Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experiments of Chloride Ingression in Flexural Reinforced Concrete Beams

This paper focused on the chloride ions' ingression in reinforced concrete beams under flexural loading. Effect of different factors on the chloride ingression in the reinforced concrete beam was investigated. Those factors are water to cement (w/c) ratio, mid-span crack width, chloride ingression method and flexural loading history. In total 20 reinforced concrete beams having different w/c ratios of 0.53, 0.43 and 0.36 were tested. Flexural load was applied to beams by using self-anchoring at both ends. The nominal mid-span crack width designed value range from 0.1 mm to 0.25 mm. Two chloride ingression methods, namely long term immersion and wet-dry cycling are used. Three loading history were also designed for comparison. Chloride ions' contents at different depth in different location of beams were obtained. In addition, chloride diffusion coefficients were also calculated for comparison. It is shown that both the crack and tensile stress have effect on the chloride ions' ingression in reinforced concrete beams.
Fast downstream to many (computational) RFIDs

We present Stork — an extension of the EPC C1G2 protocol allowing streaming of data to multiple Computational Radio Frequency IDentification tags (CRFIDs) simultaneously at up to 20 times faster than the prior state of the art. Stork introduces downstream attributes never before seen in (C)RFIDs: (i) fast feedback for CRFID downstream verification based on the internal EPC C1G2 memory check command — which we analytically and experimentally show to be the best possible downstream verification process based on EPC C1G2; (ii) ability to perform multi-CRFID transfer — which in our experiments speeds up downstream by more than two times compared to sequential transmission; and (iii) the use of compressed data streams — which improves firmware reprogramming times by up to 10% at large reader-to-CRFID distances.
Energy efficient broadcast routing in static ad hoc wireless networks

In this paper, we discuss energy efficient broadcast in ad hoc wireless networks. The problem of our concern is: given an ad hoc wireless network, find a broadcast tree such that the energy cost of the broadcast tree is minimized. Each node in the network is assumed to have a fixed level of transmission power. We first prove that the problem is NP-hard and propose three heuristic algorithms, namely, shortest path tree heuristic, greedy heuristic, and node weighted Steiner tree-based heuristic, which are centralized algorithms. The approximation ratio of the node weighted Steiner tree-based heuristic is proven to be (1 + 2 ln(n - 1)). Extensive simulations have been conducted and the results have demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
A novel fisher criterion based approach for face recognition

Traditional Fisher linear discriminant analysis (FLDA) method is a promising algorithm for face recognition. However, FLDA does not utilize the geometric distribution information of the training face data, which will degrade its performance. In order to enhance the discriminant power of FLDA, this paper proposes a novel Fisher criterion by using geometric distribution information of the training samples. The geometric distribution information based LDA (GLDA) algorithm is then developed for face recognition. The proposed GLDA approach has been evaluated with two publicly available face databases, namely ORL and FERET databases. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our GLDA approach.
Reading Spatial Hypertext

Critics of hypertext have long expressed skepticism about whether people could or indeed ever would sit down at a screen and read hypertexts. They may cite the more general problems of reading from the computer screen (see, for example, [25]) or they may place the blame partially at the feet of the authors (see, for example, Birkerts’ indictment of hypertext fiction [8][2]). Some have even put forth usability arguments, that it’s simply more efficient to use paper texts (see, for example, [24]), thereby avoiding the problematic idea of reading altogether.
On scheduling algorithms robust to heavy-tailed traffic

