Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nanotechnology in fibrous materials–a new perspective

This issue reviews various areas where nanotechnology has come up predominately in fibrous materials, namely in electrospun polymeric nanofibers and polymer layered silicate nanocomposites. It includes synthesis, characterization, various methods of collecting nanofibers, factors affecting electrospinning, methods of increasing the productivity of the electrospinning process, and different electrospinning designs. It also covers synthesis and characterization of polymer nanocomposites. Various properties of nanocomposites are discussed. The rheological behavior and morphology of nanocomposites are covered. Different modeling and simulation methods applicable to electrospun nanofibers and polymer layered silicate nanocomposites are discussed. Some of the potential application areas of electrospun nanofibers, polymer layered silicate nanocomposites, and various products available in the market based on nanotechnology are also discussed. Some of the lacking areas and future prospects in nanofibrous structures (nanofibers and nanocomposites) are emphasized in this issue.
Decompressive craniectomy in aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage for hematoma or oedema versus secondary infarction

Abstract Purpose: Decompressive craniectomy (DC) has been proposed as lifesaving treatment in aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (aSAH) patients with elevated intracranial pressure (ICP). However, data is sparse and controversy exists whether the underlying cause of elevated ICP influences neurological outcome. The purpose of this study is to clarify the role of the underlying cause of elevated ICP on outcome after DC. Materials and methods: We retrospectively studied the one-year neurological outcome in a single-centre cohort to identify predictors of favourable (Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) 4–5) and unfavourable (GOS 1–3) outcome. Additionally, available individual patient data in the literature was reviewed with a special emphasis on the underlying reason for DC. Results: From 2006–2015, 53 consecutive aSAH patients underwent DC. Nine (17%) achieved favourable, 44 (83%) unfavourable outcome (31 patients died). One fourth of the patients undergoing DC for hematoma or (hematoma-related) oedema survived favourably (increasing to 46% for patients aged <51 years), versus none of the patients undergoing DC for secondary infarction. Analysis of individual data of 105 literature patients showed a similar trend, although overall outcome was much better: half of the patients undergoing DC for hematoma/oedema regained independence, versus less than one-fourth of patients undergoing DC for secondary infarction. Conclusions: DC in aSAH patients is associated with high rates of unfavourable outcome and mortality, but hematoma or oedema as underlying reason for DC is associated with better outcome profiles compared to secondary infarction. Future observational cohort studies are needed to further explore the different outcome profiles among subpopulations of aSAH patients requiring DC.
Stable carbon isotopes of glucose received from pine tree-rings as bioindicators of local industrial emission of CO2 in Niepołomice Forest (1950–2000)

The mass spectrometric investigations of carbon isotope composition of glucose received from α-cellulose samples derived from Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) growing in Niepołomice Forest were the main aim of this study. The annual rings covered the time span from 1950 to 2000. α-Cellulose samples were extracted from increment cores of four representative trees, and then acid hydrolysis was performed. The number of sunshine hours, thermal and pluvial conditions of the growing season and in the preceding months had a significant effect on pine. Also non-climatic factors, most likely by industrial pollution signal, have been recorded in the isotopic composition of glucose. The relationship between climatic conditions, carbon dioxide emission and annual tree-rings carbon isotopic composition was analysed, using methods of correlation and response function, and multiple regression function.
Speed profile optimization for optimal path tracking

In this paper, we study the problem of minimum-time, and minimum-energy speed profile optimization along a given path, which is a key step for solving the optimal path tracking problems for a particular class of dynamical systems. We focus on characterizing the optimal switching structure between extremal controls using optimal control theory, and present semi-analytical solutions to both problems. It is shown that the optimal solutions of these two problems are closely related.
Nuclear physics (of the cell, not the atom)

The nucleus is physically distinct from the cytoplasm in ways that suggest new ideas and approaches for interrogating the operation of this organelle. Chemical bond formation and breakage underlie the lives of cells, but as this special issue of Molecular Biology of the Cell attests, the nonchemical aspects of cell nuclei present a new frontier to biologists and biophysicists.
SIOMICS: a novel approach for systematic identification of motifs in ChIP-seq data

