Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Numerical study on regenerative effectiveness of parallel-plate regenerator for Stirling engine

ABSTRACT Due to the excellent heat transfer performance and low pressure drop, the parallel-plate regenerator (PPR) is very suitable for use in Stirling engines. At present, researches on the application of PPR in Stirling engines are rare. The axial heat conduction loss in PPR is a key factor that affects the heat transfer performance. Therefore, in this paper, the theoretical model of PPR operated under the Stirling engine working conditions is studied numerically, the regenerative effectiveness is taken as the target parameter, and the influence of axial heat conduction and other important parameters are explored. The results show that the axial heat conduction is detrimental to regenerative effectiveness, the regenerative effectiveness does not vary monotonically with the increase in the thermal conductivity, the copper regenerator with higher thermal conductivity has a lower regenerative effectiveness because of its higher axial thermal conductivity. The working frequency and the thermal properties of the working fluids have a comprehensive effect on the regenerative effectiveness, for high thermal diffusivity working fluids, such as helium and hydrogen, the regenerative effectiveness is high, while for low thermal diffusivity working fluid, such as carbon dioxide, the regenerative effectiveness is relatively low, and does not vary monotonously with frequency. The regenerative effectiveness increases with the reduction of the plate spacing, the plate spacing should be determined by considering the regenerative effectiveness and the pressure drop comprehensively. It is recommended that the stainless steel be a suitable material for the plates, and helium be the suitable working fluid.
Characterization of Potential Driver Genes Involved in Human Breast Cancer in Maysan Province, Iraq

Background: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease regarding its morphology, invasive behaviour, metastatic capacity, hormone receptor expression and clinical outcome. There are many risk factors for breast cancer, including genetic factors that account for 25-30% of the incidence; from this percentage, only 15-30% of the heritable component of breast cancer is due to known familiar highly penetrating genes, and the others are sporadic.Methods: This study was the first to include amplified genes as PCR templates to determine the relationship between their polymorphism and breast cancer incidence using RAPD of amplified genes. The study was designed first to evaluate the association of ABCG2, ABCB1 and BRCA1 gene polymorphisms in addition to miRNA-152 and ER-a using the RAPD technique with breast cancer incidence in Maysan Province women and second to use those genes as indicators for breast cancer prediction and diagnosis. The study included 100 patients with breast cancer and 30 healthy control women, and then all samples were amplified by conventional PCR with specific F and R primers for ABCG2, ABCB1, BRCA1, ER-α, and miRNA-152 genes. Then, the best PCR product (20) was chosen as the template for the RAPD technique.Results: The results revealed that all RAPD primers showed polymorphisms with higher values and more specific bands in patient samples. Our study proved the relationship between genetic polymorphisms of breast cancer-related genes and a higher incidence of cancer.Conclusion: The current study recommends employing these results for the future prediction and diagnosis of breast cancers.
Electrification of Road Transport and the Impacts on Air Quality and Health in the UK

Currently, many cities in Europe are affected by concentrations of PM2.5 and NO2 above the WHO guidelines on the protection of human health. This is a global problem in which the growth of road transport constitutes a major factor. Looking to the future, electric vehicles (EVs) are considered to be the choice technology for reducing road transport greenhouse gas emissions, but their impact on air quality needs to be considered. Taking the UK as a case study, this paper begins by understanding the trajectory of a future scenario without the introduction of EVs, reflecting on the latest emission control improvements in internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). This is then compared to a 2050 scenario in which the introduction of EVs, based on the UK government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan, is reviewed. This plan includes a ban on the sale of ICEV cars and LGVs, beginning in 2030, with the subsequent electrification of heavier vehicles. By 2030, population exposure to NOx was found to be significantly reduced in the ICEV scenario, with a marginal further reduction found for the EV scenario. The EV scenario further reduced NOx exposure by 2050, with most of the benefits being realized before 2040. For the ICEV and EV scenario, PM2.5 emissions were largely unchanged due to the primary contribution of non-exhaust emissions, suggesting that EVs are likely to yield relatively smaller changes in exposure to PM2.5 than for NOx.
Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks: Technologies, Analysis and Design