Adaptive CSMA algorithms have attracted considerable attention, due to their throughput optimality, utility maximizing properties, and amenability to simple distributed implementation. In this paper, we investigate the impact of heavy-tailed traffic on the performance of a queue length based adaptive CSMA algorithm. Specifically, we consider two conflicting links that share a channel using adaptive CSMA. One of the links serves heavy-tailed traffic, while the other link serves light-tailed traffic. Our main contribution is in demonstrating a threshold phenomenon in the relationship between the arrival rates and the queue backlog distributions. In particular, we show that when the arrival rate of the light-tailed traffic is less than a threshold value, the light-tailed traffic experiences a light-tailed queue backlog at steady state, whereas for arrival rates above the same threshold, the light-tailed traffic experiences a heavy-tailed queue backlog. Comparing this result to a corresponding result for max-weight scheduling [8], we conclude that adaptive CSMA is potentially more robust to bursty traffic, compared to max-weight scheduling.
Characterization of Transition Metal Oxide/Silicon Heterojunctions for Solar Cell Applications

During the last decade, transition metal oxides have been actively investigated as hole- and electron-selective materials in organic electronics due to their low-cost processing. In this study, four transition metal oxides (V2O5, MoO3, WO3, and ReO3) with high work functions (>5 eV) were thermally evaporated as front p-type contacts in planar n-type crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells. The concentration of oxygen vacancies in MoO3−x was found to be dependent on film thickness and redox conditions, as determined by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. Transfer length method measurements of oxide films deposited on glass yielded high sheet resistances (~109 Ω/sq), although lower values (~104 Ω/sq) were measured for oxides deposited on silicon, indicating the presence of an inversion (hole rich) layer. Of the four oxide/silicon solar cells, ReO3 was found to be unstable upon air exposure, while V2O5 achieved the highest open-circuit voltage (593 mV) and conversion efficiency (12.7%), followed by MoO3 (581 mV, 12.6%) and WO3 (570 mV, 11.8%). A short-circuit current gain of ~0.5 mA/cm2 was obtained when compared to a reference amorphous silicon contact, as expected from a wider energy bandgap. Overall, these results support the viability of a simplified solar cell design, processed at low temperature and without dopants.
Interactive visual co-cluster analysis of bipartite graphs

A bipartite graph models the relation between two different types of entities. It is applicable, for example, to describe persons' affiliations to different social groups or their association with subjects such as topics of interest. In these applications, it is important to understand the connectivity patterns among the entities in the bipartite graph. For the example of a bipartite relation between persons and their topics of interest, people may form groups based on their common interests, and the topics also can be grouped or categorized based on the interested audiences. Co-clustering methods can identify such connectivity patterns and find clusters within the two types of entities simultaneously. In this paper, we propose an interactive visualization design that incorporates co-clustering methods to facilitate the identification of node clusters formed by their common connections in a bipartite graph. Besides highlighting the automatically detected node clusters and the connections among them, the visual interface also provides visual cues for evaluating the homogeneity of the bipartite connections in a cluster, identifying potential outliers, and analyzing the correlation of node attributes with the cluster structure. The interactive visual interface allows users to flexibly adjust the node grouping to incorporate their prior knowledge of the domain, either by direct manipulation (i.e., splitting and merging the clusters), or by providing explicit feedback on the cluster quality, based on which the system will learn a parametrization of the co-clustering algorithm to better align with the users' notion of node similarity. To demonstrate the utility of the system, we present two example usage scenarios on real world datasets.
PREPARATION OF BAMBOO DISSOLVING PULP FOR TEXTILE PRODUCTION. PART 2. OPTIMIZATION OF PULPING CONDITIONS OF HYDROLYZED BAMBOO AND ITS KINETICS