The identification of transcription factor binding motifs is important for the study of gene transcriptional regulation. The chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), followed by massive parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq) experiments, provides an unprecedented opportunity to discover binding motifs. Computational methods have been developed to identify motifs from ChIP-seq data, while at the same time encountering several problems. For example, existing methods are often not scalable to the large number of sequences obtained from ChIP-seq peak regions. Some methods heavily rely on well-annotated motifs even though the number of known motifs is limited. To simplify the problem, de novo motif discovery methods often neglect underrepresented motifs in ChIP-seq peak regions. To address these issues, we developed a novel approach called SIOMICS to de novo discover motifs from ChIP-seq data. Tested on 13 ChIP-seq data sets, SIOMICS identified motifs of many known and new cofactors. Tested on 13 simulated random data sets, SIOMICS discovered no motif in any data set. Compared with two recently developed methods for motif discovery, SIOMICS shows advantages in terms of speed, the number of known cofactor motifs predicted in experimental data sets and the number of false motifs predicted in random data sets. The SIOMICS software is freely available at http://eecs.ucf. edu/∼xiaoman/SIOMICS/SIOMICS.html.
The effect of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) on in vitro maturation of equine oocytes

Summary The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that equine growth hormone (eGH), in combination with insulin growth factor-I (IGF-I), influences positively in vitro nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of equine oocytes. Cumulus–oocyte complexes were recovered from follicles that were < 25 mm in diameter, characterized by morphology and were allocated randomly as follow: (a) control (no additives); (b) 400 ng/ml eGH; (c) 200 ng/ml IGF-I; (d) eGH + IGF-I; and (e) eGH + IGF-I + 400 ng/ml anti-IGF-I antibody. Oocytes were matured for 30 h at 38.5°C in air with 5% CO2 and then stained with 10 μg/ml propidium iodide (PI) to evaluate nuclear status and 10 μg/ml Lens culinaris agglutinin-fluorescein complex (FITC-LCA) to assess cortical granule migration by confocal microscopy. The proportion of immature oocytes that developed to the metaphase II (MII) stage in the eGH + IGF-I group (15 of 45) was greater than in the groups that were treated only with IGF-I (7 of 36, p = 0.03). Oocytes that reached MII in the control group (20 of 56; 35.7%) showed a tendency to be different when compared with eGH + IGF-I group (15 of 45; 33.3%, p = 0.08). The treated group that contained anti-IGF-I (15 of 33; 45.4%) decreased the number of oocytes reaching any stage of development when compared with eGH (47 of 72; 65.3%) and eGH + IGF-I (33 of 45; 73.3%) groups (p = 0.05) when data from MI and MII were combined. We concluded that the addition of eGH to in vitro maturation (IVM) medium influenced the in vitro nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of equine oocytes. The use of GH and IGF-I in vitro may represent a potential alternative for IVM of equine oocytes.
Hypothermia and thiopentone sodium: Individual and combined neuroprotective effects on cortical cultures exposed to prolonged hypoxic episodes

