Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of rubber/filler interactions on the structural development and mechanical properties of NBR/silica composites

A study was carried out on the effects of interactions between nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) and silica on the developments of agglomerates by silica particles and of bound rubber in NBR/silica composites. The mechanical properties of the composites were also investigated in relation to the structure development. Transmission infrared spectra revealed the existence of hydrogen bonding between nitrile groups in NBR and silanol groups on the silica surface. The number of hydrogen bonds increased with the increasing nitrile group content of NBR. Transmission electron microscopy observations and thermal analysis revealed that the averaged size of agglomerates in composites decreased, and simultaneously the amount of filler-gel in silica-filled NBR decreased with increasing nitrile group content of NBR. These results suggest that the hydrogen bonding between nitrile groups and silanol groups suppresses the development of agglomerates by silica particles, that is, the dispersion of silica is improved by the hydrogen bonding. At a given nitrile group content of NBR, the storage modulus and the initial slope of stress-strain curves for vulcanized composites increased with increasing the amount of filler-gel. Further, at a larger strain, the composites showed a clear pseudo-yielding point on the stress-strain curves, with this tendency more prominent in the larger agglomerate size. These results suggest that the mechanical properties for NBR/silica composites are affected by the content of filler-gel.
Surface Texture of Deformable Robotic Fingertips for a Stable Grasp Under Both Dry and Wet Conditions

This letter investigates the effect of the surface texture of soft deformable fingertips on the maximum resistible force under dry and wet conditions, and proposes a new hybrid structure that provides a stable grasp under both conditions. One definition of stable grasp is the capability of balancing a large external force or moment while grasping. For soft fingertips, both the friction and surface deformation contribute to the stability. Therefore, we investigate the maximum resistible force, which is defined as the maximum tangential force at which the fingertip can maintain contact when applying and increasing the tangential/shear force. We investigate the slit textures with primitive patterns and demonstrate that the nonpattern performs the best under dry conditions, whereas the horizontal slit pattern performs the best under wet (oily) conditions. Based on this, a concentric hybrid texture of the two patterns is proposed, and its effectiveness is verified by a grasping test.
The effects of exposure time on memory of display advertisements

Display advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry that has traditionally used a pricing scheme based on the number of impressions delivered. The number of impressions of an ad is simply the number of downloads of that ad. One impression, however, does not differentiate between an ad that is in view for five seconds or five minutes. Since advertisers seek brand recognition and recall, we ask whether a time-based accounting of advertising can better align with advertisers' goals. This work aims to model the basic relationship between ad exposure time and the probability that a viewer will remember an advertisement. We investigate this question via two behavioral experiments, conducted using Amazon Mechanical Turk, in which people viewed Web pages accompanied by ads. The amount of time the ads were in view was either determined endogenously (as a function of reading speed) or exogenously (as a function of a timer and random assignment). Our results suggest that for exposure times of up to one minute, there is a strong, causal influence of exposure time on ad recognition and recall, with the marginal effects diminishing at durations beyond this level. Simple models describing memory response as a function of the logarithm of exposure time provide a good fit. In addition, we find that advertisements that are displayed when the Web page loads attain greater marginal increases in recognition per unit time than do ads that come into view second in a sequence. Nonetheless, for both types of ads, exposure time has a substantial effect. A psychologically-informed accounting system based on ad exposure duration, sequence and onset time may more closely align with advertiser goals than the industry standard of impression-based accounting.
How Much Is Location Privacy Worth?

We use techniques from experimental economics and psy- chology to determine how much compensation must be oered to per- suade someone to allow precise information about their location to be collected. We pretend that we are running a study that needs volunteers to have their location monitored (via their mobile phone) over a period of one month. Volunteers apply by specifying the amount of compen- sation which they would require to participate in the experiment. The experimental subjects are led to believe that we will run a sealed-bid second-price auction on these values, and thus we obtain an estimate of the value that users attach to their location data being used by third parties.
Contextual anomaly detection for cyber-physical security in Smart Grids based on an artificial neural network model

This paper presents a contextual anomaly detection method and its use in the discovery of malicious voltage control actions in the low voltage distribution grid. The model-based anomaly detection uses an artificial neural network model to identify a distributed energy resource's behaviour under control. An intrusion detection system observes distributed energy resource's behaviour, control actions and the power system impact, and is tested together with an ongoing voltage control attack in a co-simulation set-up. The simulation results obtained with a real photovoltaic rooftop power plant data show that the contextual anomaly detection performs on average 55% better in the control detection and over 56% better in the malicious control detection over the point anomaly detection.
Development of the MPC Omega Method for Life Assessment in the Creep Range