Kraft pulping of hydrolyzed green bamboo (Dendrocalamopsis oldhami) chips was performed under various conditions to determine the effects of process variables (alkali charge, sulfidity, cooking temperature, and cooking time) on the dissolution of the lignocellulosic components, i.e. lignin, pentosans, and cellulose. Meanwhile, the kinetics of kraft delignification of hydrolyzed bamboo was investigated. The results showed that both an increase of alkali charge and sulfidity could result in a clear reduction in kappa number and yield, but the effect of alkali charge was more significant than that of sulfidity. Even though severe conditions were able to purify fiber, the cellulose degradation occurred intensively. Active alkali charge 23%, sulfidity 26%, cooking temperature 170°C, and cooking time 60 min were selected as the optimum conditions for the consideration of selective delignification. As a consequence, the properties of the pulp produced at optimum cooking conditions were determined to be: kappa number 6.3, pentosans 5.0%, -cellulose 90.2%, and viscosity 30.3 mPa•s. The data analysis confirmed that the reaction order of delignification was approximate to 1.1, and the activity energy of the hydrolyzed bamboo was 53 kJ/mol.
Numerical Analysis Method for Dynamic Stability of a High and Steep Rock Slope in the Sichuan Wenchuan Earthquake

Near-field ground shock features are analyzed according to the seismological record of the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake made at the Wolong observation station. A numerical analysis model is established by taking the record as the input seismic load and a real high and steep rock slope on the bank of the Zipingpu Reservoir. The acceleration response and shear strain increment distribution features at different locations of the slope under horizontal seismic force are analyzed using Plaxis software. The moment when the widest plastic zone occurs for the slope is obtained by time history analysis. The corresponding stability factor of the slope at that moment is calculated using the strength reduction method (including shear strength and tensile strength). The above is the Time History Analysis–Strength Reduction Method presented in this article. In addition, the stability factor of the slope can be calculated using the pseudostatic method by taking the seismic force as the external load. This is the Time History Analysis–Pseudostatic method put forward in this paper. Analysis results demonstrate that, as far as the studied high and steep slope is concerned, at 31.89 s, the stability factor calculated with the Time History Analysis–Strength Reduction Method is 1.004, which is slightly larger than the 0.833 obtained using the Time History Analysis–Pseudostatic Method (Spencer method). Both results demonstrate that there is collapse and sliding failure of the localized rock mass at the top of the slope at that moment because of joint fracture. Field investigation after the earthquake further verified the calculation result, proving to a certain degree the rationality of the analysis method presented.
Extraction of system functions from 1-D simulation component libraries

This paper presents a bottom-up approach for the extraction of system functions from simulation component libraries; this step is desirable and necessary for the integration of system-level 1D simulation tools with product lifecycle management systems (PLM). The presented approach performs a port, structural (e.g., equational/algorithmic), parameter, and internal variable analysis to extract functionality from simulation components. The implementation of our algorithm in a research prototype has been validated on more than 4,000 components of the Amesim library with the successful extraction of more than 60,000 system functions. Our results show that the extraction of functions is a practical and viable foundation for associating requirements to system-level simulation models, and for harmonizing concept designs to detailed designs.
Training Parsers on Partial Trees: A Cross-language Comparison

We present a study that compares data-driven dependency parsers obtained by means of annotation projection between language pairs of varying structural similarity. We show how the partial dependency trees projected from English to Dutch, Italian and German can be exploited to train parsers for the target languages. We evaluate the parsers against manual gold standard annotations and find that the projected parsers substantially outperform our heuristic baselines by 9―25% UAS, which corresponds to a 21―43% reduction in error rate. A comparative error analysis focuses on how the projected target language parsers handle subjects, which is especially interesting for Italian as an instance of a pro-drop language. For Dutch, we further present experiments with German as an alternative source language. In both source languages, we contrast standard baseline parsers with parsers that are enhanced with the predictions from large-scale LFG grammars through a technique of parser stacking, and show that improvements of the source language parser can directly lead to similar improvements of the projected target language parser.
Modelización de la formación isotérmica de ferrita alotriomórfica a temperaturas inferiores a la del eutectoide en un acero microaleado de medio carbono

