Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IDENTIFICATION OF GLYCOSAMINOGLYCANS IN THE HUMAN MALE URETHRA

Purpose: Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are components of the extracellular matrix and play key roles in the normal physiology and pathology of several tissues. There is no data, however, on GAG composition in the human urethra. Here we aimed at establishing the composition of GAGs in the urethra of young men. Material and Methods: Male urethra samples were obtained from 7 fresh, macroscopically normal cadavers aged 16 to 38 years (mean age: 26 years). The urethra was divided into segments (glanular, penile, bulbous and membranous), which were then analyzed separately. GAGs in delipidated, dry tissue samples were extracted by papain digestion and cetylpyridinium chloride/ethanol precipitation. The concentration of total GAG was assessed by a hexuronic acid assay and expressed as mg hexuronic acid per mg dry tissue, while the proportions of sulfated GAGs were determined by agarose gel eletrophoresis. Results: Total GAG concentration was significantly heterogeneous (p < 0.02) along the male urethra, and the mean values for the glanular, penile, bulbous and membranous segments were 2.406 ± 0.5627, 2.029 ± 0.6273, 1.272 ± 0.5008 and 1.707 ± 0.3021, respectively. The mean total GAG concentration is different (p < 0.05) between the bulbous and either the glanular or penile segments. The most predominant sulfated GAG in the male urethra is dermatan sulfate followed by chondroitin sulfate and heparan sulfate (HS). The HS relative concentration varied among urethral segments (p < 0.01) and was highest (13.8% of total sulfated GAGs) in the bulbous portion. Conclusion: The concentration and composition of GAGs varies significantly along the human male urethra. This heterogeneity implies functional adaptations in the various segments and may affect the incidence and localization of urethral diseases.
Electrical Resistance of Carbon Nanotube Yarns Under Compressive Transverse Pressure

This letter reports on the impact of compressive pressure on the electrical properties of carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns fabricated by dry Web-spinning and heat-treatment processes. Under increasing applied compressive pressure in the radial direction of the yarn, the electrical resistance of CNT yarns gradually decreased by 2.8% at a threshold applied pressure of 60 kPa where the resistance change is saturated. The decrease of CNT resistance with increasing pressure is attributed to the increase in the volume fraction of CNT, resulting in the increase of the effective junctions between adjacent CNTs, and the reduction of the tunneling distance between single CNTs. CNT yarns embedded in elastomers show high potential as an advanced functional element for a wide range of mechanical sensing applications including flexible pressure and tactile sensing.
Energy-performance trade-off through restricted virtual machine consolidation in cloud data center

Cloud, the current boom in information and communication technology, has forced the new organizations to think twice before setting up their own infrastructure as it can be rented totally on pay-as-you-go basis from the Cloud Service Providers (CSP). However the large amount of electrical energy consumed by cloud data centers creates one of the major hindrances in the advancement of cloud by increasing the operational costs. It also affects the environment by the emission of carbon dioxide. These challenges motivate the researchers to develop algorithms that can minimize consumption of energy in cloud data center. VM consolidation is one of such methods that saves energy by increasing total count of inactive servers. But its effect on the overall cloud performance is a bit negative. The average response time of the jobs increases since the workload is distributed on lesser number of active servers. So to maintain the energy-performance trade-off VM consolidation must be done in a restricted manner. The paper has proposed a novel approach of adding a constraint to the existing VM consolidation technique to avoid unnecessary VM migration. It saves energy by eliminating the repeated migration of the same VM. We have also proposed heuristics for virtual machine selection algorithm. CloudSim tool is used to simulate the proposed algorithms. Results show that they significantly decrease the consumption of energy and also fulfill the service-level agreement (SLA).
Gratitude and Forgiveness in Relationships

Gratitude and forgiveness have been examined in two separate but parallel literatures. We analyze each literature, documenting similarities and differences across conceptual, prototype, theoretical, and empirical domains, to better identify the commonalities between them and to explicate potential points of connection. Our analysis suggests substantial potential for cross-fertilization and synergy between these areas of research, with likely benefits including enhanced understanding of each area as well as potential advances in applications. In particular, we note the potential for gratitude and forgiveness to influence each other and work synergistically in the context of preventive or remedial interventions. The emerging, joint exploration of forgiveness and gratitude leads to a number of important basic research opportunities that promise to advance understanding of these important processes, particularly their role in interpersonal relationships and the development and maintenance of close relationships over time.
eview iodegradation aspects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ( PAHs ) : A review

