Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Droplet motion on chemically heterogeneous substrates with mass transfer. II. Three-dimensional dynamics

We consider a thin droplet that spreads over a flat, horizontal and chemically heterogeneous surface. The droplet is subjected to changes in its volume though a prescribed, arbitrary spatiotemporal function, which varies slowly and vanishes along the contact line. A matched asymptotics analysis is undertaken in the long-wave limit of the Stokes equations with slip to derive a set of evolution equations for the Fourier harmonics of nearly circular contact lines. Numerical experiments highlight the generally excellent agreement between the long-wave model and the derived equations, demonstrating that these are able to capture many of the features which characterize the intricate interplay between substrate heterogeneities and mass transfer on droplet motion.
Low Variability Resistor–Memristor Circuit Masking the Actual Memristor States

Dr. K. M. Kim, Dr. J. J. Yang, Dr. E. Merced, Dr. C. Graves, Dr. S. Lam, N. Davila, Dr. M. Hu, N. Ge, Dr. Z. Li, Dr. R. S. Williams Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Hewlett-Packard Company Palo Alto , CA 94304 , USA E-mail: stan.williams@hp.com Prof. C. S. Hwang Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center Seoul National University Seoul 151-744 , South Korea E-mail: cheolsh@snu.ac. kr
Progress in Scientific Studies of Groundwater in the Hydrologic Cycle in Canada, 2003-2007

This paper summarizes recent progress in Canadian groundwater hydrology, focussing on scientific studies of groundwater in relation to the hydrologic cycle, excluding studies that deal primarily with groundwater contamination, water resource evaluation, and engineering applications. Within the scope of this limited survey, major research interests appear to be in groundwater-surface water interaction, groundwater recharge and its sensitivity to climate change, regional hydrogeology, hydrogeophysics, and the development of sophisticated numerical models that integrate subsurface and surface hydrology.
Design of discrete-time repetitive control system for pole placement and application

A new repetitive control system is proposed from the viewpoint of pole placement. First, the proposed repetitive controller can assign all poles of the closed-loop system on a disk with a given radius and the center at the origin. As a result, faster convergence of the controlled error to zero than the previous ones is obtained. Next, the proposed controller is obtained explicitly, and the design method does not require an equation to be solved. The design effort is independent of the period of the repetitive signals to be tracked or rejected. In other words, the design effort is very small, even if the period is very large. Then, the robustness of the control system is improved by introducing a low-pass finite-duration impulse-response filter in the controller. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to a DC servomotor system, and the effectiveness is demonstrated by both simulations and experiments.
High speed wavelength-swept laser source with simple configuration for optical coherence tomography

This paper reports on a high-speed, wavelength-swept laser operating at 1310nm for optical coherence tomography (OCT) applications. The simple and reliable laser comprises a pigtailed semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and a wavelength-scanning filter in a fiber ring cavity configuration. The tunable filter consists of a diffraction grating and polygon mirror scanner in Littrow configuration. A photodiode is used to generate a start trigger signal synchronized to the start of each frequency sweep. Intracavity prisms plays important role to provide constant and narrow laser linewidth and linear frequency sweep at the same time. The laser exhibits a peak power of over 20mW. The tuning range of the laser is as wide as 120nm maximum, and 100nm FWHM at a scanning frequency of 20kHz. Coherence length was measured to be 4mm. By utilizing a novel double pass configuration in the scanning filter an improvement in coherence length to 7mm is also achieved. OCT system configured with the light source exhibits 106dB sensitivity and 12μm axial resolution in imaging.
Investigating the Impacts of the Political System Components in Iran on the Existing Water Bankruptcy

