Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of pneumatic rubber actuator of 400μm in diameter generating bi-directional bending motion

Recently micro soft actuators have been developed actively, because they have possibility to be applied to micro hands, catheters, and so on. Especially pneumatic rubber actuators have high potential because of simple structure and non-electrical drive leading high safety. In our previous research, the pneumatic rubber actuator that can bend into two directions by positive and negative pneumatic pressures have been developed. This paper reports miniaturization of the bending rubber actuator. The actuator is downsized from 2.0mm to 400μm in diameter. By nonlinear FEM, the actuator design is optimized, then by molding method, the actuator is fabricated. Using developed actuator of 400μm in diameter, experimentally the bi-directional bending motion by positive and negative pneumatic pressures have been confirmed.
Irreversible fingerprint template using Minutiae Relation Code with Bloom Filter

Template protected fingerprint authentication techniques have been proposed, which enables to create an irreversible fingerprint template. In this paper, we propose a new irreversible template creation technique using Minutiae Relation Code(MRC) which can describe the minutiae information efficiently, and Bloom Filter which can realize the irreversibility feature. We evaluate the authentication accuracy and security factors such as Shannon Entropy and the number of attack possibilities using FVC2002 and FVC2004 DBs. As a result, our proposed method can achieve 1.8% EER in FVC2002 DB2 with 249 attack possibilities.
Impact of co‐culture on pancreatic differentiation of embryonic stem cells

Promise of cellular therapy for type 1 diabetes has inspired the search for transplantable cell sources, and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have emerged as strong candidates. We have developed a directed differentiation protocol to obtain insulin‐producing cells from ESCs. The ESCs are first induced towards a homogeneous monolayer of definitive endoderm‐like cells by co‐culture with primary hepatocytes. Pancreatic commitment is induced by plating the ESC‐derived endoderms on Matrigel, along with Sonic hedgehog inhibition and retinoid induction. More than 70% of differentiated cells positively upregulated Pdx‐1, along with pro‐endocrine transcription factors Ngn3, β2/neroD1, Nkx2.2 and Nkx6.1. Final maturation to islet‐specific cells is achieved by co‐culturing the ESC‐derived pancreatic endocrine cells with endothelial cells, which resulted in Insulin 1 upregulation in 60% of the cell population, along with high levels of IAPP and Glut2. The differentiated cell population also secreted high levels of insulin. Our findings illustrate the significant effect of co‐culture in different stages of differentiation and maturation of ESCs in vitro. Such a high yield of pancreatic islet cells has not yet been reported. Our findings establish a robust protocol for islet differentiation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Catastrophic Drought in the Afro-Asian Monsoon Region During Heinrich Event 1

An extreme megadrought occurred in the Afro-Asian monsoon region during an iceberg melting episode 50,000 years ago. Between 15,000 and 18,000 years ago, large amounts of ice and meltwater entered the North Atlantic during Heinrich stadial 1. This caused substantial regional cooling, but major climatic impacts also occurred in the tropics. Here, we demonstrate that the height of this stadial, about 16,000 to 17,000 years ago (Heinrich event 1), coincided with one of the most extreme and widespread megadroughts of the past 50,000 years or more in the Afro-Asian monsoon region, with potentially serious consequences for Paleolithic cultures. Late Quaternary tropical drying commonly is attributed to southward drift of the intertropical convergence zone, but the broad geographic range of the Heinrich event 1 megadrought suggests that severe, systemic weakening of Afro-Asian rainfall systems also occurred, probably in response to sea surface cooling.
A New Viewpoint on Faces

