Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 3D re-entrant structural metamaterial with negative Poisson’s ratio reinforced by adding arrow structures

Structural metamaterial with negative Poisson’s ratio often has low stiffness due to its porous structure. For engineering applications, the various strategies have been developed to enhance its stiffness but also weaken the negative Poisson effect. In this work, we propose a 3D reinforced re-entrant structure (RRS) by adding arrow structures to the classical re-entrant structure (RS), which is fabricated by photocuring 3D printing of photosensitive resin. The structure-properties correlative mechanism of RRS is systematically analyzed by combining experiment (quasi-static compression experiment) and finite element simulation (ABAQUS). It is found that the equivalent elastic modulus and negative Poisson’s ratio of RRS can be tuned by various structural parameters (i.e. the thickness ratio η, the length ratio of the slant rod α, the length ratio of the vertical rod β, and the angle θ of the re-entrant cells). By optimizing the structure parameters, the equivalent elastic modulus of RRS with the negative Poisson’s ratio of −0.28 can be significantly increase to 13.67 MPa, which is 12.32 times larger than that of RS with the same negative Poisson’s ratio. Due to the flexible design of stiffness and negative Poisson ratio, our proposed 3D reinforced re-entrant structural metamaterial provides a potential way for designing engineering materials with desirable performance.
Diffraction-limited polarimetric imaging of protoplanetary disks and mass-loss shells with VAMPIRES

Both the birth and death of a stellar system are areas of key scientific importance. Whether it's understanding the process of planetary formation in a star's early years, or uncovering the cause of the enormous mass-loss that takes place during a star's dying moments, a key to scientific understanding lies in the inner few AU of the circumstellar environment. Corresponding to scales of 10s of milli-arcseconds, these observations pose a huge technical challenge due to the high angular-resolutions and contrasts required. A major stumbling block is the problem of the Earth's own atmospheric turbulence. The other difficulty is that precise calibration is required to combat the extremely high contrast ratios and high resolutions faced. By taking advantage of the fact that starlight scattered by dust in the circumstellar region is polarized, differential polarimetry can help achieve this calibration. Spectral features can also be utilized.
Sulfuretted Molecules in Hot Cores

The chemistry of sulfur-bearing molecules that result from grain-mantle evaporation into warm gas is described. Evaporation of ices, in which all the available sulfur is contained in H2S, drives a hot-phase chemistry that produces SO, SO2, CS, OCS, and H2CS. It is predicted that S2 can attain significant abundances in hot cores. Large variations in abundances occur as a core evolves, and eventually almost all the original H2S is converted to SO and SO2. The SO/H2S and SO/SO2 abundance ratios could be useful as a crude molecular clock to measure the time since mantles were disrupted. Model calculations can reasonably explain the observed distribution of S-bearing molecules in the Orion Hot Core, the Orion Compact Ridge, and in Sgr B2N. In these sources, the theory requires that OCS be formed on grain surfaces. Hot core chemistry alone cannot explain the sulfur chemistry in the Sgr B2M source.
New perspectives for biomedical imaging at depth

We have seen great advances in photonics based methods for imaging and manipulation. However whislt improvements have been seen in beating the diffraction limit and gaining wide field imaging, imaging through scattering media remains a challenge. I will describe approaches that tackle this issue. In particular I will describe using a geometry where the excitation beam is orthogonal to the detection arm of the optical system has come to the fore. This method is known as light sheet imaging or selective plane illumination microscopy. This talk will describe the basic premises of this field and highlight how we may increase penetration using propagation invariant Bessel and Airy beams as well as multiphoton imaging, including particularly three photon excitation. In the second part of my talk I will move to an epi-fluorescent geometry and describe the use of temporal focusing with single pixel detection. This scheme which we term TRAFIX can image through turbid media without prior knowledge of the scattering properties present and can be implemented on both two and three photon imaging.
Inference for covariates that accounts for ascertainment and random genetic effects in family studies

