Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of smart polymers in medical devices for minimally invasive surgery , diagnosis and other applications

This chapter describes the types of smart polymers, the technologies used for their production and their applications in the fi eld of medical devices. Stimuli-responsive polymers are classifi ed according to their behaviour in response to the environment and on the basis of their structural properties. Most advanced strategies for the design of intelligent macromolecular systems are also reviewed, with an emphasis on the nanopatterning of surfaces. The main applications of these materials for the design of novel medical devices, which include minimally invasive surgery, cancer diagnosis and therapy, biosensors, bioactuators and microfl uidics-based systems, are discussed.
A boundary element method for steady state convection-diffusion problems with or without phase change

This paper presents a boundary element approach to the solution of convection-diffusion problems with or without an internal free surface caused by the liquid-to-solid transition or solidification. Boundary element formulation for convection diffusion problems is presented, along with its numerical implementation and its application to both linear and nonlinear boundaries with and/or without internal free boundaries. The nonlinear boundaries are accounted for using the Newton-based iteration algorithm. Numerical results calculated using the boundary element method are presented and compared with solutions obtained analytically and by other numerical methods.
Responsive City Lighting: Perspectives From Architecture & the Public Lighting Industry

This paper presents and discusses perspectives extracted from two interviews conducted during the experiments Urban Responsive Lighting. The interviews represent two different fields related to urban lighting: architecture & the public lighting industry. The experts were invited to visit a full-scale responsive light experiment, where 15 LED RGB Park lamps were controlled either by a wind sensor, a mobile phone app or by thermal camera tracking all presenting new strategies for responsive public lighting. According to the specialists the social and aesthetical dimensions are more interesting than energy use and efficiency. This motivates an interdisciplinary discussion on applied technologies and responsive light design methodologies in the future smart city.
The Theory of Three-dimensional Turbulent Diffusion By Y. Ogura and K. Miyakoda

Abstract The three-dimensional diffusion of minute particles emitted from a point source is discussed in close connection with the energy spectrum of the isotropic and homo geneous turbulence, and it is shown that the feature of the diffused cloud near the source is controlled solely by the energy spectrum in the intermediate wave-number range. Moreover, an approximate representation for statistical quantities which appear frequently in the turbulence theory is presented.
THE PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THREE METAHEURISTIC ALGORITHMS ON THE SIZE, LAYOUT AND TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION OF TRUSS STRUCTURES PERFORMANS KARŞILAŞTIRMASI

The structural optimization problem mostly deals with the weight minimization of the structural system. This issue can be assessed from the size, layout and topology aspects. No matter which aspect(s) is targeted, to solve the problem an optimization technique is required. In the last decades the metaheuristic techniques, as the non-gradient optimization algorithms, are widely applied on solving these classes of problems. In the structural optimization, the most time consuming part of the process is the objective function evaluation. Based on this fact, in the current work, metaheuristic techniques are divided into three main groups as single phase, double phase and multi-phase algorithms. Then based on the author knowledge, three representative methods are picked for each group and their search performance comparatively inspected on solving size, shape and topology optimization of truss structures. To meet this aim, Integrated Particle Swarm Optimization (iPSO), Teaching and Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) and Drosophila Food-Search Optimization (DSO) algorithms are selected, respectively. Different properties like accuracy, convergence rate and complexity of the algorithms are investigated. The outcomes are provided via illustrative diagrams and tables. Based on the achieved results, DSO shows the most complexity level among the other algorithm while the iPSO and TLBO can outperform it on both accuracy and convergence rate. Consequently, iPSO presents a higher accuracy level on finding optimal solutions and TLBO with the lowest standard deviation value through the process shows the highest level of stability on finding optimal solutions.
Aggregates grain size and press rate dependence of the shielding parameters for some concretes

This study points to evaluate the effect of crushed basalt grain size and the press rate on gamma ray shielding properties for some concretes. Nine different concretes were made up of 75% basalt, 25% Portland cement and drops of sodium meta silicate. Three concretes were performed with an average grain size varied between 25 and 107 μm. The other six concretes were performed under different press rate varied between 1.01 and 142.76 kg/ cm using a hydraulic press. The mass attenuation coefficient (μm) of the prepared concretes was measured using the narrow beam transmission method using a hyper pure germanium detector at gamma ray energies 661.6, 1173.2, 1332.5, 121.8, 244.7, 344.3, 778.9, 964, 1112, 1408 KeV emitted by point sources Cs, Co and Eu. Other important shielding parameters such as half value thickness and radiation protection efficiency were calculated for the prepared concretes at different energies. The obtained experimental data was compared with theoretical data obtained from XCOM program. The results showed that the mass attenuation coefficient was decreased with energy increase, but it increases with grain size decrease. The obtained results showed also that the mass attenuation enhanced by increasing the pressure rate.
The power of fear-relevant features: Evidence for generalization of enhanced attentional processing and subjective fear in snake- and spider-fearful individuals

