Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NONDESTRUCTIVE CONTROL OF POLYETHYLENE BLANKET INSULATION BY MEANS OF LOCK-IN THERMOGRAPHY

It is well known that cross-linking of polyethylene molecules into three-dimensional networks improves material properties; in particular, it enhances impact strength, thermal performance and chemical resistance. A product of good characteristics can be obtained if the manufacturing process is adequate and all involved machines are working properly. In this context, infrared thermography as a remote imaging technique may be a valuable tool to monitor the polyethylene cross-linking processes. Experimental tests were carried out on specimens without treatment and on specimens treated with either chemical processes or electron beam irradiation. Our results prove that lock-in thermography can detect local non-uniformity of material characteristics due to either the extrusion or cross-linking processes, and material differences linked to the different compound.
Real-time analysis of a Bragg gratings formation in an As2S3 channel waveguide

This paper presents the real-time observation of the Bragg grating formation in As2S3 channel waveguides. Channel waveguides (width~10μm) are obtained by a photolithographic process applied to a thin layer (~0.6μm) of thermally evaporated As2S3. The photoinduced variation of the refractive index is the principal mechanism involved in the formation of the Bragg grating. We used a typical holographic setup, with an Argon ion laser as recording source, to photoinduce gratings with Bragg wavelength ranging in telecommunication window. The time evolution of the transmission spectrum during illumination is also presented and analyzed here.
Low-cost wireless projector interface device using TI TMS320DM270

Personal computers today have 802.11 (b/a/g) -based wireless connectivity. By connecting laptops to a projector wirelessly, multiple persons could connect to the projector and present the content on their laptops. This typically requires another personal computer at the projector end that is wirelessly connected to the laptop and which receives, decodes, and renders a compressed version of what was rendered on the display of the laptop. On the laptop, the screen buffer is captured and the captured frames are compressed. The encoded stream is streamed over the WLAN to a streaming client. The article presents a low cost interface device for the projector system based on the TI TMS320DM270 image/video processor.
Machine learning for cognitive networks : technology assessment and research challenges

The field of machine learning has made major strides over the last 20 years. This document summarizes the major problem formulations that the discipline has studied, then reviews three tasks in cognitive networking and briefly discusses how aspects of those tasks fit these formulations. After this, it discusses challenges for machine learning research raised by Knowledge Plane applications and closes with proposals for the evaluation of learning systems developed for these problems.
Prognostic significance of a novel hypoxia-regulated marker, carbonic anhydrase IX, in invasive breast carcinoma.

PURPOSE To assess the frequency of expression and the prognostic significance of a hypoxia-regulated marker, carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX), in a cohort of patients with invasive breast cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS CA IX expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry with a murine monoclonal antibody, M75, in a series of 103 women treated surgically for invasive breast cancer. The majority of patients were treated with adjuvant hormonal or chemotherapy. The frequency of CA IX expression, its association with recognized prognostic factors, and the relationship with outcome was evaluated by univariate and multivariate statistical analyses. RESULTS CA IX expression was present in 49 (48%) of 103 cases. The level of CA IX expression was found to be significantly associated with tumor necrosis (P <.001), higher grade (P =.02), and negative estrogen receptor status (P <.001). Furthermore, CA IX expression was associated with a higher relapse rate (P =.004) and a worse overall survival (P =.001). By multivariate analysis, CA IX was also shown to be an independent predictive factor for overall survival (hazard ratio, 2.61; 95% confidence interval, 1.01 to 6.75, P =.05). CONCLUSION CA IX expression was associated with worse relapse-free survival and overall survival in an unselected cohort of patients with invasive breast carcinoma. The potential role of CA IX as a marker of hypoxia within breast carcinomas was also indicated by a significant association with necrosis. Further work assessing its prognostic significance in breast cancer is warranted, particularly interactions with radiotherapy and chemotherapy resistance.
Agent Models for Enhanced Interactions in Cooperative and Competitive Environments - Research outline

Multi-agent Systems, as the name suggests, deals with en-vironments in which there are several agents with potentialto interact. The ﬂeld of Multi-Agents Systems began itsrapid development since the development of distributed, in-terconnected computer systems, such as the Internet. Suchinterconnected settings, when one computer agent interactswith another, required researching interactions such as co-ordination, cooperation and competition.As stated in the title, my research is guided toward thedevelopment of agent models for enhanced interactions bothin cooperative and competitive environment. Speciﬂcally, Iwill look into two problems, each in the other side of thecooperativeness/competitiveness spectrum.In my ﬂrst problem I will try to build a formal model foran agent who is situated in an adversarial setting. Overthe years there has been extensive research to formalizediﬁerent sorts of cooperative behavior which tried provid-ing formal speciﬂcation for the development of cooperativeagents (Kraus and Grosz’s
Rheology of a dilute suspension of spheres in a viscoelastic fluid under LAOS

