Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Topic Cube: Topic Modeling for OLAP on Multidimensional Text Databases

As the amount of textual information grows explosively in various kinds of business systems, it becomes more and more desirable to analyze both structured data records and unstructured text data simultaneously. While online analytical processing (OLAP) techniques have been proven very useful for analyzing and mining structured data, they face challenges in handling text data. On the other hand, probabilistic topic models are among the most effective approaches to latent topic analysis and mining on text data. In this paper, we propose a new data model called topic cube to combine OLAP with probabilistic topic modeling and enable OLAP on the dimension of text data in a multidimensional text database. Topic cube extends the traditional data cube to cope with a topic hierarchy and store probabilistic content measures of text documents learned through a probabilistic topic model. To materialize topic cubes efficiently, we propose a heuristic method to speed up the iterative EM algorithm for estimating topic models by leveraging the models learned on component data cells to choose a good starting point for iteration. Experiment results show that this heuristic method is much faster than the baseline method of computing each topic cube from scratch. We also discuss potential uses of topic cube and show sample experimental results.
Computation of Probability Distribution of Strength of Quasibrittle Structures Failing at Macrocrack Initiation

AbstractEngineering structures must be designed for an extremely low failure probability, Pf<10-6. To determine the corresponding structural strength, a mechanics-based probability distribution model is required. Recent studies have shown that quasibrittle structures that fail at the macrocrack initiation from a single representative volume element (RVE) can be statistically modeled as a finite chain of RVEs. It has further been demonstrated that, based on atomistic fracture mechanics and a statistical multiscale transition model, the strength distribution of each RVE can be approximately described by a Gaussian distribution, onto which a Weibull tail is grafted at a point of the probability about 10-4 to 10-3. The model implies that the strength distribution of quasibrittle structures depends on the structure size, varying gradually from the Gaussian distribution modified by a far-left Weibull tail applicable for small-size structures, to the Weibull distribution applicable for large-size structures. Com.
Influence of Process Parameters on Pulse Electroforming of Nickel-Rich Nickel-Cobalt Alloys from Sulfamate Electrolyte

Nickel-cobalt alloys have a wide range of industrial applications because of high strength, good corrosion resistance, heat-conductive, etc. As an example, they are used in the electroforming of moulds for die-casting and plastics and in electrotyping. In this paper, experiments on pulse electroforming of nickel-rich nickel-cobalt alloys were studied on SUS304 substrates from sulfamate electrolyte with different average current density, pulse frequency, duty cycle and different bath temperature. It is clearly observed in the nickel-rich deposits that effect of cobalt content gradually increases as the Co2+/Ni2+ concentration ratio and duty cycle increasing; The Co content seems to hardly change when pulse frequency changed from 500 Hz to 1000 Hz; The Co content decreases as current density increasing. High Co content and smooth surface topography can be obtained by reducing current density, increasing bath temperature and pulse duty cycle.
Centrog Feature technique for vehicle type recognition at day and night times

This work proposes a feature-based technique to recognize vehicle types within day and night times. Support vector machine (SVM) classifier is applied on image histogram and CENsus Transformed histogRam Oriented Gradient (CENTROG) features in order to classify vehicle types during the day and night. Thermal images were used for the night time experiments. Although thermal images suffer from low image resolution, lack of colour and poor texture information, they offer the advantage of being unaffected by high intensity light sources such as vehicle headlights which tend to render normal images unsuitable for night time image capturing and subsequent analysis. Since contour is useful in shape based categorisation and the most distinctive feature within thermal images, CENTROG is used to capture this feature information and is used within the experiments. The experimental results so obtained were compared with those obtained by employing the CENsus TRansformed hISTogram (CENTRIST). Experimental results revealed that CENTROG offers better recognition accuracies for both day and night times vehicle types recognition.
Performance evaluation of sar texture algorithms for surface water body extraction through an open source python-based engine

SAR-based image thresholding can be used to detect and map open water body locations and extents. The selection of a reasonable and consistent thresholding approach can be challenging across many complex landcover types. Besides SAR acquisition characteristics, environmental factors (e.g., emergent vegetation and wind-induced roughening of the water) can cause water locally increased backscatter relative to the characteristic dark appearance of water in SAR imagery. This is where much attention has been recently devoted to a variety of thresholding methodologies for surface water monitoring with SAR imagery.
Stroke or coronary artery disease prediction from mean platelet volume in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