Iran is suffering from a state of water bankruptcy. Several factors have contributed to the current water resources bankruptcy, ranging from anthropogenic impacts, such as an inefficient agricultural sector and aggressive withdrawal of groundwater, to climatological impacts. This paper suggests that water resources mismanagement in Iran should be evaluated beyond the policy-makers decisions, as it recognizes that the bankruptcy has been intensified due to the structural and institutional form of the political system in Iran. This study discusses the roots of the water bankruptcy and identifies four major shortcomings caused by the political system: (1) the absence of public engagement due to the lack of a democratic and decentralized structure; (2) adopting ideological policies in domestic and foreign affairs; (3) conflicts of interest and the multiplicity of governmental policy-makers and sectors; and (4) a state-controlled, resource-dependent economy. Through the development of a generic causal model, this study recommends a systematic transition towards a democratic, decentralized, non-ideological, and economically diverse political governance as the necessary–but not necessarily sufficient–adaptive and sustainable solution for mitigating the impacts of water resources bankruptcy in Iran. The insights highlighted in this paper could be employed to inform water resources decision-makers and political actors in other non-democratic and ideological political structures struggling with a water resources crisis or bankruptcy.
Improved EEMD Applied to Rotating Machinery Fault Diagnosis

Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) is a new noise-assisted data analysis (NADA) method. The effect of EEMD depends on two key parameters which are the amplitude of white noise and the ensemble times. However, the shortcoming of EEMD is that it lacks adaptability and reliability because these two key important parameters are obtained by experience and human intervention. An Improved Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition method is proposed in this paper, by adding white noise and ascertaining ensemble number adaptively. The criterion of adding white noise in Improved EEMD is established, by which a composite simulation signal could be adaptively and accurately decomposed into IMFs without mode mixing. The proposed method is applied to a gear fault detection of hot strip finishing mills. The result shows that Improved EEMD method successfully extracts the gear fault feature with high precise diagnosis results.
Contact Toxicity of Insecticides and Biopesticides to Trichogramma Chilonis Ishii. (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) under Laboratory Condition

Integration of insecticides and biological controls is an important tactic of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Trichogramma chilonis is a promising natural enemy of many lepidopteran insect pests. However, this hymenopteran egg parasitoid is adversely affected by most insecticides. Contact toxicity of nineteen insecticides and three biopesticides on adults of T. chilonis was investigated by using dry film residue bioassays under laboratory conditions. Profenofos and chlorpyrifos were highly lethal to the adults even at sublethal doses followed by dimethoate, spinosad, indoxacarb and acephate + imidacloprid. Diafenthiuron, nimbecidine and flubendiamide were categorised as less toxic. The biopesticides viz., Metarhizium anisopliae, Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium rileyi were found innocuous to T. chilonis. The studysuggests that the insecticides with less toxicity and biopesticides with apparently no harmful effects on the parasitoid can be used in conjunction with parasitoids in IPM programmes. This will also advice the plant protectionists in avoiding the one with detrimental effects on this hymenopteran wasp with appropriate timing of application that controls the pests without adversely affecting their natural enemies
Computing Time Series Data During Index Based De-Duplication of Industrial IoT Data in Cloud Environment

As a result of the development in Industry 4.0, the data generated within the Industries are increasing rapidly every day to attain the innovative environment within the industry through maximal asset utilization. Meanwhile, the redundancy rate in the server is also increasing, which has an impact on the storage as well as in the analysis of data. Most existing de-duplication techniques partition the data with respect to memory. However if the time period is considered for partition, time-series analysis would be achieved during the de-duplication process. To address the above issue, the proposed work presents the Index Based De-duplication technique with Categorized Region Method for computing time-series data. The Merkle Tree with a super feature called reckoning of occurrence is combined in the proposed system to rapidly identify the existence of similar data in the distributed system with an accurate existence count that significantly helps in predicting the future drifts of the industrial environment. Finally, the proposed system also concludes with optimal transportation cost to reach the storage nodes in the cloud using MODI method. The experimental results reveal that the proposed model is efficient since it facilitates less memory and less computation overhead. The proposed technique achieves space reduction by 98%, reduces the computation overhead during analysis by 55%, and increases the efficacy of cloud storage by 60%.
The Detection of Road Roughness Based on MEMS Inertial Sensor