Because there are many conflicting reports on cerebroprotective effects of hypothermia and barbiturates, we examined the degree of neuroprotection at defined temperatures (normothermia, 37°C; mild hypothermia, 32°C; deep hypothermia, 22°C; and profound hypothermia, 17°C) and various concentrations (low, 4 μM; moderate, 40 μM; and high, 400 μM) of thiopentone sodium (TPS), alone and in combination in cortical cultures exposed to prolonged hypoxia (24–48 hr). The survival rate of embryonic day (E)16 Wistar rat cortical neurons was evaluated on photomicrographs before and after experiments. During the 24‐hr hypoxic period, the survival rate of neurons was maximal with combinations of mild hypothermia with 40 μM (91.6 ± 0.7%) and 400 μM TPS (90.8 ± 0.7%) or deep hypothermia combined with all concentrations of TPS (4 μM, 90.6 ± 1.0%; 40 μM, 91.4 ± 0.8%; 400 μM, 91.8 ± 1.2%). During 48 hr hypoxia, the highest survival rate was seen with the combination of deep hypothermia and either 40 μM (90.9 ± 0.6%) or 400 μM (91.1 ± 1.4%) TPS. In the presence of profound hypothermia in combination with all concentrations of TPS, the survival rate was significantly reduced (P< 0.01) compared to combined application of either mild or deep hypothermia with TPS. In summary, maximal neuroprotection was attained with hypothermia and TPS in combination rather than applied individually, during prolonged hypoxic episodes (24– 48 hr). During a 24‐hr hypoxic period, both mild and deep hypothermia combined with a clinically relevant concentration of TPS (40 μM) offered the highest neuroprotection. Only deep hypothermia provided maximal neuroprotection when combined with 40 μM TPS, during 48‐hr hypoxia. Combination of profound hypothermia and TPS did not confer considerable neuroprotection during long lasting hypoxia. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Neural-network-based optimal control for a class of complex-valued nonlinear systems with input saturation

This paper proposes an optimal control scheme based on adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) algorithm for complex-valued systems with input saturation. The equivalence transformation is used to obtain the real dynamic system. Then the performance index function is defined. Based on the transformed system, an ADP optimal control method is established. The update methods for critic network neural network and action network are given. It is proved that the closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately bounded based on Lyapunov approach. Finally, the simulation study was given to show the effectiveness of the proposed optimal control scheme.
Netscape communicator's collapsible toolbars

This paper describes the design process used for Netscape Communicator’s collapsible toolbars. To meet our design goals, we designed a new widget whose roots came from objects in the “‘real world” instead of the “software world”. The design of this widget illustrates how rapid prototyping and tight coupling behveen the visual design and interaction design are imperative to a widget’s success.
Characteristics of Nonpoint Source Erosion from Burned Mountain Basin

A drastic change of hydrological characteristics of a deforested basin causes severe runoff, sediment yield, and environmental contamination. In these days, many forest suffered from more frequent wildfires than before due to the climate change and human activities in Korea. A bared soil surface caused by wildfires results higher peak discharge and serious erosion over the basin. Ultimately, the increased sediment erosion results the nonpoint source contamination of water and soils of the basin. Systematic researches on sediment yields had been carried out with a mountainous watershed which had been suffered from wildfires. The experimental watershed has being operated with six standard plots and one sedimentation chamber last four years. The cover management factor of RUSLE and the characteristics of SDR (Sediment Delivery Ratio) for burned mountain basin were suggested from the field investigation.
Nonwood Fibers—A Potential Source of Raw Material in Papermaking

World demand for paper has increased at an average annual rate of 4.7% over the past 40 years. Although future growth will reduce to 2–3% the existing wood resources may be inadequate to meet this growing demand for paper especially in the Asia-Pacific region and Eastern Europe. In addition, logging is coming under increasing pressure from environmentalists concerned about habitat destruction and other longer-term impacts of forest harvesting. It is, therefore, necessary to consider alternative fiber sources to meet the possible shortfall of wood fiber for papermaking. Suitable nonwood fibers are abundantly available in many countries and are the major source of fiber for papermaking in some developing nations.
Performance Issues in VC-Merge Capable ATM LSRs

VC merging allows many routes to be mapped to the same VC label, thereby providing a scalable mapping method that can support thousands of edge routers. VC merging requires reassembly buffers so that cells belonging to different packets intended for the same destination do not interleave with each other. This document investigates the impact of VC merging on the additional buffer required for the reassembly buffers and other buffers. The main result indicates that VC merging incurs a minimal overhead compared to non-VC merging in terms of additional buffering. Moreover, the overhead decreases as utilization increases, or as the traffic becomes more bursty.
Centralizing Routing Control Across Domains: Architectural Approach and Prominent Use Cases

