Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polyamide-6-based composites reinforced with pristine or functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes produced using melt extrusion technique

Polyamide-6-based composites with pristine or functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes were produced using melt extrusion technique. After chemical functionalization, defect formation and attachment of carboxylic (−COOH) or amine (−NH2) groups on carbon nanotubes was confirmed from high-resolution transmission electron microscope and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscope studies. Carbon nanotubes incorporation promoted growth of α-form crystals with enhanced thermal stability through increase in crystallization temperature from 162 to 192℃. Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) indirectly pointed out to a homogeneous, uniform dispersion of nanotubes with reduction in free volume of the polymer, exhibiting a slight increase in glass transition temperature and a significant drop in coefficient of thermal expansion value. Composites containing 0.5 wt% NH2-carbon nanotubes show increases in elastic modulus and tensile strength by ∼60 and 76%, respectively. Uniform dispersion and high interfacial strength was manifested by drop in strain to failure and lack of evidence of carbon nanotubes debonding from the matrix.
The mechanism responsible for accommodation after living‐related kidney transplantations across the blood barrier

The mechanism responsible for accommodation in renal transplantations across the blood barrier remains unclear. We recently encountered two patients with accommodated status after living‐related kidney transplantations across the blood barrier. Both developed elevations of anti‐blood‐group antibodies to titers over 128× after transplantation, despite excellent renal function. We investigated the serum samples after the establishment of accommodation bound to the erythrocyte membrane of the donors or the third party with the same blood group. After the establishment of accommodation, the serum samples from both accommodated patients demonstrated a significant decrease in binding to the donors’ erythrocyte membrane, but did not show any decrease in binding to the erythrocyte membrane of the third party. By contrast, serum samples from patients with graft loss after unsuccessful accommodation showed high anti‐blood‐type antibody activity directed towards both the donor's and the third party's erythrocytes. The result of this study suggests the difference of quality in antibodies produced by accommodated and nonaccommodated recipients.
Voltage regulation of LV feeders with high penetration of PV distributed generation using electronic tap changing transformers

As penetration levels of PV Distributed Generation (DG) continue to increase into Low Voltage distribution feeders, electrical utility companies are finding that traditional strategies for managing the voltage profile along these feeders are becoming less effective because of the bidirectional variations in real power flow that are caused by these PV systems. Various strategies have been proposed to resolve this issue, commonly by enhancing the inverter systems of the PV sources to inject reactive power to help flatten the feeder voltage profile. However, such approaches usually require coordinated communication between the PV inverters, and are technically complex to implement. This paper proposes an alternative approach, by incorporating an electronic tap changer into the distribution transformer that supplies the LV feeder so that the LV supply voltage magnitude can step change on a 50Hz cycle by cycle basis. A simple algorithm then varies the transformer tap position as the power flow through the transformer changes, to keep the voltages along the feeder well within regulatory limits irrespective of the magnitude and direction of power flow. The strategy has been confirmed by detailed simulation investigations on feeders with a variety of characteristics, under a wide range of load and PV power injection conditions.
Punctuating speech for information extraction

This paper studies the effect of automatic sentence boundary detection and comma prediction on entity and relation extraction in speech. We show that punctuating the machine generated transcript according to maximum F-measure of period and comma annotation results in suboptimal information extraction. Precisely, period and comma decision thresholds can be chosen in order to improve the entity value score and the relation value score by 4% relative. Error analysis shows that preventing noun-phrase splitting by generating longer sentences and fewer commas can be harmful for IE performance. Indeed, it seems that missed punctuation allows syntactic parsers to merge noun-phrases and prevent the extraction of correct information.
Computational representations of architectural design for tall buildings

Building design process is a significantly complex procedure taking into account many different factors and variables, such as the site context, environment, material availability, cost, and function. One of the most complex forms in the built environment is tall building because of the scale, design considerations, and multidisciplinary nature. This article discusses development of ontological model for understanding, presenting, relating, and managing knowledge influencing architectural design of tall buildings. Ontology is a knowledge-based model that represents certain domain by abstraction of concepts, and a network of relationships and properties describing these concepts. By creating an architectural ontology, the factors, relations, and characteristics in the design process can be clearly defined and presented. The model incorporates physical systems such as structure, building elements, and geometry, as well as environmental effects, social aspects and other complex attributes. 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 15: 45–53, 2009
DNSSEC meets real world: dealing with unreachability caused by fragmentation