Dilute suspensions of spheres in a viscoelastic liquid under oscillatory shear floware studied via numerical simulations. In linear viscoelastic regime, the 3D finite elementsimulation results agree with the analytical results from Palierne (1990). The analysis is extended to Large Amplitude Oscillations (LAOS). The rotation rate of thesphere as well as the bulk rheology are investigated. The moduli increase when particles are added into the fluid, in agreement with experimental findings. In the nonlinear range both moduli are found to be decreasing functions of the forcing amplitude. The non-linear response of the material is also illustrated by performing a Fourier analysis of the bulk shear stresssignal which shows the appearance of higher harmonic contributions.
Magnesium, calcium and strontium in waters of the southern Tasman Sea at the confluence of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans

Data are presented for magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) and strontium (Sr) analyses for surface samples and conductivity–temperature–depth profiles of waters along three main transects across the Subtropical Front (STF) and the Subantarctic Front (SAF) in a region between Tasmania and New Zealand down to 57°S. This area is at the confluence of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans where the Subantarctic Mode Water (SAMW) is formed and which is characterized by well-mixed and thick (down to 1000 m) thermostads with uniform salinity and temperature. Such thermostads form at the end of winter, and two of such mode water-forming areas were sampled in October–November 1998. Magnesium and Ca are proving to be quasi-conservative elements down the water column, but there is systematic depletion for Mg compared with profiles measured in the North and South Atlantic Oceans. This offset is interpreted to be the result of hydrothermal activity in the region at the south-east Indian Ridge, which scavenges some Mg. The Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) intersects this Ridge and upwells south of the SAF and eventually is transformed in the upper 1000 m of the water column into the SAMW. This explains the uniform Mg depletion throughout the entire depth profiles. Strontium, on the other hand, displays significant shifts near the ocean surface at many locations, and this is interpreted as the result of biogenic productivity, which engenders the precipitation of celestite microcrystals.
Chapter 1 APPROACHES IN MACHINE LEARNING

Machine learning deals with programs that learn from experience, i.e. programs that improve or adapt their performance on a certain task or group of tasks over time. In this tutorial, we outline some issues in machine learning that pertain to ambient and computational intelligence. As an example, we consider programs that are faced with the learning of tasks or concepts which are impossible to learn exactly in finitely bounded time. This leads to the study of programs that form hypotheses that are ‘probably approximately correct’ (PAC-learning), with high probability. We also survey a number of meta-learning techniques such as bagging and adaptive boosting, which can improve the performance of machine learning algorithms substantially.
Influences of Host Community Characteristics on Borrelia burgdorferi Infection Prevalence in Blacklegged Ticks

Lyme disease is a major vector-borne bacterial disease in the USA. The disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, and transmitted among hosts and humans, primarily by blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). The ~25 B. burgdorferi genotypes, based on genotypic variation of their outer surface protein C (ospC), can be phenotypically separated as strains that primarily cause human diseases—human invasive strains (HIS)—or those that rarely do. Additionally, the genotypes are non-randomly associated with host species. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which phenotypic outcomes of B. burgdorferi could be explained by the host communities fed upon by blacklegged ticks. In 2006 and 2009, we determined the host community composition based on abundance estimates of the vertebrate hosts, and collected host-seeking nymphal ticks in 2007 and 2010 to determine the ospC genotypes within infected ticks. We regressed instances of B. burgdorferi phenotypes on site-specific characteristics of host communities by constructing Bayesian hierarchical models that properly handled missing data. The models provided quantitative support for the relevance of host composition on Lyme disease risk pertaining to B. burgdorferi prevalence (i.e. overall nymphal infection prevalence, or NIPAll) and HIS prevalence among the infected ticks (NIPHIS). In each year, NIPAll and NIPHIS was found to be associated with host relative abundances and diversity. For mice and chipmunks, the association with NIPAll was positive, but tended to be negative with NIPHIS in both years. However, the direction of association between shrew relative abundance with NIPAll or NIPHIS differed across the two years. And, diversity (H') had a negative association with NIPAll, but positive association with NIPHIS in both years. Our analyses highlight that the relationships between the relative abundances of three primary hosts and the community diversity with NIPAll, and NIPHIS, are variable in time and space, and that disease risk inference, based on the role of host community, changes when we examine risk overall or at the phenotypic level. Our discussion focuses on the observed relationships between prevalence and host community characteristics and how they substantiate the ecological understanding of phenotypic Lyme disease risk.
Development of two potential diagnostic monoclonal antibodies against human cytomegalovirus glycoprotein B