PAHs are aromatic hydrocarbons with two or more fused benzene rings with natural as well as anthropogenic sources. They are widely distributed environmental contaminants that have detrimental biological effects, toxicity, mutagenecity and carcinogenicity. Due to their ubiquitous occurrence, recalcitrance, bioaccumulation potential and carcinogenic activity, the PAHs have gathered significant environmental concern. Although PAH may undergo adsorption, volatilization, photolysis, and chemical degradation, microbial degradation is the major degradation process. PAH degradation depends on the environmental conditions, number and type of the microorganisms, nature and chemical structure of the chemical compound being degraded. They are biodegraded/biotransformed into less complex metabolites, and through mineralization into inorganic minerals, H2O, CO2 (aerobic) or CH4 (anaerobic) and rate of biodegradation depends on pH, temperature, oxygen, microbial population, degree of acclimation, accessibility of nutrients, chemical structure of the compound, cellular transport properties, and chemical partitioning in growth medium. A number of bacterial species are known to degrade PAHs and most of them are isolated from contaminated soil or sediments. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomons fluoresens, Mycobacterium spp. , Haemophilus spp. , Rhodococcus spp. , Paenibacillus spp. are some of the commonly studied PAH-degrading bacteria. Lignolytic fungi too have the property of PAH degradation. Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Bjerkandera adusta, and Pleurotus ostreatus are the common PAH-degrading fungi. Enzymes involved in the degradation of PAHs are oxygenase, dehydrogenase and lignolytic enzymes. Fungal lignolytic enzymes are lignin peroxidase, laccase, and manganese peroxidase. They are extracellular and catalyze radical formation by oxidation to destabilize bonds in a molecule. The biodegradation of PAHs has been observed under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions and the rate can be enhanced by physical/chemical pretreatment of contaminated soil. Addition of biosurfactant-producing bacteria and light oils can increase the bioavailability of PAHs and metabolic potential of the bacterial community. The supplementation of contaminated soils with compost materials can also enhance biodegradation without long-term accumulation of extractable polar and more available intermediates. Wetlands, too, have found an application in PAH removal from wastewater. The intensive biological activities in such an ecosystem lead to a high rate of autotrophic and heterotrophic processes. Aquatic weeds Typha spp. and Scirpus lacustris have been used in horizontal–vertical macrophyte based wetlands to treat PAHs. An integrated approach of physical, chemical, and biological degradation may be adopted to get synergistically enhanced removal rates and to treat/remediate the contaminated sites in an ecologically favorable
Metaswarm: Enhanced evolutionary algorithms for electromagnetic optimization

Here some variations of the basic Particle Swarm algorithm (a relatively novel approach for global stochastic optimisation) are proposed in order to increase the efficiency of the search over the solution space with a negligible overhead in the algorithm complexity and speed. The resulting algorithms have been first compared in terms of capability and speed of convergence by their application to a test function, then the resulting best technique has been used for the design of a microwave filter.
Mind the Gap. A systematic review to identify usability and safety challenges and practices during electronic health record implementation.

OBJECTIVE Decisions made during electronic health record (EHR) implementations profoundly affect usability and safety. This study aims to identify gaps between the current literature and key stakeholders' perceptions of usability and safety practices and the challenges encountered during the implementation of EHRs. MATERIALS AND METHODS Two approaches were used: a literature review and interviews with key stakeholders. We performed a systematic review of the literature to identify usability and safety challenges and best practices during implementation. A total of 55 articles were reviewed through searches of PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. We used a qualitative approach to identify key stakeholders' perceptions; semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diverse set of health IT stakeholders to understand their current practices and challenges related to usability during implementation. We used a grounded theory approach: data were coded, sorted, and emerging themes were identified. Conclusions from both sources of data were compared to identify areas of misalignment. RESULTS We identified six emerging themes from the literature and stakeholder interviews: cost and resources, risk assessment, governance and consensus building, customization, clinical workflow and usability testing, and training. Across these themes, there were misalignments between the literature and stakeholder perspectives, indicating major gaps. DISCUSSION Major gaps identified from each of six emerging themes are discussed as critical areas for future research, opportunities for new stakeholder initiatives, and opportunities to better disseminate resources to improve the implementation of EHRs. CONCLUSION Our analysis identified practices and challenges across six different emerging themes, illustrated important gaps, and results suggest critical areas for future research and dissemination to improve EHR implementation.
Monitoring fatigue-induced transverse matrix cracks in laminated composites using built-in acousto-ultrasonic techniques

This work investigated the use of ultrasonic wave propagation in a composite laminate to monitor transverse matrix cracking. It was found that the change in the signal’s power spectral density correlates to crack density increase, and its sensitivity was dependent on the actuator to sensor orientation. This orientation dependence was found to be the same as that of the laminate’s stiffness degradation. A crack density damage index model was developed that relates signal changes to laminate stiffness degradation due to transverse matrix cracks. With this damage index model, a matrix cracking monitoring system was proposed, implemented, and validated. The developed system requires a calibration test for the composite layup of interest and a minimum of one actuator and two sensors at different angle orientations. The calibration test and general approach steps are described and validated. The system’s crack density estimates match experimentally measured crack density values within established error bounds.
Robust face recognition and classification system based on SIFT and DCP techniques in image processing

