Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental investigation into radiative heat transfer characteristics for mould fluxes containing transition oxides

Infrared transmittance of glassy and crystalline mould fluxes was measured using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer at room temperature. Radiation heat transfer from the steel shell to the mould was calculated by a model. The results indicate that transition metal oxides MnO, FeO and TiO2 have a marked negative effect on infrared transmittance and radiation heat flux of glassy samples. With MnO, FeO and TiO2 added, the reductions of radiation heat flux in glassy samples are 19–25%, 34–36%, 6–29% respectively. X-ray diffraction results indicated that the crystalline phase in transition oxides free samples was mainly Ca4Si2O7F2. After transition oxides MnO, FeO and TiO2 added, Mn2SiO4, Fe2SiO4, CaTiO3, Ca2SiO4 and other minor phases were also precipitated in mould fluxes. On account of strong refraction and scattering, the negative effect on radiation heat flux in crystalline samples was much larger than that in the glassy ones.
Facile development, characterization, and optimization of new metformin-loaded nanocarrier system for efficient colon cancer adjunct therapy

Abstract Purpose: Metformin hydrochloride (MF) repurposing as adjuvant anticancer therapy for colorectal cancer (CRC) proved effective. Several studies attempted to develop MF-loaded nanoparticles (NPs), however the entrapment efficiency (EE%) was poor. Thus, the present study aimed at the facile development of a new series of chitosan (CS)-based semi-interpenetrating network (semi-IPN) NPs incorporating Pluronic® nanomicelles as nanocarriers for enhanced entrapment and sustained release of MF for efficient treatment of CRC. Methods: The NPs were prepared by ionic gelation and subsequently characterized using FTIR, DSC, TEM, and DLS. A full factorial design was also adopted to study the effect of various formulation variables on EE%, particle size, and zeta-potential of NPs. Results: NPs had a spherical shape and a mean particle size ranging between 135 and 220 nm. FTIR and DSC studies results were indicative of successful ionic gelation with the drug being dispersed in its amorphous form within CS-Pluronic® matrix. Maximum EE% reaching 57.00 ± 12.90% was achieved using Pluronic®-123 based NPs. NPs exhibited a sustained release profile over 48 h. The MF-loaded NPs sensitized RKO CRC cells relative to drug alone. Conclusion: The reported results highlighted the novel utility of the developed NPs in the arena of colon cancer treatment.
Design and Development of RFID Label for Steel Coil

Although RF identification (RFID) technology has had a remarkable impact on various industries in recent years, designing RFID tags for metallic objects with satisfactory performance is still a challenge. So far, only few success stories have been reported in the steel industry. This paper presents the design and development of RFID labels for steel coils. In order to achieve automatic inventory during the product-delivery process, a novel antenna structure based on the principle of a monopole antenna has been designed, and the performance has been verified through measurements. In order to minimize the implementation cost added to the product line, the RFID tag is embedded into a barcode label with special perforations. A site test demonstrates that the developed tag has excellent performance, enabling automatic inventory using fixed readers.
Women with hereditary breast cancer predispositions should avoid using their smartphones, tablets, and laptops at night

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women, both in the developed and developing countries. Women with mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Recent studies show that short-wavelength visible light disturb the secretion of melatonin and causes circadian rhythm disruption. We have previously studied the health effects of exposure to different levels of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) such as mobile phones, mobile base stations, mobile phone jammers, laptop computers, and radars. Moreover, over the past several years, we investigated the health effects of exposure to the short wavelength visible light in the blue region emitted from digital screens. The reduction of melatonin secretion after exposure to blue light emitted from smartphone’s screen has been reported to be associated with the negative impact of smartphone use at night on sleep. We have shown that both the blue light and RF-EMFs generated by mobile phones are linked to the disruption of the circadian rhythm in people who use their phones at night. Therefore, if women with hereditary breast cancer predispositions use their smartphones, tablets and laptops at night, disrupted circadian rhythms (suppression of melatonin caused by exposure to blue light emitted from the digital screens), amplifies the risk of breast cancer. It can be concluded that women who carry mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2, or women with family history of breast cancer should avoid using their smartphones, tablets and laptops at night. Using sunglasses with amber lenses, or smartphone applications which decrease the users’ exposure to blue light before sleep, at least to some extent, can decrease the risk of circadian rhythm disruption and breast cancer.
A Pilot Study of the Delivery of Occupational Therapy in Long Term Care Settings Under the Medicare Prospective Payment System

