Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intergranular Corrosion of Extruded AlMgSi(Cu,Zn) Alloys

In general, the 6xxx series alloys (AlMgSi) are considered to be resistant to intergranular corrosion (IGC) in marine environments. However, the addition of copper to increase peak hardness has proven to increase the IGC susceptibility. The detrimental effect on IGC resistance is believed to be caused by the formation of a nanoscale continuous Cu rich film confined along the grain boundaries of the material. Evaluation of IGC susceptibility in heat treatable aluminium alloys is generally carried out by metallographic examination of specimens after exposure in an acidified chloride test solution. Experience has revealed that accelerated corrosion testing is highly dependent on several factors. Especially extruded specimens with a region comprised of highly directional grains in the centre and a recrystallised surface have shown to experience severe corrosion inwards the fibrous area. This observation is believed to influence the extent of corrosion on the recrystallised specimen surface. Extruded copper containing AA6082 alloys modified with various Zn levels were corrosion tested according to BS-ISO 11846 (method B) in the T5 and T6 temper. Several IGC test parallels were conducted to examine how the edge microstructure affects the IGC resistance of these alloys. The influence of Zn on IGC susceptibility was investigated as well. Optical microscopy (LM) was used to characterise the microstructure of the T5 and T6 profiles, and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis were conducted to identify and characterise the grain boundary chemistry in the fibrous microstructure. Assessment of corrosion susceptibility was done by metallographic examination in LM and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) after accelerated corrosion testing. Results reveal that the edge microstructure had a significant effect on the corrosion behaviour of the recrystallised surface. Corrosion susceptible T5 tempered alloys with a fibrous microstructure and recrystallised surface experienced extensive edge corrosion, whereas the surface was nearly resistant to IGC. This was especially evident for the Cu containing alloys without Zn and with 0.21 wt% Zn. By covering the edges, extensive IGC was observed at the surface on the alloys that previously appeared to be resistant to IGC. The completely recrystallised T6 profiles experienced limited edge corrosion, while severe IGC occurred on the surface in susceptible alloys. The corrosion behaviour did not change when the edges were covered. The difference in IGC extent dependent on edge micsrostructure in the susceptible T5 alloys points towards that the BS-ISO 11846 standard is inadequate to account for edge effects. Furthermore, results indicated that IGC susceptibility increased with increasing Zn content and EDS analysis of the T5 profile with 0.60 wt% Zn revealed a Cu rich film along the grain boundaries, whereas the Zn primarily remained in solid solution. Zn in solid solution might have activated the particle free zone (PFZ) further thus accelerating the IGC mechanism.
Role of paraoesophageal collaterals and perforating veins on outcome of endoscopic sclerotherapy for oesophageal varices: an endosonographic study.

BACKGROUND--Endoscopic sclerotherapy (EST) is an established method for controlling and preventing bleeding from oesophageal varices. However, oesophageal varices sclerose easily and require less sessions of EST in some patients while few fail to respond. This study therefore looked at changes in the vascular anatomy of the lower oesophagus and upper stomach that accompany successful sclerotherapy of oesophageal varices. METHODS--Endoscopic ultrasonography was performed in 50 patients with cirrhotic portal hypertension before (control, 20 patients) and after successful obliteration of varices with endoscopic sclerotherapy in a group of responders (EST-R, 20 patients) and in a group of non-responders (EST-NR, 10 patients). RESULTS--The median number and size of submucosal veins at the gastrooesophageal junction and in the lower oesophagus were significantly less in the EST-R group compared with control and EST-NR groups (p values between < 0.00001 and < 0.000001). Concomitantly, the number and size of paraoesophageal collaterals were significantly less in the EST-R group compared with the other two groups (p values between 0.02 and 0.00007). Perforating veins were identified in 14 (70%) patients in the control group, nine (90%) in the EST-NR group and in none in the EST-R group (p < 0.001 for both controls v EST-R and EST-R v EST-NR, and p = NS, control v EST-NR). CONCLUSION--Oesophageal variceal sclerosis is associated with significant reduction in the number and size of paraoesophageal collaterals and disappearance of perforating veins in the lower oesophagus.
Private-HERMES: a benchmark framework for privacy-preserving mobility data querying and mining methods