The coordination and management of inter-domain routing in the Internet are crucial tasks that happen “behind the scenes”, while we use the Internet for checking our emails, surfing the web, making Skype video calls, watching NetFlix episodes or engaging in social networking. The basic protocol that governs inter-domain routing, i.e., routing between the diverse administrative network domains, is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Researchers have pinpointed several issues with the design and operation of BGP over the years, such as slow convergence times or lack of end-to-end service guarantees, and have proposed various solutions and improvements. Despite this large body of proposals, BGP is extremely resistant to change, albeit the only core protocol that virtually every Internet Service Provider (ISP) uses today to route packets between domains. Therefore, we need to find ways to address the requirements of new Internet services and evolve routing while maintaining compatibility with BGP. We thus propose a new architectural approach which can be incrementally deployed in today’s Internet and which can gradually tackle BGP-related challenges while its adoption gains momentum. Within the scope of this work, we address the challenges related to the suboptimal convergence behavior, suboptimal path computations and lack of inter-domain service guarantees. The approach is general enough to be used for optimizing further aspects of inter-domain routing beyond the scope of this work. As our basic approach, we make the case for gradual routing centralization across domains based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles and outsourcing mechanisms. The envisioned setting is composed of contractors offering Routing as a Service (RaaS), serving—contiguous or disjoint—clusters (i.e., groups) of Autonomous Systems (AS), which are their clients. In general, contractors may operate on abstract views of their client networks. We show how the proposed architecture may be used as the basis for such improvements, by investigating two concrete and prominent use cases. As a first use case, the RaaS contractors talk to external ASes via BGP, while providing inter-domain optimizations and new routing services within
Aberrant T cell differentiation in the absence of Dicer

Dicer is an RNaseIII-like enzyme that is required for generating short interfering RNAs and microRNAs. The latter have been implicated in regulating cell fate determination in invertebrates and vertebrates. To test the requirement for Dicer in cell-lineage decisions in a mammalian organism, we have generated a conditional allele of dicer-1 (dcr-1) in the mouse. Specific deletion of dcr-1 in the T cell lineage resulted in impaired T cell development and aberrant T helper cell differentiation and cytokine production. A severe block in peripheral CD8+ T cell development was observed upon dcr-1 deletion in the thymus. However, Dicer-deficient CD4+ T cells, although reduced in numbers, were viable and could be analyzed further. These cells were defective in microRNA processing, and upon stimulation they proliferated poorly and underwent increased apoptosis. Independent of their proliferation defect, Dicer-deficient helper T cells preferentially expressed interferon-γ, the hallmark effector cytokine of the Th1 lineage.
The leafminer Liriomyza trifolii (Diptera: Agromyzidae) encapsulates its koinobiont parasitoid Halticoptera circulus (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae): implications for biological control

Abstract The koinobiont parasitoid Halticoptera circulus (Walker) is a potential biological control agent of leafminers, but it has only rarely been collected from the invasive leafminer, Liriomyza trifolii (Burgess), in Japan. To understand why this is the case, parasitism and development of H. circulus in L. trifolii was compared with parasitism and development in two indigenous leafminer species, Liriomyza chinensis Kato and Chromatomyia horticola (Goureau). There was no significant difference in parasitism rates by H. circulus in the three leafminer species and the eggs and larvae successfully developed in L. chinensis and C. horticola. However, H. circulus failed to develop in L. trifolii, where developmental stages were encapsulated by host haemocytes. This parasitoid may be a good agent to control indigenous leafminers such as L. chinensis and C. horticola but is unlikely to be useful for the biological control of the invasive L. trifolii in Japan.
Phase-difference characteristics of urban areas in polarimetric SAR images

We will present the phase difference characteristics of urban areas in polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) images and an improved classification parameter for urban areas using the co-polarized phase difference (CPD) and cross-polarized phase difference (XPD). This synthesis CPD and XPD is the first step to obtain the effective phase difference of urban areas.
A Detection Method of Environmental Changes for Reinforcement Learning