Objective: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine occupational therapists' perceptions of practice in skilled nursing facilities since the implementation of the Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS). Method: A survey was sent to 250 randomly selected occupational therapists who had worked or were currently working in skilled nursing facilities for a minimum of two years. Results: A majority of therapists reported an increase in caseload size since the implementation of the new prospective payment system. Most also noted increasing expectations to maintain patients on their caseloads for longer periods of time. Many reported that their facilities were decreasing the number of level II fieldwork students they were accepting. An even greater number reported that their facilities were decreasing the amounts of their continuing education budgets. A significant number also reported that they felt the quality of life for their residents had decreased since the implementation of prospective payment. Conclusion: This pilot survey may indicate some problematic trends in occupational therapists' perceptions of practice in skilled nursing facilities. There may be a relationship between these trends and the implementation of prospective payment in these settings. Further studies are recommended to more deeply assess occupational therapists' practice perceptions, as well as the quality of life of patients in skilled nursing facilities. Research is also needed to determine if occupational therapists' perceptions of practice in skilled nursing facilities changes or stabilizes under the prospective payment system.
Silicon Photonics towards Disaggregation of Resources in Data Centers

In this paper, we demonstrate two subsystems based on Silicon Photonics, towards meeting the network requirements imposed by disaggregation of resources in Data Centers. The first one utilizes a 4 × 4 Silicon photonics switching matrix, employing Mach Zehnder Interferometers (MZIs) with Electro-Optical phase shifters, directly controlled by a high speed Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) board for the successful implementation of a Bloom-Filter (BF)-label forwarding scheme. The FPGA is responsible for extracting the BF-label from the incoming optical packets, carrying out the BF-based forwarding function, determining the appropriate switching state and generating the corresponding control signals towards conveying incoming packets to the desired output port of the matrix. The BF-label based packet forwarding scheme allows rapid reconfiguration of the optical switch, while at the same time reduces the memory requirements of the node’s lookup table. Successful operation for 10 Gb/s data packets is reported for a 1 × 4 routing layout. The second subsystem utilizes three integrated spiral waveguides, with record-high 2.6 ns/mm2, delay versus footprint efficiency, along with two Semiconductor Optical Amplifier Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (SOA-MZI) wavelength converters, to construct a variable optical buffer and a Time Slot Interchange module. Error-free on-chip variable delay buffering from 6.5 ns up to 17.2 ns and successful timeslot interchanging for 10 Gb/s optical packets are presented.
Corpus cavernosum electromyography: could it be a parameter to predict ageing?

In this study, we investigated whether electromyography of corpus cavernosum (CC‐EMG) results vary with age and whether CC‐EMG could be a parameter to predict ageing of cavernous smooth muscle. Recordings of electrical activity of corpus cavernosum (EACC) were retrospectively investigated in 134 patients with erectile dysfunction. Penile colour Doppler ultrasonography and cavernosometry were also performed for all of the patients. The total number and duration of EACC and amplitudes between positive and negative peaks were compared between the flask state for 10 min and after intracavernosal papaverine injection. The mean age of the 47 patients in group 1 was 35.2 ± 6.3 years (range, 23–44), the mean age of the 45 patients in group 2 was 51.1 ± 3.1 years (range, 45–56) and the mean age of the 42 patients in group 3 was 61.8 ± 4.6 years (range, 57–77). Total IIEF‐5 score was 7.6 ± 2.1 in group 1, 7.9 ± 2.4 in group 2 and 7.9 ± 2.1 in group 3. There were no statistically significant differences among the groups regarding electrical potential frequencies, durations and amplitudes of electromyographic recordings. Conclusion: We do not think that CC‐EMG findings could be used efficiently as a predictor of ageing.
New photoacoustic imaging modality for imaging internal organs based on single focus ultrasonic transducer

Photoacoustic imaging is a promising technique in practical medicine to image biological tissue's function and diagnose internal organs. In this paper, a new photoacoustic imaging modality for imaging internal organs was presented. A laser which wavelength is tunable was coupled into a multimode optical fiber. And the fiber was inserted into the inner tract of the samples to deliver light for exciting photoacoustic signals. The outgoing PA signal was detected by a focal ultrasound transducer with long focal length which was placed on the surface of the samples. By transducer scanning, we obtained a 2D cross-section photoacoustic image. Finally, we evaluate this system's performance and demonstrate its capabilities by imaging phantoms with complex structure.
Mammary adipocytes bioactivate 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3 and signal via vitamin D3 receptor, modulating mammary epithelial cell growth

