Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of gamma titanium aluminide welds produced by gas tungsten arc welding

This study examines the weldability of a cast gamma titanium aluminide (γ-TiAl) alloy using the autogenous gas tungsten arc welding process. Experimentation consisted of spot and butt-joint welding of gamma titanium aluminides at welding current levels ranging from 50 to 150 A using no preheating. It was found that the welded microstructure exhibited columnar and equiaxed dendritic structures along with a small quantity of gamma grains. A closer examination of the dendritic grains showed that a fine lamellar structure consisting of alternating platelets of alpha-2 and gamma was observed within the dendrites. Other microstructural constituents in the fusion zone were a massive gamma structure and the alpha-2 phase. Crack-free welds were obtained for high welding currents. However, cracking was observed at lower welding currents, which also corresponded to increased amounts of the alpha-2 phase. The hardness of the fusion zone was increased relative to the base metal, resulting in reduction in both room temperature ductility and tensile strength of the weld. Conclusively, very careful selection of welding parameters that result in decreased amounts of the alpha-2 phase is required for successful joining of TiAl alloys using gas tungsten arc welding.
Association between numbers of decayed teeth and HbA1c in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract Background: Dental caries (DC) are more prevalent in individuals with diabetes than in healthy individuals. However, the association between glycaemic control and DC has not been well characterized in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We therefore assessed the association between glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) serum concentrations and the prevalence of DC in patients with T2DM. Methods: Retrospective analyses of data pertaining to 108 Japanese patients with T2DM hospitalized because of poor or worsened glycaemic control were included. We divided the patients based on HbA1c into two groups: HbA1c level ≥75 mmol/mol (9.0%) as poorly controlled T2DM, and HbA1c level <75 mmol/mol (9.0%) as a control group. We compared the association of lifestyle factors, dental caries, and periodontal health between patients with poorly controlled T2DM and controls. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed to evaluate the association between HbA1c, the absolute number of decayed teeth (DT), the sum of decayed, missing, and filled teeth, and the Met Need Index (MNI). Results: DT was higher and MNI was lower in patients with poorly controlled T2DM as compared to that in controls (P = 0.006 and P = 0.004, respectively). Multiple regression analyses revealed a significant association between HbA1c levels and DT (adjusted β = 0.039, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.005 to 0.072, P = 0.025) and the MNI (adjusted β = −0.216, 95% CI −0.374 to −0.058, P = 0.008). Conclusions: DT and MNI were associated with HbA1c in T2DM patients.
Bridging the Gap in Grasp Quality Evaluation and Grasp Planning

Robot grasp planning has been extensively studied in the last decades often consisting of two different stages determining where to grasp an object and measuring the quality of a tentative grasp. Additionally, because these two processes are computationally demanding, form closure grasps are more widely used in practice than force closure grasps, even though the latter is, in many cases, preferable. In this dissertation, we introduce our framework to improve grasp quality evaluation by increasing the speed of evaluating a grasp and developing more informative metrics. Specifically, we accelerate the computation of the grasp wrench space, used to measure the grasp quality, by exploiting some geometric insights in the computation of a convex hull through identifying a cutoff sequence to terminate the convex hull calculation with guaranteed convergence to the quality measure. Furthermore, we go into detail about the metric improvement for the grasp quality. Specifically, we study how noise at each joint of the manipulator affects grasp quality and how different arm configurations will generate different noise distributions at the end-effector, which has a huge impact in the robustness of grasping. Moreover, we illustrate our method that evaluates arm configurations based on the probability of achieving a force closure grasp. Then we introduce our work taking into account the hand structure and the local geometry of the object to be grasped as the second aspect for improving grasp quality metrics. In particular, for concave objects, we exploit the fact that grasping the concave region can make the grasp more robust. These insights are explored through theory and then validated on an experimental platform. Finally, we present three grasp planners we developed. We constructed two planners taking advantage of the negative curvature feature. The first the planner uses the geometry model of the object and constructs a database for online use. The second planner does not require the model but instead, detects negative curvature features on the fly and calculates candidate grasps in real time. Lastly, our third grasp planner searches through the objects' surface, represented as a triangular mesh, and tries to find the global optimal grasp.
"Photo Current" in The Dark from Ti/CdSe Schottky Diode