SUMMARY Family studies to identify disease-related genes often collect families with multiple cases. If environmental exposures or other measured covariates are also important, they should be incorporated into these genetic analyses to control for confounding and increase statistical power. We propose a two-level mixed effects model that allows us to estimate environmental effects while accounting for varying genetic correlations among family members and adjusting for ascertainment by conditioning on the number of cases in the family. We describe a conditional maximum likelihood analysis based on this model. When genetic effects are negligible, this conditional likelihood reduces to standard conditional logistic regression. We show that the simpler conditional logistic regression typically yields biased estimators of exposure effects, and we describe conditions under which the conditional logistic approach has little or no bias.
Theaflavin-3,3’-Digallate Ameliorates Collagen-Induced Arthritis Through Regulation of Autophagy and Macrophage Polarization

Purpose Previous studies have presented that theaflavin-3,3’-digallate (TFDG), one of natural flavonoids, have protective effects on collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Besides, it was reported that TFDG could affect inflammatory signaling pathways, like NF-κB, JNK, and so on, to ameliorate inflammation. However, the anti-inflammatory mechanisms mentioned above are common to natural flavonoid products including TFDG. Therefore, this study aimed to further investigate the other mechanisms of TFDG against CIA. Methods DBA/1 mice (8–10 weeks) were intravenously injected Freund’s Adjuvant (100μL) at the base of tail and intraperitoneally injected PBS or different dosage of TFDG (1 mg/kg or 10 mg/kg). Then the paw and knee tissues were collected to assess the severity of joint destruction. In vitro experiments, bone marrow macrophages (BMMs) were exposed to TNF-α (10ng/mL) with or without different concentrations of TFDG (0.1μmol/L or 1.0μmol/L). Besides, the targets of TFDG were predicted with docking software and were verified through experiment. Results TFDG treatment could reduce M1 macrophage (pro-inflammatory) and inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1, IL− 6 and TNF-α, both in vitro and in vivo. At the same time, the M2 macrophage (alternatively activated) polarization was promoted by TFDG. Animal experiments showed TFDG ameliorated joint destructions. For investigating the mechanisms, the targets of TFDG were predicted by bioinformatics tools. According to predictions, we hypothesized that TFDG could act with BCL-2 to weaken the interaction between BCL-2 and Beclin1. Beclin1 plays a central role in autophagy, and we found that the autophagy level of BMMs was recovered by TFDG. Besides, 3-MA, an autophagy inhibitor, could attenuate the therapeutic effect of TFDG. Conclusion TFDG protected against collagen-induced arthritis by attenuating the inflammation and promoting anti-inflammatory M2 macrophage polarization through controlling autophagy.
Submillimeter solar limb profiles determined from observations of the total solar eclipse of 1988 March 18

Observations were made of the extreme solar limb in six far-infrared wavelength bands ranging from 30 to 670 micron using the Kuiper Airborne Observatory during the total eclipse of the sun on 1988 March 18. By observations of the occultation of the solar limb by the moon, it was possible to obtain a spatial resolution of 0.5 arcsec normal to the limb. The solar limb was found to be extended with respect to the visible limb at all of these wavelengths, with the extension increasing with wavelength. Limb brightening was observed to increase slightly with increasing wavelength, and no sign of a sharp emission spike at the extreme limb was found at any of these wavelengths. The observations can be well fitted by a chromospheric model incorporating cool dense spicules in the lower chromosphere.
Nano-Delivery System of Ethanolic Extract of Propolis Targeting Mycobacterium tuberculosis via Aptamer-Modified-Niosomes