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Treatment of Corn Straw with Pleurotus ostreatus , Pleurotus eryngii and Lentinula edodes to Improve the Digestibility of the Lignocellulosic Complex

: The objectives of the present study were to investigate the degradation of lignocellulosic complex of corn straw (CS) by the treatment with Pleurotus ostreatus (PO), Pleurotus eryngii (PE) and Lentinula edodes (LE) and to determine both the most effective fungus and incubation time. The chopped corn straws were treated with PO, PE and LE, and incubated for 10, 20, 30 and 40 days at 26 0 C. Chemical composition of control (CS-C) and treated corn straw (CS-PO, CS-PE and CS-LE) samples were determined. The in vitro true digestibilities of dry matter (IVTDMD), neutral detergent fiber (IVTNDFD), acid detergent fiber (IVTADFD) and acid detergent lignin (IVTADLD) of CS-C, CS-PO, CS-PE and CS-LE were determined by Ankom Daisy II incubator. PO treatment at 30 days incubation of corn straw increased the in vitro true digestibility by approximately 17%. The obtained results showed that the most effective fungus was Pleurotus ostreatus and incubation time was 30 days.
MASTER’S THESIS DESIGN AND DEMOSTRATION OF DIGITAL PRE-DISTORTION USING SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO

High data rates for large number of users set tight requirements for signal quality measured in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM). In radio transmitters, nonlinear distortion dominated by power amplifiers (PAs) often limits the achievable EVM. However, the linearity can be improved by linearization techniques. Digital pre-distortion (DPD) is one of these widely used linearization techniques for an effective distortion reduction over a wide bandwidth. In DPD, the nonlinearity of the transmitter is pre-compensated in the digital domain to achieve linear output. Moreover, DPD is used to enable PAs to operate in the power-efficient region with a decent linearity. As we are moving towards millimetre-wave frequencies to enable the wideband communications, the design of the DPD algorithm must be optimized in terms of performance and power consumption. Moreover, continuous development of wireless infrastructure motivates to make research on programmable and reconfigurable platforms in order to decrease the demonstration cost and time, especially for the demonstration purposes. This thesis illustrates and presents how software defined radio (SDR) platforms can be used to demonstrate DPD. Universal software defined peripheral (USRP) X300 is a commercial software defined radio (SDR) platform. The chosen model, X300, has two independent channels equipped with individual transceiver cards. SIMULINK is used to communicate with the device and the two channels of X300 are used as transmitter and receiver simultaneously in full-duplex mode. Hence, a single USRP device is acting as an operational transmitter and feedback receiver, simultaneously. The implemented USRP design consists of SIMULINK based transceiver design and lookup table based DPD in which the coefficients are calculated in MATLAB offline. An external PA, i.e. ZFL-2000+ together with a directional coupler and attenuator are connected between the TX/RX port and RX2 port to measure the nonlinearity. The nonlinearity transceiver is measured with and without the external PA. The experimental results show decent performance for linearization by using the USRP platform. However, the results differ widely due to the used USRP transceiver parameterization and PA operational point. The 16 QAM test signal with 500 kHz bandwidth is fed to the USRP transmit chain. As an example, the DPD algorithm improves the EVM from 7.6% to 2.1% and also the ACPR is reduced around 10 dB with the 16 QAM input signal where approximately + 2.2 dBm input power applied to the external PA.
Lack of the intestinal Muc1 mucin impairs cholesterol uptake and absorption but not fatty acid uptake in Muc1 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice

