizure prediction based on Long Short Term Memory Networks

Epilepsy is a neurological disease affecting millions of people worldwide. About one third of them are pharmaco-resistant and cannot be submitted to surgery; their disease is called refractory epilepsy, and a seizure can happen any time, anywhere. These refractory patients would benefit from seizure prediction devices, but the current methods for seizure prediction are not good enough for clinical applications. We present and evaluate the capacity of two types of deep artificial neural networks architectures to learn how to predict seizures with data extracted from electroencephalogram (EEG): Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolutional Long Short Term Memory (C-LSTM). To demonstrate clinical usefulness of our models, they are evaluated using long and continuous out of sample records. The study considers 105 patients from the European Epilepsy Database, 87 with scalp recordings and 18 with invasive recordings. The data includes: 1087 seizures, from which 203 are used for out-of-sample evaluation, and a total recording duration of 19959 hours, from which 3991 hours are used for out-of-sample evaluation. We extracted 22 univariate features based on 5 second windows from the EEG signal. For all patients, scalp and invasive, our LSTM models achieved an average sensitivity of 29.28% and an average FPR of 0.58/h. We predicted 52 out of 203 (25.62%) seizures on the testing set. It is observed that for 5 out of 105 (4.8%) patients, optimal test performance with sensitivity ≥ 50% and FPR ≤ 0.15h−1 was achieved. Perfect performance with 100% sensitivity and 0 h−1 FPR was achieved for 2 (1.9%) patients. For all patients, scalp and invasive, our C-LSTM models achieved an average sensitivity of 28.17% and an average FPR of 0.64/h. We predicted 54 out of 203 (26.60%) seizures on the testing set. It is observed that for 2 out of 105(1.9%) patients, optimal test performance with sensitivity ≥ 50% and FPR ≤ 0.15h−1 was achieved. Perfect performance with 100% sensitivity and 0 h−1 FPR was achieved for 0 (0.0%) patients.
Adaptation Effort and Performance of Water Management Strategies to Face Climate Change Impacts in Six Representative Basins of Southern Europe

We evaluated different management alternatives to enhance potential water availability for agriculture under climate change scenarios. The management goal involved maximizing potential water availability, understood as the maximum volume of water supplied at a certain point of the river network that satisfies a defined demand, and taking into account specified reliability requirements. We focused on potential water availability for agriculture and assumed two types of demands: urban supply and irrigation. If potential water availability was not enough to satisfy all irrigation demands, management measures were applied aiming at achieving a compromise solution between resources and demands. The methodological approach consisted of estimation and comparison of runoff for current and future period under climate change effects, calculation of water availability changes due to changes in runoff, and evaluation of the adaptation choices that can modify the distribution of water availability, under climate change. Adaptation choices include modifying water allocation to agriculture, increasing the reservoir storage capacity, improving the efficiency of urban water use, and modifying water allocation to environmental flows. These management measures were evaluated at the desired points of the river network by applying the Water Availability and Adaptation Policy Analysis (WAAPA) model. We simulated the behavior of a set of reservoirs that supply water for a set of prioritized demands, complying with specified ecological flows and accounting for evaporation losses. We applied the methodology in six representative basins of southern Europe: Duero-Douro, Ebro, Guadalquivir, Po, Maritsa-Evros, and Struma-Strymon. While in some basins, such as the Ebro or Struma-Strymon, measures can significantly increase water availability and compensate for a fraction of water scarcity due to climate change, in other basins, like the Guadalquivir, water availability cannot be enhanced by applying the management measures analyzed, and irrigation water use will have to be reduced.
Efficacy and safety of N-acetylcysteine therapy for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive and ultimately fatal lung disease with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an anti-oxidant drug, has promising potential in the treatment of IPF. In the present systematic review and meta-analysis, the efficacy and safety of NAC for IPF were investigated. The following databases were comprehensively searched for relevant studies published until August 2018: Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wangfang Database, VIP and the Chinese Biology Medical Database. A total of 21 controlled trials assessing the efficacy and safety of NAC therapy for IPF were identified and primary outcomes [forced vital capacity (FVC), adverse side effects] and secondary outcomes [diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO) and its percentage predicted value (DLCO%), vital capacity (VC), partial arterial oxygen pressure (PaO2), 6-min walking distance test and mortality] were extracted for the meta-analysis. The risk ratio and mean difference or standardized mean difference with 95% confidence interval were calculated using RevMan 5.3 software. Analysis of the pooled data revealed that, compared with control treatments (routine treatment or drugs other than anti-oxidants), NAC therapy reduced the decline in lung function, as indicated by the FVC and DLCO, and slowed the progression of the disease, as indicated by the PaO2, while complications and mortality were similar. These results suggest good efficacy, tolerability and safety of the treatment. Furthermore, subgroup analysis revealed that combined therapy including NAC for IPF might be more effective than NAC monotherapy, while oral administration of NAC was safer than inhalation. In conclusion, the results of the present review and meta-analysis provide important information that may serve as a guide regarding NAC therapy for IPF in clinical practice.
Testing a New Direct Load Control Power Line Communication System

South Carolina Electric and Gas is currently performing direct load control communications over power lines without using a power line carrier. This is the result of testing a load management system that combines the existing substation solid-state recording with voltage regulation capability. Using the solid-state recorder's extended control functions, the existing substation tap changer, a new patent-pending power line communications technique, and a patented voltage-step load control receiver, the system extends normal two-way communication between the utility operations and the substation with a one-way power line link to virtually any load. By varying the voltage level slightly, the system digitizes up to 32 different load control messages. The new voltage-step communication technique uses the substation's load tap changer to communicate one-way with the receivers over existing power lines. South Carolina Electric and Gas and the manufacturer have been performing a two-phase test of the load control system. Phase one testing showed that the percentage of successful load control message reception was 98%. Phase two testing is still in progress. Results to date show no deterioration of reception or equipment. Conclusions thus far are that the load management system is compatible with all installed utility equipment, and offers reliable direct load control.
Robust Semantic Mapping in Challenging Environments

