Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag in Portland Cement Concrete - Expanded Study

This research examined the properties of concrete containing grade 120 slag cement at replacement levels of 0%, 30%, and 50%. The primary concrete properties studied were compressive strength, split-tensile strength, and deicer scaling resistance. Material variations included four sources of ordinary portland cement and two types of coarse aggregate. Strength properties were studied at room temperature and 40°F mix and curing conditions. Deicer scaling resistance was studied for concrete cured under six curing conditions. Carbonation of concrete cured under these six conditions was also investigated. It was determined that concrete containing 30% and 50% replacement of ordinary portland cement (OPC) with grade 120 slag cement had a decreased initial compressive and tensile strength compared to OPC concrete. However, by 14 days, the grade 120 slag cement concrete strength equaled or surpassed that of OPC concrete. Compared to OPC concrete, the time to reach 3000 psi traffic opening strength was delayed by 1 to 2 days for 30% replacement and by 3 to 4 days for 50% replacement. Deicer scaling resistance decreased as the level of slag cement replacement increased. Curing methods which limited carbonation produced concrete with the highest level of scaling resistance. Air-cured concrete had higher scaling resistance than concrete cured with commercial curing compounds. The scaling resistance of all grade 120 slag cement concrete was within acceptable limits. Variations in portland cement source caused changes in strength and scaling resistance properties. Variation in coarse aggregate influenced compressive and tensile strengths but did not influence the deicer scaling resistance. Comparisons with previous research on grade 100 slag are included.
Flow-diverting Stent-assisted Coil Embolization of a Ruptured Internal Carotid Artery Blister Aneurysm with the Pipeline Flex Embolization Device

ABSTRACT Internal carotid artery (ICA) blister aneurysms are rare and challenging to successfully treat, using contemporary surgical or endovascular approaches, without partial or complete compromise of the parent vessel. We describe the use of a resheathable flow diverter, the Pipeline Flex Embolization Device (PFED) to perform stent-assisted coiling of a ruptured supraclinoid ICA blister aneurysm in a 56-year-old female who presented with a high-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). The first PFED was deployed across the aneurysm neck to jail a microcatheter within the aneurysm dome, and then, two small coils were delivered into the aneurysm. After removing the coiling microcatheter, the second PFED was telescoped into the first PFED. There were no postprocedural complications, and follow-up magnetic resonance angiography 15 months after embolization showed complete aneurysm obliteration. Flow-diverting stent-assisted coiling should be considered as a reconstructive, vessel-preserving, endovascular treatment option for appropriately selected patients with ruptured ICA blister aneurysms. However, future studies are necessary to assess the periprocedural safety in the setting of acute SAH.
Optimisation of Intermodal Transport Chain of Supermarkets on Isle of Wight, UK

This work investigates an intermodal transportation system for delivering goods from their Regional Distribution Centre to supermarkets on Isle of Wight (IOW) via port of Southampton or Portsmouth in UK. We consider this integrated logistics chain as a 3-echelon transportation system. In such system, there are two types of transport methods used to deliver goods across the Solent Channel: one is accompanied transport, which is used by most supermarkets on IOW, such as Spar, Lidl and Co-operative food; the other is unaccompanied transport, which is used by Aldi. Five transport scenarios are studied based on different transport modes and ferry routes. The aim is to determine an optimal delivery plan for supermarkets of different business scales on IOW, in order to minimise the total running cost, fuel consumptions and carbon emissions. The problem is modelled as a vehicle routing problem with time windows and solved by genetic algorithm. The computing results suggested that accompanied transport is more cost efficient for small and medium business-scale supermarket chains on IOW, while unaccompanied transport has the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of large business scale supermarket chains.
Enabling grand‐canonical Monte Carlo: Extending the flexibility of GROMACS through the GromPy python interface module

We report on a python interface to the GROMACS molecular simulation package, GromPy (available at https://github.com/GromPy). This application programming interface (API) uses the ctypes python module that allows function calls to shared libraries, for example, written in C. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported interface to the GROMACS library that uses direct library calls. GromPy can be used for extending the current GROMACS simulation and analysis modes. In this work, we demonstrate that the interface enables hybrid Monte‐Carlo/molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in the grand‐canonical ensemble, a simulation mode that is currently not implemented in GROMACS. For this application, the interplay between GromPy and GROMACS requires only minor modifications of the GROMACS source code, not affecting the operation, efficiency, and performance of the GROMACS applications. We validate the grand‐canonical application against MD in the canonical ensemble by comparison of equations of state. The results of the grand‐canonical simulations are in complete agreement with MD in the canonical ensemble. The python overhead of the grand‐canonical scheme is only minimal. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Driving asynchronous spermatogenesis: is retinoic acid the answer?