When choosing the technology options to develop a wireless sensor network (WSN), it is vital that their performance levels can be assessed for the type of application intended. This book describes the different technology options - MAC protocols, routing protocols, localisation and data fusion techniques - and provides the means to numerically measure their performance, whether by simulation, mathematical models or experimental test beds. Case studies, based on the authors' direct experience of implementing wireless sensor networks, describe the design methodology and the type of measurements used, together with samples of the performance measurements attained.The book will enable you to answer vital questions such as:* How long will my network remain alive given the amount of sensing required of it? * For how long should I set the sleeping state of my motes? * How many sensors should I distribute to meet the expected requirements of the application? * What type of throughput should I expect as a function of the number of nodes deployed and the radio interface chosen (whether it be Bluetooth or Zigbee)? * How is the Packet Error Rate of my Zigbee motes affected by the selection of adjacent frequency sub bands in the ISM 2.4GHz band? * How is the localisation precision dependant on the number of nodes deployed in a corridor? Communications and signal processing engineers, researchers and graduate students working in wireless sensor networks will find this book an invaluable practical guide to this important technology. "This book gives a proper balance between theory and application; it is a book for those RD it is valuable for both students and practicing engineers, and is an essential addition for engineering libraries. " - Professor Moe Win, Associate Professor at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Only book to examine wireless sensor network technologies and assess their performance capabilities against possible applications*Enables the engineer to choose the technology that will give the best performance for the intended application*Case studies, based on the authors' direct experience of implementing wireless sensor networks, describe the design methodology and the type of measurements used, together with samples of the performance measurements attained.
Quasi-backsourcing in the Public Sector – The Challenge of Withdrawing from an Intertwined and Long-standing Relationship

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to map the process involved in terminating a long-standing business relationship in a public context. It employed an exploratory study to interview 35 politicians, senior- and middle managers, ambulance- and dispatch centre staff and representatives of a regional alliance of patients. Growing criticism from a county council towards a contractor ended in a decision to bring services back in-house. However, terminating the contract failed and instead a state of quasi-backsourcing emerged. Only parts of the services were taken back in-house, with few reported benefits. The study suggests that caution is needed in relation to backsourcing services from a closely intertwined contractor.
DISTRACTIONS IN EVERYDAY DRIVING

This report presents the results of Phase II of a project funded by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS) entitled, "The Role of Driver Distraction in Traffic Crashes. " The Phase I report for the project contained the results of an analysis of five years of national Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) data, along with crash narrative data from both the CDS and North Carolina crash reports (Stutts, Reinfurt, Staplin, and Rodgman, 2001). The CDS, a part of NHTSA's National Automotive Sampling System, is based on a national probability sample of approximately 5,000 police-reported traffic crashes involving at least one passenger vehicle towed from the crash scene. The goal of the initial phase of the project was to use the available data to identify the major sources of distraction contributing to crashes and to develop a taxonomy of driver distractions that could be used to guide the Phase II efforts. The second phase of the project called for developing and validating a driving log methodology to determine the occurrence in the U.S. driving population of the various driver distractions identified in Phase I. Information on how often and under what circumstances drivers engage in potentially distracting behaviors, and how these behaviors affect driving performance, can help the highway safety community in its efforts to reduce the number of crashes caused by distracted or inattentive drivers. This report presents the results of the Phase II study. The Methods section provides more detailed information on the study methodology and on the formation of the data analysis files. Key study findings that include descriptive results on how often drivers engage in distracting behavior, under what conditions they engage in such behavior, differences among drivers by age and gender, and some consequences of the distracting behavior on driving safety appear in the Results section. A final Discussion section summarizes the study findings and their significance. Some types of distracting behavior that people undertake while driving include talking on a cell phone, shaving, putting on eye makeup, eating or drinking, changing a radio station or compact disc, and looking at the back seat to talk to an infant in a car seat.
Enhanced Performance of Membrane Distillation Using Surface Heating Process

Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermally driven desalination process that has excellent application prospects in seawater desalination or hypersaline wastewater treatment, while severe temperature polarization (TP) and the resulting relatively high energy consumption have become principal challenges limiting the commercial application of MD. Therefore, the design of novel systems to overcome the shortage of conventional MD requires urgent attention. Here, we developed three surface heating vacuum membrane distillation systems, namely, SHVMD-1, SHVMD-2, and SHVMD-3, according to the different positions of the thermal conducting layer in the cell. The distillate flux, TP, and energy performance of these systems under different operating conditions were investigated. All three systems showed stable performance, with a salt rejection >99.98% for 35 g/L NaCl, and the highest flux was close to 9 L/m2·h. The temperature polarization coefficients were higher than unity in SHVMD-2 and SHVMD-3 systems, and the SHVMD-2 system produced the lowest specific energy consumption and the highest thermal efficiency. In addition, we tested the intermittent surface heating process, which can further improve energy performance through reducing specific electrical energy consumption in vacuum membrane distillation. This paper provides a simple and efficient membrane system for the desalination of brines.
Biology and Treatment Advances in Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Simple Summary Skin cancers are the most diagnosed type of cancer worldwide. Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma—a type of skin cancer—usually affects older people who have chronic sun exposure, as well as people with weakened immune systems. There has been significant recent progress in the treatment of this type of cancer with immune checkpoint inhibitors that utilize the immune system to target cancer. In concert with advances in treatment, our understanding of the biology of skin cancer has also deepened. The authors have reviewed the risk factors, biology, and advances in treatment in this publication. Abstract Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is the second most common skin cancer diagnosed worldwide. CSCC is generally localized and managed with local therapies such as excision and/or radiotherapy. For patients with unresectable or metastatic disease, recent improvements in our understanding of the underlying biology have led to significant advancements in treatment approaches—including the use of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI)—which have resulted in substantial gains in response and survival compared to traditional cytotoxic approaches. However, there is a lack of understanding of the biology underpinning CSCC in immunocompromised patients, in whom the risk of developing CSCC is hundreds of times higher compared to immunocompetent patients. Furthermore, current ICI approaches are associated with significant risk of graft rejection in organ transplant recipients who make up a significant proportion of immunocompromised patients. Ongoing scientific and clinical research efforts are needed in order to maintain momentum to increase our understanding and refine our therapeutic approaches for patients with CSCC.
Active Sonar Target Classification Method Based on Fisher’s Dictionary Learning

The marine environment is complex and changeable, and the interference of noise and reverberation seriously affects the classification performance of active sonar equipment. In particular, when the targets to be measured have similar characteristics, underwater classification becomes more complex. Therefore, a strong, recognizable algorithm needs to be developed that can handle similar feature targets in a reverberation environment. This paper combines Fisher’s discriminant criterion and a dictionary-learning-based sparse representation classification algorithm, and proposes an active sonar target classification method based on Fisher discriminant dictionary learning (FDDL). Based on the learning dictionaries, the proposed method introduces the Fisher restriction criterion to limit the sparse coefficients, thereby obtaining a more discriminating dictionary; finally, it distinguishes the category according to the reconstruction errors of the reconstructed signal and the signal to be measured. The classification performance is compared with the existing methods, such as SVM (Support Vector Machine), SRC (Sparse Representation Based Classification), D-KSVD (Discriminative K-Singular Value Decomposition), and LC-KSVD (label-consistent K-SVD), and the experimental results show that FDDL has a better classification performance than the existing classification methods.
Mycotoxin’s Infections and Prevention Methods: State of the Art

Fungi that attack field crops and contaminate agricultural commodities produce mycotoxins when conditions are favorable. These are specialized metabolites made of poisonous chemical compounds created by bacteria, fungi, or plants that aren’t involved in the organism’s usual growth, development, or reproduction. They have an adversarial hold on humans, wildlife, and the agricultural sector, resulting in mysterious ailments and economic disrup-tions. Mycotoxins-tainted food and fodder can be found all over the world, posing a global concern. Consumption of contaminated food and fodder is a typical cause of epidemic outbreaks. Other mycotoxins have been associated with esophageal cancer and neural tube defects (NTDs); the immunotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) causes diarrhea when combined with trichothecenes, and ochratoxin A (OTA) has been linked to kidney failure. The direct market costs associated with missed trade or lower revenues owing to tainted food or feed could be viewed as the economic repercussions of mycotoxins on human society. This review describes frequent groups of mycotoxins in detail, their impact on global health, their impact on the socio-economy; the methods of detection and prevention of these mycotoxins.
Chromosome Folding Promotes Intrachromosomal Aberrations under Radiation- and Nuclease-Induced DNA Breakage

The long-standing question in radiation and cancer biology is how principles of chromosome organization impact the formation of chromosomal aberrations (CAs). To address this issue, we developed a physical modeling approach and analyzed high-throughput genomic data from chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) and translocation sequencing (HTGTS) methods. Combining modeling of chromosome structure and of chromosomal aberrations induced by ionizing radiation (IR) and nuclease we made predictions which quantitatively correlated with key experimental findings in mouse chromosomes: chromosome contact maps, high frequency of cis-translocation breakpoints far outside of the site of nuclease-induced DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), the distinct shape of breakpoint distribution in chromosomes with different 3D organizations. These correlations support the heteropolymer globule principle of chromosome organization in G1-arrested pro-B mouse cells. The joint analysis of Hi-C, HTGTS and physical modeling data offers mechanistic insight into how chromosome structure heterogeneity, globular folding and lesion dynamics drive IR-recurrent CAs. The results provide the biophysical and computational basis for the analysis of chromosome aberration landscape under IR and nuclease-induced DSBs.
Brief communication: An innovation-based estimation method for model error covariance in Kalman filters