Summary Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (visual SLAM) has been well developed in recent decades. To facilitate tasks such as path planning and exploration, traditional visual SLAM systems usually provide mobile robots with the geometric map, which overlooks the semantic information. To address this problem, inspired by the recent success of the deep neural network, we combine it with the visual SLAM system to conduct semantic mapping. Both the geometric and semantic information will be projected into the 3D space for generating a 3D semantic map. We also use an optical-flow-based method to deal with the moving objects such that our method is capable of working robustly in dynamic environments. We have performed our experiments in the public TUM dataset and our recorded office dataset. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and impressive performance of the proposed method.
Energy-Neutral Wireless-Powered Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a key enabler for remote monitoring and control of any medium with wireless devices deployed in substantial numbers. However, these devices often lack the desired lifetimes due to their incompetent batteries. If the envisaged scale of the IoT is realized, replenishing millions of batteries will become impractical. To address this issue, joint utilization of two prominent technologies, energy harvesting (EH) and wireless power transfer (WPT), is explored in this letter. By coupling data from empirical measurements on EH profiles with federal communications commission (FCC) regulations on indoor WPT, we propose and numerically evaluate design guidelines for energy-neutral wireless-powered networks, in which a source first extracts energy from its medium and then uses the collected energy to operate wireless devices via WPT. The initial findings reveal that the IoT devices in a 100 m2 office building can be remotely energized by only three EH-enabled wireless power transmitting sources validating the proposed architecture.
The argument against crowdfunding Alzheimer’s disease research

With pharmaceutical companies’ repeated failures at finding effective interventions for Alzheimer’s disease, together with an increasing reliance on the growing Federal funding for research, there is an emergent opportunity for financing alternate research through crowdfunding. Crowdfunding - where funding is obtained from small donations from a large group of people-has become a new source of funding for medical research. By understanding how the research community has evolved to study Alzheimer’s disease the pitfalls of this strategy can be highlighted. Alzheimer’s disease research is complex. From its inception in the early 1900s, Alzheimer’s disease has been at the center of movement within psychiatry to define the disease on the basis of its biology. Recent emphasis—through the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), RDoC (Research Diagnostic Criteria), RDoC (Research Domain Criteria) as well as the more recent Framework from the U.S. National Institute on Aging - have supported an exclusive emphasis on biology. But by excluding other aspects of the disease, such as its clinical expression, this research approach will be shown to be faulty and contradictory. So far this approach has resulted in 100% failures. By examining the historical and financial circumstances of the industry centered on Alzheimer’s disease a strong warning is given to the public to mistrust crowdfunding Alzheimer’s disease research. A broader and more inclusive approach is likely to generate a better understanding of the disease and therefore hold better promise for understanding the disease in the long term. Such a nuance approach competes badly with the more binary search for a cure and is less receptive to public support through crowdfunding.
Characterization, cutting mechanisms and machinability of lead-free brasses

Προσφάτως, λόγω της αυστηρότερης νομοθεσίας σχετικά με τα επιτρεπόμενα ποσοστά μολύβδου, κυρίως στα προϊόντα/εξαρτήματα στις εγκαταστάσεις πόσιμου νερού, απαιτείται η χρήση καινοτόμων λύσεων, που αφορούν στην ανάπτυξη και βελτιστοποίηση μη μολυβδούχων ορειχάλκων-υψηλής κατεργασιμότητας, ώστε να αποφευχθούν οι επικίνδυνες επιπτώσεις του μολύβδου στον άνθρωπο και το περιβάλλον. Η εν λόγω διατριβή εστιάζεται στον χαρακτηρισμό, τους μηχανισμούς κοπής (chip breaking) καθώς και την κατεργασιμότητα μολυβδούχων και μη μολυβδούχων ορειχάλκων που χρησιμοποιούνται ευρέως στη βιομηχανία για την κατασκευή εξαρτημάτων (κοχλίες, περικόχλια, υδραυλικοί σύνδεσμοι, βαλβίδες κλπ) μέσω μηχανουργικών κατεργασιών. Αρχικώς, μελετήθηκε η επίδραση που έχει η μικροδομή και η παρουσία του μολύβδου στα αποτελέσματα των δυναμικών και στατικών μηχανικών δοκιμών. Στόχος των παραπάνω δοκιμών είναι η καταγραφή των κυρίαρχων τύπων θραύσης, η οποία πρόκειται να συμβάλλει στην κατανόηση της συμπεριφοράς των ορειχάλκινων ράβδων κατά την κοπή. Στην συνέχεια πραγματοποιήθηκε στατιστική μη παραμετρική μελέτη της κατεργασιμότητας μεταξύ των εξεταζόμενων κραμάτων, για την αριστοποίηση των ποιοτικών χαρακτηριστικών της κατεργασίας (Μορφολογία Αποβλίττου Κοπής, Ισχύς Κοπής, Δύναμη Κοπής και Τραχύτητα Επιφάνειας Κατεργασμένου Δοκιμίου). Τέλος, γίνεται μία πρώτη προσπάθεια ανασχεδιασμού της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας, μέσω πραγματοποίησης κατάλληλων θερμικών κατεργασιών, των μη μολυβδούχων κραμάτων, με στόχο την τροποποίηση της μικροδομής τους προκειμένου να βελτιστοποιηθεί η κατεργασιμότητα σε κοπή.