Spermatogenesis in adult mammals is highly organized, with the goal being the uninterrupted production of sperm. How continual, asynchronous sperm production is initiated and maintained in the mammalian testis is still under investigation but retinoic acid (RA) likely plays a key role. Investigations utilizing vitamin A deficient rodents, transgenic mouse models, whole testis and isolated germ cell culture and inhibitors of vitamin A metabolism indicate that RA is required to drive spermatogonial differentiation and the release of spermatids from the seminiferous epithelium. These studies, and the fact that spermatogonial differentiation and spermatid release happen simultaneously in the adult testis, have led to the hypothesis that RA generates both the cycle of the seminiferous epithelium and the spermatogenic wave.
Students' general learning approaches and performances in medical school: a longitudinal study

PURPOSE. To examine the relationship between students' learning approaches and performances in a baccalaureate–MD degree program over six years, from orientation to the final year. METHOD. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, the short-form Lancaster Approaches to Studying Inventory was administered to the matriculating classes of 1988 (100 students) and 1989 (102 students) at the beginning of the first and second semesters of years 1 and 2 and during the first semester of years 3 through 6 for the class of 1988 and years 3 through 5 for the class of 1989. Seven learning-approaches dimensions from the inventory were regressed against 16 academic and clinical performance measures. RESULTS. As anticipated, a consistent predictive pattern emerged. Students who scored high on achievement motivation (efficient study habits and an extrinsic need to succeed) but who scored low on reproducing orientation (rote memory) and globetrotting (a fragmented approach to studying) achieved higher grade-point averages in years 1, 2, and 4 than did their counterparts who scored low on achievement motivation and high on reproducing orientation and globetrotting. The utility of the remaining learning-approaches dimensions for performances in specific courses and clinical rotations varied. The data also indicated that the initial level of students' learning approaches is an important qualifier of the predictive capability of the dimensions for students' performances. CONCLUSIONS. The results prompted a revised model of how learning approaches relate to performance. The model incorporates students' initial scores on learning approaches as an element that influences students' perceptions of the educational context. In turn these perceptions have an impact on students' selections of learning approaches that are associated with performance.
Morphological Evolution Is Accelerated among Island Mammals

Dramatic evolutionary changes occur in species isolated on islands, but it is not known if the rate of evolution is accelerated on islands relative to the mainland. Based on an extensive review of the literature, I used the fossil record combined with data from living species to test the hypothesis of an accelerated morphological evolution among island mammals. I demonstrate that rates of morphological evolution are significantly greater—up to a factor of 3.1—for islands than for mainland mammal populations. The tendency for faster evolution on islands holds over relatively short time scales—from a few decades up to several thousands of years—but not over larger ones—up to 12 million y. These analyses form the first empirical test of the long held supposition of accelerated evolution among island mammals. Moreover, this result shows that mammal species have the intrinsic capacity to evolve faster when confronted with a rapid change in their environment. This finding is relevant to our understanding of species' responses to isolation and destruction of natural habitats within the current context of rapid climate warming.
Speech and Span: Working Memory Capacity Impacts the Use of Animacy but Not of World Knowledge during Spoken Sentence Comprehension

Abstract We present results from a study demonstrating that high- and low-span listeners show qualitatively different brain responses when comprehending simple active sentences. Participants listened to naturally produced sentences in three conditions in which the plausibility of thematic relations was manipulated, for instance: The dog(1)/The poet(2)/The box(3) is biting the mailman. Event-related potentials were recorded to the first noun, the verb, and the second noun in all three conditions. In (2), the thematic relations between the words in the sentence are less expected given our world knowledge, and this resulted in an N400 effect of semantic processing difficulty to the second noun for both high- and low-span subjects. In (3), the inanimate first noun cannot be the agent of the verb. Only high-span subjects showed an effect of animacy on the sentence-initial nouns, evident from a larger anterior negative shift to inanimate than animate nouns. Furthermore, to the thematically violated verbs (3), low-span subjects showed an N400, whereas high-span subjects generated a P600. We suggest that this P600 effect to the thematically violated verb may be related to processing costs resulting from a conflict between the provisional thematic roles assigned as a function of the inanimate sentence-initial noun, and the actual (animate) agent required by the verb. We further argue that low-span subjects lag behind those with high span in their use of animacy, but not real-world knowledge in the on-line computation of thematic roles in spoken language comprehension.
A Learning Automata based Algorithm for Solving Traveling Salesman Problem improved by Frequency-based Pruning

real world industrial applications involve finding a Hamiltonian path with minimum cost. Some instances that belong to this category are transportation routing problem, scan chain optimization and drilling problem in integrated circuit testing and production. Distributed learning automata, that is a general searching tool and is a solving tool for variety of NP-complete problems, together with 2-opt local search is used to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Two mechanisms named frequency-based pruning strategy (FBPS) and fixed-radius near neighbour (FRNN) 2-opt are used to reduce the high overhead incurred by 2-opt in the DLA algorithm proposed previously. Using FBPS only a subset of promising solutions are proposed to perform 2-opt. Invoking geometric structure, FRNN 2-opt implements efficient 2-opt in a permutation of TSP sequence. Proposed algorithms are tested on a set of TSP benchmark problems and the results show that they are able to reduce computational time, while maintaining the average solution quality at 0.62% from known optimal.
Atrial Fibrillation, Stroke, and Cognition: A Longitudinal Population-Based Study of People Aged 85 and Older