Lack of the intestinal Muc1 mucin impairs cholesterol uptake and absorption but not fatty acid uptake in Am G554, 2004. —Before cholesterol and fatty acid molecules in the small intestinal lumen can interact with their possible transporters for uptake and absorption, they must pass through a diffusion barrier, which may modify the kinetics of nutrient assimilation. This barrier includes an unstirred water layer and a surface mucous coat, which is located at the intestinal lumen-membrane interface. In the present study, we investigated whether disruption of the mucin gene ( Muc ) 1 may inﬂuence intestinal uptake and absorption of cholesterol and fatty acid in male Muc1 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice. The wild-type mice displayed relatively high levels of Muc1 , Muc2 , Muc3 , and Muc4 mRNAs and relatively low levels of Muc5ac and Muc5b mRNAs in the small intestine. The absence of Muc1 mRNA and protein in the small intestines of Muc1 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice conﬁrmed complete knockout of the Muc1 gene, but the mRNA expression for other mucin genes remained unchanged. Intestinal uptake and absorption of cholesterol but not palmitic acid were signiﬁcantly reduced in Muc1 (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice compared with the wild-type mice. However, knockout of the Muc1 gene did not impair either expression levels of the genes that encode intestinal sterol efﬂux transporters Abcg5 and Abcg8 and fatty acid transporter Fatp4 or small intestinal transit rates. We conclude that physiological levels of the epithelial mucin produced by the Muc1 gene are necessary for normal intestinal uptake and absorption of cholesterol in mice. Our study implies that because cholesterol absorption efﬁciency is reduced by (cid:2) 50% in Muc1-deﬁcient mice, there may be one or more additional pathways for cholesterol absorption. effect on the diffusion barrier of the small intestine. To explore the contributions of individual mucin genes to intestinal cholesterol metabolism, we investigated cholesterol uptake and absorption and fatty acid uptake by the enterocyte in male mice with targeted disruption of the Muc1 gene. Our results show that the intestinal uptake and absorption of cholesterol but not fatty acid are signiﬁcantly decreased in Muc1 -deﬁcient ( Muc1 (cid:1) / (cid:1) ) mice compared with 0.0001) compared with the wild-type mice. In contrast, the intestinal uptake of [ 3 H]palmitic acid ( B ) is comparable in Muc1 (cid:1) (cid:1) and wild-type mice. Our data suggest that the uptake mechanisms of cholesterol and fatty acid by the small intestine may be different. N.S. , not signiﬁcant.
- here to stay or a fad that will fade away? A

There is a shift of values in the Western society of today from material to immaterial values Löhman and Steinholtz (2003). This changes together with the interest among people in Sweden and in the rest of the Western world to travel and experience new cultures the developing world has come closer. This has raised the awareness of the role of companies regarding social responsibility since most companies have suppliers, producers or some other kind of involvement in developing countries. Today several companies are engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues. However, the topic of CSR has to a large extent divided a large part of the Swedish business world due to the strong opinions regarding this topic. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the concept of CSR is perceived by Swedish corporations and what implications it yields. This will be done by comparing the views of three different groups: managers in Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) and managers of Swedish large sized enterprises (LSE’s), responsible for CSR im-plementation, supplemented with the view of independent thinkers. To perform the study a qualitative method has been used. Eleven interviews have been conducted with company representatives as well as independent thinkers that are involved in or have a great knowledge in the field of CSR. The respondents have been divided into three groups: ethically driven SME’s, LSE’s working with CSR and independent thinkers. The concept of corporate social responsibility is perceived very differently in between the three groups. The views are split regarding their fundamental understanding of CSR, which is reflected in their relation to stakeholders as well as their thoughts about the future development of CSR. The motives, ideological and commercial, for working with CSR also dif-fers and some external thinkers believe that there are no motives for engage in CSR at all.
Fatigue Life Assessment of 30CrNiMo8HH Steel Under Variable Amplitude Loading

The actual service loading histories of most engineering components are characterized by variable amplitudes and are sometimes rather complicated. The goal of this study was to estimate the fatigue life of nickel-chromium-molybdenum 30CrNiMo8HH steel alloy under axial and pure torsion variable amplitude loading (VAL) conditions. The investigation was directed at two primary factors that are believed to have an influence on fatigue life under such loading conditions: load sequence and mean stress. The experimental work for this research included two-step loading, non-zero mean strain loading, and VAL tests, the results of which were added to previously determined fully reversed strain-controlled fatigue data. The effect of load sequence on fatigue life was examined through the application of the commonly used linear damage accumulation rule along with the Manson and Marco–Starkey damage accumulation methods, the latter of which takes load sequence into account. Based on the two-step experimental results, both the Manson and Marco–Starkey methods were modified in order to eliminate the empirically determined constants normally required for these two methods. The effect of mean stress on fatigue life was investigated with the use of three life prediction models: Smith–Watson–Topper (SWT), Fatemi–Socie (FS), and Jahed–Varvani (JV). The cycles from the VAL histories were counted using a rainflow counting procedure that maintains the applied strain sequence, and a novel method was developed for the estimation of the total energy density required for the JV model. For two-step loading and for all three fatigue models employed, the modified damage accumulation methods provided superior fatigue life predictions. However, regardless of the damage accumulation method applied, the most satisfactory fatigue life correlation for VAL was obtained using the energy-based JV model.
Preferences of Sumatran orangutan nesting tree at Bukit Lawang Forests of Gunung Leuser National Park