CdSe was electrochemically deposited on pure Ti from SeSO3 2- source forming Ti/CdSe Schottky diode with deposition time 113s, 225s and 450s. SEM and current-voltage were employed to study the photo-electronic properties of the Schottky diode. The results show interesting, unexpected phenomena. The current density and the open-circuit voltage of 113s in the dark Ti/CdSe are higher than its analogous devices. Then an interpretation was probably given.
p 21-activated kinase family : promising new drug targets Nhi

License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress. com/permissions.php Research and Reports in Biochemistry 2015:5 119–128 Research and Reports in Biochemistry Dovepress
Dynamic Surface Tension as a Probe of Irreversible Adsorption of Nanoparticles at Fluid-Fluid Interfaces

Adsorption-mediated self-assembly of nanoparticles at fluid interfaces, driven by reduction in interfacial energy, leads to stabilization of emulsions and foams and can be used for the bottom-up fabrication of functional nanostructured materials. Improved understanding of the parameters that control the self-assembly, the structure of nanoparticles at the interface, the barrier properties of the assembly and the rate of particle attachment and exchange is needed if such nanoparticle assemblies are to be employed for the design and fabrication of novel materials and devices. Here, I report on the use of dynamic surface tension (DST) measurements to probe the kinetics of irreversible adsorption and self-assembly of hydrophobic ethyl-cellulose (EC) nanoparticles at the air-water interface. Using thermodynamic arguments, I make a direct connection between the DST and the time-dependent surface coverage. I show that adsorption models appropriate for surfactants (e.g., Ward and Tordai model) break down for irreversible adsorption of nanoparticles, when the adsorption energy far exceeds the mean energy of thermal fluctuations (kBT ) and surface blocking effects give rise to a steric barrier to adsorption. I show instead that irreversible adsorption kinetics are unequivocally characterized in terms of the adsorption rate constant and the maximum (jamming) coverage, both of which are determined on the basis of DST data using the generalized random sequential adsorption theory (RSA) for the first time. Novel accurate estimates of the adsorption energy of 42 nm and 89 nm EC nanoparticles are also provided. Coverage of the interface to the jamming limit of 91%, corresponding to a triangular lattice in 2D, is experimentally demonstrated. Colloidal solutions of EC nanoparticles are stabilized at neutral pH by electrostatic repulsive forces. Strong adsorption of these particles at an interface of like charge suggests the parallel action of attractive hydrophobic forces.
Performance Analysis of C-V2I-Based Automotive Collision Avoidance

One of the key applications envisioned for C-V2I (Cellular Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) networks pertains to safety on the road. Thanks to the exchange of Cooperative Awareness Messages (CAMs), vehicles and other road users (e.g., pedestrians) can advertise their position, heading and speed and sophisticated algorithms can detect potentially dangerous situations leading to a crash. In this paper, we focus on the safety application for automotive collision avoidance at intersections, and study the effectiveness of its deployment in a C-V2I-based infrastructure. In our study, we also account for the location of the server running the application as a factor in the system design. Our simulation-based results, derived in real-world scenarios, provide indication on the reliability of algorithms for car-to-car and car-to-pedestrian collision avoidance, both when a human driver is considered and when automated vehicles (with faster reaction times) populate the streets.
Enoxaparin for the secondary prevention of placental vascular complications in women with abruptio placentae

