Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kinematic and Singularity Analysis of 10 DOF Lower Body of Humanoid Robot

With the existing kinematic configuration of a humanoid robot, fast turning is the main issue encountered. The joint orientation of the lower body of a humanoid robot does not allow the system to move fast. The first joint of the existing setup is started with the rotary joint vertically up z-direction. A change in the joint orientation had been proposed for the kinematic configuration of the humanoid robot. The first joint in this proposed work is the revolute joint along the x-direction of movement. Forward and inverse kinematics were obtained for the maximum value of the reach of the leg in the environment. Jacobian was described for every joint. Singularity posture was obtained at the location.
Estimating the Load Rating of Reinforced Concrete Slab Bridges Without Plans

This article documents the development of a multiple regression model for the estimation of the inventory rating of reinforced concrete slab bridges. Given the lack of information on the superstructure elements in the National Bridge Inventory, the authors developed a data set by using the information found in as-built drawings provided by multiple state departments of transportation. The data consisted of 50 reinforced concrete slabs for which their inventory rating was computed. Various model combinations were considered, and their estimated errors were evaluated by performing a repeated tenfold cross validation. A five-variable model that included the year built, the span length, the slab thickness, the support type, and the skew was selected based on the lowest mean error and variance. The model had an adjusted coefficient of determination (adjusted R2) of 0.817, which was considerably higher than a previously developed model. The difference in adjusted R2 is attributed to the inclusion of slab thickness as an independent variable as well as to the quality of the data used.
Effects of Concurrent Exposure to Chronic Restraint-Induced Stress and Total-Body Iron Ion Radiation on Induction of Kidney Injury in Mice

Concurrent exposure to ionizing radiation (IR) and psychological stress (PS) may affect the development of adverse health consequences in scenarios such as space missions, radiotherapy and nuclear accidents. IR can induce DNA damage and cell apoptosis in the kidneys, thus potentially leading to renal fibrosis, which is the ultimate outcome of various chronic progressive nephropathies and the morphological manifestation of a continuous coordinated response after renal injury. However, little is known regarding the effects of concurrent IR exposure and PS on renal damage, particularly renal fibrosis. In this study, using a chronic restraint-induced PS (CRIPS) model, we exposed Trp53-heterozygous mice to total body irradiation with 0.1 or 2 Gy 56Fe ions on the eighth day of 28 consecutive days of a restraint regimen. At the end of the restraint period, the kidneys were collected. The histopathological changes and the degree of kidney fibrosis were assessed with H&E and Masson staining, respectively. Fibronectin (FN) and alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), biomarkers of fibrosis, were detected by immunohistochemistry. Analysis of 8-hydroxy-2 deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), a biomarker of oxidative DNA damage, was performed with immunofluorescence, and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated nick end labeling assays were used to detect apoptotic cells. Histopathological observations did not indicate significant structural damage induced by IR or CRIPS + IR. Western blotting revealed that the expression of α-SMA was much higher in the CRIPS + IR groups than the CRIPS groups. However, no differences in the average optical density per area were observed for FN, α-SMA and 8-OHdG between the IR and CRIPS + IR groups. No difference in the induction of apoptosis was observed between the IR and CRIPS + IR groups. These results suggested that exposure to IR (0.1 and 2 Gy 56Fe ions), 28 consecutive days of CRIPS or both did not cause renal fibrosis. Thus, CRIPS did not alter the IR-induced effects on renal damage in Trp53-heterozygous mice in our experimental setup.
Sustainability of Intertwined Supply Networks: A Game-Theoretic Approach

A formal game-theoretic model of an intertwined supply network, in full and simplified versions, is proposed. Conditions for the sustainable development of an active system are presented in general form and then specified to the class of intertwined supply networks. As an illustration, a concise example of the dynamic Cournot duopoly and a detailed example of the model of Social and Private Interests Coordination Engines (SPICE-model) for a marketing network are considered and analytically investigated and sustainability conditions are established. An important conclusion is that the sustainable development of the active system is possible only under the viability conditions satisfied simultaneously with coordinating the interests of all active agents of the system.
Effects of Girdling and Foliar Fertilization with K on Physicochemical Parameters, Phenolic and Volatile Composition in ‘Hanxiangmi’ Table Grape