Propose a detective method of road roughness based on MEMS inertial sensor. This detective method utilizes a unit integrated MEMS inertial sensors and GPS module to perceive the information of road and then achieve the detection of road roughness. Firstly, establish the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to process the collecting information of acceleration and gyroscope, extract the abnormal events of road. Secondly, use a Concept-Based data clustering model (CBDCM) to achieve the feature description and extraction of various abnormal events. Finally, utilize the position information supplied by GPS to locate the detected road potholes, achieve the detection and supervision of road roughness. Combined with the designed system to conduct test, the experimental result indicates the Fall-out ratio and Omission ratio of pothole events about this detective method is 7.4% and 5.3%, it indicates that the detective method has a high practical value.
Available In Vitro Models for Human Satellite Cells from Skeletal Muscle

Skeletal muscle accounts for almost 40% of the total adult human body mass. This tissue is essential for structural and mechanical functions such as posture, locomotion, and breathing, and it is endowed with an extraordinary ability to adapt to physiological changes associated with growth and physical exercise, as well as tissue damage. Moreover, skeletal muscle is the most age-sensitive tissue in mammals. Due to aging, but also to several diseases, muscle wasting occurs with a loss of muscle mass and functionality, resulting from disuse atrophy and defective muscle regeneration, associated with dysfunction of satellite cells, which are the cells responsible for maintaining and repairing adult muscle. The most established cell lines commonly used to study muscle homeostasis come from rodents, but there is a need to study skeletal muscle using human models, which, due to ethical implications, consist primarily of in vitro culture, which is the only alternative way to vertebrate model organisms. This review will survey in vitro 2D/3D models of human satellite cells to assess skeletal muscle biology for pre-clinical investigations and future directions.
Absorbing knowledge from unconventional sources. How collaborations with the Open Source community shape the innovation performance of entrepreneurial ventures

Practitioners generally assert that collaboration with the Open Source software (OSS) community enables young software firms to achieve superior innovation performance. Nonetheless, to the best of our knowledge, scholars have never extensively speculated about this assertion or rigorously tested it. In this paper, we attempt to do so. First, we root on the entrepreneurship literature and on the OSS research stream to discuss and empirically investigate whether entrepreneurial ventures collaborating with the OSS community (OSS EVs) achieve innovation performance superior to that of their non-collaborating peers. Then, we refer to the concept of absorptive capacity to determine which factors make OSS EVs better able to leverage their collaboration with the OSS community for innovation purposes.
Recent Climate Change in the Lake Kyoga Basin, Uganda: An Analysis Using Short-Term and Long-Term Data with Standardized Precipitation and Anomaly Indexes

Climate change (CC) is now a global challenge due to uncertainties on the drivers and the multifaceted nature of its impacts. It impacts many sectors such as agriculture, water supply, and global economies through temperature and precipitation, affecting many livelihoods. Although there are global, regional, and national studies on CC, their application to determine local CC occurence mitigation and adaptation measures is not ideal. Therefore, this study aimed to determine climate change trends in Lake Kyoga Basin using standardized precipitation and anomaly indexes. Short-term (39 years, 1981–2020) and long-term (59 years, 1961–2020) monthly data from eight strategic meteorological stations were acquired from the Uganda National Meteorological Authority and supplemented with satellite and model reanalysis climate datasets. Change in precipitation was determined by SPI-6, while SAI determined change in temperature. The Mann–Kendall test was used to determine the trend significance. Whereas two (Serere and Lira) long-term data stations showed significant changes in precipitation, all the short-term data stations showed a significant increasing trend. Decadal relative rainfall anomaly increased from 85.6–105 in 1981–1990 to 92.0–120.9 in 2011–2020, while mean temperature anomaly increased from 0.2–0.6 °C to 1.0–1.6 °C in the same period. The frequency of severe wet weather events was more than for dry weather events in many stations, indicating an increase in precipitation. Maximum, mean, and minimum temperatures increased, with resultant warmer nights. The findings showed that the Lake Kyoga basin is experiencing climate change, with both temperature and rainfall increasing spatially and temporarily. Climate change affects agriculture, which is the main economic activity, and causes the destruction of infrastructure from floods, landslides, and mudslides. The results of this study are helpful in pointing out climate change-affected areas, and hence for designing mitigation and adaption strategies for local communities by policy and decision-makers from relevant stakeholders.
Revisiting CFTR Interactions: Old Partners and New Players

