Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanics of Growth and Coalescence of Pre-existing Voids in a Ductile Matrix

This research project experimentally and numerically investigates the growth and coalescence of pre-existing voids for a wide range of stress states in a ductile matrix with a special focus on shear dominated loading conditions and presents quantitative kinetics data for these processes. The results obtained contribute to further development of current fracture models by generating reliable experimental data for void growth and coalescence, which can be used to evaluate the existing fracture models. A lead-containing copper alloy has been selected as model material, in which lead inclusions act as pre-existing voids – as demonstrated by unit cell numerical simulations for a wide range of stress states. A second copper alloy of similar composition, but without lead allows us to obtain mechanical properties of the matrix. By comparing the behavior of the two alloys it is possible to evaluate the effect of the voids on the macroscopic mechanical behavior. The model materials are deformed and fractured in combined torsion / tension tests and notched tensile tests to subject them to the desired wide range of stress triaxialities. Quantitative fractography and metallography provide the desired kinetics data on void shape, size and orientation, that can be correlated with numerical simulations, as well as existing void growth and coalescence models. The influence of stress-state and micro-structural characteristics on void growth and void coalescence – particularly for zero nominal stress triaxiality conditions – is illustrated at the hand of the results of the investigation. Contrary to the predictions of current micromechanical models, significant growth of small voids resulting in moderate increases in the total void volume is observed in torsion specimens. This growth may be triggered by the developing texture of the matrix material and particularly by twinning. By means of FEM computations with 3D single cell simulations comprising initially ellipsoidal voids, the effect of the initial texture and texture evolution is emphasized. The numerical results showed that the experimentally observed texture of the material accelerates void growth under relatively high stress triaxialities, and possibly allows growth of small voids under low and zero stress triaxialities. The initial shape of the lead inclusions and possibly their growth, was found to be dependent on their initial size. These results emphasize the need for a complete and rather detailed modeling of microstructural and deformation features in order to model damage process correctly. The presented work contributes to a better understanding of void growth and coalescence fracture processes, particularly under shear dominated loading conditions.
Large and small fiber neuropathy in chronic alcohol‐dependent subjects

Abstract The aim of the present study was to evaluate the occurrence of large and small fiber neuropathy among alcohol‐dependent subjects and to correlate neuropathy with the pattern of alcohol abuse, age of the subjects, nutritional status, and biochemical parameters. The study sample comprised 98 consecutive alcohol‐dependent subjects without signs of malnutrition treated for detoxification voluntarily in the specialized unit of the Athens University Psychiatric Clinic in an inpatient basis. Polyneuropathy (PN) was graded using the neuropathy symptoms score and neurologic disability score, conduction velocity studies, and quantitative sensory tests. Seventy‐seven men and 21 women aged 27–70 years took part in the study. PN was diagnosed in 57 subjects (58.2%). PN of both large and small fibers was found in 25 patients (25.5%); exclusively small fiber neuropathy was observed in 12 (12.2%) and exclusively large fiber neuropathy in 20 patients (20.4%). Neuropathy was significantly correlated with the age of the subjects, duration of alcohol abuse, liver dysfunction, macrocytosis, and blood sugar levels upon admission. PN was significantly more frequent in males than in females. The two groups of exclusively large and exclusively small fiber neuropathy did not differ significantly in any clinical and laboratory parameter. Subclinical neuropathy (stage 1) was observed in 11.2%, which also did not differ significantly in any clinical and laboratory parameter from the stage 2 PN group subjects. Our findings indicate the direct toxic effect of alcohol on peripheral nerve fibers as the main etiologic factor of alcoholic PN. Long‐standing hyperglycemia may be another contributing factor. Impaired vitamin B12 utilization may be also involved.
Modeling Hydrogen Sulfide Adsorption by Activated Carbon made from Anaerobic Digestion By-product

Biogas, produced from anaerobic digestion of cattle manure, is an attractive alternative energy source as it is rich in methane. However, it is necessary to remove hydrogen sulfide from the biogas before it can be used in engines for electricity generation. Currently, large scale biogas systems employ physical adsorbing solvents to upgrade and purify biogas which is not economically feasible for small scale biogas systems. Activated carbon made from anaerobicdigestate proves to be an effective adsorbent of hydrogen sulfide because it has minimal operating costs and essentially zero raw material cost. A model is developed to predict the adsorption capacity, carbon bed life span, and breakthrough time for this carbon material. By analyzing the reaction constant, adsorption constant, and degradation constant, adsorption behavior under different operating conditions were studied. The model can be scaled-up to modeladsorption for biogas loading rates for small to large scale cattle farms.
A Forward-Backward Kalman Filter-based Receiver

