Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enzymes, Energy, and the Environment: A Strategic Perspective on the U.S. Department of Energy's Research and Development Activities for Bioethanol

For well over one hundred years, researchers around the world have pursued ways to make ethanol from biomass such as wood, grasses, and waste materials. To distinguish it from ethanol made from starch and sugars in traditional agricultural crops, we refer to ethanol made from biomass as “bioethanol. ” The effort to develop bioethanol technology gained significant momentum in the late 1970s as a result of the energy crises that occurred in that decade. This article briefly reviews the broader history of bioethanol technology development. With this as a background, we focus our attention on the strategic thinking behind the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioethanol Program, which envisions remarkable advances in cellulase enzyme research and as the basis for significant future process cost reductions.
Silver matrix composites consolidated and hot extruded from ball milled powders strengthened with different types of graphene platelets

Silver matrix composites containing 1÷2% graphene platelets of various thicknesses were uniaxially hot pressed at 480°C in vacuum from powders ball milled for 5 hours. Two kinds of graphene nanoplatelets were added: (i) nanoflakes (FLRGO) of a thickness 2÷4 nm, which led to a higher hardness (35÷49 HV) and slightly lower electrical resistivity of the composites, than that of pure hot pressed Ag and (ii) nanographite platelets (N006) 10÷20 nm thick as confirmed by electron microscopy, which caused a similar increase in hardness up to 34÷45 HV and about a 40% higher electrical resistivity than that of pure hot pressed Ag. SEM studies showed a more homogeneous microstructure of the composites with the FLRGO graphene additions. TEM studies confirmed refinement of the thickness and lateral size of the graphene particles after milling and hot compaction down to a few nm manifested by diffused electron diffraction. The hot extrusion of hot pressed composites with FLRGO platelets caused the growth of graphene platelets and coagulation of the platelets, which contributed to a higher hardness and electrical resistivity.
Preferred Explanations: Theory and Generation via Planning

In this paper we examine the general problem of generating preferred explanations for observed behavior with respect to a model of the behavior of a dynamical system. This problem arises in a diversity of applications including diagnosis of dynamical systems and activity recognition. We provide a logical characterization of the notion of an explanation. To generate explanations we identify and exploit a correspondence between explanation generation and planning. The determination of good explanations requires additional domain-specific knowledge which we represent as preferences over explanations. The nature of explanations requires us to formulate preferences in a somewhat retrodictive fashion by utilizing Past Linear Temporal Logic. We propose methods for exploiting these somewhat unique preferences effectively within state-of-the-art planners and illustrate the feasibility of generating (preferred) explanations via planning.
All talk and all action: strategies for managing voicemail messages

Voicemail is a pervasive technology, but we know little about how users manage voice messages in executing everyday work. We analyze server logs, user surveys and interviews to identify three problems users experience in managing their voicemail: scanning, information extraction and search. We also isolate three distinct voicemail processing strategies, and discuss the relative merits of each strategy. We make recommendations about how voicemail might be redesigned to better address these problems and support these strategies.
Calculating Shortest Path on Edge-Based Data Structure of Graph

In this paper, a versatile edge-centered data structure is presented based on an analysis about classical representations of graph or network topology. The data structure has many good properties of convenient data accessing, compact topological representation and intuitionistic graph operating, and so on. Further, the data structure has capabilities of representing various networks with arbitrary complexity and topology and implementing codes of various graph algorithms with easy and efficient way. Based on the data structure and the breadth-first traversal strategy, an algorithm is proposed and built for efficiently calculating the shortest path between an given vertex and each other vertex in even very large-scale graph. Experiments and results show that our data structure has the better performance about time and space. It can act as basic data structure in implementations of various graph algorithms and in related applications.
Your computer is already a distributed system. Why isn't your OS?

We argue that a new OS for a multicore machine should be designed ground-up as a distributed system, using concepts from that field. Modern hardware resembles a networked system even more than past large multiprocessors: in addition to familiar latency effects, it exhibits node heterogeneity and dynamic membership changes. Cache coherence protocols encourage OS designers to selectively ignore this, except for limited performance reasons. Commodity OS designs have mostly assumed fixed, uniform CPU architectures and memory systems. It is time for researchers to abandon this approach and engage fully with the distributed nature of the machine, carefully applying (but also modifying) ideas from distributed systems to the design of new operating systems. Our goal is to make it easier to design and construct robust OSes that effectively exploit heterogeneous, multicore hardware at scale. We approach this through a new OS architecture resembling a distributed system. The use of heterogeneous multicore in commodity computer systems, running dynamic workloads with increased reliance on OS services, will face new challenges not addressed by monolithic OSes in either generalpurpose or high-performance computing. It is possible that existing OS architectures can be evolved and scaled to address these challenges. However, we claim that stepping back and reconsidering OS structure is a better way to get insight into the problem, regardless of whether the goal is to retrofit new ideas to existing systems, or to replace them over time. In the next section we elaborate on why modern computers should be thought of as networked systems. Section 3 discusses the implications of distributed systems principles that are pertinent to new OS architecture, and Section 4 describes a possible architecture for an OS following these ideas. Section 5 lays out open questions at the intersection of distributed systems and OS research, and Section 6 concludes. L3
VLBI measurement of the size of dMe stars.