The aim of this study was to determine the association of mean platelet volume (MPV) with the development of stroke or coronary artery disease (CAD) in diabetes mellitus (DM). MPV was analyzed in 200 Korean patients with DM. The primary endpoint was composite of ischemic stroke/CAD events. The mean MPV was 7.6 ± 0.8 fl. There were 14 ischemic stroke events and 8 CAD events during a mean of 28.4 months of follow-up. The Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that the higher tertile MPV group (≥7.9 fl) had a significantly higher stroke/CAD rate compared to the lower tertile MPV group (≤7.3 fl) (29.9% vs. 2.8%, log-rank: p < 0.001). Higher MPV was an independent predictor of stroke/CAD risk after adjusting for 10-year risk ≥10%, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and previous stroke or transient ischemic attack history (hazard ratio: 11.92, 95% confidence interval 2.68–52.92, p = 0.001) in the Cox proportional hazard analysis. When the MPV cut-off level was set to 7.95 fl using the receiver operating characteristic curve, the sensitivity was 91% and the specificity was 80% for differentiating between the group with stroke/CAD and the group without stroke/CAD. This value was more useful in patients with hypertension. The results of this study show that MPV is a predictive marker for stroke/CAD; its predictive power for stroke/CAD is independent of age, gender, hypertension, and hemoglobin A1C.
CirculaFloor [locomotion interface]

The CirculaFloor locomotion interface's movable tiles employ a holonomic mechanism to achieve omnidirectional motion. Users can thus maintain their position while walking in a virtual environment. The CirculaFloor method exploits both the treadmill and footpad, creating an infinite omnidirectional surface using a set of movable tiles. The tiles provide a sufficient area for walking, and thus precision tracing of the foot position is not required. This method has the potential to create an uneven surface by mounting an up-and-down mechanism on each tile. This article is available with a short video documentary on CD-ROM.
Intercalary Femur and Tibia Segmental Allografts Provide an Acceptable Alternative in Reconstructing Tumor Resections

Intercalary femur and tibia segmental allografts were implanted in 59 consecutive patients after segmental resection—52 for malignant and seven for benign aggressive bone tumors. The patients were followed up for an average of 5 years. Allograft survival was determined with the Kaplan–Meier method. Infection, fracture, and nonunion rates were determined. The overall 5-year survivorship for the 59 intercalary allografts was 79%, and we found no significant differences between allograft survival in patients receiving or not receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. Infection and fracture rates were 5% and 7% respectively. From 118 host-donor junctions, 11 did not initially heal (9%). The nonunion rate (10 of 69 osteotomies) for diaphyseal junctions was higher than the rate (one of 49 osteotomies) for metaphyseal junctions. Although some patients required reoperations because of allograft complications, it seems that the use of intercalary allograft clearly has a place in the reconstruction of a segmental defect created by the resection of a tumor in the diaphyseal and /or metaphyseal portion of the femur or tibia.
The forgotten key point for assuring knowledge consistency in CLIR systems

CLIR is the acronym of a great variety of techniques, systems and technologies that associate information retrieval (normally from texts) in multilingual environments. Many of these systems are based on a double architecture composed by systems in charge of extracting information with a great dependency on the language together with classical machine translation systems. In the early 90’s, machine translation systems fell from grace due to the failure of big machine translations projects in Europe, Japan and USA. Due to this reason some approaches, particularly those of linguistic knowledge representation were undeservedly forgotten, and above all the so called “interlinguas”. Recently, the re-emergence of these models under the generic name of “ontologies” are supporting most of knowledge representation initiatives, even in an language independent way. However consistency problems are not well solved yet. UNL, initially conceived as a contents representation and multilingual generation system, can also be applied to the CLIR. This paper aims to show how to create and apply domain specific ontologies using the UNL apparatus, particularly the UNL language as a way of ensuring a consistent representation mechanism.
Managing the sequence-specificity of antisense oligonucleotides in drug discovery