Aroma is one of the most important indicators of grape quality. Girdling and foliar fertilization with K (K2O) are common agronomic practices applied to improve berry quality in grape production. However, little is known about its effect on the accumulation and biosynthesis of the entire aromatic profile. Our study was aimed to explore the influences of girdling and foliar fertilization with K (alone or in combination) on the general properties, phenolic composition, volatile free aroma compounds, spatial and temporal expression of terpene-related genes and sensory properties in ‘Hanxiangmi’ table grape. In this study, we found that girdling and foliar fertilization with K (alone or in combination) facilitated fruit enlargement and increased the accumulation of phenolic compounds in skin. The combination treatment of girdling and foliar fertilization with K significantly promoted the concentrations of total soluble solids (TSS) in the pulp and proanthocyanidins in the berry skin, and had a lower titratable acidity (TA) compared to those of the control. In contrast, girdling treatment alone increased the concentrations of titratable acidity. Volatile free aroma composition analysis revealed that the combination treatment increased the volatile compounds and concentrations significantly, most notably in terpenes, such as nerol, citronellol and linalool. Spatial and temporal expression analysis showed that the expression level of VvDXS was significantly correlated with linalool and total terpenes concentrations, as a result of which, we speculated that VvDXS is the candidate gene for the regulation of important grape terpenes. We hope that our results can direct farmers to better apply girdling and foliar fertilization with K in grape production.
Additive Manufacturing Strategies for Personalized Drug Delivery Systems and Medical Devices: Fused Filament Fabrication and Semi Solid Extrusion

Novel additive manufacturing (AM) techniques and particularly 3D printing (3DP) have achieved a decade of success in pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. Highly innovative personalized therapeutical solutions may be designed and manufactured through a layer-by-layer approach starting from a digital model realized according to the needs of a specific patient or a patient group. The combination of patient-tailored drug dose, dosage, or diagnostic form (shape and size) and drug release adjustment has the potential to ensure the optimal patient therapy. Among the different 3D printing techniques, extrusion-based technologies, such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) and semi solid extrusion (SSE), are the most investigated for their high versatility, precision, feasibility, and cheapness. This review provides an overview on different 3DP techniques to produce personalized drug delivery systems and medical devices, highlighting, for each method, the critical printing process parameters, the main starting materials, as well as advantages and limitations. Furthermore, the recent developments of fused filament fabrication and semi solid extrusion 3DP are discussed. In this regard, the current state of the art, based on a detailed literature survey of the different 3D products printed via extrusion-based techniques, envisioning future directions in the clinical applications and diffusion of such systems, is summarized.
Effect of Low-Cost Technology on Biology Students’ Academic Performance in Ilorin, Nigeria

This study examined the effect of Low-cost Technology on Secondary School students’ academic performance in Biology. Quasi-experimental research of post-test non-randomized control group design was adopted for this study. This design was adopted to compare the performance of students who were taught the concept of biology with low-cost technology and those taught without the low-cost technology. Two intact classes from two secondary schools were randomly sampled. The instruments used were Lesson Note (LN), Biology Performance Test (BPT) for data gathering, and Low-Cost Technology (3D Model of Plant and Animal Cells). BPT was subjected to pilot testing and a reliability coefficient of 0.87 was obtained using the Kuder Richardson KR-20. Two research questions and two research hypotheses were formulated for the study. Findings show that the 3D Model of Plant and Animal Cell significantly influences the understanding of the topic “Plant and Animal Cells” among students irrespective of their gender and institutional ownership. Secondary school teachers should make use of those low-cost technological resources available in their environment for the production of instructional materials.
Infection Characteristics of Clonorchis sinensis Metacercariae in Fish from Republic of Korea