The Domain Name System (DNS) provides a critical service on the Internet: translating host names into IP addresses. Traditional DNS does not provide guarantees about authenticity and origin integrity. DNSSEC, an extension to DNS, improves this by using cryptographic signatures, at the expense of larger response messages. Some of these larger response messages experience fragmentation, and may, as a result of that, be blocked by firewalls. As a consequence, resolvers behind such firewalls will no longer receive complete responses from name servers, leading to certain Internet zones becoming unreachable because no translation into IP addresses can be performed. Our research shows that despite ongoing efforts to educate firewall and resolver administrators, as much as 10 percent of all resolvers suffer from fragmentation-related connectivity issues. Given that some major Internet companies were reluctant to adopt even a technology like IPv6 if it meant that a small percentage of their users would have connectivity issues, it is clear that we cannot rely on resolver/firewall operators alone to tackle this issue. The contribution of this article is that it a) quantifies the severity of these DNSSEC deployment problems, based on extensive measurements at a major National Research and Education Network (NREN) and backed up by validation of these findings at an independent second location, b) proposes two potential solutions at the DNS authoritative name server side, and c) validates both solutions, again based on extensive measurements on the operational network of this major NREN. The article concludes with a recommendation favoring our first solution. The first solution is relatively simple to implement and gives DNS zone operators control over this problem without having to rely on all resolver operators solving the issue
Presence of Widened and Multiple Intercalated Discs in the Hypertrophied Canine Heart

Fresh tissues were taken for light microscopy from the trabeculae carneae at the right ventricular base, apex, left ventricular base, and apex of four normal canine hearts and nine whose pulmonary artery had been banded for 7 to 48 weeks. After banding, the width of the intercalated disc at the right base, 1.34 ± 0.10 μ (mean ± SE), was greater than at the right apex, 1.02 ± 0.09 μ (P<0.002); both were greater than the normals (P<0.005 and P<0.001). The intercalated discs were wider than corresponding normals in only three hearts at the left base and six at the left apex. The mean widths of the discs correlated positively with both ventricular wall thickness and weight in the right ventricle but not in the left. Structures characterized by two, three, or four transverse segments of discs lying along the same myofibrils, each two of which are separated by 1 to 10 sarcomeres, have been named multiple intercalated discs. In six of the nine hearts whose pulmonary artery was banded, there were more multiple discs per mm2 at the right base and right apex than in the corresponding normals (P<0.02). In five of these, the number of multiple discs per mm2 was greater at the right base than in the corresponding apex (P<0.001). There was no significant increase in the number of multiple discs per mm2 in either the left base or left apex of the experimental animals compared to controls. After banding the pulmonary artery, tension increases in the right ventricle and this stimulates a broadening of the folds of the discs and then triggers a mechanism for the formation of new sarcomeres, perhaps involving multiple intercalated discs.
Trajectory Tracking of Complex Dynamical Network for Recurrent Neural Network Via Control V-Stability

In this paper the problem of trajectory tracking is studied. Based on the V-stability and Lyapunov theory, a control law that achieves the global asymptotic stability of the tracking error between a recurrent neural network and the state of each single node of a complex dynamical network is obtained. To illustrate the analytic results we present a tracking simulation of a simple network with four different nodes and five non-uniform links
Applyinq AspectJ to J2EE application development

(AOP) programming is a technique that allows programmers to modularize crosscutting concerns (behavior that cuts across the typical divisions of responsibility, such as concurrency or security). Aspect-oriented programming and the AspectJ language can reduce code size and defects while increasing understandability. Video Monitoring Services of America (VMS) began to investigate the adoption of AOP into the development of Adbase, the Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based application. Adbase supplies a Web-based search and e-commerce interface on VMS's library of advertising data. It uses a wide range of J2EE technologies, both commercial and open source. The Adbase team varied from four to seven full-time developers during the time frame covered by this article. We followed a modified version of extreme programming with a focus on emergent design and adherence to XP practices such as programmer testing-and pair programming
Enhancement of plasmid DNA immunogenicity with linear polyethylenimine

The utility of plasmid DNA as an immunogen has been limited by its weak immunogenicity. In the present study, we evaluated the ability of a family of linear polyethylenimine (PEI) polymers, complexed to plasmid DNA, to augment DNA expression in vivo and to enhance antigen‐specific adaptive immune responses. We showed that four of five structurally different PEIs that we evaluated increased in vivo DNA expression 20‐ to 400‐fold, and enhanced DNA‐induced epitope‐specific CD8+ T‐cell responses 10‐ to 25‐fold in BALB/c and C57BL/6J mice respectively, when delivered intravenously. Functional studies of the PEI‐DNA‐induced CD8+ T‐cell responses demonstrated that formulation of DNA with PEI was associated with increased numbers of cells secreting type I cytokines. In addition, PEI‐DNA complexes improved antigen‐specific TH1‐helper cell and humoral responses. Most importantly, the PEI‐DNA complexes elicited memory cellular responses, capable of rapid expansion and accelerated clearance of a lethal dose of recombinant Listeria monocytogenes. Lastly, we identified physical properties of PEI‐DNA complexes that are associated with enhanced DNA‐elicited immunogenicity. These findings demonstrate that PEI polymers can play an important role in the development of DNA‐based vaccines in the setting of infectious disease prevention and cancer therapy.
Microcystic lymphatic malformations of the tongue: diagnosis, classification, and treatment.