Human cytomegalovirus glycoprotein B (gB) represents a target for diagnosis and treatment in view of the role it plays in virus entry and spread. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, rare detection of a gB antigen has been reported in transplant patients and limited information is available about diagnostic gB monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Our aim was to develop gB mAbs with diagnostic potential. Hydrophilic gB peptides (ST: amino acids 27-40, SH: amino acids 81-94) of favorable immunogenicity were synthesized and used to immunize BALB/c mice. Two mAbs, named ZJU-FH6 and ZJU-FE6, were generated by the hybridoma technique and limited serial dilution and then characterized by indirect ELISA, Western blotting, immunoprecipitation, and immunohistochemical staining. The mAbs displayed high titers of specific binding affinities for the ST and SH synthetic peptides at an mAb dilution of 1:60,000 and 1:240,000, respectively. Western blotting and immunoprecipitation indicated that these mAbs recognized both denatured and native gB of the Towne and AD169 strains. The mAbs, when used as the primary antibody, showed positive staining in cells infected with both Towne and AD169 strains. The mAbs were then tested on patients submitted to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The gB antigen positivity rates of the patients tested using ZJU-FH6 and ZJU-FE6 were 62.0 and 63.0%, respectively. The gB antigen showed a significant correlation with the level of pp65 antigen in peripheral blood leukocytes. In conclusion, two potential diagnostic gB mAbs were developed and were shown to be capable of recognizing gB in peripheral blood leukocytes in a reliable manner.
DSP Based Implementation of Sliding Mode Speed Controller for Direct Torque Controlled PMSM Drive

This paper deals with the DSP based implementation of a sliding mode (SM) speed controller for direct torque controlled (DTC) permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive. The drive system consists of power circuit and control hardware. The former has insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) based voltage source inverter (VSI) and gate driver circuit, while the latter has voltage and current sensors and their interfacing circuits. The rotor speed estimation from the sensed position signals, SM speed controller, torque, flux, and sector estimator and optimum voltage vector selection table for gating pulse generation of VSI are implemented in assembly language of DSP-ADMC401. The simulation model of the PMSM drive system is developed in MATLAB environment with Simulink and PSB toolboxes to analyze the performance of the proposed drive system. The simulated performance of SM speed controlled PMSM drive is validated with the test results for starting, speed reversal, load perturbation and steady-state operating conditions.
A randomized controlled trial comparing intermittent with continuous dialysis in patients with ARF.

BACKGROUND Despite the widespread use of continuous renal replacement therapy in critically ill patients with acute renal failure (ARF), there are few data supporting its benefits over conventional intermittent hemodialysis (IHD). We sought to analyze differences in survival between modalities in a study that compared continuous venovenous hemodialysis (CVVHD) with IHD. METHODS Eighty critically ill patients with ARF requiring dialysis were randomized after stratification by severity of illness to treatment with CVVHD or IHD. RESULTS There were no differences in survival or renal recovery between groups. In patients who died, mean survival time was 10.7 +/- 11.2 days for the IHD group versus 14.3 +/- 16.1 days for the CVVHD group (P = not significant). There was greater net volume removal in the CVVHD group during 72 hours. Declines in urine output during 72 hours were similar between groups. Mean arterial pressure off and on dialysis therapy was analyzed retrospectively. There was a significant decrease in mean arterial pressure for patients on IHD therapy not seen in those on CVVHD therapy, but this did not lead to a survival advantage. CONCLUSION Despite greater volume control, CVVHD did not lead to an improvement in survival, preservation of urine output, or renal recovery compared with IHD in patients with ARF.
Genetic programming application to generate technical trading rules in stock markets

Technical trading rules can be generated from historical data for decision making in stock trading. In this study, genetic programming (GP) as an evolutionary algorithm has been applied to automatically generate such technical trading rules on individual stocks. In order to obtain more realistic trading rules, we have included transaction costs, dividends and splits in our GP model. Our model has been applied for nine Iranian companies listed on different activity sectors of Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Our results show that this model could generate profitable trading rules in comparison with buy and hold strategy for companies having frequent trading in the market. Also, the effect of the above mentioned parameters on trading rule's profitability are evaluated using three separate models.
Visual Factors and Orientation‐Mobility Performance

Abstract The ability of the person with low vision to achieve successful orientation and mobility depends on residual vision, age of onset of visual impairment, posture and balance, intelligence, body image, auditory‐tactile abilities, and personality. This study assesses the role of the residual vision and looks in particular at visual fields, spatial contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity. Correlation coefficients indicate that, for low vision patients, spatial contrast sensitivity and visual fields each have more influence on orientation‐mobility than does visual acuity.
Amino acid ingestion improves muscle protein synthesis in the young and elderly.