The infection nature of Clonorchis sinensis metacercariae (CsMc) in freshwater fish hosts is closely related to the transmission of human clonorchiasis. This article reviewed the infection characteristics of CsMc in freshwater fish in the Republic of Korea (Korea). The status of CsMc infection was examined in a total of 17,792 cyprinid fish of 49 species in 9 water systems, which included Hantan-/Imjin-gang, Han-gang, Geum-gang, Mangyeong-gang, Yeongsan-gang, Tamjin-gang, Seomjin-gang, Nakdong-gang, and streams in the east coastal areas from 2010 to 2020. The infection status of CsMc was examined according to cyprinid fish species and water systems, after which analyzed by endemicity and susceptibility index. The high endemicity was shown in the cyprinid fish from 3 regions (6.1%) in the upper reaches of Nakdong-gang, such as Banbyeon-cheon (stream), Yongjeon-cheon, and Wi-cheon. The moderate levels were observed in fishes from 8 regions (16.3%), and low endemicity was shown in fishes from 20 regions (40.8%). No CsMc were detected in fish from 18 regions (36.7%). The susceptibility of CsMc in index fish, Puntungia herzi, was found to be a reliable index without examination of other fish species. CsMc infection rates were closely related to subfamily groups in the cyprinid fish hosts in a highly endemic area. In Korea, a total of 58 fish species in 10 families has been listed as the second intermediate hosts for C. sinensis. This review provides several novel features of CsMc infection and clarifies the species of second intermediate freshwater fish host in Korea.
Dried chicory root improves bowel function, benefits intestinal microbial trophic chains and increases faecal and circulating short chain fatty acids in subjects at risk for type 2 diabetes

Abstract We investigated the impact of dried chicory root in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial with 55 subjects at risk for type 2 diabetes on bowel function, gut microbiota and its products, and glucose homeostasis. The treatment increased stool softness (+1.1 ± 0.3 units; p = 0.034) and frequency (+0.6 ± 0.2 defecations/day; p < 0.001), strongly modulated gut microbiota composition (7 % variation; p = 0.001), and dramatically increased relative levels (3-4-fold) of Anaerostipes and Bifidobacterium spp. , in a dose-dependent, reversible manner. A synthetic community, including selected members of these genera and a Bacteroides strain, generated a butyrogenic trophic chain from the product. Faecal acetate, propionate and butyrate increased by 25.8 % (+13.0 ± 6.3 mmol/kg; p = 0.023) as did their fasting circulating levels by 15.7 % (+7.7 ± 3.9 μM; p = 0.057). In the treatment group the glycaemic coefficient of variation decreased from 21.3 ± 0.94 to 18.3 ± 0.84 % (p = 0.004), whereas fasting glucose and HOMA-ir decreased in subjects with low baseline Blautia levels (−0.3 ± 0.1 mmol/L fasting glucose; p = 0.0187; −0.14 ± 0.1 HOMA-ir; p = 0.045). Dried chicory root intake rapidly and reversibly affects bowel function, benefits butyrogenic trophic chains, and promotes glycaemic control.
Two Clinical Cases of Feline Hemoplasmosis in Korea