OBJECTIVE To describe a classification of microcystic lymphatic malformations of the tongue and to investigate different treatment methods. DESIGN Retrospective review of patients treated for microcystic lymphatic malformations of the tongue. Lymphatic malformations were classified into the following 4 groups according to their extent: isolated superficial microcystic lymphatic malformations of the tongue (stage I); isolated lymphatic malformations of the tongue with muscle involvement (stage II; stage IIA, involving a part of the tongue; stage IIB, involving the entire tongue); microcystic lymphatic malformations of the tongue and the floor of mouth (stage III); and extensive microcystic lymphatic malformations involving the tongue, floor of mouth, and further cervical structures (stage IV). PATIENTS Twenty patients with microcystic lymphatic malformation of the tongue. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Medical records were reviewed for demographic data and extent and treatment of the lymphatic malformations. RESULTS Three patients had stage I disease; 5 patients, stage II; 3 patients, stage III; and 9 patients, stage IV. In 6 patients, the lymphatic malformations could be completely removed by carbon dioxide laser surgery; the remaining 13 patients had persistent disease. CONCLUSIONS The initial stage seems to predict outcome. Carbon dioxide laser therapy provides good results primarily in stages I and IIA lymphatic malformations. In advanced lymphatic malformations (stages IIB, III, and IV), an interdisciplinary approach is necessary, because complete surgical excision is often impossible owing to the diffuse growth behavior, and therefore recurrence and persistence are common.
cDNA Cloning of Rabbit Thrombomodulin and Characterization of Gene Expression in Cardiovascular Tissue

Thrombomodulin (TM), a component of the protein C anticoagulant pathway, is critical for the maintenance of vascular thromboresistance. To facilitate the study of in vivo TM regulation, we cloned and sequenced the cDNA encoding full-length rabbit TM. Translation of the open reading frame predicts a 580 amino acid protein that contains a 19 amino acid signal peptide, one lectin-like and six EGF-like extracellular domains, a 23 amino acid transmembrane domain and a 36 amino acid cytoplasmic domain. In addition, there are three potential N-linked and six O-linked glycosylation sites. Comparison of the predicted rabbit TM protein with those of human, mouse and rat reveals 67–72% primary sequence conservation with identical domain homology. TM gene expression was quantified in rabbit cardiovascular tissue by real-time PCR using primers and probe based on the derived cDNA sequence and found to correlate with protein expression as determined by Western blot analysis.
Enhancing Visibility in EPCIS Governing Agri-Food Supply Chains via Linked Pedigrees

Data integration for the purposes of tracking, tracing and transparency are important challenges in the agri-food supply chain. The Electronic Product Code Information Services EPCIS is an event-oriented GS1 standard that aims to enable tracking and tracing of products through the sharing of event-based datasets that encapsulate the Electronic Product Code EPC. In this paper, the authors propose a framework that utilises events and EPCs in the generation of "linked pedigrees"-linked datasets that enable the sharing of traceability information about products as they move along the supply chain. The authors exploit two ontology based information models, EEM and CBVVocab within a distributed and decentralised framework that consumes real time EPCIS events as linked data to generate the linked pedigrees. The authors exemplify the usage of linked pedigrees within the fresh fruit and vegetables supply chain in the agri-food sector.
Chromatin Architecture near a Potential 3′ End of the Igh Locus Involves Modular Regulation of Histone Modifications during B-Cell Development and In Vivo Occupancy at CTCF Sites

ABSTRACT The murine Igh locus has a 3′ regulatory region (3′ RR) containing four enhancers (hs3A, hs1,2, hs3B, and hs4) at DNase I-hypersensitive sites. The 3′ RR exerts long-range effects on class switch recombination (CSR) to several isotypes through its control of germ line transcription. By measuring levels of acetylated histones H3 and H4 and of dimethylated H3 (K4) with chromatin immunoprecipitation assays, we found that early in B-cell development, chromatin encompassing the enhancers of the 3′ RR began to attain stepwise modifications typical of an open conformation. The hs4 enhancer was associated with active chromatin initially in pro- and pre-B cells and then together with hs3A, hs1,2, and hs3B in B and plasma cells. Histone modifications were similar in resting splenic B cells and in splenic B cells induced by lipopolysaccharide to undergo CSR. From the pro-B-cell stage onward, the ∼11-kb region immediately downstream of hs4 displayed H3 and H4 modifications indicative of open chromatin. This region contained newly identified DNase I-hypersensitive sites and several CTCF target sites, some of which were occupied in vivo in a developmentally regulated manner. The open chromatin environment of the extended 3′ RR in mature B cells was flanked by regions associated with dimethylated K9 of histone H3. Together, these data suggest that 3′ RR elements are located within a specific chromatin subdomain that contains CTCF binding sites and developmentally regulated modules.
Intracellular responses to frequency modulated tones in the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus

Frequency modulations occur in many natural sounds, including vocalizations. The neuronal response to frequency modulated (FM) stimuli has been studied extensively in different brain areas, with an emphasis on the auditory cortex and the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus. Here, we measured the responses to FM sweeps in whole-cell recordings from neurons in the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus. Both up- and downward logarithmic FM sweeps were presented at two different speeds to both the ipsi- and the contralateral ear. Based on the number of action potentials that were fired, between 10 and 24% of cells were selective for rate or direction of the FM sweeps. A somewhat lower percentage of cells, 6–21%, showed selectivity based on EPSP size. To study the mechanisms underlying the generation of FM selectivity, we compared FM responses with responses to simple tones in the same cells. We found that if pairs of neurons responded in a similar way to simple tones, they generally also responded in a similar way to FM sweeps. Further evidence that FM selectivity can be generated within the dorsal cortex was obtained by reconstructing FM sweeps from the response to simple tones using three different models. In about half of the direction selective neurons the selectivity was generated by spectrally asymmetric synaptic inhibition. In addition, evidence for direction selectivity based on the timing of excitatory responses was also obtained in some cells. No clear evidence for the local generation of rate selectivity was obtained. We conclude that FM direction selectivity can be generated within the dorsal cortex of the mouse inferior colliculus by multiple mechanisms.
Cu Grain Growth in Damascene Narrow Trenches

Since the end of the last century, Cu damascene integration scheme has been the favoured choice for advanced interconnect technologies. Indeed, due to the lowest Cu bulk resistivity and to it higher resistance to electromigration, performances enhancement with respect to Al have been obtained. Nevertheless, dimensional scaling considerably reduces these performances. At line width below 150nm, grain size is usually measured around line dimension and thus decreases with down scaling. Moreover, columnar grain morphology perpendicular to line sidewall is frequently observed. This results in a large increase of Cu resistivity and in degradation of resistance to electromigration. Optimization of Cu microstructure in damascene architecture is then required. This is the topic of this work. Direct measurements of microstructure through electron microscopy (TEM, EBSD) and X ray diffraction methods are performed. Indirect measurement of grain size evolutions via resistivity characterization is done. Complementary grain growth simulations are performed using vertex method. It is observed that, depending on line dimension, anneal conditions and electrolyte, different type of microstructures are achieved. As expected, certainly due grain boundary pinning on sidewall, for long time anneal, a stable situation is reached. We evidence that Cu line microstructure results from an interaction between grain growth inside the trenches and grain growth in the Cu overburden. On one hand, for the larger lines, the grain size is directly related to the grain growth in the overburden, on the other hand, for the narrowest lines, interfaces limit the impact of this layer on the inline grain growth. A quantitative measurement of overburden microstructure extension in trenches is reported. It could be used to optimize the in-line microstructure with respect to resistivity and electromigration resistance. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.
Changes in Listing's plane after sustained vertical fusion.

PURPOSE To determine whether prolonged fusion of an imposed vertical disparity leads to a change in the orientation of Listing's plane, even when measured during monocular viewing. METHODS Four normal subjects (age range, 24-37 years) wore Fresnel prisms of increasing power for 72 hours to produce a final left-over-right disparity (range, 7-11 prism diopters [approximately 3.9 - 6.2 degrees]) that was still fusible. Eye movements were measured binocularly, using three-axis search coils, as subjects fixed on an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) arranged on a flat screen, 124 cm away. A regression was used to fit the data points to a plane (Listing's plane) during monocular and binocular viewing. From each planar fit, the horizontal and vertical components of primary position (the direction of gaze that is perpendicular to Listing's plane) were calculated. Baseline data were collected in the unadapted state, either just before or at least 4 days after wearing the prisms. RESULTS After the period of viewing through the prisms, there was a change in vertical phoria (prism adaptation) ranging from 1.6 to 3.3. There was a significant (P < 0.01) shift of the relative orientation of the vertical component of primary position between the two eyes of 6.3 +/- 1.7 degrees (right eye value minus left eye, up being positive, each measured during monocular viewing). There was no consistent pattern of change in the horizontal component of primary position. CONCLUSIONS Prolonged fusion of a vertical disparity is associated with a change in the orientation of Listing's plane that persists under monocular viewing. Possible mechanisms include phoria adaptation, the prolonged fusional effort itself, and the residual disparity that must be overcome by sensory mechanisms.