Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A generalised damage model for masonry under compression

A generalised model based on damage mechanics for predicting the response of masonry subjected to compression is presented. The model accounts for the behaviour of the constituents of the masonry, viz., the units, the mortar and the unit–mortar interfaces; in this paper, the unit–mortar interfaces and the mortar layers have been treated as a homogenised continuum. The principles of damage mechanics coupled with limiting damage surfaces have been used to simulate the behaviour of the masonry constituents. The novelty is the use of a non-linear, progressively stiffening stress–strain curve to simulate the viscoelastic behaviour of the homogenised mortar–interface (for conventional masonry) or dry surface–interface (for dry-stack masonry) layers until a threshold strain is reached. Beyond the threshold strain, their behaviour is assumed to have changed to progressive softening common for concrete like materials. The damage model for compression and tension due to progressive stiffening and softening criteria respectively have been formulated for the masonry constituents. The parameters which characterise the tensile and compressive behaviours, the volumetric change and the damage behaviour of the masonry constituents have been calibrated using some available experimental data in the literature. The model is shown to predict the average compressive strength and stress–strain behaviour of the masonry prisms appropriately. The model is capable of capturing the behaviour including appropriate stiffness degradation and post peak softening that are comparable to the experimental predictions reported in the literature for various types of masonry.
Towards quantitative materials characterization with Digital Pulsed Force Mode imaging

The determination of the mechanical properties of polymer-surfaces is a widespread task in the AFM community. The most important step in measuring is the thorough calibration of the measurement setup. Here, we address that problem for the case of Digital Pulsed Force Mode measurements. We show that following our suggestions, one can get reliable and consistent quantitative data on the mechanical properties of polymers such as PMMA or SBR rubber. The influence of the individual cantilevers and their properties, as well as the variations due to the settings of the AFM are widely eliminated.
Handling Information Access Dialogue through QA Technologies - A novel challenge for open-domain question answering

A novel challenge for evaluating open-domain question answering technologies is proposed. In this challenge, question answering systems are supposed to be used interactively to answer a series of related questions, whereas in the conventional setting, systems answer isolated questions one by one. Such an interaction occurs in the case of gathering information for a report on a speciﬁc topic, or when browsing information of interest to the user. In this paper, ﬁrst, we explain the design of the challenge. We then discuss its reality and show how the capabilities measured by the challenge are useful and important in practical situations, and that the difﬁculty of the challenge is proper for evaluating the current state of open-domain question answering technologies.
A Homozygous PDE6D Mutation in Joubert Syndrome Impairs Targeting of Farnesylated INPP5E Protein to the Primary Cilium

Joubert syndrome (JS) is characterized by a distinctive cerebellar structural defect, namely the « molar tooth sign ». JS is genetically heterogeneous, involving 20 genes identified to date, which are all required for cilia biogenesis and/or function. In a consanguineous family with JS associated with optic nerve coloboma, kidney hypoplasia, and polydactyly, combined exome sequencing and mapping identified a homozygous splice‐site mutation in PDE6D, encoding a prenyl‐binding protein. We found that pde6d depletion in zebrafish leads to renal and retinal developmental anomalies and wild‐type but not mutant PDE6D is able to rescue this phenotype. Proteomic analysis identified INPP5E, whose mutations also lead to JS or mental retardation, obesity, congenital retinal dystrophy, and micropenis syndromes, as novel prenyl‐dependent cargo of PDE6D. Mutant PDE6D shows reduced binding to INPP5E, which fails to localize to primary cilia in patient fibroblasts and tissues. Furthermore, mutant PDE6D is unable to bind to GTP‐bound ARL3, which acts as a cargo‐release factor for PDE6D‐bound INPP5E. Altogether, these results indicate that PDE6D is required for INPP5E ciliary targeting and suggest a broader role for PDE6D in targeting other prenylated proteins to the cilia. This study identifies PDE6D as a novel JS disease gene and provides the first evidence of prenyl‐binding‐dependent trafficking in ciliopathies.
Emergentism—Use Often and With Care