Abstract. We present a simple innovation-based model error covariance estimation method for Kalman filters. The method is based on Berry and Sauer (2013) and the simplification results from assuming known observation error covariance. We carry out experiments with a prescribed model error covariance using a Lorenz (1996) model and ensemble Kalman filter. The prescribed error covariance matrix is recovered with high accuracy.
Buckling Analysis of Piles in Multi-Layered Soils

Pile buckling is infrequent, but sometimes it can occur in slender piles (i.e., micropiles) driven into soils with soft layers and/or voids. Buckling analysis of piles becomes more complex if the pile is surrounded by multi-layered soil. In this case, the well-known Timoshenko’s solution for pile buckling is of no use because it refers to single-layered soils. A variational approach for buckling analysis of piles in multi-layered soils is herein proposed. The proposed method allows for the estimation of the critical buckling load of piles in any multi-layered soil and for any boundary condition, provided that the distribution of the soil coefficient of the subgrade reaction is available. An eigenvalue-eigenvector problem is defined, where each eigenvector is the set of coefficients of a Fourier series describing the second-order displaced shape of the pile, and the related buckling load is the eigenvalue, thus obtaining the effective buckling load as the minimum eigenvalue. Besides the pile deformed shape, the stiffness distribution in the multi-layered soil is also described through a Fourier series. The Rayleigh–Ritz direct method is used to identify the Fourier development coefficients describing the pile deformation. For validation, buckling analysis results were compared with those obtained from an experimental test and a finite element analysis available in the literature, which confirmed this method’s reliability.
Dynamic Response of a Mobile Offshore Base Hydroelastic Test Model

Abstract : The objective of the work presented in this thesis deals with the study of dynamic response of a Mobile Offshore Base (MOB) hydroelastic test model. The MOB is a very large floating structure consisting of multiple self-propelled. semi-submersible modules. Physical scale model testing of a notional MOB concept has been conducted and the experimental results have been provided for one, two and four module configurations. This thesis focuses on utilizing the experimental data to understand the dynamic response of the MOB hydroelastic scale module. The analysis of the data is conducted using popular linear and nonlinear data processing techniques. The objectives are to obtain the modal shapes of the dynamic response, investigate the effect of connector dynamics in multi-module scale models and determine the nonlinear characteristics of the response.
INL Active Interrogation Testing In Support of the GNEP Safeguards Campaign

Active interrogation, a measurement technique which uses a radiation source to probe materials and generate unique signatures useful for characterizing those materials, is a powerful tool for assaying special nuclear material. Work at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in the area of active interrogation, using neutron and photon sources, has been under way for many years to develop methods for detecting and quantifying nuclear material for national and homeland security research areas. This research knowledge base is now being extended to address nuclear safeguards and process monitoring issues related to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). As a first step in this area preliminary scoping studies have been performed to investigate the usefulness of using active neutron interrogation, with a low-power electronic neutron generator, to assay Department of Transportation 6M shipping drums containing uranium oxide fuel rodlets from INL’s zero power physics reactor. Using the paired-counting technique during the die-away time period of interrogation, a lower detection limit of approximately 4.2 grams of enriched uranium (40% 235U) was calculated for a 40 minute measurement using a field portable 2.5 MeV neutron source and an array of 16 moderated helium-3 neutron tubes. Future work in this area, including the use of amore » more powerful neutron source and a better tailored detector array, would likely improve this limit to a much lower level. Further development work at INL will explore the applicability of active interrogation in association with the nuclear safeguards and process monitoring needs of the advanced GNEP facilities under consideration. This work, which will include both analyses and field demonstrations, will be performed in collaboration with colleagues at INL and elsewhere that have expertise in nuclear fuel reprocessing as well as active interrogation and its use for nuclear material analyses. « less
A Multi-Objective Optimization of a Robotic Arm for Service Tasks

In this paper, main characteristics and peculiarities of service tasks are investigated in order to propose design criteria in the form of computationally efficient objective functions. Then, these design criteria can be implemented in a multi-objective optimization algorithm by using ever commercial packages in order to obtain optimal design solutions for service robots. The proposed procedure has been applied to a robotic arm for service tasks that is composed of two modules having altogether four degrees of freedom (dofs). The main module with two dofs is called as SIDEMAR (Spanish acronym of Mechatronic Design of an Integrated System for Service Robots). It has been designed and built at Carlos III University of Madrid as a module for service robot applications. Results of the above-mentioned case of study are reported to show both the soundness and engineering feasibility of the proposed multi-objective optimal design procedure.