Summary Administration of heparin in the secondary prevention of placental vascular complications is still experimental. In women with a previous placental abruption, we investigated the effectiveness of enoxaparin, a low-molecular-weight heparin, in preventing these complications. Between January 2000 and January 2009, 160 women from the NOHA First cohort, with previous abruptio placentae but no foetal loss during their first pregnancy and negative for antiphospholipid antibodies, were randomised to either a prophylactic daily dose of enoxaparin starting from the positive pregnancy test (n=80), or no enoxaparin (n=80). The primary outcome was a composite of at least one of the following: abruptio placentae, preeclampsia, birthweight < 5th percentile, or foetal loss after 20 weeks. Enoxaparin was associated with a lower frequency of primary outcome: 12.5% (n=10/80) vs. 31.3 % (25/80), p=0.004, adjusted hazard ratio = 0.37, 95% confidence interval (0.18–0.77), p=0.011. Enoxaparin was safe, with no obvious side-effect, no thrombocytopenia nor major bleeding event excess. This pilot study shows that enoxaparin given early during the second pregnancy decreases the occurrence of placental vascular complications in women with a previous placental abruption during their first pregnancy.
Prevalence, antimicrobial resistance and genetic diversity of Campylobacter coli and Campylobacter jejuni in Ecuadorian broilers at slaughter age

&NA; Thermotolerant Campylobacter spp. are a major cause of foodborne gastrointestinal infections worldwide. The linkage of human campylobacteriosis and poultry has been widely described. In this study we aimed to investigate the prevalence, antimicrobial resistance and genetic diversity of C. coli and C. jejuni in broilers from Ecuador. Caecal content from 379 randomly selected broiler batches originating from 115 farms were collected from 6 slaughterhouses located in the province of Pichincha during 1 year. Microbiological isolation was performed by direct plating on mCCDA agar. Identification of Campylobacter species was done by PCR. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, nalidixic acid, tetracycline, streptomycin, and erythromycin were obtained. Genetic variation was assessed by RFLP‐flaA typing and Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) of selected isolates. Prevalence at batch level was 64.1%. Of the positive batches 68.7% were positive for C. coli, 18.9% for C. jejuni, and 12.4% for C. coli and C. jejuni. Resistance rates above 67% were shown for tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, and nalidixic acid. The resistance pattern tetracycline, ciprofloxin, and nalidixic acid was the dominant one in both Campylobacter species. RFLP‐flaA typing analysis showed that C. coli and C. jejuni strains belonged to 38 and 26 profiles respectively. On the other hand MLST typing revealed that C. coli except one strain belonged to CC‐828, while C. jejuni except 2 strains belonged to 12 assigned clonal complexes (CCs). Furthermore 4 new sequence types (STs) for both species were described, whereby 2 new STs for C. coli were based on new allele sequences. Further research is necessary to estimate the impact of the slaughter of Campylobacter positive broiler batches on the contamination level of carcasses in slaughterhouses and at retail in Ecuador.
Cross-modal retrieval based on deep correlated network

The rapid development of deep learning provides opportunities for exploring cross-modal retrieval from a semantic perspective. How to exploit correlations of multimodal data which are heterogeneous in an unsupervised way is a challenging task. Previous models for this task still have defects, such as the result of retrieval is unstable and etc. To solve these problems, an unsupervised Deep Correlation Network (DCN) is proposed. DCN firstly incorporates multiple correspondence correlations, different neural networks into a whole. And the model can be divided into two parts. The first part models modalities by restricted Boltzmann machines, and using correlation leaning to learn a common information shared by different modalities. The second part uses autoencoder and the correlation learning to do the same work as the first part. Experiments on three real data sets illustrated that DCN has obvious advantages than existing models.
Enhancing the efficacy of platinum-based chemotherapeutics by targeting BRCA1