The binary system YY Gem, which consists of two dM1e stars, has been observed during an eclipse using intercontinental Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) at 1.6 GHz. The stellar emission was at a low, quiescent level at all observing periods. The correlated flux decreases slightly with baseline length, indicating that the source is resolved at the longest baselines. This is confirmed by model fits, which give a FWHM size of 0.94(±0.24) mas (2.0·1011cm or 2.1 photospheric diameters) for the radio emitting source. A lower limit to the size derived from the lack of observable eclipse effects is consistent with this value. The resulting brightness temperature of 1.1 · 109 K is compatible with gyrosynchrotron emission. Deviations from circular symmetry are not significant. The loops that trap the radio emitting electrons reaching an altitude of probably more than a stellar radius appear to be distributed isotropically within the limits of the resolution.
[A study of inductive effect of hemin on expression of the beta-globin genes in K562 cells].

The recombinant plasmid HG was constructed,in which the reporter gene encoding the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) was driven by the beta-globin promoter and regulated under the HS2 element. The inductive effect of hemin on the expression of the beta-globin gene and transiently transfected beta-globin genes in K562 cells was analysed by FACS as well as RT-PCR method. The results showed that the level of gamma and beta-globin gene mRNA in K562 cells increased significantly after 24,48 and 72 hours induced with 30 micromol/LHm.And this inductive effect was stronger after 24 and 48 hours. Furthermore,the transient expression of plasmid HG in K562 cells increased significantly with hemin induction. These results indicated that the mechanism of inductive erythroid differentiation with hemin may be correlated with mechanism of gamma-->beta-globin gene.
Molecular force spectroscopy with a DNA origami–based nanoscopic force clamp

Many tiny force sensors Several techniques can measure forces on biomolecules, but the need to connect the molecule to the macroscopic world often limits the rate at which data can be taken. Nickels et al. created large arrays of nanoscale force sensors by using DNA origami structures. Single-stranded DNA molecules of different lengths attached to the molecule of interest acted as entropic springs, with shorter strands exerting more force. The authors used their setup to study the bending of DNA induced by the TATA-binding protein. Science, this issue p. 305 A self-assembled molecular force clamp built from DNA enables highly parallelized force spectroscopy measurements. Forces in biological systems are typically investigated at the single-molecule level with atomic force microscopy or optical and magnetic tweezers, but these techniques suffer from limited data throughput and their requirement for a physical connection to the macroscopic world. We introduce a self-assembled nanoscopic force clamp built from DNA that operates autonomously and allows massive parallelization. Single-stranded DNA sections of an origami structure acted as entropic springs and exerted controlled tension in the low piconewton range on a molecular system, whose conformational transitions were monitored by single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer. We used the conformer switching of a Holliday junction as a benchmark and studied the TATA-binding protein–induced bending of a DNA duplex under tension. The observed suppression of bending above 10 piconewtons provides further evidence of mechanosensitivity in gene regulation.
Detecting information under and from shadow in panchromatic Ikonos images of the city of Sherbrooke

The presence of shadow is increasingly alarming on the images with very high spatial resolution mainly in urban area. After shadow detection, how to give an added value to detected shadow? Some kinds of exploitation are presented: the restitution of information under shadow and the deduction of object height from their shadow. The restitution of surfaces under shadow is based on the analysis of contextual and textural information between the shadow and its neighbouring surfaces not in sun side. Assuming that the same surface texture is independent of shadow. The height of objects is deduced knowing the length of their projected shadow on the ground, the position (azimuth and zenith) of the sun and the sensor at the time of acquisition. These exploitations of shadow were carried out on a panchromatic Ikonos image of Sherbrooke. Results are validated with land use map for surfaces under shadow, and measured height for the building height from shadow
Neuropsychiatry and SPECT of an Acute Obsessive–Compulsive Syndrome Patient