Tuberculosis (TB) therapy requires long-course multidrug regimens leading to the emergence of drug-resistant TB and increased public health burden worldwide. As the treatment strategy is more challenging, seeking a potent non-antibiotic agent has been raised. Propolis serve as a natural source of bioactive molecules. It has been evidenced to eliminate various microbial pathogens including Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). In this study, we fabricated the niosome-based drug delivery platform for ethanolic extract of propolis (EEP) using thin film hydration method with Ag85A aptamer surface modification (Apt-PEGNio/EEP) to target Mtb. Physicochemical characterization of PEGNio/EEP indicated approximately −20 mV of zeta potential, 180 nm of spherical nanoparticles, 80% of entrapment efficiency, and the sustained release profile. The Apt-PEGNio/EEP and PEGNio/EEP showed no difference in these characteristics. The chemical composition in the nanostructure was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry. Apt-PEGNio/EEP showed specific binding to Mycobacterium expressing Ag85 membrane-bound protein by confocal laser scanning microscope. It strongly inhibited Mtb in vitro and exhibited non-toxicity on alveolar macrophages. These findings indicate that the Apt-PEGNio/EEP acts as an antimycobacterial nanoparticle and might be a promising innovative targeted treatment. Further application of this smart nano-delivery system will lead to effective TB management.
Singly‐ionized helium in the driver gas of an interplanetary shock wave

The interplanetary shock wave observed on Jan. 29, 1977 by the HELIOS-1 plasma instruments shows an unusual feature: In the cold tenuous piston plasma following this shock, there appears a third peak in the energy per charge (E/q) spectra, in addition to the normal proton and α-particle peaks. The peak is located at E/q = 4 and persists for about 14 hours, with slowly varying intensities. Independent simultaneous measurement of these particles’ charge yields a value of ≈ 1. These ions are thought to be 4He+ ions travelling with the same speed as protons and α-particles. The occurrence of 4He+ indicates the possibility that during eruptive prominences or other solar transients “cold” chromosperic plasma might escape from the sun without undergoing the normal coronal heating process.
Forbidden-line emission and infrared excesses in T Tauri stars - Evidence for accretion-driven mass loss?

It is suggested that disk accretion provides the requisite external source to power the winds of T Tauri stars. As a test of this hypothesis, a potential accretion diagnostic for a representative sample of stars is compared to diagnostics of the wind strength. The luminosity of H-alpha, formed in the inner wind, and the luminosity of the forbidden emission lines, formed in the outer wind, are used as wind diagnostics, while the excess infrared luminosity is used as a potential accretion diagnostic. It is found that forbidden-line O I 6300 A and H-alpha line luminosities are correlated with each other over two orders of magnitude; this is interpreted as the indication of a wide range of mass-loss rates among the given sample of T Tauri stars. The luminosity of each of these lines is also found to be correlated with excess infrared luminosity. However, neither the forbidden nor the H-alpha luminosity is well correlated with the photospheric luminosity, leading to a conclusion that it is the disk, not the star, which primarily determines the strength of wind indicators in T Tauri stars. 67 refs.
Biogenic and anthropogenic sources of isoprene and monoterpenes and their secondary organic aerosol in Delhi, India

Abstract. Isoprene and monoterpene emissions to the atmosphere are generally dominated by biogenic sources. The oxidation of these compounds can lead to the production of secondary organic aerosol; however the impact of this chemistry in polluted urban settings has been poorly studied. Isoprene and monoterpenes can form secondary organic aerosol (SOA) heterogeneously via anthropogenic–biogenic interactions, resulting in the formation of organosulfate (OS) and nitrooxy-organosulfate (NOS) species. Delhi, India, is one of the most polluted cities in the world, but little is known about the emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or the sources of SOA. As part of the DELHI-FLUX project, gas-phase mixing ratios of isoprene and speciated monoterpenes were measured during pre- and post-monsoon measurement campaigns in central Delhi. Nocturnal mixing ratios of the VOCs were substantially higher during the post-monsoon (isoprene: (0.65±0.43) ppbv; limonene: (0.59±0.11) ppbv; α-pinene: (0.13±0.12) ppbv) than the pre-monsoon (isoprene: (0.13±0.18) ppbv; limonene: 0.011±0.025 (ppbv); α-pinene: 0.033±0.009) period. At night, isoprene and monoterpene concentrations correlated strongly with CO during the post-monsoon period. Filter samples of particulate matter less than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) were collected and the OS and NOS content analysed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS2). Inorganic sulfate was shown to facilitate the formation of isoprene OS species across both campaigns. Sulfate contained within OS and NOS species was shown to contribute significantly to the sulfate signal measured via AMS. Strong nocturnal enhancements of NOS species were observed across both campaigns. The total concentration of OS and NOS species contributed an average of (2.0±0.9) % and (1.8±1.4) % to the total oxidized organic aerosol and up to a maximum of 4.2 % and 6.6 % across the pre- and post-monsoon periods, respectively. Overall, this study provides the first molecular-level measurements of SOA derived from isoprene and monoterpene in Delhi and demonstrates that both biogenic and anthropogenic sources of these compounds can be important in urban areas.
Benchmarking Outlier Detection Methods for Detecting IEM Patients in Untargeted Metabolomics Data