Decreased expression of Breast Cancer 1 protein BRCAl in breast and epithelial ovarian cancer patients has been correlated with increased overall survival. The improved outcome of patients with BRCAl-deficient tumours has been linked to their impaired ability to repair DNA damage induced by chemotherapy, specifically platinum agents. Targeting the DNA repair protein BRCAl using novel therapeutic approaches has the potential to enhance platinum chemosensitivity in breast and ovarian cancer. Human ovarian and breast cancer cell lines were treated for 24 or 48 hours with three standard chemotherapeutics alone or in combination with three small molecule inhibitors that target DNA repair activity. Treatment with a histone deacetylase inhibitor sensitized breast and ovarian cancer cell lines to platinum agents. The HDACi significantly decreased BRCAl RNA and protein expression. The HDACi shows promise as a therapeutic agent in combination with platinum therapy for breast and ovarian cancer due to its ability to down-regulate BRCAl.
Interactive torque controller with electromyography intention prediction implemented on exoskeleton robot NTUH-II

Various shoulder joint movement-related impairments, either orthopedic-or neurological-originated, clinically present characteristics of insufficient muscle strength, altered muscle groups firing patterns or inability to actively control the joint that may lead to even worse conditions such as pain, stiffness or shoulder impingement syndrome. Through continuous physical therapy and motor learning strategies, patients with shoulder disorders can gain functional improvements and reeducate the muscle contraction patterns. To retrieve a normal rhythm of muscle activation, intensive and consistent training is required, which thrives in the demand of robotics rehabilitation that aims in assisting therapists and promote cost effectiveness during prolonged rehabilitation process. In this paper, we present a novel interactive torque controller with electromyography intention prediction implemented on NTUH-II exoskeleton rehabilitation robot arm. K-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithms are used to predict the user's intended moving direction, and the interactive torque observer is used to change the dynamic behavior of the exoskeleton robot to make it lighter and movable. As a result, we apply this method to the active control of rehabilitation and activities of daily living (ADL) tasks. To validate the effectiveness, the proposed control methodology and to illustrate the performance of the resulting robot system, we have conducted a series of experiments, and the test results are quite appealing.
An Investigation on Stability, Electrical and Thermal Characteristics of Transformer Insulting Oil Nanofluids

Transformer insulating oil nanofluid is made to improve dielectric and thermal properties of the oil by employing nanoparticles with proper properties. In the current work, nanofluids based on transformer mineral oil were prepared by three procedures using diamond nanoparticles with high thermal conductivity, as well as high dielectric properties. It was tried to consider the impacts of surfactants’ presence and ball milling process in the preparation procedures. The effects of a variety of stabilizers (the amount and type) and also the ultrasonic time on diamond nanoparticles’ stability in the oil were investigated and optimized experimentally. Using the optimized nanofluids, thermal conductivity and viscosity of the oil nanofluids were compared and discussed. In addition, the consistency of the thermal conductivity results with Maxwell and also Hamilton and Crosser theoretical models was examined. It was revealed that, the nanofluid preparation procedure, temperature and nanoparticles’ concentration have effects on thermal conductivity of the transformer oil nanofluid, while the presence of the nanoparticles has a slight impact on the viscosity of the fluid. Also the effect of diamond nanoparticles’ presence on the electrical properties of transformer oil was studied. Based on the experimental results, adding diamond nanoparticles could lead to an increase in the transformer oil breakdown voltage, while it has nearly no effect on dielectric loss in low concentrations.
Event-based attack against remote state estimation

Security issues in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have gained increasing attention in recent years due to the vulnerability of CPS to cyber attack. This paper focuses on designing an intelligent online attack, which can compromise a sensor, eavesdrop measurements and inject false feedback in- formation, against remote state estimation. From the viewpoint of the attacker, we design an event-based attack strategy to degrade the estimation quality with arbitrary communication rate constraint. The approximate minimum mean-squared error estimation algorithm at the attacker side is derived under the Gaussian assumption. Furthermore, the relation between the attack threshold and the scheduling threshold is obtained in a closed form. Two examples are provided to demonstrate the main results.
Processing of graphene into a cantilever beam structure using a focused ion beam