A methodology for characterizing and assessing the behavior of materials after service in the creep range has been developed and used on a broad range of materials and components. It incorporates the results of relatively short-term tests and improved databases on materials properties. The essence of the method is the definition of a material performance characteristic which the authors refers to by the symbol {Omega}{sub p}. This coefficient effectively describes the rate at which a material`s ability to resist stress is degraded by strain. While {Omega}{sub p} is a function of stress, temperature, and mode of loading, it is amenable to parametric representation and is, therefore, useful in predicting life and strain accumulation. Time to failure and total accumulated strain are shown to be consequences of a characterizing strain rate, as defined herein, and an appropriate {Omega}{sub p} for the operating conditions and geometry of interest. Accumulated strain, future strain, current creep rate, remaining life, total damage, and damage rate are among the quantities which are easily calculated. The development of the method employs and extends the concepts of Larson-Miller, Monkman-Grant, Robinson, Theta Projection, Kachanov, and Norton.
Title : Salamander retina phospholipids and their localization by MALDI imaging mass spectrometry at cellular size resolution Authors :

Salamander large cells facilitated identification and localization of lipids by MALDI imaging mass spectrometry. Salamander retina lipid extract showed similarity with rodent retina lipid extract in phospholipid content and composition. Like rodent retina section, distinct layer distributions of phospholipids were observed in the salamander retina section. Phosphatidylcholines (PCs) composing saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids (PC 32:0, PC 32:1, and PC 34:1) were detected mainly in the outer and inner plexiform layers (OPL & IPL), whereas PCs containing polyunsaturated fatty acids (PC 36:4, PC 38:6, and PC 40:6) composed the inner segment (IS) and outer segment (OS). The presence of PCs containing polyunsaturated fatty acids in the OS layer implied that these phospholipids form flexible lipid bilayers, which facilitate phototransduction process occurring in the rhodopsin rich OS layer. Distinct distributions and relative signal intensities of phospholipids also indicated their relative abundance in a particular cell or a cell part. Using salamander large cells, a single cell level localization and identification of biomolecules could be achieved by MALDI imaging mass spectrometry.
Ethics and Equity in U.S. Health Care: The Data

Access to and equality in health care has deteriorated in the 1980s, as shown by the data on racial differences in reducing infant mortality rates, in life expectancy, and in the incidence and economic burden of AIDS. Various health status measures indicate significant declines with decreasing income, and the use of medical care services is higher for low-income groups. The growing number of uninsured and underinsured persons has exacerbated the problem. A consensus is emerging among diverse groups that health care should be extended to those who do not have access to it and that providing universal and affordable health care is a major national health priority.
Contextual Bearing on Linguistic Variation in Social Media

Microtexts, like SMS messages, Twitter posts, and Facebook status updates, are a popular medium for real-time communication. In this paper, we investigate the writing conventions that different groups of users use to express themselves in microtexts. Our empirical study investigates properties of lexical transformations as observed within Twitter microtexts. The study reveals that different populations of users exhibit different amounts of shortened English terms and different shortening styles. The results reveal valuable insights into how human language technologies can be effectively applied to microtexts.
Cytochemical and Immunocytochemical Localization of Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress in Pulmonary Hypertension in Lungs of Broiler Chickens, Gallus domesticus

Pulmonary hypertension and ascites affects young, rapidly growing broilers under conditions of hypoxia. Hypoxic pulmonary hypertension results in chronic right ventricular heart failure as well as cardiovascular stress in the lungs. In addition, the rapid weight gain of broilers has been suggested as a model for cardiovascular complications associated with obesity. Oxidative and nitrosative stresses have been implicated in the pathology of these vascular complications [1]. Elevated levels of nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide can uncouple constitutive endothelial nitric oxide synthase and reduce availability of NO. NADH oxidase has been shown to be a source of the free radical superoxide (O 2 .− ) in many cardiovascular disease processes and peroxynitrite (ONOO − ) has been documented in reduced availability of nitric oxide (NO . ) [2]. Initial studies were done to document the presence of NADH oxidase, a biomarker for O 2 . − , and nitrotyrosine, a biomarker for ONOO − and reduced availability of NO. Day old broilers chicks were raised for four weeks in hypobaric chambers which simulated the hypoxia at 10,000 ft above sea level. Control broilers were raised under normoxic conditions. All broilers received and ad libitum . for cytochemical
H2S Inhibits Hyperglycemia-Induced Intrarenal Renin-Angiotensin System Activation via Attenuation of Reactive Oxygen Species Generation