Applied Linguistics has been receptive to input from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. Researchers have explored theoretical and methodological inputs from linguistics, sociology, and psychology. Language planners have accepted ideas from sociology, political science, history, and demography. First and second language teachers have been open to all of these fields, as well as to approaches from education, rhetoric, and literature. This openness to new research and new ideas promotes innovation and dynamism in Applied Linguistics. At the same time, researchers and practitioners have often found themselves awash in a sea of conflicting claims and recommendations from these various theoretical sources. Should reading be taught by phonics or by the whole word method? Should we encourage second language learners to speak in the L2 from the first day or should we allow them to first consolidate their ability to learn from comprehensible input? Should we provide focused vocabulary practice or should vocabulary learning be subsumed in culturally relevant experiences? Should we provide explicit teaching of grammatical rules or rely instead on the student's ability to learn implicitly? In the great Cervantes classic, Sancho Panza advises Don Quixote that, 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating. ' Can we apply this adage to the task of evaluating the utility of theories of second language acquisition? I believe we can. Consider the situation in particle physics. Quantum dynamics is able to yield detailed predictions regarding atomic forces and collider events that are accurate to at least the eighth decimal place. For data collected by the high-energy collider, physicists rely on both string theory and quantum theory to provide accurate predications regarding the products emerging from the collision between two atoms of gold at 3 trillion degrees centigrade. In pools of heavy water buried deep in mountain caverns, physicists wait patiently for the appearance of rare varieties of quarks to provide evidence regarding the origins of the universe. Physicists are happy to pursue a variety of competing cosmological theories. But, in the end, they are committed to testing the worth of these theories in terms of quantitatively accurate models and validated experimental predictions. Although theories of language functioning will never attain this level of precision, we can still expect them to yield predictions that are accurate within a few percentages from observed data. What is the current status of scientific prediction for second language learning? Consider first the status of predictions …
Destruction of rat mammary tumor and normal tissue microcirculation by hematoporphyrin derivative photoradiation observed in vivo in sandwich observation chambers.

The effect of hematoporphyrin derivative photoradiation on tumor and normal tissue microcirculation was studied microscopically in vivo on rats with mammary carcinomas transplanted into subcutis in transparent observation chambers. One day after i.p. injection of hematoporphyrin derivative (15 mg/kg), chambers were exposed to red light (632 +/- 2 nm, eight light dose values, 0 to 270 J/cm2). After an initial blanching (ischemia) of the tumor accompanied by apparent vasoconstriction, reperfusion was observed with a slowing down of the tumor circulation, vasodilatation, and eventually a complete stasis, together with diffuse hemorrhages and subsequent necrosis. Besides, in large normal tissue vessels, platelet aggregates were observed, but no hemorrhage. Tumor regrowth occurred unless the tumor circulation and the adjacent normal tissue circulation were both destroyed. Tumor cell viability after treatment was assessed by transplanting the tumor from the chamber into the flank of the same animal. Even after a combined porphyrin and light dose 4 times the lethal dose for all tissues in the chamber, five of five transplanted tumors did regrow. This leads to the conclusion that, in our model system, tumor cell death after photoradiation occurs secondary to destruction of the microcirculation. In order to obtain additional information on normal tissue damage, rat ears were also irradiated. For the same light dose, the biological effect was only slightly larger than that of the normal tissue in the observation chambers, even though the measured ratio of porphyrin concentrations in ears and normal tissue in the chambers (subcutis) was about six.
Diffusion-induced dissipation and mode coupling in nanomechanical resonators

We study a system consisting of a particle adsorbed on a carbon nanotube resonator. The particle is allowed to diffuse along the resonator, in order to enable study of, e.g., room-temperature mass sensing devices. The system is initialized in a state where only the fundamental vibration mode is excited, and the ring-down of the system is studied by numerically and analytically solving the stochastic equations of motion. We find two mechanisms of dissipation, induced by the diffusing adsorbate. First, short-time correlations between particle and resonator motions means that the net effect of the former on the latter does not average out, but instead causes nonexponential dissipation of vibrational energy. For vibrational amplitudes that are much larger than the thermal energy this dissipation is linear; for small amplitudes the decay takes the same form as that of a nonlinearly damped oscillator. Second, the particle diffusion mediates a coupling between vibration modes that opens a new dissipation channel by enabling energy transfer from the fundamental mode to the excited modes, which rapidly reach thermal equilibrium.
Optimal Balancing between Efficiency and Fairness for Resource Management in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Dynamic Game-Theoretic Approach

Efficiency and fairness are the two critical and conflicting criterion indicators to measure radio resource management performance including the power and transmit control in the cognitive context. The best tradeoff is achieved using the dynamic game-theoretical approach in this paper, from the individual rationality and the social fairness perspective. Therefore, a two-step resource management scheme is investigated in the cognitive radio networks context, where the initial allocation focus on the personal efficiency and the second adjustment focus on the social fairness and the overall performance. Both the proposed algorithms during the two-steps scheme are distributed, with the help of the iterative water-filling algorithm and the sub-gradient method. Simulation numerical results tell the performance of the proposed algorithm.
Genomic Analysis Reveals the Molecular Basis for Capsule Loss in the Group B Streptococcus Population