In recent days, there has been increasing need for recognition of unconstrained face images, such as those collected from the web or captured by mobile devices and video surveillance cameras. In such real world scenarios, human faces could be easily occluded by other objects that make the face recognition task as a complex one. Satisfactory performance has been achieved earlier but often only in the controlled environments. But it is very tedious to obtain holistic face images for unconstrained face recognition. Thus, in order to avoid the degradation of face images and the huge variations due to illumination, pose, occlusion and expression, a new Robust Face Recognition approach is proposed. In this approach, the partial face recognition using Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) technique is combined with Multi-directional Multi-level Dual Cross Patterns (DCP) technique that makes the recognition task as a robust one when compared to other face recognition approaches. Then, the Robust Point Set Matching (RPSM) is used to match the corresponding stable keypoints from both the gallery image and probe face image. Finally, PNN and K-NN classification are used to classify the face images even with the presence of occlusion, random partial crop, illumination, pose and exaggerated facial expression. The proposed robust face recognition system is evaluated based on the performance parameters such as sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, precision and recall.
Modeling of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Effect within Signaling Pathways and miRNA-Regulation Pathways

To date, it is widely recognized that Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) can exert considerable anti-tumor effects regarding many types of cancers. The prolonged use of NSAIDs is highly associated with diverse side effects. Therefore, tailoring down the NSAID application onto individual patients has become a necessary and relevant step towards personalized medicine. This study conducts the systemsbiological approach to construct a molecular model (NSAID model) containing a cyclooxygenase (COX)-pathway and its related signaling pathways. Four cancer hallmarks are integrated into the model to reflect different developmental aspects of tumorigenesis. In addition, a Flux-Comparative-Analysis (FCA) based on Petri net is developed to transfer the dynamic properties (including drug responsiveness) of individual cellular system into the model. The gene expression profiles of different tumor-types with available drug-response information are applied to validate the predictive ability of the NSAID model. Moreover, two therapeutic developmental strategies, synthetic lethality and microRNA (miRNA) biomarker discovery, are investigated based on the COX-pathway. In conclusion, the result of this study demonstrates that the NSAID model involving gene expression, gene regulation, signal transduction, protein interaction and other cellular processes, is able to predict the individual cellular responses for different therapeutic interventions (such as NS-398 and COX-2 specific siRNA inhibition). This strongly indicates that this type of model is able to reflect the physiological, developmental and pathological processes of an individual. The approach of miRNA biomarker discovery is demonstrated for identifying miRNAs with oncogenic and tumor suppressive functions for individual cell lines of breast-, colon- and lung-tumor. The achieved results are in line with different independent studies that investigated miRNA biomarker related to diagnostics of cancer treatments, therefore it might shed light on the development of biomarker discovery at individual level. Particular results of this study might contribute to step further towards personalized medicine with the systemsbiological approach.
Impact of Phosphorus Implantation on the Electrical Properties of SiO2/4H-SiC Interfaces Annealed in N2O

In this work, the combined effect of a shallow phosphorus (P) pre-implantation and of a nitridation annealing in N2O on the properties of the SiO2/4H-SiC interface has been investigated. The peak carrier concentration and depth extension of the electrically active dopants introduced by the nitridation and by the combination of P pre-implantation and nitridation were determined by high resolution scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Macroscopic capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements on metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitors and nanoscale C-V analyses by SCM allowed to quantify the electrical effect of the donors introduced underneath the SiO2/4H-SiC interface. Phosphorous pre-implantation and subsequent high temperature electrical activation has been shown not only to produce an increased doping in the 4H-SiC surface region but also a better homogeneity of surface potential with respect to the use of N2O annealing only.
Performance Evaluation of Joint and Crack Sealants in Cold Climates Using DSR and BBR Tests

Joint sealants are used widely in Canada to protect pavements from infiltration of water and incompressible materials. Sealants are typically selected based on field studies, which are commonly repeated on a 10-year cycle. This paper examines a laboratory evaluation method based on two laboratory tests that are commonly used for testing asphalt binders: dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) and bending beam rheometer (BBR). Creep stiffness, rate of change in creep stiffness, and rate of change in complex shear modulus with temperature were used to evaluate sealant performance in cold climates. A sealant ranking system was proposed based on the calculation of a sealant index, which combines the proposed evaluation criteria. This method can potentially provide a cost-effective and rapid alternative to field studies. Eight hot-pour sealants were evaluated using this method. Results were verified from an ongoing field study that started in 2004. A good correlation was found between the proposed simplified evaluation method and the existing method.
UNSUPERVISED CLUSTER ANALYSIS IN BIOINFORMATICS