—In this article, we propose a novel method for detecting environmental changes in the reinforcement learning. The proposed method utilizes recurrence plots of state transitions of the system, and quantiﬁes changes of the recurrence plot by a texture analysis. It is shown that the proposed method is e ﬀ ective to detect environmental changes.
Tourist Satisfaction and Repeat Visitation; Toward a New Comprehensive Model

Tourism researchers have recently focused on repeat visitation as a part of destination loyalty. Different models have also considered satisfaction as the main determinant of revisit intention, while findings in many studies show it as a continuous issue. This conceptual paper attempts at evaluating recent empirical studies on satisfaction and revisit intention. Based on limitations and gaps in recent studies, the current paper suggests a new model that would be more comprehensive than those in previous studies. The new model offers new relationships between antecedents (destination image, perceived value, specific novelty seeking, and distance to destination) and both of satisfaction and revisit intention. Revisit intention in turn is suggested to be measured in a temporal approach. Keywords—Satisfaction, revisit intention, a new model
Efficient exact spare allocation via Boolean satisfiability

Fabricating large memory and processor arrays is subject to physical failures resulting in yield degradation. The strategy of incorporating spare rows and columns to obtain reasonable production yields was first proposed in the 1970s, and continues to play an important role in recent VLSI developments. The spare allocation problem (SAP) in general is known to be intractable, an efficient exact spare allocation algorithm has great value. We propose a new Boolean encoding of SAP and a new SAT-based exact algorithm SATRepair. We used a realistic fault distribution model to compare SATRepair's performances against those of BDDRepair and several algorithms found in the literature. We found that a) our Boolean encoding of SAP facilitates the development of efficient exact SAP algorithms, and b) our SAT-based algorithm outperforms previous algorithms, especially for large problems.
Two Bayesian treatments of the n-tuple recognition method

Two probabilistic interpretations of the n-tuple recognition method are put forward in order to allow this technique to be analysed with the same Bayesian methods used in connection with other neural network models. Elementary demonstrations are then given of the use of maximum likelihood and maximum entropy methods for tuning the model parameters and assisting their interpretation. One of the models can be used to illustrate the significance of overlapping n-tuple samples with respect to correlations in the patterns.
Preparation and Antibacterial Bioactivity of Ti-Base Titania Nanotube Arrays

A vertically aligned bioactivity titania nanotube arrays was fabricated on the surface of titanium substrate by anodization. The nanotubes were then treated with optical deposition of silver to make them antibacterial, and to inhibition growth of bacterial in the antibacterial test in vitro. It is shown that the present of silver particle inhibition the growth staphylococcus aureus. Such bioactivity titania nanotube arrays and associated hollow tube structure can be useful as a well-adhered antibacterial bioactive surface layer on titanium implant metals for orthopaedic and dental implants.
Interchangeability Supports Abstraction and Reformulation for Multi-Dimensional Constraint Satisfaction

Interchangeability provides a principled approach to abstraction and reformulation of constraint satisfaction problems. Values are interchangeable if exchanging one for the other in any solution produces another solution. Abstracting a problem by simplifying the constraints can increase interchangeability. Multi-dimensional constraint satisfaction problems can provide natural opportunities for this abstraction process. Multi-dimensional problems may involve vectors of values, or conjunctive constraints. Utilizing the interchangeability can permit more efficient solutions of the abstracted problem. These solutions can be expanded into smaller reformulations of the original problem. Solving abstracted and then reformulated problems can be considerably more efficient than solving the original problems. We provide data that demonstrates the potential of this abstraction/reformulation process for multi-dimensional problems, and illuminates how its utility can depend on natural problem parameters.
A Difference Based Adder Graph Heuristic for Multiple Constant Multiplication Problems

Multiple constant multiplication (MCM), i.e., realizing a number of constant multiplications using a minimum number of adders and subtracters, has been an active research area for the last decade. An adder graph type algorithm for solving the MCM problem is introduced with a novel heuristic inspired by difference methods. It is shown that the results is as good or better as previous state of the art under most conditions. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm does not rely on look-up tables.