Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of Fatigue Properties of Superpave HMA at the Virginia Smart Road

This study investigated the influence of material properties on fatigue life through laboratory fatigue testing of eleven Superpave hot mix asphalt (HMA) mixtures in use at the Virginia Smart Road. Mixtures were sampled from the plant and produced in the laboratory to investigate the influence of production method. Specimens were cut from the in-situ pavement and compacted in the laboratory to evaluate the influence of compaction method. Third point beam fatigue testing was performed at 25oC and 10Hz. Additional testing at frequencies of 1 Hz and 5Hz, and at 10 Hz including rest periods of 0.4sec and 0.9sec were performed for one mixture to explore the impact of frequency and rest periods. Analyses were performed on the strain-life relationships and predicted endurance strain limits for the mixtures. Investigation of strain-life relationships for several mixtures indicated that small differences in mixture volumetrics due to the production method have minimal impact on the laboratory fatigue performance of HMA. Comparisons of expected fatigue performance for one mixture indicated that shorter fatigue lives (under the same strain conditions) may be expected for laboratory-compacted specimens when compared to field-compacted specimens, despite visual observation of damage (surface cracking) in the field-compacted specimens. Testing performed on one mixture to determine the influence of different loading frequencies showed that fatigue life was independent of the frequencies tested. Investigation of rest period inclusion indicated no differences in fatigue life for loading conducted at 10 Hz frequency and no rest period, 0.4sec rest period, or 0.9sec rest period. The evaluation of specimens cut from the in-situ pavement indicated that location within the lane and orientation did not significantly affect laboratory fatigue performance. The effect of aggregate size was considered; however, results were inconclusive. Using predictive strain-life fatigue equations, the benefits of polymer-modification of binders and use of SMA were shown for mixtures produced in the laboratory according to the job mix formula and to match the plant-produced volumetrics. Evaluation of the predicted fatigue strain endurance limit was performed using an energy-based and an empirical method. The energy method was shown to estimate significantly higher endurance limit strains for mixtures.
Dielectric Behavior of Barium Titanate/Carbon Fibers Composites

Conductor–insulator composites have been extensive researched for high dielectric constant. Most of them concentrated on metal polymers or metal ceramics. Barium titanate–carbon fibers composites were prepared by using a solid state reaction process with carbon fibers contents ranging from7 vol% to 23 vol%. Due to the high-aspect-ratio of carbon fiber, it was easy to produce a conducting network at much lower volume fraction. FESEM images illustrated that the carbon fibers influenced the densification and microstructure of the ceramics. Besides, addition of carbon fibers led to increase in dielectric permittivity, also had effects on the dielectric loss and ac conductivity. The dielectric and conductivity properties as a function of carbon fibers volume fraction were explained by the percolation theory.
User Preference Representation Based on Psychometric Models

Neighbourhood-based collaborative filtering is one of the most popular recommendation techniques, and has been applied successfully in various fields. User ratings are often used by neighbourhood-based collaborative filtering to compute the similarity between two users or items, but, user ratings may not always be representatives of their true preferences, resulting in unreliable similarity information and poor recommendation. To solve these problems, this paper proposes to use latent preferences for neighbourhood-based collaborative filtering instead of user ratings. Latent preferences are based on user latent interest estimated from ratings through a psychometric model. Experimental results show that latent preferences can improve the recommendation accuracy and coverage while lessening the prediction time of neighbourhood-based collaborative filtering by finding out reliable and effective neighbours; and latent preferences are better than user ratings for representing user preferences.
Microstructured Porous Silica Obtained via Colloidal Crystal Templates