Remarkable progress in CFTR research has led to the therapeutic development of modulators that rescue the basic defect in cystic fibrosis. There is continuous interest in studying CFTR molecular disease mechanisms as not all cystic fibrosis patients have a therapeutic option available. Addressing the basis of the problem by comprehensively understanding the critical molecular associations of CFTR interactions remains key. With the availability of CFTR modulators, there is interest in comprehending which interactions are critical to rescue CFTR and which are altered by modulators or CFTR mutations. Here, the current knowledge on interactions that govern CFTR folding, processing, and stability is summarized. Furthermore, we describe protein complexes and signal pathways that modulate the CFTR function. Primary epithelial cells display a spatial control of the CFTR interactions and have become a common system for preclinical and personalized medicine studies. Strikingly, the novel roles of CFTR in development and differentiation have been recently uncovered and it has been revealed that specific CFTR gene interactions also play an important role in transcriptional regulation. For a comprehensive understanding of the molecular environment of CFTR, it is important to consider CFTR mutation-dependent interactions as well as factors affecting the CFTR interactome on the cell type, tissue-specific, and transcriptional levels.
On the role of ex post uncertainty assessment for risk management

A risk management decision whether a chemical compound present in the environment is potentially hazardous to human health will be among others based on large-scaled statistical analyses of empirical data of various sources. Observations from highly exposed and well-documented occupational cohorts are usually a matter of particular interest. Due to scientific progress, various new aspects will inevitably emerge in the course of time. These new aspects are not always in full accordance with the assumptions of the original statistical analyses so that concern may evolve as to whether the original foundation of the risk assessment is still valid, in the main. We suggest accounting for such doubts by an ex post uncertainty assessment of the original statistical analyses. The case of the risk assessment as to whether 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a human carcinogen is used as an example. We call for the scheduling of future ex post uncertainty assessments at the time of the risk management decision.
Differences in sibling cooperation in presence and absence of parental care in a genus with interspecific variation in offspring dependence

The widely spread evolutionary strategy of parental care is considered an important driver of social evolution. Although offspring were long thought to primarily interact competitively, recent studies revealed the potential importance of sibling cooperation. Theories suggest that the degree of cooperation in offspring interactions depends on the degree of offspring dependence on parental care: offspring unable to forage on their own should compete more, whereas more independent juveniles may increase the degree of cooperation. In this study, we tested the occurrence of sibling cooperation in the absence of posthatching care in several burying beetle species exhibiting varying degrees of offspring dependence. To this end, we measured larval growth rate and survival in the presence and absence of prehatching care using different brood sizes. We found that sibling cooperation cannot be exclusively explained by offspring dependence on parental care. Although only species with more independent larvae cooperated when receiving prehatching care, larval cooperation occurred across species in the absence of care. The latter result suggests that sibling cooperation was already present in an early ancestor of the genus Nicrophorus. Overall, these findings give important insights into the transition from facultative to obligate family life.
Silicon sensor developments for the CMS Tracker upgrade