A graphene cantilever beam of arbitrary shape by patterning suspended graphene using a focused ion beam (FIB) is fabricated. Suspended graphene was formed by transferring graphene over a trench structure and patterned the suspended graphene into a cantilever beam structure. When the suspended graphene is patterned by an FIB, the high-ion irradiation of FIB deforms the shape of the cantilever beam; in contrast, low-ion irradiation cannot penetrate the suspended graphene. An evaluation of the ion irradiation dose of the FIB and the damages caused to the suspended graphene confirmed that in the case of few-layer graphene with a maximum of three layers, optimum processing can be performed by an ion irradiation of 6 × 1016 ions/cm2. Under this condition, a graphene cantilever beam with a width of 1.34 μm and a length of 2.13 μm could be fabricated. Furthermore, the Raman spectroscopy results indicate that the FIB process does not significantly change the properties of the graphene.
Changes in thiol/disulfide homeostasis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis

The pathogenesis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) remains unknown, but imbalance between the oxidant and antioxidant defense systems may play a role. Measuring thiols in plasma provides an indirect indication of antioxidative defense. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between JIA and dynamic thiol/disulfide homeostatic status.
Symbiotic association between hoopoes and antibiotic- producing bacteria that live in their uropygial gland

Summary 1. It has been recently showed that one bacterial strain isolated from the uropygial gland of a nestling hoopoe Upupa epops produced antimicrobial peptides active against a broad spectrum of pathogenic bacteria. These bacteria might thus mediate antimicrobial properties of the uropygial secretions as a consequence of the symbiotic association with hoopoes. 2. We study antimicrobial properties of white (from males and non-breeding females) and brown (from nestlings and breeding females) uropygial gland secretions of hoopoes Upupa epops , as well as the association with the presence of bacteria living inside their uropygial gland. 3. We found that brown, but not white secretions contained bacteria and showed antimicrobial activity against the feather degrading bacterium Bacillus licheniformis . The antagonistic activity of bacterial colonies was mediated by antimicrobial peptides because protease inhibited antimicrobial properties. 4. All except one identified bacterium in aerobic cultures were of the genus Enterococcus , and the microscopic study of uropygial secretions and glands confirmed a high density of bacteria within the gland. 5. Furthermore, we studied potential benefits of antimicrobial peptides produced by symbiotic bacteria of hoopoes by adding protease to incubating nests. 6. The experiment increased bacterial growth and hatching failures in hoopoes but not in spotless starlings Sturnus unicolor , a species that does not harbour bacteria in its uropygial gland. 7. Thus, microbiological, anatomical and ecological results suggest a tight symbiotic interaction between bacteria that produce antibiotic substances and the hoopoes.
A comparative study on spatio-temporal parameters of walking gait of patients with Lumbar spinal stenosis and lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration

Walking gait of patients suffering from lumbar spine problems could lead to mobility restriction or even surgery. Quantified assessment of spatio-temporal characteristics such as gait speed and dimensionless gait speed known as Froude number along with stance phase and duty factor could contribute towards disease identification. Two groups of patients suffering from Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) and lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration (LIDD) were studied and Froude number, duty factor, mechanical internal work and stance phases were determined. The results revealed differences between the two groups. In conclusion, the identified differences in spatio-temporal parameters indicate the possibility of distinguishing lumbar spine patients in clinical settings without a need to use or interpret of diagnostic imaging.
Projection function and hand pointer for user-interface of daily service robot

A projection function is applied to information sharing between a robot and the user controlling it when they coexist within the same environment. Projection information can be projected in multiple areas and modes simultaneously. We introduce a dual-use projection function as a projection user interface and robot hand pointer for easy control of a mobile manipulator for application in service robots in daily living environments. Dual projection in a physical environment can allow the user to understand the robot and task environment and complete the task. Application of the proposed function to a basic service robot and the results of preliminary experiments are described.