The vitamin D3 receptor (VDR) is present in all microenvironments of the breast, yet it is hypothesized to signal through the epithelium to regulate hormone induced growth and differentiation. However, the influence or contribution of the other microenvironments within the breast that express VDR, like the breast adipose tissue, are yet to be investigated. We hypothesized that the breast adipocytes express the signaling components necessary to participate in vitamin D3 synthesis and signaling via VDR, modulating ductal epithelial cell growth and differentiation. We utilized human primary breast adipocytes and VDR wild type (WT) and knockout (KO) mice to address whether breast adipocytes participate in vitamin D3‐induced growth regulation of the ductal epithelium. We report in this study that breast primary adipocytes express VDR, CYP27B1 (1α‐hydroxylase, 1α‐OHase), the enzyme that generates the biologically active VDR ligand, 1α,25‐dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3), and CYP24 (24‐hydroxylase, 24‐OHase), a VDR‐1,25D3 induced target gene. Furthermore, the breast adipocytes participate in bioactivating 25‐hydroxyvitamin D3 (25D3) to the active ligand, 1,25D3, and secreting it to the surrounding microenvironment. In support of this concept, we report that purified mammary ductal epithelial fragments (organoids) from VDR KO mice, co‐cultured with WT breast adipocytes, were growth inhibited upon treatment with 25D3 or 1,25D3 compared to vehicle alone. Collectively, these results demonstrate that breast adipocytes bioactivate 25D3 to 1,25D3, signal via VDR within the adipocytes, and release an inhibitory factor that regulates ductal epithelial cell growth, suggesting that breast adipose tissue contributes to vitamin D3‐induced growth regulation of ductal epithelium. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 3393–3405, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Training Big Random Forests with Little Resources

Without access to large compute clusters, building random forests on large datasets is still a challenging problem. This is, in particular, the case if fully-grown trees are desired. We propose a simple yet effective framework that allows to efficiently construct ensembles of huge trees for hundreds of millions or even billions of training instances using a cheap desktop computer with commodity hardware. The basic idea is to consider a multi-level construction scheme, which builds top trees for small random subsets of the available data and which subsequently distributes all training instances to the top trees' leaves for further processing. While being conceptually simple, the overall efficiency crucially depends on the particular implementation of the different phases. The practical merits of our approach are demonstrated using dense datasets with hundreds of millions of training instances.
Right and Left Medial Orbitofrontal Volumes Show an Opposite Relationship to Agreeableness in FTD

Recent investigations of the neuroanatomy of complex social behaviors suggest that the underlying brain circuits involve multiple cortical and subcortical structures. The neuroanatomic origins of agreeableness have not yet been clearly elucidated. However, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients can evidence dramatic alterations in agreeableness arising from frontal and temporal lobe damage. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that agreeableness would be negatively correlated with left medial orbitofrontal cortex size and positively correlated with right amygdala volume. First-degree relatives of 27 FTD patients (diagnosed according to the Lund-Manchester criteria) were asked to fill out the NEO-Five Factor Inventory to assess the patients’ current level of agreeableness, a construct comprised of the facets trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness. These patients underwent T1-weighted MRI imaging, and gray matter volumes for right and left orbitofrontal lobes and amygdalas were derived via segmentation and region of interest tracing, normalizing for total intracranial volume. Regression analysis revealed that 38% of the variance in the NEO agreeableness score was predicted by a model in which right orbitofrontal volume (β = 0.731) was positively correlated with agreeableness, and left orbitofrontal lobe volume (β = –0.638) was negatively correlated with agreeableness (p < 0.01). Contrary to our hypothesis, amygdala volume did not significantly predict agreeableness. This finding partly replicates a previous study that used a different measure of social functioning, the Interpersonal Adjective Scale, to delineate a left frontal-right amygdala circuit for agreeableness. These data support the hypothesis that regulation of agreeableness arises from a balanced, mutually inhibitory circuit involving both hemispheres.
Loop transformations leveraging hardware prefetching

Memory-bound applications heavily depend on the bandwidth of the system in order to achieve high performance. Improving temporal and/or spatial locality through loop transformations is a common way of mitigating this dependency. However, choosing the right combination of optimizations is not a trivial task, due to the fact that most of them alter the memory access pattern of the application and as a result interfere with the efficiency of the hardware prefetching mechanisms present in modern architectures. We propose an optimization algorithm that analytically classifies an algorithmic description of a loop nest in order to decide whether it should be optimized stressing its temporal or spatial locality, while also taking hardware prefetching into account. We implement our technique as a tool to be used with the Halide compiler and test it on a variety of benchmarks. We find an average performance improvement of over 40% compared to previous analytical models targeting the Halide language and compiler.
The Global Meningococcal Initiative: global epidemiology, the impact of vaccines on meningococcal disease and the importance of herd protection

ABSTRACT Introduction: The 2015 Global Meningococcal Initiative (GMI) meeting discussed the global importance of meningococcal disease (MD) and its continually changing epidemiology. Areas covered: Although recent vaccination programs have been successful in reducing incidence in many countries (e.g. Neisseria meningitidis serogroup [Men]C in Brazil, MenA in the African meningitis belt), new clones have emerged, causing outbreaks (e.g. MenW in South America, MenC in Nigeria and Niger). The importance of herd protection was highlighted, emphasizing the need for high vaccination uptake among those with the highest carriage rates, as was the need for boosters to maintain individual and herd protection following decline of immune response after primary immunization. Expert commentary: The GMI Global Recommendations for Meningococcal Disease were updated to include a recommendation to enable access to whole-genome sequencing as for surveillance, guidance on strain typing to guide use of subcapsular vaccines, and recognition of the importance of advocacy and awareness campaigns.
Recent Advances of Malaria Parasites Detection Systems Based on Mathematical Morphology