A novel scheme for using modified colloidal crystals as templates for silica polymerization is reported. 3D close-packed crystals of submicrometer latex spheres are assembled on a membrane surface by filtration. To induce silica polymerization, the particles are modified by adsorption of the surfactant hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide. The colloidal crystals are then infused with a silica solution, which polymerizes in the cavities. In the final stage, the latex particles are removed by calcination, leaving behind porous silica of very low density. Scanning electron microscopy images demonstrate that the product has highly uniform and structured pores, representing a negative replica of the original colloidal crystal. The size of the pores can be controlled by changing the size of the latex used, and we were able to obtain samples with pores ranging from 150 to 1000 nm. Thus the method allows one to obtain structured silica materials of which the pore size, shape, and ordering can be controlled in a wid.
Selectively Fortifying Reconfigurable Computing Device to Achieve Higher Error Resilience

With the advent of 10 nm CMOS devices and "exotic" nanodevices, the location and occurrence time of hardware defects and design faults become increasingly unpredictable, therefore posing severe challenges to existing techniques for error-resilient computing because most of them statically assign hardware redundancy and do not account for the error tolerance inherently existing in many mission-critical applications. This work proposes a novel approach to selectively fortifying a target reconfigurable computing device in order to achieve hardware-efficient error resilience for a specific target application. We intend to demonstrate that such error resilience can be significantly improved with effective hardware support. The major contributions of this work include (1) the development of a complete methodology to performsensitivity and criticality analysis of hardware redundancy, (2) a novel problem formulation and an efficient heuristic methodology to selectively allocate hardware redundancy among a target design's key components in order to maximize its overall error resilience, and (3) an academic prototype of SFC computing device that illustrates a 4 times improvement of error resilience for a H.264 encoder implemented with an FPGA device.
Incorporating Statistical Information of Lexical Dependency into a Rule-Based Parser

This paper presents a method to incorporate statistical information into a rulebased parser to resolve syntactic ambiguities. We extract the statistical information from the Penn Treebank, and apply the information to the rule-based parser. For the extraction of the statistical information the tag conversion is needed because of the disagreement of the tags and the bracketing style. We will show the effect of the tag conversion with experiments. The final result shows about 7% error rate reduction in the dependency evaluation. We will also show how much each type of statistical information affects the parsing performance.
Audiovisual cultural heritage: bridging the gap between digital archives and its users

This document describes a PhD research track on the disclosure of audiovisual digital archives. The domain of audiovisual material is introduced as well as a problem description is formulated. The main research objective is to investigate the gap between the different users and the digital archives. Next, design research is proposed as a methodology for this research. Lastly, the social and scientific relevance is briefly discussed.
Mechanisms of Disease: Motoneuron Disease Aggravated by Transgenic Expression of a Functionally Modified AMPA Receptor Subunit

Abstract: To reveal whether increased Ca2+ permeability of glutamate AMPA channels triggered by the transgene for GluR‐B(N) induces decline in motor functions and neurodegeneration in the spinal cord, we evaluated growth, motor coordination, and spinal reflexes in transgenic GluR‐B(N) and wild‐type (wt) mice. To reveal whether the transgenic GluR‐B(N) expression aggravates the course of motoneuron disease in SOD1 mice, we mated heterozygous GluR‐B(N) and SOD1 [C57BL6Ico‐TgN(hSOD1‐G93A)1Gur] mice to generate double‐transgenic progeny. The phenotypic sequelae in mice carrying mutations were evaluated by monitoring growth, motor coordination, and survival. Neuronal degeneration was assessed by morphological and stereological analysis of spinal cord and brain. We found that transgenic expression in mice of GluR‐B(N)‐containing glutamate AMPA receptors with increased Ca2+ permeability leads to a late‐onset degeneration of neurons in the spinal cord and decline of motor functions. Neuronal death progressed over the entire life span, but manifested clinically in late adulthood, resembling the course of a slow neurodegenerative disorder. Additional transgenic expression of mutated human SOD1 accelerated disease progression, aggravated severity of motor decline, and decreased survival. These observations reveal that moderate, but persistently elevated Ca2+ influx via glutamate AMPA channels causes degeneration of spinal motoneurons and motor decline over the span of life. These features resemble the course of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in humans and suggest that modified function of glutamate AMPA channels may be causally linked to pathogenesis of ALS.
Difficulties, Disagreements, and Disappointments in Late-Life Marriages