Mobility data sources feed larger and larger trajectory databases nowadays. Due to the need of extracting useful knowledge patterns that improve services based on users' and customers' behavior, querying and mining such databases has gained significant attention in recent years. However, publishing mobility data may lead to severe privacy violations. In this paper, we present Private-HERMES, an integrated platform for applying data mining and privacy-preserving querying over mobility data. The presented platform provides a two-dimension benchmark framework that includes: (i) a query engine that provides privacy-aware data management functionality of the in-house data via a set of auditing mechanisms that protect the sensitive information against several types of attacks, and (ii) a progressive analysis framework, which, apart from anonymization methods for data publishing, includes various well-known mobility data mining techniques to evaluate the effect of anonymization in the querying and mining results. The demonstration of Private-HERMES via a real-world case study, illustrates the flexibility and usefulness of the platform for supporting privacy-aware data analysis, as well as for providing an extensible blueprint benchmark architecture for privacy-preservation related methods in mobility data.
Achievement of longitudinally polarized focusing with long focal depth by amplitude modulation.

The longitudinal component of a focused beam is split into two parts along the optical axis to obtain a longitudinally polarized long focal depth using amplitude filtering based on Euler transformation and a radially polarized Bessel-Gaussian beam. Numerical results indicate that long focal depth and FWHM can be easily achieved with 9λ and 0. 8λ, respectively. A radially polarized beam can be converted into a longitudinally polarized beam with a conversion efficiency of 51.0%. It can therefore be believed that the proposed scheme can be widely used to generate a longitudinally polarized beam for particle acceleration, laser cutting, and optical trapping.
Ischemic Stroke Subtypes: A Population-Based Study of Incidence Rates Among Blacks and Whites

Background and Purpose— Blacks have an excess burden of stroke compared with whites; however, data comparing ischemic stroke subtypes among the 2 groups are limited and typically involve relative frequencies. The objective of this study is to compare the incidence rates of ischemic stroke subtypes between blacks and whites within a large, representative, biracial population. Methods— The Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Stroke Study is designed to measure incidence rates and trends of all strokes within a well-defined, large, biracial population. Hospitalized cases were ascertained by International Classification of Disease (9th revision; ICD-9) discharge codes. Out-of-hospital events were ascertained by prospective screening of emergency department admission logs, review of coroners’ cases, and monitoring all public health and hospital-based primary care clinics. A sampling scheme was used to ascertain events from nursing homes and all other primary care physician offices. All potential cases underwent detailed chart abstraction and confirmed by physician review. Based on all available clinical, laboratory, and radiographic information, ischemic stroke cases were subtyped into the following categories: cardioembolic, large-vessel, small-vessel, other, and stroke of undetermined cause. Race-specific incidence rates were calculated and compared after adjusting for age and gender, and standardizing to the 1990 US population. Results— Between July 1, 1993, and June 30, 1994, 1956 first-ever ischemic strokes occurred among blacks and whites in the study population. Small-vessel strokes and strokes of undetermined cause were nearly twice as common among blacks. Large-vessel strokes were 40% more common among blacks than whites, and there was a trend toward cardioembolic strokes being more common among blacks. Conclusions— The excess burden of ischemic strokes among blacks compared with whites is not uniformly spread across the different subtypes. Large-vessel strokes are more common and cardioembolic stroke are as common among blacks, traditionally thought to be more common among whites.
Investigation of temporal effects on microcirculation induced by focused ultrasound