Decrease in endogenous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) was reported to participate in the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy (DN). This study is aimed at exploring the relationship between the abnormalities in H2S metabolism, hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress and the activation of intrarenal renin-angiotensin system (RAS). Cultured renal mesangial cells (MCs) and streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats were used for the studies. The expressions of angiotensinogen (AGT), angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), angiotensin II (Ang II) type I receptor (AT1), transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and collagen IV were measured by real time PCR and Western blot. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was assessed by fluorescent probe assays. Cell proliferation was analyzed by 5'-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine incorporation assay. Ang II concentration was measured by an enzyme immunoassay. AGT, ACE and AT1 receptor mRNA levels and Ang II concentration were increased in high glucose (HG) -treated MCs, the cell proliferation rate and the production of TGF-β1 and of collagen IV productions were also increased. The NADPH oxidase inhibitor diphenylenechloride iodonium (DPI) was able to reverse the HG-induced RAS activation and the changes in cell proliferation and collagen synthesis. Supplementation of H2S attenuated HG-induced elevations in ROS and RAS activation. Blockade on H2S biosynthesis from cystathione-γ-lyase (CSE) by DL-propargylglycine (PPG) resulted in effects similar to that of HG treatment. In STZ-induced diabetic rats, the changes in RAS were also reversed by H2S supplementation without affecting blood glucose concentration. These data suggested that the decrease in H2S under hyperglycemic condition leads to an imbalance between oxidative and reductive species. The increased oxidative species results in intrarenal RAS activation, which, in turn, contributes to the pathogenesis of renal dysfunction.
III-V/silicon photonic integrated circuits for FTTH and on-chip optical interconnects

In this paper we review our work in the field of heterogeneous III-V semiconductor/silicon photonic integrated circuits for application in Fiber-to-the-Home optical access networks and chip-scale optical interconnects. Several optical and opto-electronic components realized on this platform are described. The fabrication of the silicon waveguide structures is done in a CMOS pilot line on 200mm wafers. Silicon photonics, heterogeneous integration, FTTH, optical
Enhanced feed-forward for a user aware multi-touch device

Common multi-touch devices guide the user with feedback visualization during or after a registered interaction. Feed-forward techniques are less frequently used or not common at all. Our approach aims at a continuous process in which the system is aware of the users before, during, and after an explicit interaction takes place. This opens up the possibility for novel scenarios of user centered applications. Our setup utilizes Microsofts's depth-camera Kinect to collect the user's posture data in combination with a multi-touch device. This is a low cost and easy to install approach for collecting detailed information about the people and their position in close proximity of a multi-touch table as well as the location of their physical contact. Based on this information, we propose five phases of interaction and analyze the sequence of input during a typical workflow. Eight application concepts show the relevance of these phases using appropriate forms of visualization and we evaluated three of those concepts in a user-study.
Verifying data integrity in peer-to-peer media streaming

We study data integrity verification in peer-to-peer media streaming for content distribution. Challenges include the timing constraint of streaming as well as the untrustworthiness of peers. We show the inadequacy of existing data integrity verification protocols, and propose Block-Oriented Probabilistic verification (BOPV), an efficient protocol utilizing message digest and probabilistic verification. We then propose Tree-based Forward Digest Protocol (TFDP) to further reduce the communication overhead. A comprehensive comparison is presented by comparing the performance of existing protocols and our protocols, with respect to overhead, security assurance level, and packet loss tolerance. Finally, experimental results are presented to evaluate the performance of our protocols.
Glaucoma Alterations in the Neural and Connective Tissue Components of Glaucomatous Cupping After Glaucoma Surgery Using Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomography

Citation: Yoshikawa M, Akagi T, Hangai M, et al. Alterations in the neural and connective tissue components of glaucomatous cupping after glaucoma surgery using swept-source optical coherence tomography. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2014;55:477– 484. DOI:10.1167/iovs.13-11897 PURPOSE. To visualize changes in deep optic nerve head (ONH) structures following glaucoma surgery using (3-dimensional [3D]) swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) and to determine the clinical and structural factors associated with postoperative lamina cribrosa (LC) and prelaminar neural tissue (PLT) changes.
Therapeutic mechanism of treating SMMC-7721 liver cancer cells with magnetic fluid hyperthermia using Fe2O3 nanoparticles