: In this paper, we investigate the application of an unsupervised extension of the recently proposed k {windows clustering algorithm on gene expression microarray data. The k {windows algorithm is used both to identify sets of genes according to their expression in a set of samples, and to cluster samples into homogeneous groups. Experimental results and comparisons indicate that this is a promising approach.
Optische Eigenschaften von verdünnten magnetischen Halbleitern auf GaN-Basis

Various GaN-based diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) were characterized in the course of this work. The main topic was GaMnN and there especially the relation between growth conditions and optical properties. The main analysis tool was photoluminescence (PL), for which an experimental setup optimized for GaN was developed and put into use.The basis for the optical measurements was structural characterization, where a second phase could be detected in XRD. With the help of TEM-measurements it could be identified as GaMn3N. For the whole parameterspace of GaMnN-growth therefore a growth window was identified, where diluted GaMnN with up to 5% Mn content could be achieved without precipitation. XRD rocking curves and Raman measurements showed a reduced crystal quality of GaMnN compared to GaN, but even this problem could be overcome by the use of a sapphire substrate with a MOCVD-grown GaN buffer-layer.With these results in mind, the PL spectra of the GaMnN samples were analyzed. Existence and width of the excitonic lines showed a clear correlation between optical and structural measurements concerning the crystal quality. Due to the high optical quality Mn could be identified as a deep acceptor in GaN via PL-measurements. Magneto-optical measurements at the free excitonic lines in GaMnN show a weak coupling of the local Mn-spins with the GaN matrix. This is a key property for the construction of spin injectors with the help of DMS.Another new field for research was opened by the identification of the intra-3d transition 5E → 5T2 of Mn3+ at 1.41 − 1.42 eV in PL-spectra of GaMnN. This transition was thoroughly characterized and compared to the known absorption data in the literature. Due to the unsurpassed optical quality of the samples on sapphire substrate, the zero phonon line was deconvoluted into three different peaks. Absorption measurements on the same samples gave proof of the charge state Mn3+ in our samples. This state with partially filled d-orbitals is the basis for the so called double-exchange, one of the theoretical models for a GaN-based DMS. As the intra-3d transition in our samples broadens and then vanishes with increasing Mn-content, this can be seen as an indication for this type of magnetical coupling.In addition to GaMnN two other GaN-based DMS were analyzed. GaCrN samples exhibited an infra-red luminescence signal very similar to GaMnN. Localized at 1.19 eV it could be attributed to an intra-3d transition of Cr4+ and thus the 10 year-old struggle for the identification of this signal was resolved. GaGdN showed no Gd-specific signals, but a shift of the near-bandedge luminescence with increasing Gd-content. With the help of Raman measurements compressive strain was identified to be the cause of this shift. When the Gd-content reaches the regime of more than 1%, a bandgap narrowing is detectable.
ELECTRICAL STIMULATION OF THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM: BIOPHYSICS AND EXCITATION PROPERTIES

Electrical stimulation of peripheral nerve fibers is an important method to study physiological mechanisms and a technique to restore function to persons with neurological disorders. The processes underlying excitation of nerve fibers are presented through the development of quantitative models of the non-linear properties of the neuronal membrane and the response of nerve fibers to extracellular stimulation. Similarly, the properties of nerve fiber excitation are described and the origins of these properties are explained by reference to the quantitative models. The quantitative treatment of nerve fiber excitation provides the means for understanding the origins of experimentally observed phenomena and a set of tools that can be used to design stimulation paradigms that generate the desired pattern of excitation.
Relationship between microstructure of lamellar graphene sheets and properties of polyimide/graphene nanocomposites film under different imidization stages

Herein, polyimide/graphene sheets (PI/GS) nanocomposite films with different GS distribution structures have been successfully obtained by controlling the imidization degrees, and the effect of the lamellar structure on the properties of PI film has been investigated. The results show that GS are gradually parallel to the surface of PI nanocomposite film with the increase of the imidization temperature, and 150 °C is the critical temperature, where the imidization rate is the fastest and the lamellar structure begins to form. Furthermore, with the drying temperature increasing, the corresponding thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of PI/GS nanocomposite films are significantly improved compared with that of pure PI films, which are ascribed to both the higher imidization degree and the lamellar GS structure. It is noteworthy that the formation process of the lamellar structure at different imidization stages can be directly observed by scanning electron microscope. Based on these results, a model has been proposed to explain the relationship between the lamellar structure and properties of PI composite film under different imidization stages, and the confinement of the thickness may be the most important factor for the formation of lamellar GS structure. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43575.