Sumatran orangutans (SOUs) are an endemic great ape and the populations are limited distributed at the northern tip of Sumatra as well as recorded as critically endangered, globally. Forest loss and degradations are major causes of the decline of SOU populations from time to time. This research was aimed to identify the preferences of nesting trees of SOU in natural habitat as a consideration in the selection of tree species to restore orangutan habitat. Vegetation analysis using combination line transects and quadrat methods were done at Bukit Lawang Forests (BLF) of Gunung Leuser National Park (GLNP). There was 4 line transects as well as 25 25m x 25m sampling plots were established in each line transects. Each tree in all sampling plots that contain orangutan nests is identified and counted. Based on inventory, there were 121 SOU nests on 58 tree species with 14 tree species classified as preferences of SOU nesting trees. Litsea firma (Lauraceae) was recorded as the most preferences of SOU nesting trees, followed by Knema latericia (Myristicaceae), Cleistanthus sp. (Euphorbiaceae) and three species of Dipterocarpaceae, such as Shorea ovalis, S. parvifolia, and S. leprosula .
RETRO-ACTIVE SKILL OF MULTI-TIERED FORECASTS OF SUMMER RAINFALL OVER SOUTHERN AFRICA

Sea-surface temperature (SST) variations of the oceans surrounding southern Africa are associated with seasonal rainfall variability, especially during austral summer when the tropical atmospheric circulation is dominant over the region. Because of instabilities in the linear association between summer rainfall over southern Africa and SSTs of the tropical Indian Ocean, the skilful prediction of seasonal rainfall may best be achieved using physically based models. A two-tiered retro-active forecast procedure for the December–February (DJF) season is employed over a 10-year period starting from 1987 : 1988. Rainfall forecasts are produced for a number of homogeneous regions over part of southern Africa. Categorized (below-normal, near-normal and above-normal) statistical DJF rainfall predictions are made for the region to form the baseline skill level that has to be outscored by more elaborate methods involving general circulation models (GCMs). The GCM used here is the Centre for Ocean–Land–Atmosphere Studies (COLA) T30, with predicted global SST fields as boundary forcing and initial conditions derived from the National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data. Bias-corrected GCM simulations of circulation and moisture at certain standard pressure levels are downscaled to produce rainfall forecasts at the regional level using the perfect prognosis approach. In the two-tiered forecasting system, SST predictions for the global oceans are made first. SST anomalies of the equatorial Pacific (NIN 0 O3.4) and Indian oceans are predicted skilfully at 1- and 3-month lead-times using a statistical model. These retro-active SST forecasts are accurate for pre-1990 conditions, but predictability seems to have weakened during the 1990s. Skilful multi-tiered rainfall forecasts are obtained when the amplitudes of large events in the global oceans (such as El Nin˜o and La Nin˜a episodes) are described adequately by the predicted SST fields. GCM simulations using persisted August SST anomalies instead of forecast SSTs produce skill levels similar to those of the baseline for longer lead-times. Given high-skill SST forecasts, the scheme has the potential to provide climate forecasts that outscore the baseline skill level substantially. Copyright © 2001 Royal Meteorological Society.
Using the envisionTM sustainable infrastructure rating system in a civil engineering capstone design course

Sustainability is a key concept for civil engineers. In the past decade a number of efforts have been made to incorporate sustainability knowledge, techniques, and tools into civil engineering education. One approach has been to use professional rating systems as a vehicle in design courses. This paper describes such an approach using the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) Envision rating system as part of a learning module in the capstone design course at the University of Utah. In the module, students are first presented fundamental sustainability concepts and tools, and in a separate seminar are introduced to the Envision rating system. Students are exposed at least two more times to brief follow-up discussions applying Envision to their project. It was expected that the use of Envision helps students reinforce underlying sustainability concepts and improve the learning about Envision by applying it to a project. The module effectiveness was assessed for the Fall 2013 semester using three formats: (1) a new civil engineering sustainability literacy questionnaire administered before and after the module, (2) quality of application of the Envision Rating System to the project, and (3) instructor reflection. Results from full assessment in the Fall 2013 semester and partial assessment in the Spring 2014 semester indicate the module helped introduce students to basic sustainability concepts and Envision. However, the assessment suggests a stand-alone course within the civil engineering curriculum would promote a much deeper understanding of sustainability concepts, motivating factors, and broader applications which are beyond the capability of a single capstone design project learning module.
Transport and internal organization of membranes: vesicles, membrane networks and GTP-binding proteins

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Transport and internal organization of membranes: vesicles, membrane networks and GTP-binding proteins Jesus Ayala-Sanmartin