Part of the brain's visual hierarchy appears to be specialized for recognizing faces from any viewpoint. One of the most fundamental features of the primate brain is its organization into hierarchical networks for sequential information processing. The visual hierarchy is a densely interconnected network of more than 30 distinct brain regions. It radiates forward from the primary visual cortex near the back of the head along a dorsal (upper) “where” pathway (which processes space and motion) and a ventral (lower) “what” pathway (which processes objects and scenes) (1). Why are there so many stages of visual processing, and how do they function together to create visual experience and knowledge? Answering these questions has been especially difficult for the ventral pathway, due to the virtual infinity of potential objects the brain can perceive. On page 845 of this issue (2), Freiwald and Tsao focus on one unique category of objects—human faces—as a paradigm for understanding hierarchical processing in the ventral pathway.
Cooperation and the Commons

In Ethiopia, groups with a higher propensity to cooperate avoid the tragedy of the commons. Sustainably managing common natural resources, such as fisheries, water, and forests, is essential for our long-term survival. Many analysts have assumed, however, that people will maximize short-term self-benefits—for example, by cutting as much firewood as they can sell—and warned that this behavior will inevitably produce a “tragedy of the commons” (1), such as a stripped forest that no longer produces wood for anyone. But in laboratory simulations of such social dilemmas, the outcome is not always tragedy. Instead, a basic finding is that humans do not universally maximize short-term self-benefits, and can cooperate to produce shared, long-term benefits (2, 3). Similar findings have come from field studies of commonly managed resources (6–7). It has been challenging, however, to directly relate laboratory findings to resource conditions in the field, and identify the conditions that enhance cooperation. On page 961 of this issue, Rustagi et al. (8) help fill this gap. In an innovative study of Ethiopia's Oromo people, they use economic experiments and forest growth data to show that groups that had a higher proportion of “conditional cooperators” were more likely to invest in forest patrols aimed at enforcing firewood collection rules—and had more productive forests. They also show that other factors, including a group's distance to markets and the quality of its leadership, influenced the success of cooperative management.
A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students

Reducing feelings of social exclusion yields lasting improvements in academic performance and health in college students. A brief intervention aimed at buttressing college freshmen’s sense of social belonging in school was tested in a randomized controlled trial (N = 92), and its academic and health-related consequences over 3 years are reported. The intervention aimed to lessen psychological perceptions of threat on campus by framing social adversity as common and transient. It used subtle attitude-change strategies to lead participants to self-generate the intervention message. The intervention was expected to be particularly beneficial to African-American students (N = 49), a stereotyped and socially marginalized group in academics, and less so to European-American students (N = 43). Consistent with these expectations, over the 3-year observation period the intervention raised African Americans’ grade-point average (GPA) relative to multiple control groups and halved the minority achievement gap. This performance boost was mediated by the effect of the intervention on subjective construal: It prevented students from seeing adversity on campus as an indictment of their belonging. Additionally, the intervention improved African Americans’ self-reported health and well-being and reduced their reported number of doctor visits 3 years postintervention. Senior-year surveys indicated no awareness among participants of the intervention’s impact. The results suggest that social belonging is a psychological lever where targeted intervention can have broad consequences that lessen inequalities in achievement and health.
Synthetic motion capture for interactive virtual worlds

The numerical simulation of biomechanical models enables the behavioral animation of realistic artificial animals in virtual worlds. Unfortunately, even on high-end graphics workstations, the biomechanical simulation approach is at present computationally too demanding for the animation of numerous animals at interactive frame rates. We tackle this problem by replacing biomechanical animal models with fast kinematic replicas that reproduce the locomotion abilities of the original models with reasonable fidelity. Our technique is based on capturing motion data by systematically simulating the biomechanical models. We refer to it as synthetic motion capture, because of the similarity to natural motion capture applied to real animals. We compile the captured motion data into kinematic action repertoires that are sufficiently rich to support elaborate behavioral animation. Synthetic motion capture in conjunction with level-of-detail geometric modeling and object culling during rendering has enabled us to transform a system designed for the realistic, off-line biomechanical/behavioral animation of artificial fishes into an interactive, stereoscopic, virtual undersea experience.
Bacteria-Phage Antagonistic Coevolution in Soil