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing () has emerged as a modulation scheme that can achieve high data rates over frequency selective fading channel by efficiently handling multipath effects. This paper proposes receiver design for space-time block coded transmission over frequency selective time-variant channels. Joint channel and data recovery are performed at the receiver by utilizing the expectation-maximization () algorithm. It makes collective use of the data constraints (pilots, cyclic prefix, the finite alphabet constraint, and space-time block coding) and channel constraints (finite delay spread, frequency and time correlation, and transmit and receive correlation) to implement an effective receiver. The channel estimation part of the receiver boils down to an -based forward-backward Kalman filter. A forward-only Kalman filter is also proposed to avoid the latency involved in estimation. Simulation results show that the proposed receiver outperforms other least-squares-based iterative receivers.
Tissue Specific Heterogeneity in Effector Immune Cell Response

Post pathogen invasion, migration of effector T-cell subsets to specific tissue locations is of prime importance for generation of robust immune response. Effector T cells are imprinted with distinct “homing codes” (adhesion molecules and chemokine receptors) during activation which regulate their targeted trafficking to specific tissues. Internal cues in the lymph node microenvironment along with external stimuli from food (vitamin A) and sunlight (vitamin D3) prime dendritic cells, imprinting them to play centre stage in the induction of tissue tropism in effector T cells. B cells as well, in a manner similar to effector T cells, exhibit tissue-tropic migration. In this review, we have focused on the factors regulating the generation and migration of effector T cells to various tissues along with giving an overview of tissue tropism in B cells.
Saving the seas: The economic justification for marine reserves

We contribute to the understanding of marine reserves and the management of renewable resources with uncertainty. We show that the key benefit of reserves is that they increase resilience, or the speed it takes a population to return to a former state following a negative shock. Resilience can also increase resource rents even with optimal harvesting. We contradict the accepted wisdom that reserves have no value if harvesting is optimal, reserves and optimal output controls are equivalent, reserves have value only with overexploited populations and that reserves must be large to offer benefits to fishers.
Just-in-Time Adaptive Classifiers—Part I: Detecting Nonstationary Changes

The stationarity requirement for the process generating the data is a common assumption in classifiers' design. When such hypothesis does not hold, e.g., in applications affected by aging effects, drifts, deviations, and faults, classifiers must react just in time, i.e., exactly when needed, to track the process evolution. The first step in designing effective just-in-time classifiers requires detection of the temporal instant associated with the process change, and the second one needs an update of the knowledge base used by the classification system to track the process evolution. This paper addresses the change detection aspect leaving the design of just-in-time adaptive classification systems to a companion paper. Two completely automatic tests for detecting nonstationarity phenomena are suggested, which neither require a priori information nor assumptions about the process generating the data. In particular, an effective computational intelligence-inspired test is provided to deal with multidimensional situations, a scenario where traditional change detection methods are generally not applicable or scarcely effective.
Neuropeptide co-expression in hypothalamic kisspeptin neurons of laboratory animals and the human

Hypothalamic peptidergic neurons using kisspeptin (KP) and its co-transmitters for communication are critically involved in the regulation of mammalian reproduction and puberty. This article provides an overview of neuropeptides present in KP neurons, with a focus on the human species. Immunohistochemical studies reveal that large subsets of human KP neurons synthesize neurokinin B, as also shown in laboratory animals. In contrast, dynorphin described in KP neurons of rodents and sheep is found rarely in KP cells of human males and postmenopausal females. Similarly, galanin is detectable in mouse, but not human, KP cells, whereas substance P, cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript and proenkephalin-derived opioids are expressed in varying subsets of KP neurons in humans, but not reported in ARC of other species. Human KP neurons do not contain neurotensin, cholecystokinin, proopiomelanocortin-derivatives, agouti-related protein, neuropeptide Y, somatostatin or tyrosine hydroxylase (dopamine). These data identify the possible co-transmitters of human KP cells. Neurochemical properties distinct from those of laboratory species indicate that humans use considerably different neurotransmitter mechanisms to regulate fertility.
Optimal Strategies for Free-Flight Air Traffic Conflict Resolution