Abstract All drugs perturb the expression of many genes in the cells that are exposed to them. These gene expression changes can be divided into effects resulting from engaging the intended target and effects resulting from engaging unintended targets. For antisense oligonucleotides, developments in bioinformatics algorithms, and the quality of sequence databases, allow oligonucleotide sequences to be analyzed computationally, in terms of the predictability of their interactions with intended and unintended RNA targets. Applying these tools enables selection of sequence-specific oligonucleotides where no- or only few unintended RNA targets are expected. To evaluate oligonucleotide sequence-specificity experimentally, we recommend a transcriptomics protocol where two or more oligonucleotides targeting the same RNA molecule, but with entirely different sequences, are evaluated together. This helps to clarify which changes in cellular RNA levels result from downstream processes of engaging the intended target, and which are likely to be related to engaging unintended targets. As required for all classes of drugs, the toxic potential of oligonucleotides must be evaluated in cell- and animal models before clinical testing. Since potential adverse effects related to unintended targeting are sequence-dependent and therefore species-specific, in vitro toxicology assays in human cells are especially relevant in oligonucleotide drug discovery.
GAS3, a developmentally regulated gene, encodes a highly mannosylated and inactive protein of the Gas family of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The multigene GAS family of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is constituted by five genes encoding GPI‐anchored proteins required for cell wall or spore wall assembly. GAS1 and GAS5 are expressed in vegetative growth and repressed during sporulation, whereas GAS2 and GAS4 exhibit the opposite expression pattern. This study focuses on GAS3, a still poorly characterized member of the family. To date, attempts to reveal the glucan elongase activity typical of Gas proteins have been unsuccessful, suggesting that Gas3p is the only inactive member of the family. Here, we compared the mRNA levels of GAS1, GAS3 and GAS5 and demonstrate that GAS3 is the weakest‐expressed paralogue in vegetative growth. Moreover, GAS3 mRNA increased during sporulation, showing a bimodal profile typical of the early–middle meiotic genes. GAS3 product was identified as a low‐abundance, polydisperse mannoprotein. Loss of Gas3p did not affect growth and sporulation. The overexpression of GAS3, driven by the GAS1 promoter, slightly reduced growth rate in a wild‐type strain and led to hyperaccumulation of Gas3p in the membranes and in the cell wall. To determine whether GAS3 could replace GAS1 function in vivo, GAS3 was also overexpressed in a gas1Δ mutant. Increased amounts of Gas3p were not only unable to complement the defects of the gas1Δ cells but exacerbated them. A mutated Gas3p–E283Q, where one of the catalytic glutamate residues essential for GH72 enzyme activity was replaced by glutamine, was also noxious to gas1Δ cells, indicating that the increased expression of Gas3p, rather than a potential activity, is deleterious for gas1Δ cells. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Toward a Hippocratic Psychopharmacology

Objective: To provide a conceptual basis for psychopharmacology. Method: This review compares contemporary psychopharmacology practice with the Hippocratic tradition of medicine by examining the original Hippocratic corpus and modern interpretations (by William Osler and Oliver Wendell Holmes). Results: The Hippocratic philosophy is that only some, not all, diseases should be treated and, even then, treatments should enhance the natural healing process, not serve as artificial cures. Hippocratic ethics follow from this philosophy of disease and treatment. Two rules for Hippocratic medicine are derived from the teachings of Osler (treat diseases, not symptoms) and Holmes (medications are guilty until proven innocent). The concept of a diagnostic hierarchy is also stated explicitly: Not all diseases are created equal. This idea helps to avoid mistaking symptoms for diseases and to avoid excessive diagnosis of comorbidities. Current psychopharmacology is aggressive and non-Hippocratic: symptom-based, rather than disease oriented; underemphasizing drug risks; and prone to turning symptoms into diagnoses. These views are applied to bipolar disorder. Conclusions: Contemporary psychopharmacology is non-Hippocratic. A proposal for moving in the direction of a Hippocratic psychopharmacology is provided.
Local image feature matching for object recognition

We present a method for matching image local features, specifically SIFT features, to a database of learned object features for the purpose of object recognition and localisation. Our approach differs from existing methods by taking into account the geometric consistency of matched features concurrently with their description vector similarity. As a result we do not need to over-constrain the description vector matching criteria (description vectors of matching features do not need to be nearest neighbours). The outcome of our approach is a greater number of feature matches between a scene image and a database image, as well an improvement in matching speed under certain circumstances.
Human synthetic sebum formulation and stability under conditions of use and storage

The human skin surface and hair are generally coated with a thin film of liquid phase sebaceous lipids. This surface lipid film contributes to the cosmetic properties of the skin. Synthetic sebum has been used for studies on properties of skin and hair. However, there has been no standardized formulation of synthetic sebum and many of the synthetic sebum formulations that have been used do not closely resemble actual sebum. In this study, a formulation for a standardized and inexpensive synthetic sebum is proposed, and the chemical stability of this lipid mixture is demonstrated under conditions of use and storage. The proposed synthetic sebum consists of 17% fatty acid, 44.7% triglyceride, 25% wax monoester (jojoba oil) and 12.4% squalene. This lipid mixture takes up approximately 6% of its weight in water when equilibrated in an atmosphere saturated with water vapour. It is stable on exposure to the atmosphere at 32°C for at least 48 h, and it is also stable on storage at 4 or −20°C, either dry or in chloroform : methanol solution for at least 6 months. This synthetic sebum could be useful in studies on cosmetic properties of the skin surface or hair, on penetration of chemicals into the skin or in development of standardized tests of laundry detergent performance.
System for laser microsurfacing of metal powders

The article presents the technology of laser cladding of metallic powders and a machine for laser microsurfacing developed for this purpose. This specifically designed and manufactured station is based on a three-axis CNC machine, equipped with appropriate laser safety systems and a dust extraction system. A disc laser is used as a source of laser energy, connected with the processing optics by a fibre optic cable. A brush powder feeder with a nozzle for shaping the flow of powder transfers the powder coaxially with the laser beam. The system is integrated with a PC-motion card which acts as a CNC controller. The article also presents the results of laser surfacing experiments, classified in terms of the following criteria: surfacing height, width and depth of penetration, wetting angle and microstructural parameters. The laser power density, powder feeding rate and density, as well as the relative movement of the welding head against the component, have been selected as independent parameters.
MTPA based Sensorless Control of PMSM using position and speed estimation by Back-EMF method