Untargeted metabolomics (UM) is increasingly being deployed as a strategy for screening patients that are suspected of having an inborn error of metabolism (IEM). In this study, we examined the potential of existing outlier detection methods to detect IEM patient profiles. We benchmarked 30 different outlier detection methods when applied to three untargeted metabolomics datasets. Our results show great differences in IEM detection performances across the various methods. The methods DeepSVDD and R-graph performed most consistently across the three metabolomics datasets. For datasets with a more balanced number of samples-to-features ratio, we found that AE reconstruction error, Mahalanobis and PCA reconstruction error also performed well. Furthermore, we demonstrated the importance of a PCA transform prior to applying an outlier detection method since we observed that this increases the performance of several outlier detection methods. For only one of the three metabolomics datasets, we observed clinically satisfying performances for some outlier detection methods, where we were able to detect 90% of the IEM patient samples while detecting no false positives. These results suggest that outlier detection methods have the potential to aid the clinical investigator in routine screening for IEM using untargeted metabolomics data, but also show that further improvements are needed to ensure clinically satisfying performances.
Local impedance imaging and spectroscopy of polycrystalline ZnO using contact atomic force microscopy

A current detection scanning probe technique is developed that quantifies frequency-dependent local transport properties. The approach, referred to as nanoimpedance microscopy/spectroscopy (NIM), is based on impedance spectroscopy with a conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip. NIM is applied to study the quality of a tip/surface contact and transport behavior of individual grains and grain boundaries in polycrystalline ZnO. Impedance spectra were measured in the frequency range 40 Hz to 110 MHz, and the grain boundary properties are studied by nonlinear fitting of experimental data to an equivalent circuit. Two-terminal measurements are performed in the vicinity of a single ZnO grain boundary and the Cole–Cole plot indicates two major relaxation processes attributed to grain boundary relaxation and tip/surface contact.
LARGE EDDY SIMULATION OF THE SUBCRITICAL FLOW PAST A CIRCULAR CYLINDER: NUMERICAL AND MODELING ASPECTS

SUMMARY The turbulent flow past a circular cylinder (Re=3900) was computed by large eddy simulation (LES). The objective was not to investigate the physical phenomena of this flow in detail but to study numerical and modeling aspects which influence the quality of LES solutions. Concerning the numerical method, the most important component is the discretization of the non-linear convective fluxes. Five different schemes were investigated. Also, the influence of different grid resolutions was examined. Two aspects play an important role on the modeling side, namely the near-wall model and the subgrid scale model. Owing to the restriction to low Reynolds numbers in this study, no-slip boundary conditions were used at solid walls. Therefore, only the second aspect was taken into account. Two different subgrid scale models were applied. Additionally, LES computations without any subgrid scale modeling were carried out in order to prove the performance of the models. The results were evaluated by comparison with available experimental data. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Solving Problems in Chaos Control though an Differential Evolution Algorithm with Region Zooming