The present paper is concerned to the theoretical and experimental description of the isothermal growth kinetics of allotriomorphic ferrite in a medium carbon vanadiumtitanium microalloyed steel at temperatures below its eutectoid temperature and above any adiffusional transformation start temperature. Since pearlite is formed at these temperatures, the carbon enrichment of austenite far from the α/γ interface remains the same as the overall carbon content of the steel, and the soft-impingement effect can be neglected. Therefore, allotriomorphic ferrite can be considered to grow under a parabolic law, and the assumption of a semi-infinite extent austenite with constant boundary conditions is suitable for the kinetics of the isothermal decomposition of austenite at temperatures below eutectoid and above any adiffusional transformation. Moreover, the influence of the austenite grain size and isothermal temperature on the kinetics of the allotriomorphic ferrite transformation has been analyzed.
Sites of left and right ventricular lead implantation and response to cardiac resynchronization therapy observations from the REVERSE trial.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study is to ascertain the effects of the left (LV) and right (RV) ventricular lead tip position in response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). BACKGROUND The REVERSE randomized trial examined the effects of CRT in patients with asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic heart failure (HF). METHODS We analysed data collected from the active group (CRT-ON) of REVERSE in whom the precise locations of the LV and RV ventricular lead tips were determined from postoperative chest roentgenograms as part of a prespecified sub-study. LV position was classified as lateral or non-lateral, and apical or non-apical. RV position was classified as apical or non-apical. Echocardiographic LV end-systolic volume index (LVESVi), QRS duration, and clinical outcomes at 12-24 months of follow-up were evaluated with respect to the lead tip position. The primary trial endpoint was the proportion of patients with a worsened HF clinical composite response, scored as improved, unchanged, or worsened. RESULTS Totally 346 patients included in this analysis were followed for a median of 12.6 months (interquartile range: 11.9-23.9 months). The proportion of worsened HF clinical composite response did not correlate with lead position, whereas a significantly greater decrease in the powered secondary endpoint of LVESVi was observed with the non-apical vs. the apical LV lead positions. CRT-paced QRS duration was significantly shorter than at baseline in patients with lateral vs. non-lateral LV position, as well non-apical vs. apical LV position. The incidence of composite endpoint of death and first hospitalization for HF was lower in the LV lateral than in the non-lateral (HR 0.44; 95% CI 0.19-0.99; P= 0.04), and in the LV non-apical than in the apical group (HR 0.27; 95% CI 0.11-0.63; P= 0.001). No significant differences were observed between RV apical and non-apical positions of the lead tip. CONCLUSIONS A more favourable outcome of CRT with regard to LV reverse remodelling and the composite of time to death or first HF hospitalization was observed when the LV lead tip was implanted in the lateral wall, away from the apex, while the position of the RV lead tip was indifferent. The long-term change in QRS duration was significantly associated with the position of the LV lead tip. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00271154.
Estimating shallow shear velocities with marine multicomponent seismic data

Accurate models of shear velocities in the shallow subsurface (<300 m depth beneath the sea floor) would help to focus images of structural discontinuities constructed, for example, with P to S converted phases in marine environments. Although multicomponent marine seismic data hold a wealth of information about shear velocities from the sea floor to depths of hundreds of meters, this information remains largely unexploited in oil and gas exploration. We present a method, called the multiwave inversion (MWI) method, designed to use a wide variety of information in marine seismic data. As presented here, MWI jointly uses the observed traveltimes of P and S refracted waves, the group and phase velocities of fundamental mode and first overtone interface waves, and the group velocities of guided waves to infer shear velocities and Vp/Vs ratios. We show how to obtain measurements of the traveltimes of these diverse and, in some cases, dispersive waves and how they are used in the MWI method to estimate shallow.
On two-step routing for FPGAS

We present results which show that a separate global and detailed routing strategy can be competitive with a combined routing process. Under restricted architectural assumptions, we compute a new lower bound for detailed routing and show that our detailed router typically requires no more than two extra routing tracks above this computed limit. Also, experimental results show that the Mapping Anomaly presented in [20], which suggests that separated routing may yield arbitrarily poor results in certain instances, is a concern only if nets are restricted to a single track domain. Finally, to motivate future work, we show the latest two-step routing results that we have achieved with the VPR global router and SEGA detailed router tools on the largest CBL benchmark circuits.
Normal gastrointestinal transit after colonic resection using epidural analgesia, enforced oral nutrition and laxative