The human and bovine bacterial pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae (Group B Streptococcus, GBS) expresses a thick polysaccharide capsule that constitutes a major virulence factor and vaccine target. GBS can be classified into ten distinct serotypes differing in the chemical composition of their capsular polysaccharide. However, non-typeable strains that do not react with anti-capsular sera are frequently isolated from colonized and infected humans and cattle. To gain a comprehensive insight into the molecular basis for the loss of capsule expression in GBS, a collection of well-characterized non-typeable strains was investigated by genome sequencing. Genome based phylogenetic analysis extended to a wide population of sequenced strains confirmed the recently observed high clonality among GBS lineages mainly containing human strains, and revealed a much higher degree of diversity in the bovine population. Remarkably, non-typeable strains were equally distributed in all lineages. A number of distinct mutations in the cps operon were identified that were apparently responsible for inactivation of capsule synthesis. The most frequent genetic alterations were point mutations leading to stop codons in the cps genes, and the main target was found to be cpsE encoding the portal glycosyl trasferase of capsule biosynthesis. Complementation of strains carrying missense mutations in cpsE with a wild-type gene restored capsule expression allowing the identification of amino acid residues essential for enzyme activity.
Process visualization with levels of detail

We demonstrate how we apply information visualization techniques to process monitoring. Virtual instruments are enhanced using history encoding instruments are capable of displaying the current value and the value from the near past. Multi-instruments are capable of displaying several data sources simultaneously. Levels of detail for virtual instruments are introduced where the screen area is inversely proportional to the information amount displayed. Furthermore the monitoring system is enhanced by using: 3D anchoring attachment of instruments to positions on a 3D model, collision avoidance a physically based spring model prevents instruments from overlapping, and focus+context rendering - giving the user a possibility to examine particular instruments in detail without loosing the context information.
Emergence of a Streptococcus pneumoniae Clinical Isolate Highly Resistant to Telithromycin and Fluoroquinolones

ABSTRACT Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major pathogen causing community-acquired pneumonia and acute bronchitis. Macrolides, fluoroquinolones (FQs), and, recently, telithromycin (TEL) constitute primary therapeutic options, and rare cases of resistance have been reported. In this report, we describe the emergence of an S. pneumoniae clinical isolate with high-level TEL resistance (MIC, 256 μg/ml) and simultaneous resistance to FQs. Ongoing studies are oriented to elucidate the precise mechanism of resistance to TEL.
High-performance low-power left-to-right array multiplier design

We present a high-performance low-power design of linear array multipliers based on a combination of the following techniques: signal flow optimization in [3:2] adder array for partial product reduction, left-to-right leapfrog (LRLF) signal flow, and splitting of the reduction array into upper/lower parts. The resulting upper/lower LRLF (ULLRLF) multiplier is compared with tree multipliers. From automatic layout experiments, we find that ULLRLF multipliers have similar power, delay, and area as tree multipliers for n/spl les/32. With more regularity and inherently shorter interconnects, the ULLRLF structure presents a competitive alternative to tree structures in the design of fast low-power multipliers implemented in deep submicron VLSI technology.
Application of Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis and Binary Typing as Tools in Veterinary Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Epidemiologic Analysis of Bovine and HumanStaphylococcus aureus Isolates

ABSTRACT Thirty-eight bovine mammary Staphylococcus aureusisolates from diverse clinical, temporal, and geographical origins were genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) afterSmaI digestion of prokaryotic DNA and by means of binary typing using 15 strain-specific DNA probes. Seven pulsed-field types and four subtypes were identified, as were 16 binary types. Concordant delineation of genetic relatedness was documented by both techniques, yet based on practical and epidemiological considerations, binary typing was the preferable method. Genotypes of bovine isolates were compared to 55 previously characterized human S. aureusisolates through cluster analysis of binary types. Genetic clusters containing strains of both human and bovine origin were found, but bacterial genotypes were predominantly associated with a single host species. Binary typing proved an excellent tool for comparison ofS. aureus strains, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus, derived from different host species and from different databases. For 28 bovine S. aureus isolates, detailed clinical observations in vivo were compared to strain typing results in vitro. Associations were found between distinct genotypes and severity of disease, suggesting strain-specific bacterial virulence. Circumstantial evidence furthermore supports strain-specific routes of bacterial dissemination. We conclude that PFGE and binary typing can be successfully applied for genetic analysis of S. aureusisolates from bovine mammary secretions. Binary typing in particular is a robust and simple method and promises to become a powerful tool for strain characterization, for resolution of clonal relationships of bacteria within and between host species, and for identification of sources and transmission routes of bovine S. aureus.
Telerehabilitation: controlling haptic virtual environments through handheld interfaces