Focused ultrasound (FUS) has been a novel solution for noninvasive treatment in various biomedical applications. FUS enables to temporally and locally increase drug delivery efficiency from the vessels into the surrounding area. However, the temporal effects and the exposure power of FUS are important issues for treatment. In this study, we propose to use high-magnification microscope to investigate the microcirculation of mouse skin after FUS exposures. In the experimental setup, the back skin of mouse is fixed on a window chamber and the window chamber area is exposed to various FUS exposure powers, and the skin is simultaneously imaged by the microscope. Additionally, an imaging process algorithm was developed to acquire vascular images based on the estimation of speckle variance due to flowing red blood cells. Finally, the changes due to various exposure powers are investigated. The results show that FUS enables to result in temporal changes in the vessels size and blood velocity as well as the flow directions.
C. elegans as Model for the Study of High Glucose– Mediated Life Span Reduction

OBJECTIVE Establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as a model for glucose toxicity–mediated life span reduction. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS C. elegans were maintained to achieve glucose concentrations resembling the hyperglycemic conditions in diabetic patients. The effects of high glucose on life span, glyoxalase-1 activity, advanced glycation end products (AGEs), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and on mitochondrial function were studied. RESULTS High glucose conditions reduced mean life span from 18.5 ± 0.4 to 16.5 ± 0.6 days and maximum life span from 25.9 ± 0.4 to 23.2 ± 0.4 days, independent of glucose effects on cuticle or bacterial metabolization of glucose. The formation of methylglyoxal-modified mitochondrial proteins and ROS was significantly increased by high glucose conditions and reduced by mitochondrial uncoupling and complex IIIQo inhibition. Overexpression of the methylglyoxal–detoxifying enzyme glyoxalase-1 attenuated the life-shortening effect of glucose by reducing AGE accumulation (by 65%) and ROS formation (by 50%) and restored mean (16.5 ± 0.6 to 20.6 ± 0.4 days) and maximum life span (23.2 ± 0.4 to 27.7 ± 2.3 days). In contrast, inhibition of glyoxalase-1 by RNAi further reduced mean (16.5 ± 0.6 to 13.9 ± 0.7 days) and maximum life span (23.2 ± 0.4 to 20.3 ± 1.1 days). The life span reduction by glyoxalase-1 inhibition was independent from the insulin signaling pathway because high glucose conditions also affected daf-2 knockdown animals in a similar manner. CONCLUSIONS C. elegans is a suitable model organism to study glucose toxicity, in which high glucose conditions limit the life span by increasing ROS formation and AGE modification of mitochondrial proteins in a daf-2 independent manner. Most importantly, glucose toxicity can be prevented by improving glyoxalase-1–dependent methylglyoxal detoxification or preventing mitochondrial dysfunction.
Gamma-Ray Burst Energetics and the Gamma-Ray Burst Hubble Diagram: Promises and Limitations

We present a complete sample of 29 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) for which it has been possible to determine temporal breaks (or limits) from their afterglow light curves. We interpret these breaks within the framework of the uniform conical jet model, incorporating realistic estimates of the ambient density and propagating error estimates on the measured quantities. In agreement with our previous analysis of a smaller sample, the derived jet opening angles of those 16 bursts with redshifts result in a narrow clustering of geometrically corrected gamma-ray energies about ℰγ = 1.33 × 1051 ergs; the burst-to-burst variance about this value is 0.35 dex, a factor of 2.2. Despite this rather small scatter, we demonstrate in a series of GRB Hubble diagrams that the current sample cannot place meaningful constraints upon the fundamental parameters of the universe. Indeed, for GRBs to ever be useful in cosmographic measurements, we argue the necessity of two directions. First, GRB Hubble diagrams should be based upon fundamental physical quantities such as energy, rather than empirically derived and physically ill-understood distance indicators (such as those based upon prompt burst time-profiles and spectra). Second, a more homogeneous set should be constructed by culling subclasses from the larger sample. These subclasses, although now first recognizable by deviant energies, ultimately must be identifiable by properties other than those directly related to energy. We identify a new subclass of GRBs ("f-GRBs") that appear both underluminous by factors of at least 10 and exhibit a rapid fading (fν ∝ t-2) at early times (t ≲ 0.5 day). About 10%-20% of observed long-duration bursts appear to be f-GRBs.
Cardiogenic Shock: Current Concepts and Improving Outcomes