Microcosm experiments show endless cycles of host and parasite adaptation in near natural populations. Bacteria and their viruses (phages) undergo rapid coevolution in test tubes, but the relevance to natural environments is unclear. By using a “mark-recapture” approach, we showed rapid coevolution of bacteria and phages in a soil community. Unlike coevolution in vitro, which is characterized by increases in infectivity and resistance through time (arms race dynamics), coevolution in soil resulted in hosts more resistant to their contemporary than past and future parasites (fluctuating selection dynamics). Fluctuating selection dynamics, which can potentially continue indefinitely, can be explained by fitness costs constraining the evolution of high levels of resistance in soil. These results suggest that rapid coevolution between bacteria and phage is likely to play a key role in structuring natural microbial communities.
Optical Metamaterials—More Bulky and Less Lossy

Advanced techniques for bulk fabrication and loss reduction provide good prospects for practical optical metamaterials. Usually, investigators in materials science have asked: “What properties does a certain new material or structure have? ” Now, the inverse problem arises: “I want to achieve certain—possibly unheard-of—material properties. How should the corresponding micro- or nanostructure look? ” Examples could be: efficiently blocking acoustic noise due to a highway from a nearby village by a tailored wall, concentrating electromagnetic energy into as-tight-as-possible spaces, or avoiding reflections from a material's surface. The underlying common scheme is wave physics. Material properties that were otherwise unachievable, e.g., negative refraction and cloaking, may eventually be designed into optical metamaterials and photonic crystals. Both require tailoring of the properties (i.e., phase velocity and impedance) of an electromagnetic wave moving through the substance at the local level. In photonic crystals, the phase velocity of an electromagnetic wave moving through the crystal is controlled by tuning the photonic band structure; the impedance is determined by the electromagnetic field distributions throughout the material. In metamaterials, this amounts to tailoring the effective electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. In either case, introducing resonances is the key to controlling the local wave properties. The recent development of advanced fabrication techniques being applied to metamaterials and photonic crystals may lead to realization of such designer materials.
Working With Couples and Substance Abuse: Recommendations for Clinical Practice

Misuse of alcohol and drugs is widespread in modern society with the associated emotional and physical tolls on individuals, couples, and families. Yet, many therapists do not assess nor address substance misuse when clients do not identify it as a presenting problem. This article presents an overview of the literature on key aspects of couples and substance use and makes important clinical recommendations for mental health professionals who work with couples that struggle with substance use.
Robust Dense Visual Odometry with boundary pixel suppression

Pose estimation and 3D environment reconstruction are crucial for autonomous navigation in mobile robotics. Robust dense visual odometry based on a RGB-D sensor uses all pixels to estimate frame-to-frame motion by minimizing the photometric and geometric error. 3D coordinates of each pixel are calculated necessarily with its corresponding depth. However, depths of some pixels near object boundaries from RGB-D sensors are not accurate. The general robust dense visual odometry does not consider depth noise impact for photometric error and geometric error. In this paper, we construct uncertainties of photometric error and geometric error with depth noise and point out depth noise near object boundaries can significantly affect the result of motion estimation. We present a modified robust dense visual odometry with boundary pixel suppression. Publicly available benchmark datasets are employed to evaluate our system, and results showed that our method achieves higher accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art Dense Visual Odometry (DVO).
High-Temperature Rubber Made from Carbon Nanotubes

A mixture of carbon nanotubes creates a material that can recover its shape after deformation over a wide temperature range. Carbon nanotubes have been among the most studied materials for the past two decades (1); they display several remarkable properties, such as extremely high tensile strength and electrical conductivity. On page 1364 of this issue, Xu et al. (2) report another case of extreme mechanical performance of a carbon material—viscoelastic behavior of nanotubes in a wide temperature range—that no other solid has shown so far.
Update on the Methodological Quality of Research Published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine

Background: In recent years, the number of articles in The American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM) has risen dramatically, with an increasing emphasis on evidence-based medicine in orthopaedics and sports medicine. Hypothesis: Despite the increase in the number of articles published in AJSM over the past decade, the methodological quality of articles in 2011-2013 has improved relative to those in 2001-2003 and 1991-1993. Study Design: Meta-analysis. Methods: All articles published in AJSM during 2011-2013 were reviewed and classified by study design. For each article, the use of pertinent methodologies, such as prospective data collection, randomization, control groups, and blinding, was recorded. The frequency of each article type and the use of evidence-based techniques were compared relative to 1991-1993 and 2001-2003 by use of Pearson χ2 testing. Results: The number of research articles published in AJSM more than doubled from 402 in 1991-1993 and 423 in 2001-2003 to 953 in 2011-2013. Case reports decreased from 15.2% to 10.6% to 2.1% of articles published over the study period (P < .001). Cadaveric/human studies and meta-analysis/literature review studies increased from 5.7% to 7.1% to 12.4% (P < .001) and from 0.2% to 0.9% to 2.3% (P = .01), respectively. Randomized, prospective clinical trials increased from 2.7% to 5.9% to 7.4% (P = .007). Fewer studies used retrospective compared with prospective data collection (P < .001). More studies tested an explicit hypothesis (P < .001) and used controls (P < .001), randomization (P < .001), and blinding of those assessing outcomes (P < .001). Multi-investigator trials increased (P < .001), as did the proportion of articles citing a funding source (P < .001). Conclusion: Despite a dramatic increase in the number of published articles, the research published in AJSM shifted toward more prospective, randomized, controlled, and blinded designs during 2011-2013 compared with 2001-2003 and 1991-1993, demonstrating a continued improvement in methodological quality.
Successful Total Meniscus Reconstruction Using a Novel Fiber-Reinforced Scaffold

Background: Meniscus injuries in the United States result in an estimated 850,000 surgical procedures each year. Although meniscectomies are the most commonly performed orthopaedic surgery, little advancement has been made in meniscus replacement and regeneration, and there is currently no total meniscus replacement device approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Hypothesis: A novel fiber-reinforced meniscus scaffold can be used as a functional total meniscus replacement. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: A tyrosine-derived, polymer fiber–reinforced collagen sponge meniscus scaffold was evaluated mechanically (tensile and compressive testing) and histologically after 16 and 32 weeks of implantation in an ovine total meniscectomy model (N = 20; 16 implants plus 4 meniscectomies, divided equally over the 2 time periods). The extent of cartilage damage was also measured on tibial plateaus by use of toluidine blue surface staining and on femoral condyles by use of Mankin scores on histological slides. Results: Scaffolds induced formation of neomeniscus tissue that remained intact and functional, with breaking loads approximating 250 N at both 16 and 32 weeks compared with 552 N for native menisci. Tensile stiffness values (99 and 74 N/mm at 16 and 32 weeks, respectively) were also comparable with those of the native meniscus (147 N/mm). The compressive modulus of the neomeniscus tissue (0.33 MPa at both 16 and 32 weeks) was significantly increased compared with unimplanted (time 0) scaffolds (0.15 MPa). There was histological evidence of extensive tissue ingrowth and extracellular matrix deposition, with immunohistochemical evidence of types I and II collagen. Based on significantly decreased surface damage scores as well as Mankin scores, the scaffold implants provided greater protection of articular cartilage compared with the untreated total meniscectomy. Conclusion: This novel fiber-reinforced meniscus scaffold can act as a functional meniscus replacement, with mechanical properties similar to those of the native meniscus, while protecting the articular cartilage of the knee from the extensive damage after a total meniscectomy. Clinical Relevance: This meniscus replacement scaffold has the potential to improve surgical treatment and provide better long-term outcomes for those suffering from severe meniscus damage.
Design and control of a redundant mechanism for small motion