Postoperative ileus usually lasts for 2–5 days after colonic surgery and may contribute to discomfort and pulmonary complications. With multimodal rehabilitation (epidural analgesia, early oral nutrition and mobilization, and laxative) defaecation occurs 1–2 days after colonic surgery. The aim of this study was to assess the transit rate of the entire gastrointestinal tract after colonic resection with multimodal rehabilitation.
Characterization of Environmentally Persistent Escherichia coli Isolates Leached from an Irish Soil

ABSTRACT Soils are typically considered to be suboptimal environments for enteric organisms, but there is increasing evidence that Escherichia coli populations can become resident in soil under favorable conditions. Previous work reported the growth of autochthonous E. coli in a maritime temperate Luvic Stagnosol soil, and this study aimed to characterize, by molecular and physiological means, the genetic diversity and physiology of environmentally persistent E. coli isolates leached from the soil. Molecular analysis (16S rRNA sequencing, enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, and a multiplex PCR method) established the genetic diversity of the isolates (n = 7), while physiological methods determined the metabolic capability and environmental fitness of the isolates, relative to those of laboratory strains, under the conditions tested. Genotypic analysis indicated that the leached isolates do not form a single genetic grouping but that multiple genotypic groups are capable of surviving and proliferating in this environment. In physiological studies, environmental isolates grew well across a broad range of temperatures and media, in comparison with the growth of laboratory strains. These findings suggest that certain E. coli strains may have the ability to colonize and adapt to soil conditions. The resulting lack of fecal specificity has implications for the use of E. coli as an indicator of fecal pollution in the environment.
Glutathionylation of Pea Chloroplast 2-Cys Prx and Mitochondrial Prx IIF Affects Their Structure and Peroxidase Activity and Sulfiredoxin Deglutathionylates Only the 2-Cys Prx

Together with thioredoxins (Trxs), plant peroxiredoxins (Prxs), and sulfiredoxins (Srxs) are involved in antioxidant defense and redox signaling, while their regulation by post-translational modifications (PTMs) is increasingly regarded as a key component for the transduction of the bioactivity of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. Among these PTMs, S-glutathionylation is considered a protective mechanism against overoxidation, it also modulates protein activity and allows signaling. This study explores the glutathionylation of recombinant chloroplastic 2-Cys Prx and mitochondrial Prx IIF from Pisum sativum. Glutathionylation of the decameric form of 2-Cys Prx produced a change in the elution volume after FPLC chromatography and converted it to its dimeric glutathionylated form, while Prx IIF in its reduced dimeric form was glutathionylated without changing its oligomeric state. Mass spectrometry demonstrated that oxidized glutathione (GSSG) can glutathionylate resolving cysteine (Cys174), but not the peroxidatic equivalent (Cys52), in 2-Cys Prx. In contrast, GSSG was able to glutathionylate both peroxidatic (Cys59) and resolving (Cys84) cysteine in Prx IIF. Glutathionylation was seen to be dependent on the GSH/GSSG ratio, although the exact effect on the 2-Cys Prx and Prx IIF proteins differed. However, the glutathionylation provoked a similar decrease in the peroxidase activity of both peroxiredoxins. Despite growing evidence of the importance of post-translational modifications, little is known about the enzymatic systems that specifically regulate the reversal of this modification. In the present work, sulfiredoxin from P. sativum was seen to be able to deglutathionylate pea 2-Cys Prx but not pea Prx IIF. Redox changes during plant development and the response to stress influence glutathionylation/deglutathionylation processes, which may represent an important event through the modulation of peroxiredoxin and sulfiredoxin proteins.