Recent advances in navigation and data communication technologies make it feasible for individual aircraft to plan and fly their trajectories in the presence of other aircraft in the airspace. This way, individual aircraft can take advantage of the atmospheric and traffic conditions to optimally plan their paths. This capability is termed as the free flight concept. While the free flight concept provides new degrees of freedom to the aircraft operators, it also brings-in complexities not present in the current air traffic control system. In the free flight concept, each aircraft has the responsibility for navigating around other aircraft in the airspace. While this is not a difficult task under low speed, low traffic density conditions, the complexities of dealing with potential conflict with multiple aircraft can significantly increase the pilot’s work load. This paper presents the development of a conflict resolution algorithm based on the quasilinearization method to enable the practical implementation of the free flight concept. The algorithm development uses nonlinear point-mass aircraft models, and incorporates realistic operational constraints on individual aircraft. The analytical framework can also incorporate information about ambient atmospheric conditions. Realistic conflict resolution scenarios are illustrated. Due to their speed of execution, these conflict resolution algorithms are suitable for implementation on-board aircraft.
Bmc Microbiology

Serotypes, intimin variants and other virulence factors of eae positive Escherichia coli strains isolated from healthy cattle in Switzerland. Identification of a new intimin variant gene (eae-η2) Abstract Background: Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and Shigatoxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) share the ability to introduce attaching-and-effacing (A/E) lesions on intestinal cells. The genetic determinants for the production of A/E lesions are located on the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE), a pathogenicity island that also contains the genes encoding intimin (eae). This study reports information on the occurrence of eae positive E. coli carried by healthy cattle at the point of slaughter, and on serotypes, intimin variants, and further virulence factors of isolated EPEC and STEC strains.
Weighted-guided-filter-aided texture classification using recursive feature elimination-based fusion of feature sets

In this work, a method is proposed for classification of texture images using a fusion of feature sets. Weighted guided filter based preprocessing technique has been performed using optimized cost function to enhance the discriminative property of different texture images. A hybrid model of normalized symmetrical gray level co-occurrence matrix parameters, histogram of oriented gradients, and Gabor features is used to extract the feature from the preprocessed images. The fusion model is fed to recursive feature elimination algorithm to select the appropriate feature sets for efficient classification. These feature vectors have been trained in two machine learning algorithms namely, multiclass support vector machine and extreme learning machine. It is experimentally demonstrated that proposed method achieves satisfactory efficiency on Outex, XU_HR, and UIUC texture image database. This method is also successfully applied on TEXDC database to identify the material of textile from images by recognizing the fibrous pattern of various textile images.
Enriched µ-Calculi Module Checking

The model checking problem for open systems has been intensively studied in the literature, for both finite-state (module checking) and infinite-state (pushdown module checking) systems, with respect to Ctl and Ctl*. In this paper, we further investigate this problem with respect to the \mu-calculus enriched with nominals and graded modalities (hybrid graded Mu-calculus), in both the finite-state and infinite-state settings. Using an automata-theoretic approach, we show that hybrid graded \mu-calculus module checking is solvable in exponential time, while hybrid graded \mu-calculus pushdown module checking is solvable in double-exponential time. These results are also tight since they match the known lower bounds for Ctl. We also investigate the module checking problem with respect to the hybrid graded \mu-calculus enriched with inverse programs (Fully enriched \mu-calculus): by showing a reduction from the domino problem, we show its undecidability. We conclude with a short overview of the model checking problem for the Fully enriched Mu-calculus and the fragments obtained by dropping at least one of the additional constructs.
Randomized algorithms for stability and robustness analysis of high-speed communication networks

This paper initiates a study toward developing and applying randomized algorithms for stability of high-speed communication networks. The focus is on congestion and delay-based flow controllers for sources, which are "utility maximizers" for individual users. First, we introduce a nonlinear algorithm for such source flow controllers, which uses as feedback aggregate congestion and delay information from bottleneck nodes of the network, and depends on a number of parameters, among which are link capacities, user preference for utility, and pricing. We then linearize this nonlinear model around its unique equilibrium point and perform a robustness analysis for a special symmetric case with a single bottleneck node. The "symmetry" here captures the scenario when certain utility and pricing parameters are the same across all active users, for which we derive closed-form necessary and sufficient conditions for stability and robustness under parameter variations. In addition, the ranges of values for the utility and pricing parameters for which stability is guaranteed are computed exactly. These results also admit counterparts for the case when the pricing parameters vary across users, but the utility parameter values are still the same. In the general nonsymmetric case, when closed-form derivation is not possible, we construct specific randomized algorithms which provide a probabilistic estimate of the local stability of the network. In particular, we use Monte Carlo as well as quasi-Monte Carlo techniques for the linearized model. The results obtained provide a complete analysis of congestion control algorithms for internet style networks with a single bottleneck node as well as for networks with general random topologies.
Requirements-Driven Dynamic Adaptation to Mitigate Runtime Uncertainties for Self-Adaptive Systems