Feline hemotropic mycoplasmosis (hemoplasmosis) is an infection of the red blood cells caused by the Mycoplasma haemofelis (Mhf), Candidatus Mycoplasma haemominutum (CMhm), and Candidatus Mycoplasma turicensis (CMt). The existence of Mhf, CMhm, and CMt has been demonstrated in feral cats in Korea using molecular methods, but no clinical cases have yet been reported. This study reports 2 clinical cases of hemotropic mycoplasmosis caused by CMhm and CMt in 2 anemic cats. The first case was a client-owned intact female domestic shorthair cat that presented with fever, pale mucous membranes, and normocytic normochromic non-regenerative anemia. Prior to referral, an immunosuppressive prednisolone dose was administered at the local veterinary clinic for 1 month. The cat was diagnosed with high-grade alimentary lymphoma. Organisms were found on the surface of the red blood cells on blood smear examination. The second case was of a rescued cat that presented with dehydration and fever. The cat had normocytic normochromic non-regenerative anemia. Necropsy revealed concurrent feline infectious peritonitis. Polymerase chain reaction assay targeting 16S rRNA revealed CMhm infection in case 1 and dual infection of CMhm and CMt in case 2. Normocytic normochromic non-regenerative anemia was observed in both cats before and during the management of the systemic inflammation. This is the first clinical case report in Korea to demonstrate CMhm and CMt infections in symptomatic cats.
Metformin for Preventing Progression From Prediabetes to Diabetes Mellitus in People Living With Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Background Diabetes mellitus (DM) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) itself increase the risk for cardiovascular diseases in people living with HIV (PLHIV). Prediabetes, a condition preceding DM, is common in PLHIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). Both metformin and lifestyle interventions have been established to reduce the risk of progression from prediabetes to DM in the general population. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of metformin for preventing DM in prediabetic PLHIV. Methods An open-label randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted in HIV-positive persons with prediabetes. The participants were randomized into two groups: the metformin group (received metformin) and the control group (did not receive metformin). All participants were counseled regarding diet control and lifestyle modification and followed for 12 months. The primary endpoint was the development of DM. Fasting plasma glucose (FPG), two-hour plasma glucose (2-h PG) after 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), and computer-based homeostatic model assessment index of beta-cell function (HOMA%B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were analyzed. Results Seventy-four participants were enrolled, 37 in each group. The mean age was 49.6 years, and 68.9% were males. At baseline, the mean CD4 cell count was 570 cells/mm3, and the mean body mass index (BMI) was 24.6 kg/m2. Baseline characteristics including age, sex, BMI, waist/hip ratio, duration of ART, ART regimen, CD4 cell count, and HIV RNA were similar between the two groups. The mean FPG, 2-h PG, HbA1c, HOMA%B, and HOMA-IR at baseline were also similar between the two groups. At 12 months, one participant in the metformin group and three in the control group developed DM (risk reduction: 5.41%; 95% confidence interval (CI): −6.92%-18.78%). When we compared changes in parameters between the two groups, there were trends toward more changes in HbA1c (\begin{document}\Delta\end{document}HbA1c) at both six months (metformin group versus control group: -0.17% ± 0.20% versus 0.02% ± 0.58%; p = 0.074) and 12 months (metformin group versus control group: -0.05% ± 0.23% versus 0.06% ± 0.27%; p = 0.065). When we considered changes in all parameters in each group, the metformin group had significant reductions in body weight (BW) and BMI at both six and 12 months, and significant reductions in HbA1c and HOMA-IR at six months. No participant had adverse effects that led to the discontinuation of metformin. No cardiovascular event was observed during the study period. Conclusions Metformin tends to improve HbA1c and insulin resistance and may prevent progression from prediabetes to DM in HIV-positive persons with prediabetes. A further large study with a longer study period is needed to evaluate the long-term benefit of metformin.
Hybrid Network Model: TransConvNet for Oriented Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images

The complexity of backgrounds, the diversity of object scale and orientation, and the defects of convolutional neural network (CNN) have always been the challenges of oriented object detection in remote sensing images (RSIs). This paper designs a hybrid network model to meet these challenges and further improve the effect of oriented object detection. The inductive bias of CNN makes the network translation invariant, but it is difficult to adapt to RSIs with arbitrary object direction. Therefore, this paper designs a hybrid network, TransConvNet, which integrates the advantages of CNN and self-attention-based network, pays more attention to the aggregation of global and local information, makes up for the lack of rotation invariability of CNN with strong contextual attention, and adapts to the arbitrariness of the object direction of RSIs. In addition, to resolve the influence of complex backgrounds and multi-scale, an adaptive feature fusion network (AFFN) is designed to improve the information representation ability of feature maps with different resolutions. Finally, the adaptive weight loss function is used to train the network to further improve the effect of object detection. Extensive experimental results on the DOTA, UCASAOD, and VEDAI data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Towards Manifesting Reliability Issues In Modern Computer Systems