Redundant manipulators are expected to increase robot performance by reducing the problem of workspace singularities, allowing for obstacle avoidance and providing the opportunity for gross motion optimization. We show that the addition of redundant joints can also increase the dynamic response for small motions of the manipulator at its endpoint. We begin by considering a two link mechanism, which is the simplest redundant system for effecting motion in a single direction. It is shown that the addition of a second link reduces the power required for sinusoidal motion at the mechanism endpoint. A method of choosing the relative link dimensions is then presented. Given a particular choice of link lengths, we show how to allocate motion between the joints to minimize the power required for a specified amplitude of motion. Finally, a strategy is proposed for local control of this redundant system which uses a quick acting mode to respond to disturbances and high bandwidth commands, and a slow acting mode to return the mechanism to a nominal configuration. The implications for control of redundant manipulator systems (i.e. hand and arm systems) are discussed.
The Tendon Structure Returns to Asymptomatic Values in Nonoperatively Treated Achilles Tendinopathy but Is Not Associated With Symptoms

Background: Tendinopathy is characterized by alterations in the tendon structure, but there are conflicting results on the potential of tendon structure normalization and no large studies on the quantified, ultrasonographic tendon structure and its association with symptoms. Purpose: To determine whether the tendon structure returns to values of asymptomatic individuals after treatment with 2 substances injected within the tendon, to assess the association between the tendon structure and symptoms, and to assess the prognostic value of the baseline tendon structure on treatment response. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods: This study was part of a randomized trial on chronic midportion Achilles tendinopathy using eccentric exercises with either a platelet-rich plasma or saline injection. Symptoms were recorded using the Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment–Achilles (VISA-A) questionnaire. The tendon structure was quantified with ultrasound tissue characterization (UTC); echo types I + II (as a percentage of total tendon types I-IV) are structure related. Follow-up was at 6, 12, 24, and 52 weeks. A control group of asymptomatic subjects (similar age) was selected to compare the tendon structure. Patient symptomswere correlated with the tendon structure using a linear model. Results: Fifty-four patients were included in the symptomatic group. The mean (±SD) echo types I + II in the symptomatic group increased significantly from 74.6% ± 10.8% at baseline to 85.6% ± 6.0% at 24-week follow-up. The result for echo types I + II at 24 weeks was not significantly different (P = .198) from that of the asymptomatic control group (87.5% ± 6.0%). In 54 repeated measurements at 5 time points, the adjusted percentage of echo types I + II was not associated with the VISA-A score (main effect: β = .12; 95% CI, −0.12 to 0.35; P = .338). The adjusted baseline echo types I + II were not associated with a change in the VISA-A score from baseline to 52 weeks (β = −.15; 95% CI, −0.67 to 0.36; P = .555). Conclusion: In symptomatic, tendinopathic Achilles tendons, the ultrasonographic tendon structure improved during nonoperative treatment and normalized after 24 weeks to values of matched asymptomatic controls. There was no association between the tendon structure and symptoms. The percentage of echo types I + II before treatment was not associated with change in symptoms over time. This study demonstrates that restoration of the tendon structure is not required for an improvement of symptoms.
Early Pleistocene Presence of Acheulian Hominins in South India

Dates from a site in southeast India imply an early migration of Homo through Eurasia about 1.1 to 1.5 million years ago. South Asia is rich in Lower Paleolithic Acheulian sites. These have been attributed to the Middle Pleistocene on the basis of a small number of dates, with a few older but disputed age estimates. Here, we report new ages from the excavated site of Attirampakkam, where paleomagnetic measurements and direct 26Al/10Be burial dating of stone artifacts now position the earliest Acheulian levels as no younger than 1.07 million years ago (Ma), with a pooled average age of 1.51 ± 0.07 Ma. These results reveal that, during the Early Pleistocene, India was already occupied by hominins fully conversant with an Acheulian technology including handaxes and cleavers among other artifacts. This implies that a spread of bifacial technologies across Asia occurred earlier than previously accepted.