Self-adaptive systems are capable of adjusting their behavior to cope with the changes in environment and itself. These changes may cause runtime uncertainty, which refers to the system state of failing to achieve appropriate reconfigurations. However, it is often infeasible to exhaustively anticipate all the changes. Thus, providing dynamic adaptation mechanisms for mitigating runtime uncertainty becomes a big challenge. This paper suggests solving this challenge at requirements phase by presenting REDAPT, short for REquirement-Driven adAPTation. We propose an adaptive goal model (AGM) by introducing adaptive elements, specify dynamic properties of AGM by providing logic based grammar, derive adaptation mechanisms with AGM specifications and achieve adaptation by monitoring variables, diagnosing requirements violations, determining reconfigurations and execution. Our approach is demonstrated with an example from the Intelligent Transportation System domain and evaluated through a series of simulation experiments.
Modelling financial time series with SEMIFAR–GARCH model

A class of semiparametric fractional autoregressive GARCH models (SEMIFARGARCH), which includes deterministic trends, difference stationarity and stationarity with short- and long-range dependence, and heteroskedastic model errors, is very powerful for modelling financial time series. This paper discusses the model fitting, including an efficient algorithm and parameter estimation of GARCH error term. So that the model can be applied in practice. We then illustrate the model and estimation methods with a few of different finance data sets.
Evaluation of continuous alumina fibre reinforced composites based upon pure aluminium

AbstractComposites of super purity aluminium unidirectionally reinforced with Altex or Nextel 610 continuous alumina basedfibre have been made by liquid metal infiltration. The composites were well consolidated, with fibre volume fractions Vf of 0.4 and 0.6 for the Altex composites and 0.7 for the Nextel composite, the higher values being obtained where preforming involved the use of sized fibre tows. Matrix porosity was very low and there was no evidence of any deleterious reaction product having formed at the fibre/matrix interface. Monotonic longitudinal tensile tests of the composites gave Youngs modulus values between 125 and 250 GPa, in line with rule of mixtures (ROM) predictions and evidence of effective load transfer between fibres. The onset of yielding in longitudinal composites was commensurate with the yield stress of unreinforced super purity aluminium for Vf = 0.4 (∼20 MPa), but increased to 225 MPafor Vf =0.7. The tensile strengths of the Altex composites were 760 and 930 MPa, values in ac.
Laser processing of silicon solar cells

Results of a study to utilize an Nd:glass laser for production line annealing of ion implantation induced damage in solar cells are reported. Czochralski-grown and sawn Si wafers 7.6 cm in diam, 0.35 mm thick, were implanted with phosphorus junctions and boron BSFs. Annealing with electron beam, laser, and firing of an Al paste to form the BSFs in different cells was compared. The laser was employed at 1.06 and 0.53 micron and in combination of both, with a 20-50 nsec pulsewidth, and energy densities of 1.2, 1.5, 1.9, and 2.1 J/sq cm. Best optical coupling was observed with the combined wavelengths and a 20 nsec pulse, using energy densities less than 1.5 J/sq cm. Although the Al sintered cells displayed the best characteristics, laser annealing is concluded to offer electrically active, defect-free, shallow junction Si substrates for high efficiency cells.
Piezo actuator placement and sizing for good control effectiveness and minimal change in original system dynamics

Piezoelectric actuators are commonly considered for active vibration control of smart structures. The placement and sizing of the actuators are normally decided based on control effectiveness. A piezo actuator affects the host structure’s mass and stiffness properties and thus alters the original system, which would have been designed to have a certain natural frequency spectrum in relation to the disturbance excitation. For a rotating structure, the mass of the actuator additionally contributes to the centrifugal stiffening effect. In the event of failure of the active system, natural frequencies of the structure with piezos (now rendered passive) become significant. Considering the example of a stationary and rotating beam-like structure, it is attempted to identify the piezo actuator sizing and location that possess significant control effectiveness yet cause minimal change in the system dynamics.
Welding Metallurgy and Weldability of Stainless Steels

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Phase Diagrams. 3. Alloying Elements and Constitution Diagrams. 4. Martensitic Stainless Steels. 5. Ferritic Stainless Steels. 6. Austenitic Stainless Steels. 7. Duplex Stainless Steels. 8. Precipitation-Hardening Stainless Steels. 9. Dissimilar Welding of Stainless Steels. 10. Weldability Testing. Appendix 1: Nominal Compositions of Stainless Steels. Appendix 2: Etching Techniques for Stainless Steel Welds. Author Index. Subject Index.