Although research has examined marital satisfaction in later life, little is known about the specific relationship challenges that older couples experience. Thus, the objective of the study was to explore the challenges older couples face. Data came from the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations. Qualitative analysis was conducted on 105 older couples, with an average age of 69, who responded in 1997 to an open-ended question about difficulties, disagreements, and disappointments in their marriage. Ten themes emerged from the data. In order of frequency, they were leisure activities, intimacy, finances, no problems, personality, intergenerational relations, household concerns, personal habits, health issues, and work/retirement. Comparisons in responses were made for age, gender, marital quality, length of marriage, and health. In addition, the dyadic data were examined for patterns within the relationship.
Investigación Original / Original Research Ecosystem Approach to Promoting Appropriate Antibiotic Use for Children in Indigenous Communities in Ecuador Key Words Materials and Methods

Infectious diseases remain the main cause of morbidity and mortality in low-and middle-income countries, especially among children in indigenous communities (1). In Ecuador, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, 22.5% of mortality among children < 1 year old was attributed in 2007 to pneumonia, bacterial sepsis, and diarrhea (2). While most of these conditions can be prevented with improved access to clean water, sanitation, personal hygiene, and immunization, use of antibiotics remains essential. Thus, preserving their efficacy is a global health priority (3). Campaigns promoting careful use of antibiotics in high-income countries led to the conclusion that public campaigns can contribute to improved use of antibiotics in outpatients (4–6). However, little Objective. To collect baseline data on infectious diseases and antibiotic use in two Andean indigenous communities in Ecuador in order to determine the feasibility and acceptability of applying an ecosystem approach to address associated problems. Methods. In visits to 65 households with children under age 5 years, environmental risk factors for infectious diseases were evaluated through rapid assessment. Caregivers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to antibiotic use were determined through a knowledge, practices, and coverage survey; antibiotic use was gleaned from inspection of medicine chests; and overall health of the 91 children (including nutritional status) was assessed. A workshop was held to share results and to craft a multicomponent intervention using an ecohealth framework. Results. Numerous environmental risk factors were identified, especially related to water and sanitation. Knowledge, attitudes, and practices revealed use of traditional and Western medicines and serious knowledge gaps. Antibiotics were present in 60.9% of households in Correuco and 46.8% in La Posta; malnutrition rates were 22.2% in Correuco and 26.1% in La Posta; diarrheic episodes were experienced in the previous month by 26.7% of children in Correuco and 47.8% in La Posta, with antibiotics prescribed in 50.0% and 47.1% of cases, respectively; and acute respiratory infections were incurred by 28.9% of children in Correuco and 47.8% in La Posta, with antibiotics prescribed in 53.8% and 50.0% of cases, respectively. Conclusions. Environmental, social, and cultural factors must be addressed to prevent antibiotic resistance in addition to training health personnel. An ecosystem approach is well-suited for this goal. et al. Ecosystem approach to promoting appropriate antibiotic use for children in indigenous communities in Ecuador. 567 Muñoz et al. • Promoting appropriate antibiotic use for children in indigenous communities Original research research has targeted low-and middle-income …
Interface flow process audit: using the patient's career as a tracer of quality of care and of system organisation

Abstract Objectives This case study aims to demonstrate the method's feasibility and capacity to improve quality of care. Several drawbacks attached to tracer condition and selected procedure audits oblige clinicians to rely on external evaluators. Interface flow process audit is an alternative method, which also favours integration of health care across institutions divide. Methods An action research study was carried out to test the feasibility of interface flow process audit and its impact on quality improvement. An anonymous questionnaire was carried out to assess the participants' perception of the process. Results In this study, interface flow process audit brought together general practitioners and hospital doctors to analyse the co-ordination of their activities across the primary-secondary interface. Human factors and organisational characteristics had a clear influence on implementation of the solutions. In general, the participants confirmed that the interface flow process audit helped them to analyse the quality of case management both at primary and secondary care level. Conclusions The interface flow process audit appears a useful method for regular in-service self-evaluation. Its practice enabled to address a wide scope of clinical, managerial and economical problems. Bridging the primary-secondary care gap, interface flow process audit's focus on the patient's career combined with the broad scope of problems that can be analysed are particularly powerful features. The methodology would benefit from an evaluation of its practice on larger scale.
Accuracy of Four Heuristics for the Full Sibship Reconstruction Problem in the Presence of Genotype Errors