This paper presents a telerehabilitation system for kinesthetic therapy (treatment of patients with arm motion coordination disorders). Patients can receive therapy while being immersed in a virtual environment (VE) with haptic feedback. Our system is based on a Haptic Workstation that provides force-feedback on the upper limbs. One of our main contributions is the use of a handheld device as the main interface for the therapist. The handheld allows for monitoring, adapting and designing exercises in real-time (dynamic VE). Visual contact with the patient is kept by means of a webcam.
Neurovascular Network Explorer 1.0: a database of 2-photon single-vessel diameter measurements with MATLAB® graphical user interface

We present a database client software—Neurovascular Network Explorer 1.0 (NNE 1.0)—that uses MATLAB® based Graphical User Interface (GUI) for interaction with a database of 2-photon single-vessel diameter measurements from our previous publication (Tian et al., 2010). These data are of particular interest for modeling the hemodynamic response. NNE 1.0 is downloaded by the user and then runs either as a MATLAB script or as a standalone program on a Windows platform. The GUI allows browsing the database according to parameters specified by the user, simple manipulation and visualization of the retrieved records (such as averaging and peak-normalization), and export of the results. Further, we provide NNE 1.0 source code. With this source code, the user can database their own experimental results, given the appropriate data structure and naming conventions, and thus share their data in a user-friendly format with other investigators. NNE 1.0 provides an example of seamless and low-cost solution for sharing of experimental data by a regular size neuroscience laboratory and may serve as a general template, facilitating dissemination of biological results and accelerating data-driven modeling approaches.
Distributed Problems in Quantum Communication

Locality might prohibit Alice and Bob from using quantum entanglement to transmit information superluminally, but it does not prevent them from either reducing the communication required for some problems, or playing impossible games requiring no communication at all. Accordingly, we will review the polynomial method for determining quantum communication complexity lower bounds. We will also review quantum psuedo-telepathy, which permits certain distributed tasks amongst entangled parties to be completed without communication. Communication complexity quantifies the communication requirements of two separated parties, Alice and Bob, living far-apart in a country where telephone calls and email are extremely expensive. Fortunately, Alice and Bob each have quantum supercomputers, an infinite supply of nuclear energy, and can communicate without fear of eavesdroppers, since Eve has recently been executed. They want to compute some function f : R→ {0, 1} such that R ⊆ X × Y . The function f is a total function if R = X × Y , and a promise function if otherwise. Alice and Bob have two n-bit string inputs x and y from X = Y = {0, 1}n, and want to compute the value of the function f (x, y) on their inputs. However, because communication is so expensive, they want to minimize information transmitted between them, and accordingly define the communicational complexity of a total Boolean function f : X × Y → {0, 1} as the minimum number of (qu)bits required for either of them to evaluate f (x, y). Our goal here is to quantify the limits of quantum communication between Alice and Bob. We will first provide a method for proving lower bounds for the quantum communicational complexity of a given Boolean function f and relate it to some other important results and conjectures in classical information theory. We will discuss Mermin-Peres magic square
The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Capital Formation in Nigeria: A Co-Integration Approach

In this work, we investigated the impact of FDI on capital accumulation in Nigeria for the period of 1986-2012. The data was generated from CBN statistical bulletin, OLS method of estimation was adopted for the analysis of the data generated. ADF test was applied to determine the stationarity of the variables and all the variables were integrated at order one I(1). The Johanson co-integration test shows the existence of at most 2 co-integrating equation in the model. The ECM indicates that 73.24% of the disequilibrium in the model will be corrected on annual bases. The OLS estimation indicates that FDI, TCR, and INTR positively but insignificantly effect capital formation in the short-run whit GEXP exerting negative effect on GFCF. The result also indicate that in the long-run all the variables included in the model has a positive impact on GFCF with only FDI and TCR exerting a significant impact on capital accumulation in Nigeria for the period under review. There is bidirectional causality between FDI and GFCF. Effort should be made by government to attract more FDI into the country as it has the potential to improve the capital formation in the economy which in the other hand leads to growth in the economy at large. It is also important that government should improve the infrastructural facility in the country as this has a great potential for attracting more FDI into the country. The issue of insecurity should also be addressed without delay if we are to move the economy to the desired direction
Channel estimation for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing uplinks in time-varying channels

This study deals with channel parameter based channel estimation in time-varying channels for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing in an uplink transmission. By modelling the uplink channel properly, the time-varying ‘channel response’ can be determined by estimating the corresponding ‘channel parameters’. A novel algorithm is proposed in this study to estimate the channel parameters by exploiting the time-frequency-representation of the time-varying channel response. Moreover, a decision-directed receiver structure is adopted to cancel the impact of residual Doppler shifts. Theoretical analysis on the performance is given as well. The optimum power allocation ratio of training signal power to data signal power is also discussed. Simulations are performed, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.