Copyright © 2008 American Heart Association. All rights reserved. Print ISSN: 0009-7322. Online 72514 Circulation is published by the American Heart Association. 7272 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106. 613596 2008;117;686-697 Circulation Harmony R. Reynolds and Judith S. Hochman Cardiogenic Shock: Current Concepts and Improving Outcomes http://circ.ahajournals. org/cgi/content/full/117/5/686 located on the World Wide Web at: The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is
Low-Complexity Block Turbo Equalization for OFDM Systems in Time-Varying Channels

We propose low-complexity block turbo equalizers for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in time-varying channels. The presented work is based on a soft minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) block linear equalizer (BLE) that exploits the banded structure of the frequency-domain channel matrix, as well as a receiver window that enforces this banded structure. This equalization approach allows us to implement the proposed designs with a complexity that is only linear in the number of subcarriers. Three block turbo equalizers are discussed: two are based on a biased MMSE criterion, while the third is based on the unbiased MMSE criterion. Simulation results show that the proposed iterative MMSE BLE achieves a better bit error rate (BER) performance than a previously proposed iterative MMSE serial linear equalizer (SLE). The proposed equalization algorithms are also tested in the presence of channel estimation errors.
Basic amino acid residue cluster within nuclear targeting sequence motif is essential for cytoplasmic plectin-vimentin network junctions

We have generated a series of plectin deletion and mutagenized cDNA constructs to dissect the functional sequences that mediate plectin's interaction with intermediate filament (IF) networks, and scored their ability to coalign or disrupt intermediate filaments when ectopically expressed in rat kangaroo PtK2 cells. We show that a stretch of approximately 50 amino acid residues within plectin's carboxy-terminal repeat 5 domain serves as a unique binding site for both vimentin and cytokeratin IF networks of PtK2 cells. Part of the IF-binding domain was found to constitute a functional nuclear localization signal (NLS) motif, as demonstrated by nuclear import of cytoplasmic proteins linked to this sequence. Site directed mutagenesis revealed a specific cluster of four basic amino acid residues (arg4277-arg4280) residing within the NLS sequence motif to be essential for IF binding. When mutant proteins corresponding to those expressed in PtK2 cells were expressed in bacteria and purified proteins subjected to a sensitive quantitative overlay binding assay using Eu3+-labeled vimentin, the relative binding capacities of mutant proteins measured were fully consistent with the mutant's phenotypes observed in living cells. Using recombinant proteins we also show by negative staining and rotary shadowing electron microscopy that in vitro assembled vimentin intermediate filaments become packed into dense aggregates upon incubation with plectin repeat 5 domain, in contrast to repeat 4 domain or a mutated repeat 5 domain.
Retina Association Between Geographic Atrophy Progression and Reticular Pseudodrusen in Eyes With Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Department of Ophthalmology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, New York Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia University, New York, New York Vitreous Retina Macula Consultants of New York, New York, New York LuEsther T. Mertz Retinal Research Center, Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, New York, New York Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York
Size-induced hysteresis in the process of nucleation and phase separation in a nanopowder