The full sibship reconstruction (FSR) problem is the problem of inferring all groups of full siblings from a given population sample using genetic marker data without parental information. The FSR problem remains a significant challenge for computational biology, since an exact solution for the problem has not been found. The new algorithm, named SIMPSON-assisted Descending Ratio (SDR), is devised combining a new Simpson index based O(n2) algorithm (MS2) and the existing Descending Ratio (DR) algorithm. The SDR algorithm outperforms the SIMPSON, MS2, and DR algorithms in accuracy and robustness when tested on a variety of sample family structures. The accuracy error is measured as the percentage of incorrectly assigned individuals. The robustness of the FSR algorithms is assessed by simulating a 2% mutation rate per locus (a 1% rate per allele).
Robot localization with sparse scan-based maps

Occupancy grid maps are a popular method for representing the environment in the context of robot navigation tasks. However, occupancy grid maps can have a high memory demand that grows quadratically with the range of the sensor. In this paper, we introduce a memory-efficient map representation that is based on a constant set of individual scans. To make these scan-based maps suitable for autonomous robot navigation, we propose probabilistically sound methods for both mapping and localization. To solve the mapping problem, our approach incrementally selects scans based on the additional information they provide relative to the scans previously selected. Using these selected scans, we perform an Monte Carlo Localization (MCL) approach with a sensor model optimized for the scan-based representation of our map. We present extensive experiments in which we evaluate our approach using real world data recorded in a garage parking scenario with an autonomous car as well as a robot localization problem in an indoor environment. The results demonstrate that our approach can cope with high sensor noise and that it achieves comparable localization accuracy while at the same time consuming only a fraction of memory compared to regular occupancy grid maps.
Characteristics of Rice Husk Ash and Application in Ultra-High Performance Concrete

The present thesis studies the effects of rice husk ash (RHA) as a pozzolanic admixture and the combination of RHA and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) on properties of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). The ultimate purpose of this study is to replace completely silica fume (SF) and partially Portland cement by RHA and GGBS to achieve sustainable UHPC. To reach this aim, characteristics of RHA in dependence of grinding period, especially its pozzolanic reactivity in saturated Ca(OH)2 solution and in a cementitious system at a very low water binder ration (w/b) were assessed. The influences of RHA on compatibility between superplasticizer and binder, workability, compressive strength, shrinkage, internal relative humidity, microstructure and durability of UHPC were also evaluated. Furthermore, synergic effects of RHA and GGBS on the properties of UHPC were investigated to produce more sustainable UHPC. Finally, various heat treatments were applied to study the properties of UHPC under these conditions. All the characteristics of these UHPCs containing RHA were compared to those of mixtures containing SF.
Contribution of Natural Inhibitors to the Understanding of the PI3K/PDK1/PKB Pathway in the Insulin-mediated Intracellular Signaling Cascade