Background and Purpose— The aim of this study was to investigate the association between atrial fibrillation (AF), stroke, dementia, and their correlation with brain pathology in subjects aged 85 years or older. Methods— This is a prospective 9-year follow-up population based study in Vantaa, a town in Southern Finland; 553 subjects (92% of the total population) aged 85 years or older were clinically examined by a neurologist. The presence of AF was collected from the medical records or examined by ECG or ambulatory ECG. Neuropathological examination was conducted in more than half of the clinically examined subjects. Results— AF was significantly associated with stroke at baseline; 32% of patients with AF had clinical evidence of stroke compared with 16.7% of those without such evidence (P<0.001). Dementia at baseline was significantly associated with age, clinical stroke, and the presence of apolipoprotein E ϵ4 allele, but not with sex, education, or vascular risk factors. Multiple regression analysis including neuropathological results showed that dementia was significantly associated with education (OR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.80 to 0.98; P=0.019), the β-amyloid load in the brain (OR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.39; P<0.001) and with the vascular pathology (OR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.14 to 3.62; P=0.016), but not with sex, age at death, apolipoprotein E ϵ4 allele, or vascular risk factors. Conclusions— AF is a significant and preventable risk factor for stroke but not for dementia in the very old. The etiology of dementia syndrome in the very old is multifactorial. Both Alzheimer disease pathology and vascular pathology, particularly multiple small infarcts, contribute to cognitive decline.
Importance of ionized magnesium measurement for monitoring of citrate‐ anticoagulated plateletpheresis

BACKGROUND: The infusion of citrate during apheresis may affect the levels of ionized magnesium in the blood. Hypomagnesemia and concomitant hypocalcemia could influence the parathormone response and could be responsible for some of the symptoms observed during apheresis. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: The study reports measurement of ionized magnesium by the new ion‐selective electrode technique in response to citrate infusion in 15 donors undergoing continuous flow high‐yield plateletpheresis. The monitoring included measurement of ionized calcium and parathormone every 30 minutes during the 120‐minute apheresis (plus the next 30 minutes to assess recovery). RESULTS: Ionized magnesium fell by 30 +/− 4 percent (mean +/− SD, p<0.01), which contrasts with minor changes in total concentrations. Comparison of variations in the levels of ionized and total magnesium found major formation of complexes during citrate infusion. Ionized calcium fell by 15 +/− 3 percent (p<0.01), while parathormone peaked at 356 +/− 114 percent (p<0.01) of initial value after 30 minutes. Ionized cations and parathormone recovered by more than 50 percent within 30 minutes of the end of apheresis. CONCLUSION: An acute and steep drop in ionized magnesium occurs during citrate administration. The measurement of ionized magnesium should be included in future prospective studies of donor safety and parathormone regulation during apheresis.
On Privacy-Preserving Histograms

We advance the approach initiated by Chawla et al. for sanitizing (census) data so as to preserve the privacy of respondents while simultaneously extracting "useful" statistical information. First, we extend the scope of their techniques to a broad and rich class of distributions, specifically, mixtures of high-dimensional balls, spheres, Gaussians, and other "nice" distributions. Second, we randomize the histogram constructions to preserve spatial characteristics of the data, allowing us to approximate various quantities of interest, e. g. , cost of the minimum spanning tree on the data, in a privacy-preserving fashion.
Assessing the reproducibility of coral‐based climate records

We perform replication tests using monthly variations in Sr/Ca and δ18O in four cores from three Porites lutea coral heads from New Caledonia to assess the reproducibility of coral‐based climate records. Coral Sr/Ca (δ18O) records are well correlated to each other and to the instrumental SST record (1967–1992), especially in terms of differences in the mean values of 25‐year SST records (∼0.2°C, Sr/Ca‐SST; 0.6°C, δ18O‐SST). The average error associated with the coral Sr/Ca‐SST (δ18O‐SST) of any particular month, season or year is ∼0.8°C (1.1°C), 0.6°C (0.8°C) and 0.5°C (0.6°C), respectively. “Stacking” or averaging the individual proxy records reduces the error between observed and predicted SST, although the reduction is small for coral Sr/Ca. Excellent reproducibility among the coral proxies implies that reliable climate records can be generated from a single coral core and that coral Sr/Ca‐SST records are not compromised, beyond the errors stated herein, by non‐temperature‐related biological effects.
Automatic detection of performance anti-patterns in inter-component communications