Peculiarities of kinetics of the solid–solid phase transition between single-phase and two-phase states in a nanopowder are considered here. We present a numerical assessment of the time-dependent behaviour of a supersaturated nanosystem undergoing temperature cycling. We demonstrate a distinct size-induced hysteresis and its peculiarities. The analysis indicates that as the system size decreases the hysteresis loop narrows, showing a tendency to disappearance. The model predictions are demonstrated for a sample system with general hypothetical properties. The results are found to depend on such thermodynamic and kinetic constraints as the size, the rate of temperature cycling, energy barriers for nucleation and diffusion, mechanisms of nucleation, and scatter in particle sizes of a nanopowder. The newly obtained results may be used for the achievement of an alternative method of information recording in present-day and future technologies.
Self- and Other-Diagnosis in User-Led Mental Health Online Communities

This article consists of a qualitative analysis of discussion forums in online mental health communities whose members routinely write about diagnosis. The analysis concerns the function of diagnosis from the perspective of personal identity, with particular focus on the status of official diagnosis, as well as community members’ discussions of symptoms and psychiatric syndromes that amount to informal diagnosis or consultation. Self-diagnosis sometimes takes the form of recommended “quizzes” and other online quasi-diagnostic tools. Other-diagnosis, in which a third party is discussed by community members, is also considered. We discuss the implications of such online discourse for Internet users themselves as well the challenges for the health and medical professions.
Excessive caloric intake acutely causes oxidative stress, GLUT4 carbonylation, and insulin resistance in healthy men

Acute overnutrition in healthy men caused rapid weight gain and insulin resistance, as well as oxidative stress. The irresistible effects of overfeeding Obesity is very common in the United States and worldwide, and it is associated with a host of health problems collectively known as the metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance is a key component of this syndrome, but the mechanism by which obesity promotes insulin resistance is not yet fully understood. Boden et al. studied a group of six healthy men who were subjected to overnutrition for 1 week while performing no physical activity. In that time, the men gained an average of 3.5 kg and showed signs of insulin resistance as well as oxidative stress. This process was associated with inactivation of GLUT4, a major insulin-facilitated glucose transporter, suggesting a potential approach for the development of future therapeutic agents. Obesity-linked insulin resistance greatly increases the risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, together known as the metabolic or insulin resistance syndrome. How obesity promotes insulin resistance remains incompletely understood. Plasma concentrations of free fatty acids and proinflammatory cytokines, endoplasmic reticulum ( ER) stress, and oxidative stress are all elevated in obesity and have been shown to induce insulin resistance. However, they may be late events that only develop after chronic excessive nutrient intake. The nature of the initial event that produces insulin resistance at the beginning of excess caloric intake and weight gain remains unknown. We show that feeding healthy men with ~6000 kcal/day of the common U.S. diet [~50% carbohydrate (CHO), ~ 35% fat, and ~15% protein] for 1 week produced a rapid weight gain of 3.5 kg and the rapid onset (after 2 to 3 days) of systemic and adipose tissue insulin resistance and oxidative stress but no inflammatory or ER stress. In adipose tissue, the oxidative stress resulted in extensive oxidation and carbonylation of numerous proteins, including carbonylation of GLUT4 near the glucose transport channel, which likely resulted in loss of GLUT4 activity. These results suggest that the initial event caused by overnutrition may be oxidative stress, which produces insulin resistance, at least in part, via carbonylation and oxidation-induced inactivation of GLUT4.
Semantic subtyping with an SMT solver

We study a first-order functional language with the novel combination of the ideas of refinement type (the subset of a type to satisfy a Boolean expression) and type-test (a Boolean expression testing whether a value belongs to a type). Our core calculus can express a rich variety of typing idioms; for example, intersection, union, negation, singleton, nullable, variant, and algebraic types are all derivable. We formulate a semantics in which expressions denote terms, and types are interpreted as first-order logic formulas. Subtyping is defined as valid implication between the semantics of types. The formulas are interpreted in a specific model that we axiomatize using standard first-order theories. On this basis, we present a novel type-checking algorithm able to eliminate many dynamic tests and to detect many errors statically. The key idea is to rely on an SMT solver to compute subtyping efficiently. Moreover, interpreting types as formulas allows us to call the SMT solver at run-time to compute instances of types.