Computer Systems are evolving all the time. Particularly, the two most fundamental components, i.e., the compute unit and the storage unit, have witnessed dramatic changes in recent years. For example, on the compute side, the graphics processing units (GPUs) have emerged as an extremely cost-effective means for achieving high performance computing. Similarly, on the storage side, flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) are revolutionizing the whole IT industry. While these new technologies have improved the performance of computer systems to a new level, they also bring new challenges to the reliability of the systems. As a new computing platform, GPUs enforce a novel multi-threaded programming model. Like any multi-threaded environment, data races on GPUs can severely affect the correctness of the applications and may lead to data loss or corruption. Similarly, as a new storage medium, SSDs also bring potential reliability challenges to the already complicated storage stack. Among other things, the behavior of SSDs during power faults — which happen even in the leading data centers — is an important yet mostly ignored issue in this dependability-critical area. Besides SSDs, another important layer in modern storage stack is databases. The atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) properties modern databases provide make it easy for application developers to create highly reliable applications. However, the ACID properties are far from trivial to provide, particularly when high performance must
Variation in Hydrogel Formation and Network Structure for Telo-, Atelo- and Methacrylated Collagens

As the most abundant protein in the extracellular matrix, collagen has become widely studied in the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Of the various collagen types, collagen type I is the most commonly utilised in laboratory studies. In tissues, collagen type I forms into fibrils that provide an extended fibrillar network. In tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, little emphasis has been placed on the nature of the network that is formed. Various factors could affect the network structure, including the method used to extract collagen from native tissue, since this may remove the telopeptides, and the nature and extent of any chemical modifications and crosslinking moieties. The structure of any fibril network affects cellular proliferation and differentiation, as well as the overall modulus of hydrogels. In this study, the network-forming properties of two distinct forms of collagen (telo- and atelo-collagen) and their methacrylated derivatives were compared. The presence of the telopeptides facilitated fibril formation in the unmodified samples, but this benefit was substantially reduced by subsequent methacrylation, leading to a loss in the native self-assembly potential. Furthermore, the impact of the methacrylation of the collagen, which enables rapid crosslinking and makes it suitable for use in 3D printing, was investigated. The crosslinking of the methacrylated samples (both telo- and atelo-) was seen to improve the fibril-like network compared to the non-crosslinked samples. This contrasted with the samples of methacrylated gelatin, which showed little, if any, fibrillar or ordered network structure, regardless of whether they were crosslinked.
AIRPORT MANAGEMENT IN THE BOX – A HUMAN-IN-THE-LOOP SIMULATION FOR ACDM AND AIRPORT MANAGEMENT

This paper describes how DLR did design the simulation dynamic, the user interfaces and the interfaces for external technical systems. Additionally the validations of the simulation as well as the experiences from latest projects are summarized. At the end of the paper, the strengths and weaknesses of the DLR ACDM simulation are discussed and concluded with an outlook at future developments and usage scenarios.
Containers in Windows Server 2016

This bachelor thesis was designed to answer a series of questions from Ikomm regarding the implementation of Windows Container in Windows Server 2016. This thesis explores the functionality of containers in Windows Server 2016 technical preview 4, the architecture behind, and compared resource utilization benchmarks to existing virtualization technologies. After finishing the thesis the group is left with the impression that Windows Container is not yet a mature technology. The lack of a graphical interface and RDP support narrows the usecases for containers considerably. Microsoft has expressed that this will not be a functionality in the final release of Windows Server 2016 either. Windows is largely a graphical operating system, and most programs have graphical components that they depend on, which reinforces this issue. During our testing, the performance of Windows Container has been shown to be both weaker and more unstable when compared to virtual machines running in Hyper-V, albeit not by much. However, since the objective of containers is to achieve a better utilization of existing hardware, it suggests that Windows Container is not sufficiently optimized. With this rationale along with Ikomm not being limited by horizontal scaling, we advice them not to implement Windows Container in their server park.