Malaria is an epidemic health disease and a rapid, accurate diagnosis is necessary for proper intervention. Generally, pathologists visually examine blood stained slides for malaria diagnosis. Nevertheless, this kind of visual inspection is subjective, error-prone and time-consuming. In order to overcome the issues, numerous methods of automatic malaria diagnosis have been proposed so far. In particular, many researchers have used mathematical morphology as a powerful tool for computer aided malaria detection and classification. Mathematical morphology is not only a theory for the analysis of spatial structures, but also a very powerful technique widely used for image processing purposes and employed successfully in biomedical image analysis, especially in preprocessing and segmentation tasks. Microscopic image analysis and particularly malaria detection and classification can greatly benefit from the use of morphological operators. The aim of this paper is to present a review of recent mathematical morphology based methods for malaria parasite detection and identification in stained blood smears images.
Plant tolerance to high temperature in a changing environment: scientific fundamentals and production of heat stress-tolerant crops

Global warming is predicted to have a general negative effect on plant growth due to the damaging effect of high temperatures on plant development. The increasing threat of climatological extremes including very high temperatures might lead to catastrophic loss of crop productivity and result in wide spread famine. In this review, we assess the impact of global climate change on the agricultural crop production. There is a differential effect of climate change both in terms of geographic location and the crops that will likely show the most extreme reductions in yield as a result of expected extreme fluctuations in temperature and global warming in general. High temperature stress has a wide range of effects on plants in terms of physiology, biochemistry and gene regulation pathways. However, strategies exist to crop improvement for heat stress tolerance. In this review, we present recent advances of research on all these levels of investigation and focus on potential leads that may help to understand more fully the mechanisms that make plants tolerant or susceptible to heat stress. Finally, we review possible procedures and methods which could lead to the generation of new varieties with sustainable yield production, in a world likely to be challenged both by increasing population, higher average temperatures and larger temperature fluctuations.
Microcracking in Monocrystalline Silicon due to Indentation and Scratching

This paper discusses the cracking in monocrystalline silicon induced by microindentation with spherical and Berkovich indenters and scratching. It was found cracks always commenced in a specimen’s subsurface beneath the transformation zone. While using a Berkovich indenter the level of the maximum indentation load, Pmax, to initiate microcracking was lower than the case with a spherical indenter. In both indentation and scratching all microcracks took place at the sites of slip intersection or emanated from the bottom of a transformation zone. The paper also discussed critical loads for microcracking.
Multi-photon microscopy based on resonant four-wave mixing of colloidal quantum dots

We demonstrate a novel multi-photon imaging modality based on the detection of four-wave mixing (FWM) from colloidal nanoparticles. Four-wave mixing is a third-order signal which can be excited and detected in resonance with the ground-state excitonic transition of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots. The coherent FWM signal is detected interferometrically to reject incoherent backgrounds for improved image contrast compared to fluorescence methods. We measure transversal and axial resolutions of 140nm and 590nm respectively, significantly beating the one-photon diffraction limit. We also demonstrate optical imaging of quantum-dot-labeled Golgi structures of HepG2 cells.
Hyaluronan and synovial joint: function, distribution and healing

ABSTRACT Synovial fluid is a viscous solution found in the cavities of synovial joints. The principal role of synovial fluid is to reduce friction between the articular cartilages of synovial joints during movement. The presence of high molar mass hyaluronan (HA) in this fluid gives it the required viscosity for its function as lubricant solution. Inflammation oxidation stress enhances normal degradation of hyaluronan causing several diseases related to joints. This review describes hyaluronan properties and distribution, applications and its function in synovial joints, with short review for using thiol compounds as antioxidants preventing HA degradations under inflammation conditions.
Analysis, Synchronization and Circuit Design of a 4D Hyperchaotic Hyperjerk System

In this work, a 4D hyperchaotic hyperjerk system, with better results for its Lyapunov exponents and Kaplan–Yorke dimension regarding other systems of this family, as well as its circuit implementation, is presented. Hyperchaotic hyperjerk systems depict complex dynamical behavior in a high-dimensional phase space with n ≥ 4, offering robustness against many types of attacks in private communications. For this reason, an adaptive controller in order to achieve global chaos synchronization of coupled 4D hyperchaotic hyperjerk systems with unknown parameters is designed. The adaptive results in this work are proved using Lyapunov stability theory and the effectiveness of the proposed synchronization scheme is confirmed through the simulation results.