In this paper, a novel scheme is propose to solve the problems in chaos control via a nonnegative multi–modal nonlinear optimization, which finds the unstable periodic orbits and best parameters of chaos system such that the objective function is minimized. The novel scheme embeds with a differential evolution algorithm consisting of techniques in three aspects: uniform design to the initial population, deflection and stretching to the objective functions, and the region zooming self–adaptively, which result in a much more effective searching mechanism with fine equilibrium between exploitation and exploration. To exhibit the new scheme’s performance, the experiments done to Hénon, Chen and Lü system are given, and the simulations done show that the method has better adaptability, dependability and robustness.
A Designed Vessel Using Dissolvable Polyvinyl Alcohol Membrane as Automatic Valve to Couple LAMP with CRISPR/Cas12a System for Visual Detection

A rapid and intuitive method for detecting Vibrio parahaemolyticus (VP) was established by a designed reaction vessel which coupled CRISPR/Cas12a with loop-mediated isothermal nucleic acid amplification (LAMP). There were two spaces in the vessel-holding LAMP reaction solution and CRISPR reaction solution, respectively, which were separated with a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) membrane. The PVA membrane could be dissolved with a water solution. The thermolabile hemolysin (TLH) gene of VP was employed as the detection target. After the target sequence of the TLH gene was amplified with LAMP, the PVA membrane would be dissolved and the CRISPR reaction solution mixed with the LAMP reaction solution. In this way, amplicons could be detected with CRISPR/Cas12a in the reaction vessel. The fluorescent signals produced by the positive samples were clearly identified by the naked eye under a UV light, while the negative samples were dark. The whole detection procedure could be finished within 35 min with a detection limit of 100 copies/µL. The designed reaction vessel is easy to produce and can effectively prevent contamination due to the opening of the reaction vessel after the LAMP reaction. Thus, it will have the potential to provide a new solution for rapid detection in the field.
Coordinating with Humans by Adjustable-Autonomy for Multirobot Pursuit (CHAMP)

One of the primary challenges facing the modern small-unit tactical team is the ability of the unit to safely and effectively search, explore, clear and hold urbanized terrain that includes buildings, streets, and subterranean dwellings. Buildings provide cover and concealment to an enemy and restrict the movement of forces while diminishing their ability to engage the adversary. The use of robots has significant potential to reduce the risk to tactical teams and dramatically force multiply the small unit's footprint. Despite advances in robotic mobility, sensing capabilities, and human-robot interaction, the use of robots in room clearing operations remains nascent. CHAMP is a software system in development that integrates with a team of robotic platforms to enable them to coordinate with a human operator performing a search and pursuit task. In this way, the human operator can either give control to the robots to search autonomously, or can retain control and direct the robots where needed. CHAMP's autonomy is built upon a combination of adversarial pursuit algorithms and dynamic function allocation strategies that maximize the team's resources. Multi-modal interaction with CHAMP is achieved using novel gesture-recognition based capabilities to reduce the need for heads-down tele-operation. The Champ Coordination Algorithm addresses dynamic and limited team sizes, generates a novel map of the area, and takes into account mission goals, user preferences and team roles. In this paper we show results from preliminary simulated experiments and find that the CHAMP system performs faster than traditional search and pursuit algorithms.
Extensions of the self-consistent tangent model

The overall response of heterogeneous viscoplastic materials is obtained using self-consistent schemes with the local response governed by convex flow potentials. The tangent model, originally proposed by Molinari et al is reviewed and extended and a discussion of the nonlinear inclusion problem is presented. A new general formulation of the self-consistent scheme is proposed and algorithms of calculations are suggested.
A general shock model for a reliability system

We study a reliability system subject to shocks generated by a renewal point process. When a shock occurs, components fail independently of each other with equal probabilities that are random numbers drawn from a distribution that may differ from shock to shock. We first consider the case of a parallel system and derive closed expressions for the Laplace-Stieltjes transform and the expectation of the time to system failure and for its density in the case that the distribution function of the renewal process possesses a density. We then treat a more general system structure, which has some very important special cases, such as k-out-of-n:F systems, and derive analogous formulae.