Background A 71-year-old man with no previous psychiatric history presented with an acute onset of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms associated with a right inferior parietal infarct. There were no abnormal neurological signs. There were no noteworthy abnormalities on neuropsychological testing. Method Whereas a computerised tomography scan showed only a right inferior parietal infarct, a single photon emission computerised tomography (SPECT) scan revealed that in addition to the infarct there was decreased regional cerebral blood flow in the right basal ganglia and temporal areas. There was higher activity in the right orbitofrontal area than in the left. Results The patient improved with standard drug therapy and psychotherapy. Conclusions SPECT is effective in the diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders such as OCD, and the pathological changes in brain metabolism detected by SPECT may be reversed by both drug therapy and psychotherapy.
Characterisation of anti-erosive properties of nanocomposite coatings by the methods of sclerometry

Results of research of coatings of the different metal-ceramics systems are given. Coatings were received by ion-plasma sedimentation in vacuum in the form of multilayered composite material, which had a thickness of layers within nanometric range. Selection of composite systems is determined by applied research problem – namely designing of the anti-erosive coatings durable in the condition of drop impingement impacts. For this purpose the sclerometric studies, the bench erosive tests and optimization of the obtained data were done.
Word Re-Segmentation in Chinese-Vietnamese Machine Translation

In isolated languages, such as Chinese and Vietnamese, words are not separated by spaces, and a word may be formed by one or more syllables. Therefore, word segmentation (WS) is usually the first process that is implemented in the machine translation process. WS in the source and target languages is based on different training corpora, and WS approaches may not be the same. Therefore, the WS that results in these two languages are not often homologous, and thus word alignment results in many 1-n and n-1 alignment pairs in statistical machine translation, which degrades the performance of machine translation. In this article, we will adjust the WS for both Chinese and Vietnamese in particular and for isolated language pairs in general and make the word boundary of the two languages more symmetric in order to strengthen 1-1 alignments and enhance machine translation performance. We have tested this method on the Computational Linguistics Center’s corpus, which consists of 35,623 sentence pairs. The experimental results show that our method has significantly improved the performance of machine translation compared to the baseline translation system, WS translation system, and anchor language-based WS translation systems.
MicroRNA Regulation and its Biological Significance in Personalized Medicine and Aging

The recent explosion of research on the role of noncoding RNAs (ncRNA) in the control of gene expression has revealed multifaceted implications concerning the regulation of numerous mammalian systems, ranging from determination of cell fate during development to maintenance of terminally differentiated states. Among the various types of ncRNA, microRNAs are probably the best known group; their functional impact in signaling pathways controls normal processes regulating apoptosis, cell cycle traverse, differentiation, cytoskeletal organization, etc. at the post-transcriptional level, by either degrading their target genes’ messages through binding at the coding region, or inhibiting translation at the 3’-untranslated region. Not surprisingly, dysregulation of microRNA expression has been linked to the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases, among which cancer, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegeneration have proven fertile grounds for investigation.
Command Filtering-Based Fuzzy Control for Nonlinear Systems With Saturation Input

In this paper, command filtering-based fuzzy control is designed for uncertain multi-input multioutput (MIMO) nonlinear systems with saturation nonlinearity input. First, the command filtering method is employed to deal with the explosion of complexity caused by the derivative of virtual controllers. Then, fuzzy logic systems are utilized to approximate the nonlinear functions of MIMO systems. Furthermore, error compensation mechanism is introduced to overcome the drawback of the dynamics surface approach. The developed method will guarantee all signals of the systems are bounded. The effectiveness and advantages of the theoretic result are obtained by a simulation example.
Overview of neural hardware

Neural hardware has undergone rapid development during the last few years. This paper presents an overview of neural hardware projects within industries and academia. It describes digital, analog, and hybrid neurochips and accelerator boards as well as large-scale neurocomputers built from general purpose processors and communication elements. Special attention is given to multiprocessor projects that focus on scalability, flexibility, and adaptivity of the design and thus seem suitable for brain-style (cognitive) processing. The sources used for this overview are taken from journal papers, conference proceedings, data sheets, and ftp-sites and present an up-to-date overview of current state-of-the-art neural hardware implementations.
Health Impacts of Workplace Heat Exposure: An Epidemiological Review