We recently demonstrated that muscle protein synthesis was stimulated to a similar extent in young and elderly subjects during a 3-h amino acid infusion. We sought to determine if a more practical bolus oral ingestion would also produce a similar response in young (34 +/- 4 yr) and elderly (67 +/- 2 yr) individuals. Arteriovenous blood samples and muscle biopsies were obtained during a primed (2.0 micromol/kg) constant infusion (0.05 micromol.kg(-1). min(-1)) of L-[ring-2H5]phenylalanine. Muscle protein kinetics and mixed muscle fractional synthetic rate (FSR) were calculated before and after the bolus ingestion of 15 g of essential amino acids (EAA) in young (n = 6) and elderly (n = 7) subjects. After EAA ingestion, the rate of increase in femoral artery phenylalanine concentration was slower in elderly subjects but remained elevated for a longer period. EAA ingestion increased FSR in both age groups by approximately 0.04%/h (P < 0.05). However, muscle intracellular (IC) phenylalanine concentration remained significantly higher in elderly subjects at the completion of the study (young: 115.6 +/- 5.4 nmol/ml; elderly: 150.2 +/- 19.4 nmol/ml). Correction for the free phenylalanine retained in the muscle IC pool resulted in similar net phenylalanine uptake values in the young and elderly. EAA ingestion increased plasma insulin levels in young (6.1 +/- 1.2 to 21.3 +/- 3.1 microIU/ml) but not in elderly subjects (3.0 +/- 0.6 to 4.3 +/- 0.4 microIU/ml). Despite differences in the time course of plasma phenylalanine kinetics and a greater residual IC phenylalanine concentration, amino acid supplementation acutely stimulated muscle protein synthesis in both young and elderly individuals.
Controlled Synchronization of Heterogeneous Robotic Manipulators in the Task Space

Passivity-based control has emerged as an important paradigm for synchronization of networked robotic systems. Despite the practical utility of task-space algorithms, the previous results focused on joint-space synchronization and were primarily derived for kinematically identical manipulators. Hence, in this paper, the problem of task-space synchronization of (possibly redundant) heterogeneous robotic systems is studied. By exploiting passivity-based synchronization results that are developed previously, an adaptive control algorithm is proposed to guarantee task-space synchronization of networked robotic manipulators in the presence of dynamic uncertainties and time-varying communication delays. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed framework, numerical simulations and experiments are conducted with redundant and nonredundant manipulators, respectively.
Rapid distal small bowel transit associated with sympathetic denervation in type I diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND: The pattern of progression of a meal from the stomach to the caecum in diabetes mellitus is controversial and the differential roles of transit through the jejunum and the ileum have not been investigated in diabetes. AIMS: To determine gastric emptying and transit rates through proximal and distal regions of the small bowel in type I diabetic patients. SUBJECTS: The study included six diabetic patients with evidence of autonomic neuropathy (DM-AN group), 11 diabetics without autonomic dysfunction (DM group), and 15 control volunteers. METHODS: Gastric emptying and small bowel transit of a liquid meal were evaluated scintigraphically in these subjects. Transit through regions of interest corresponding to the proximal and distal small intestine up to the caecum was determined and correlated with gastric emptying rates, cardiovascular measurements of autonomic function, and the occurrence of diarrhoea. RESULTS: Gastric emptying and transit through the proximal small bowel were similar in the three groups. The meal arrived to the caecum significantly earlier in DM-AN patients (median; range: 55 min; 22-->180 min) than in the DM group (100 min; 44-->180 min, p < 0.05) or in controls (120 min; 80-->180 min, p < 0.02). Accumulation of chyme in the distal small bowel was decreased in DM-AN patients, who showed values for peak activity (30%; 10-55%) significantly lower than in the DM group (49%; 25-77%, p = 0.02) and controls (50%; 30-81%, p = 0.02). In DM patients (n = 17), the time of meal arrival to the caecum was significantly correlated with both orthostatic hypotension (coefficient of contingency, C = 0.53, p < 0.01) and diarrhoea (C = 0.47, p < 0.05), but not with gastric emptying rates. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with type I diabetes mellitus and sympathetic denervation have abnormally rapid transit of a liquid meal through the distal small bowel, which may play a part in diarrhoea production.
Industrial evaluation of the impact of quality-driven release planning

Context: Product release decisions are often made ad hoc or not relying on up-to-date information from systematic and analysis-driven process. Often, too much emphasis solely is put into functionality, thereby neglecting the different quality aspects being important for the success of the product. Objective: For a case study project, we quantitatively measure the impact of the analytical and systematic release planning approach Q-EVOLVE II. Method: As an explorative and retrospective case study, we perform optimized planning scenarios and compare them with the actual baseline scenario. Results: For the case study project in an Austrian public health insurance institution, we demonstrate that the analytical and systematic approach Q-EVOLVE II results in a (1) reduced release time, (2) more features implemented in the same time, and (3) better final quality through increased testing activities and less defects slipping through at the time of release. Conclusion: In the context of the studied institution, analytical and systematic planning of product releases considering quality criteria is superior to ad hoc planning ignoring quality.