The critical initial steps in insulin action include phosphorylation of adapter proteins and activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K). One of important components in this process is a protein called Akt/protein kinase B (PKB). The work of numerous different researchers indicates a role of PKB in regulating insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. The crucial role of lipid second messengers in PKB activation has been dissected through the use of the PI3K-specific inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002. Receptor-activated PI3K synthesizes the lipid second messenger PtdIns[3,4,5]-trisphosphate, leading to the recruitment of PKB to the membrane. Membrane attachment of PKB is mediated by its pleckstrin homology domain binding to PtdIns[3,4,5]-trisphosphate or PtdIns[3,4]-bisphosphate with high affinity. Activation of PKB alpha is then achieved at the plasma membrane by phosphorylation of Thr308 in the activation-loop of the kinase domain and Ser473 in the carboxy-terminal regulatory region, respectively. 3-Phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase-1 (PDK1) is responsible for T308 phosphorylation. The usage of specific inhibitors and natural compound has significantly contributed to investigate the molecular mechanism of PI3K/PDK1/PKB signaling pathway, leading to the putative therapeutics benefits of patients. This review focuses on the contribution of natural inhibitor or compound in our understanding of the mechanism by which insulin induces, especially in PI3K/PDK1/PKB signaling.
MIF Deficiency Reduces Chronic Inflammation in White Adipose Tissue and Impairs the Development of Insulin Resistance, Glucose Intolerance, and Associated Atherosclerotic Disease

Chronic inflammation in white adipose tissue (WAT) is positively associated with obesity, insulin resistance (IR) and the development of type 2 diabetes. The proinflammatory cytokine MIF (macrophage migration inhibitory factor) is an essential, upstream component of the inflammatory cascade. This study examines whether MIF is required for the development of obesity, IR, glucose intolerance, and atherosclerosis in the LDL receptor–deficient (Ldlr−/−) mouse model of disease. Ldlr−/− mice develop IR and glucose intolerance within 15 weeks, whereas Mif−/−Ldlr−/− littermates are protected. MIF deficiency does not affect obesity and lipid risk factors but specifically reduces inflammation in WAT and liver, as reflected by lower plasma serum amyloid A and fibrinogen levels at baseline and under inflammatory conditions. Conversely, MIF stimulates the in vivo expression of human C-reactive protein, an inflammation marker and risk factor of IR and cardiovascular disease. In WAT, MIF deficiency reduces nuclear c-Jun levels and improves insulin sensitivity; MIF deficiency also reduces macrophage accumulation in WAT and blunts the expression of two proteins that regulate macrophage infiltration (intercellular adhesion molecule-1, CD44). Mechanistic parallels to WAT were observed in aorta, where the absence of MIF reduces monocyte adhesion, macrophage lesion content, and atherosclerotic lesion size. These data highlight the physiological importance of chronic inflammation in development of IR and atherosclerosis and suggest that MIF is a potential therapeutic target for reducing the inflammatory component of metabolic and cardiovascular disorders.
Use of Biologics for Management of Rheumatoid A rthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, frequently progressive, and destructive autoimmune disease. As the disease progresses, irreversible joint damage may lead to loss of function and physical disability (World Health Organization, 2004). Patients with RA have reduced quality of life compared with healthy people. RA is associated with serious co-morbidities such as heart disease, infection, and malignancies (Boonen & Severens, 2011). This can result in a 5–10 year reduction in life expectancy (Kvien, 2004), reduced quality of life compared with other serious conditions (Lundkvist et al., 2008) and a considerable economic burden (Lundkvist et al., 2008). RA is a disabling disease, and the disability is usually measured by using a questionnaire called the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ). Assement of Assessment for tenderness and swelling in the joints is one by the DAS (Disease Activity Score) for 28 joints. The counting of number of swollen and tender joints in the following 28-joints is done: 10 proximal interphalangeal joints (PIP), 10 metacarpo-phalangeal joints (MCP), 2 wrists, 2 elbows, 2 shoulders and 2 knees (Misra et al., 2008). Since this disease cannot be cured, management of this disease becomes an important endeavor with the aim of inducing and maintaining remission, and altering the course of disease. Disease Modifying AntiRheumatic Drugs (DMARDs, methotrexate followed by leflunoamide, sulfasalazine and hydroxychloroquine) are the recommended first line treatment for RA. However they are slow acting and toxicity monitoring is essential in patients on DMARDs (“Indian Guidelines”, 2002; Misra et al., 2008) Cortico-