With predicted increasing frequency and intensity of extremely hot weather due to changing climate, workplace heat exposure is presenting an increasing challenge to occupational health and safety. This article aims to review the characteristics of workplace heat exposure in selected relatively high risk occupations, to summarize findings from published studies, and ultimately to provide suggestions for workplace heat exposure reduction, adaptations, and further research directions. All published epidemiological studies in the field of health impacts of workplace heat exposure for the period of January 1997 to April 2012 were reviewed. Finally, 55 original articles were identified. Manual workers who are exposed to extreme heat or work in hot environments may be at risk of heat stress, especially those in low-middle income countries in tropical regions. At risk workers include farmers, construction workers, fire-fighters, miners, soldiers, and manufacturing workers working around process-generated heat. The potential impacts of workplace heat exposure are to some extent underestimated due to the underreporting of heat illnesses. More studies are needed to quantify the extent to which high-risk manual workers are physiologically and psychologically affected by or behaviourally adapt to workplace heat exposure exacerbated by climate change.
Domain Adaptation for Online ECG Monitoring

Successful ECG monitoring algorithms often rely on learned models to describe the heartbeats morphology. Unfortunately, when the heart rate increases the heartbeats get transformed, and a model that can properly describe the heartbeats of a specific user in resting conditions might not be appropriate for monitoring the same user during everyday activities. We model heartbeats by dictionaries yielding sparse representations and propose a novel domain-adaptation solution which transforms user-specific dictionaries according to the heart rate. In particular, we learn suitable linear transformations from a large dataset containing ECG tracings, and we show that these transformations can successfully adapt dictionaries when the heart rate changes. Remarkably, the same transformations can be used for multiple users and different sensing apparatus. We investigate the implications of our findings in ECG monitoring by wearable devices, and present an efficient implementation of an anomaly-detection algorithm leveraging such transformations.
Behavior of the charge accumulation at the pressboard/oil interface under DC external electric field stress

Mineral oils are commonly used for cooling and electrical insulation purposes in electrical power transformers. The physicochemical process appearing at the Pressboard/Oil interface, leads to the formation of an Electrical Double Layer (EDL). Therefore the interface is polarized by the EDL, the charge of one sign is generated within the solid medium and the opposite charge remains in the liquid medium. The process of flow electrification is due to the convection of the diffuse layer inside the liquid. The test loop was recently optimized with the addition of an energized wrapped copper electrode in the sensor. This modification allows studying the effect of an external electric field on the charge production and the distribution of the EDL : in the liquid via the streaming current (global charge production) and in the pressboard via the capacitive current. This capacitive current allows quantifying the accumulated charge within the pressboard plate (local charge production). Therefore, the dynamics of the accumulated charge refer to two EDL affected in the same way by the DC electric field. This paper proposes to show the influence of an external DC electric field on the accumulated charge within the pressboard as well as on the streaming current.
Voltage-dependent inactivation of T-tubular skeletal calcium channels in planar lipid bilayers

Single-channel properties of dihydropyridine (DHP)-sensitive calcium channels isolated from transverse tubular (T-tube) membrane of skeletal muscle were explored. Single-channel activity was recorded in planar lipid bilayers after fusion of highly purified rabbit T-tube microsomes. Two populations of DHP-sensitive calcium channels were identified. One type of channel (noninactivating) was active (2 microM +/- Bay K 8644) at steady-state membrane potentials and has been studied in other laboratories. The second type of channel (inactivating) was transiently activated during voltage pulses and had a very low open probability (Po) at steady-state membrane potentials. Inactivating channel activity was observed in 47.3% of the experiments (n = 84 bilayers). The nonstationary kinetics of this channel was determined using a standard voltage pulse (HP = -50 mV, pulse to 0 mV). The time constant (tau) of channel activation was 23 ms. During the mV). The time constant (tau) of channel activation was 23 ms. During the pulse, channel activity decayed (inactivated) with a tau of 3.7 s. Noninactivating single-channel activity was well described by a model with two open and two closed states. Inactivating channel activity was described by the same model with the addition of an inactivated state as proposed for cardiac muscle. The single-channel properties were compared with the kinetics of DHP-sensitive inward calcium currents (ICa) measured at the cellular level. Our results support the hypothesis that voltage-dependent inactivation of single DHP-sensitive channels contributes to the decay of ICa.
Information Visualization and Proxemics: Design Opportunities and Empirical Findings

People typically interact with information visualizations using a mouse. Their physical movement, orientation, and distance to visualizations are rarely used as input. We explore how to use such spatial relations among people and visualizations (i.e., proxemics) to drive interaction with visualizations, focusing here on the spatial relations between a single user and visualizations on a large display. We implement interaction techniques that zoom and pan, query and relate, and adapt visualizations based on tracking of users' position in relation to a large high-resolution display. Alternative prototypes are tested in three user studies and compared with baseline conditions that use a mouse. Our aim is to gain empirical data on the usefulness of a range of design possibilities and to generate more ideas. Among other things, the results show promise for changing zoom level or visual representation with the user's physical distance to a large display. We discuss possible benefits and potential issues to avoid when designing information visualizations that use proxemics.