Sensorless Control of interior permanent-magnet synchronous motor with MTPA (maximum torque per ampere) control has been presented in this paper. PMSM has been controlled by estimating the rotor speed and angular position using Back-EMF Method. Interior PMSM is preferred due its extra reluctance torque production. Due to thermal or reliability constraints the maximum permissible current of the inverter or motor is limited. This also limits the torque capability. But MTPA control gives high efficiency as the stator current is lesser compare to conventional control. The MTPA control strategy mostly used in the efficient drive applications. This also attracts the researchers and technologist to work with Sensorless control in MTPA based PMSM drives. Simulation study has been done in Sensorless PMSM in terms of MTPA control with load changing.
Use of 16S rRNA and rpoB Genes as Molecular Markers for Microbial Ecology Studies

ABSTRACT Several characteristics of the 16S rRNA gene, such as its essential function, ubiquity, and evolutionary properties, have allowed it to become the most commonly used molecular marker in microbial ecology. However, one fact that has been overlooked is that multiple copies of this gene are often present in a given bacterium. These intragenomic copies can differ in sequence, leading to identification of multiple ribotypes for a single organism. To evaluate the impact of such intragenomic heterogeneity on the performance of the 16S rRNA gene as a molecular marker, we compared its phylogenetic and evolutionary characteristics to those of the single-copy gene rpoB. Full-length gene sequences and gene fragments commonly used for denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis were compared at various taxonomic levels. Heterogeneity found between intragenomic 16S rRNA gene copies was concentrated in specific regions of rRNA secondary structure. Such “heterogeneity hot spots” occurred within all gene fragments commonly used in molecular microbial ecology. This intragenomic heterogeneity influenced 16S rRNA gene tree topology, phylogenetic resolution, and operational taxonomic unit estimates at the species level or below. rpoB provided comparable phylogenetic resolution to that of the 16S rRNA gene at all taxonomic levels, except between closely related organisms (species and subspecies levels), for which it provided better resolution. This is particularly relevant in the context of a growing number of studies focusing on subspecies diversity, in which single-copy protein-encoding genes such as rpoB could complement the information provided by the 16S rRNA gene.
Effect of compatibilizer on the natural durability of wood flour/high density polyethylene composites against rainbow fungus (Coriolus versicolor)

To evaluate the effect of compatibilizer on the natural durability of wood flour/high density polyethylene composites against Coriolus versicolor, composites containing 25% and 50% by weight maple wood flour and 1% and 2% compatibilizer (Maleic anhydride polyethylene (MAPE)), respectively, were sampled. Identical specimens of the same composites without the compatibilizer were also prepared. Physical and mechanical properties of all specimens, including water absorption, flexural modulus, flexural strength, impact strength and hardness, were determined prior to and after incubation with the fungus for 14 weeks at 25°C and 75% relative humidity. Weight losses of the specimens were also determined after incubation. Results indicated that the compatibilizer had significant effects on the natural durability of the studied composite formulations so that all mechanical properties were affected by the fungus to greater extents in the case of uncompatibilized specimens than the compatibilized ones. Weight loss of the uncompatibilized composites was also higher than that of compatibilized ones. Higher water absorption was observed in all cases after incubation. However, the increase in water absorption was considerably higher in the case of uncompatibilized specimens. POLYM. COMPOS. , 28:273–277, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers
Relaxation of polymer thin films in isothermal temperature-jump measurements

The dynamic behavior of thin polymer films is of interest in the fabrication of microelectronics and optoelectronics and in the coatings industry. It is known that polymer relaxation is affected by film thickness and the particular substrate/polymer pair. We previously used a spectroscopic ellipsometer to investigate the glass transition in thin films. In addition to information on the modification of thermal transitions such as the glass-transition temperature, the speed of data acquisition in an automated, spectroscopic ellipsometer, operated at a single wavelength of 780 nm, allows for the direct observation of the isothermal dimensions of a thin polymer film as a function of time after a rapid temperature change. In this article, we discuss recent results from the observation of the time dependence of film-normal thickness and normalized, in-plane, lateral dimension as well as simple fits to this relaxation behavior in terms of a normalized viscosity and relaxation time. The results support a highly asymmetric initial thermal expansion normal to the film followed by close to isotropic relaxation and anisotropic “flow” (the flow in response to the vanishingly small shears of thermal expansion). These features may clarify issues involving the observation of chain confinement in thin polymer films in terms of potential differences between equilibrium and dynamic measurements. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 38: 2929–2936, 2000