Performance problems such as high response times in software applications have a significant effect on the customer's satisfaction. In enterprise applications, performance problems are frequently manifested in inefficient or unnecessary communication patterns between software components originating from poor architectural design or implementation. Due to high manual effort, thorough performance analysis is often neglected, in practice. In order to overcome this problem, automated engineering approaches are required for the detection of performance problems. In this paper, we introduce several heuristics for measurement-based detection of well-known performance anti-patterns in inter-component communications. The detection heuristics comprise load and instrumentation descriptions for performance tests as well as corresponding detection rules. We integrate these heuristics with Dynamic Spotter, a framework for automatic detection of performance problems. We evaluate our heuristics on four evaluation scenarios based on an e-commerce benchmark (TPC-W) where the heuristics detect the expected communication performance anti-patterns and pinpoint their root causes.
Levels of Renal and Extrarenal Sympathetic Drive in Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertension

We examined the contribution of the renal nerves to mean arterial pressure (MAP) during 5-week chronic infusion of angiotensin II (Ang II; 50 ng/kg per minute SC) in conscious rabbits. Basal MAP was 68±1 mm Hg, and the maximum depressor response to ganglion blockade was −20±2 mm Hg. MAP increased by 25±2 mm Hg after 1 week and remained stable over the next 4 weeks. Depressor responses to pentolinium (6 mg/kg IV) were similar to control during the first week of hypertension but thereafter became increasingly greater in Ang II-treated rabbits but not vehicle-treated rabbits. After 5 weeks, the fall in MAP was 54% greater in Ang II- than in vehicle-treated rabbits (−34±2 versus −22±2 mm Hg), but renal sympathetic nerve activity was similar in both groups. Renal denervation produced a small fall in MAP in all of the vehicle-treated rabbits after 4 days (−6±2 mm Hg; P=0.01), but there was no consistent effect in hypertensive rabbits. The depressor response to ganglion blockade was enhanced in vehicle-treated but not Ang II-treated rabbits. The finding that renal sympathetic nerve activity is not altered by Ang II hypertension nor is the hypertension altered by renal denervation suggests that renal sympathetic nerves do not contribute to the hypertension. The greater depressor effect of acute ganglion blockade in hypertensive rabbits suggests that the sympathetic nervous system exerts increased vasoconstriction in the peripheral vasculature in Ang II-induced hypertension.
Exploring social annotations for information retrieval

Social annotation has gained increasing popularity in many Web-based applications, leading to an emerging research area in text analysis and information retrieval. This paper is concerned with developing probabilistic models and computational algorithms for social annotations. We propose a unified framework to combine the modeling of social annotations with the language modeling-based methods for information retrieval. The proposed approach consists of two steps: (1) discovering topics in the contents and annotations of documents while categorizing the users by domains; and (2) enhancing document and query language models by incorporating user domain interests as well as topical background models. In particular, we propose a new general generative model for social annotations, which is then simplified to a computationally tractable hierarchical Bayesian network. Then we apply smoothing techniques in a risk minimization framework to incorporate the topical information to language models. Experiments are carried out on a real-world annotation data set sampled from del.icio. us. Our results demonstrate significant improvements over the traditional approaches.
Activation of Salmonella Typhi-Specific Regulatory T Cells in Typhoid Disease in a Wild-Type S. Typhi Challenge Model

Salmonella Typhi (S. Typhi), the causative agent of typhoid fever, causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Currently available vaccines are moderately efficacious, and identification of immunological responses associated with protection or disease will facilitate the development of improved vaccines. We investigated S. Typhi-specific modulation of activation and homing potential of circulating regulatory T cells (Treg) by flow and mass cytometry using specimens obtained from a human challenge study. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were obtained from volunteers pre- and at multiple time-points post-challenge with wild-type S. Typhi. We identified differing patterns of S. Typhi-specific modulation of the homing potential of circulating Treg between volunteers diagnosed with typhoid (TD) and those who were not (No TD). TD volunteers demonstrated up-regulation of the gut homing molecule integrin α4ß7 pre-challenge, followed by a significant down-regulation post-challenge consistent with Treg homing to the gut. Additionally, S. Typhi-specific Treg from TD volunteers exhibited up-regulation of activation molecules post-challenge (e.g., HLA-DR, LFA-1). We further demonstrate that depletion of Treg results in increased S. Typhi-specific cytokine production by CD8+ TEM in vitro. These results suggest that the tissue distribution of activated Treg, their characteristics and activation status may play a pivotal role in typhoid fever, possibly through suppression of S. Typhi-specific effector T cell responses. These studies provide important novel insights into the regulation of immune responses that are likely to be critical in protection against typhoid and other enteric infectious diseases.