This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic mechanism of treating SMMC-7721 liver cancer cells with magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) using Fe2O3 nanoparticles. Hepatocarcinoma SMMC-7721 cells cultured in vitro were treated with ferrofluid containing Fe2O3 nanoparticles and irradiated with an alternating radio frequency magnetic field. The influence of the treatment on the cells was examined by inverted microscopy, MTT and flow cytometry. To study the therapeutic mechanism of the Fe2O3 MFH, Hsp70, Bax, Bcl-2 and p53 were detected by immunocytochemistry and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). It was shown that Fe2O3 MFH could cause cellular necrosis, induce cellular apoptosis, and significantly inhibit cellular growth, all of which appeared to be dependent on the concentration of the Fe2O3 nanoparticles. Immunocytochemistry results showed that MFH could induce high expression of Hsp70 and Bax, decrease the expression of mutant p53, and had little effect on Bcl-2. RT-PCR indicated that Hsp70 expression was high in the early stage of MFH (<24 h) and became low or absent after 24 h of MFH treatment. It can be concluded that Fe2O3 MFH significantly inhibited the proliferation of in vitro cultured liver cancer cells (SMMC-7721), induced cell apoptosis and arrested the cell cycle at the G2/M phase. Fe2O3 MFH can induce high Hsp70 expression at an early stage, enhance the expression of Bax, and decrease the expression of mutant p53, which promotes the apoptosis of tumor cells.
SAR Sea Ice Image Segmentation Based on Edge-preserving Watersheds

This paper presents a hybrid method for the segmentation of SAR sea ice images, which consists of an initial watershed segmentation followed by a region merging. Iterative bilateral filtering is used to reduce speckle noise and suppress irrelevant image details, which can significantly alleviate oversegmentation of watersheds. Since edges are well preserved by bilateral filtering, the watershed algorithm is capable of precisely locating object boundaries. Final segmentation is accomplished by applying an iterative region merging on the watershed regions by taking into account local boundary strengths and regional statistics. The efficiency of the proposed method has been demonstrated on the segmentation of SAR sea ice images. In comparison with traditional watershed algorithm, our method achieves better performance in identifying filament structures such as leads.
Algorithms for controlling both the DC boost and AC output voltage of the Z-source inverter

This paper aims to achieve the good performances of both the DC boost control and AC output voltage control of the Z-source inverter. The algorithm to control linearly the capacitor voltage is suggested in order to improve the transient response for DC boost control of the Z-source inverter. The peak AC output voltage is used to control exactly the AC output voltage to its desired level. The proposed algorithms are verified with simulation and experiment with 32-bit DSP
A conceptual framework for digital annotation system on WWW

The Internet and World Wide Web provide new ways to create and store information. From the literature, there are several reasons why people annotate documents. Some people use annotation as a reminder of an interesting or important part in a document. Annotation can be used to support collaborative work and discussion. It can also be viewed as additional information to the whole document or selected parts for some purposes such as classification. Annotation can be created in different forms e.g. highlight, note and etc. People use different forms of annotation for different functions. This paper proposed a conceptual framework for a development of digital annotation system on WWW. The framework depicts the structural components for digital annotation system. Last but not lease we used the proposed framework to develop a digital annotation system on WWW. This system allows users to create annotations on any web pages. Users can add notes and tag and create highlight on web pages.
Spectrum vector quantization

This paper proposes a new spectrum vector quantization algorithm (SVQ). SVQ conducts vector quantization in spectrum space. It is characterized by some novels. The first is the informed initialization of prototypes, which is achieved by a modified support vector clustering procedure. The second is the SVD-based spectrum analysis. This technique employs singular vector decomposition to derive all datapsilas spectrum information from a subset. Thirdly, the updating of prototypes is treated in two fashions. That is different from traditional VQ, where all prototypes are adjusted in a same manner. Experiments are conducted on real datasets to check the performance of initialization strategy, the SVD-based spectrum analysis and SVQ. Empirical evidence shows the fine performance of proposed strategies over the state of the art.
Toward Unweaving Streams of Thought for Reflection in Professional Software Design

Software designers make decisions covering a wide variety of aspects of the software to be designed through nested, intertwined processes. Some of these dependencies among design decisions might not be obvious, especially for people who didn't start with the project at the beginning of the design process. Extending or altering an existing design decision without fully understanding its dependencies might result in a deterioration of the quality of the software design. Design practice streams (DPS) tools help designers browse the segments of video data relevant to a particular topic by specifying a region on a whiteboard or by choosing a few terms used in a meeting transcript to further investigate the point of interest effectively.
Optomechanics of Plastic Optical Components

This book chapter describes the main optomechanical aspects that need to be considered when working with optical plastics. In comparison with glasses or metal, optical plastics have very different properties which need to be understood for the optomechanical design, this is particularly important for optical engineers. Plastics offer several advantages over glasses such as capability of low manufacturing cost, freedom with respect design, high shatter resistance, and implementation of cost-saving mounting methods. This also implies challenges, such as higher photoelastic birefringence which requires a careful study of induced stress, higher CTE, sensitivity to stretching, sensitivity to scratches due to low hardness, water absorption, shrinking due to cooling, and discoloration due to ionizing radiation.