Preparing for the high-luminosity phase of LHC the CMS Tracker collaboration has started a campaign to identify the future planar silicon sensor technology baseline for a new Tracker. A variety of 6 inch wafers have been ordered in different thicknesses and technologies at HPK. Thicknesses ranging from 50μm to 300μm are explored on float-zone, magnetic Czochralski and epitaxial material both in n-in-p and p-in-n versions. p-stop and p-spray are explored as isolation technologies for the n-in-p type sensors as well as the feasibility of double metal routing on 6 inch wafers. To explore the limits of the technologies many different structures have been designed to answer different questions, e.g. geometry, Lorentz angle, radiation tolerance, annealing behavior, read-out schemes. This contribution provides an overview of the individual structures and their characteristics and summarizes measurements done on small strip sensors before and after irradiations.
Immunomodulatory Effects Associated with Cladribine Treatment

Cladribine is a synthetic deoxyadenosine analogue with demonstrated efficacy in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). The main mechanism of action described for cladribine is the induction of a cytotoxic effect on lymphocytes, leading to a long-term depletion of peripheral T and B cells. Besides lymphocyte toxicity, the mode of action may include immunomodulatory mechanisms affecting other cells of the immune system. In order to induce its beneficial effects, cladribine is phosphorylated inside the cell by deoxycytidine kinase (DCK) to its active form. However, the mechanism of action of cladribine may also include immunomodulatory pathways independent of DCK activation. This in vitro study was designed to explore the impact of cladribine on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) subsets, and to assess whether the immunomodulatory mechanisms induced by cladribine depend on the activation of the molecule. To this end, we obtained PBMCs from healthy donors and MS patients and performed proliferation, apoptosis and activation assays with clinically relevant concentrations of cladribine in DCK-dependent and -independent conditions. We also evaluated the effect of cladribine on myeloid lineage-derived cells, monocytes and dendritic cells (DCs). Cladribine decreased proliferation and increased apoptosis of lymphocyte subsets after prodrug activation via DCK. In contrast, cladribine induced a decrease in immune cell activation through both DCK-dependent and -independent pathways (not requiring prodrug activation). Regarding monocytes and DCs, cladribine induced cytotoxicity and impaired the activation of classical monocytes, but had no effect on DC maturation. Taken together, these data indicate that cladribine, in addition to its cytotoxic function, can mediate immunomodulation in different immune cell populations, by regulating their proliferation, maturation and activation.
First Experience in the Control of the Venous Side of the Brain AVM

Background and purpose: Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVM) are increasingly curable with endovascular embolization. This study examines the preliminary experience with a novel double-sided hybrid approach in the treatment of cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVM) versus a purely single-sided intra-arterial approach. Materials and methods: The single-center study cohort included 18 patients with brain AVMs (Spetzler–Martin Grade 2 or 3) having stand-alone endovascular treatment with either the arterial-side-only pressure cooker technique (aPCT) (group 1; n = 9) or a double-sided hybrid intra-arterial and transvenous approach (HIPRENE) (group 2; n = 9). Results: Patients belonging to group 2 had lower rates of intra-procedural hemorrhaging (66.7% vs. 33.3%, p = 0.169) and needed fewer treatment sessions to achieve nidus occlusion (1.7 vs. 1.2, p = 0.136). The HIPRENE treatment regime led to higher nidus occlusion rates after the initial treatment compared to aPCT (77.7% vs. 44.4%, p = 0.167). Group 2 patients had a lower rate of neuromonitoring events (22.2% vs. 44.4%, p = 0.310) and fewer accounts of blood flow obstruction in post-operative MRIs (33.3% vs. 55.6%, p = 0.319). Conclusion: A double-sided hybrid intra-arterial and transvenous approach might have benefits for curative endovascular brain AVM treatment in patients with Spetzler–Martin Grade 2 or 3. In our small study cohort, the HIPRENE treatment regime had higher nidus occlusion rates after the first treatment, which reduces the number of treatment sessions and lowers intra- and post-operative complication rates. Further randomized controlled studies are awaited to corroborate our preliminary outcomes.