Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Laboratory Investigation of Supersonic Clumpy Flows: Experimental Design and Theoretical Analysis

We present a design for high energy density laboratory experiments studying the interaction of hypersonic shocks with a large number of inhomogeneities. These " clumpy " flows are relevant to a wide variety of astrophys-ical environments including the evolution of molecular clouds, outflows from young stars, Planetary Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei. The experiment consists of a strong shock (driven by a pulsed power machine or a high intensity laser) impinging on a region of randomly placed plastic rods. We discuss the goals of the specific design and how they are met by specific choices of target components. An adaptive mesh refinement hydrodynamic code is used to analyze the design and establish a predictive baseline for the experiments. The simulations confirm the effectiveness of the design in terms of articulating the differences between shocks propagating through smooth and clumpy environments. In particular, we find significant differences between the shock propagation speeds in a clumpy medium compared to a smooth one with the same average density. The simulation results are of general interest for foams in both inertial confinement fusion and laboratory astrophysics studies. Our results highlight the danger of using average properties of inhomogeneous astrophysical environments when comparing timescales for critical processes such as shock crossing and gravitational collapse times.
Adaptive multiple texture approach to texture packing for 3D video games

This paper presents an adaptive multiple texture approach to the problem of texture packing for 3D video games. In modern graphics hardware, texture size is typically constrained to width and height dimensions that are powers of two. To reduce the texture management overhead caused by storing individual textures, texture packing algorithms are used to pack multiple textures into a single powers-of-two texture. Current texture packing techniques are very limiting as they are capable of packing textures only into a single texture of predefined size. This can result in significant wasted texture space due to the powers-of-two texture size restrictions. In the proposed technique, individual arbitrarily sized rectangular textures are packed into multiple textures in an adaptive manner. This approach reduces the amount of wasted texture space in a more efficient manner by adaptively determining the quantity as well as size of textures being used during the packing process. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique in packing textures in an efficient and automated fashion. This makes it well suited for improving texture management in future 3D video games, where resources are limited and a high frame rate needs to be achieved to provide a truly immersive experience.
Evaluation of Protein Quality in Hydrolyzed Protein Meals by Biological Assay Methods in Broiler Chickens

2 Abstract: This study was conducted to determine chemical composition, mineral contents, protein quality and the effects of hydrolyzed protein meals (HPM) on broiler chicken performance during two experiments. Six samples of Hydrolyzed protein meal were provided from commercial processing plants. Average values of Dry Matter (DM), Ether Extract (EE), Crude Protein (CP), Crude Fiber (CF), Total Volatile Nitrogen (TVN) and Ash content were 97, 0.12, 70, 0, 50 and 19.68%, respectively. The average Apparent Metabolizable Energy (AME) value for the Hydrolyzed protein meal samples was 3056 kcal/ kg. The mean values of major elements including Ca, P and Na were 3.89, 0.76 and 3.9%, respectively. In experiment 1, Protein efficiency ratios (PER) and net protein ratio (NPR) were determined in chicks fed a semipurified diets containing 10% CP from HPM as the only source of dietary protein. The PER and NPR values for the HPM averaged 1.73 and 2.05, respectively. In experiment 2, three corn-soybean meal based diets containing 0, 7.5 or 15 percent of HPM was fed to four groups of ten Ross 308 male chicks from 11 to 32 d of age. The data were analyzed using completely randomized designs. When HPM substituted at 7.5%, growth performance was significantly better than the other levels (P<0.05). Growth performance was decreased by using of HPM when substituted at 15% of the diet. The results of this study indicated that using of 7.5% HPM in the practical diets has any adverse effects on broiler chicken performance and HPM has substantial nutritional value for poultry.
A First Look at Novice Compilation Behaviour Using BlueJ

Syntactically correct code does not fall from the sky; the process that leads to a student's first executable program is not well understood. At the University of Kent we have begun to explore the compilation behaviours of novice programmers, or the behaviours that students exhibit while authoring code; in our initial study, we have focused on when and what they choose to compile. By examining these behaviours, we have determined the most common errors encountered by students using BlueJ in our introductory course on object-oriented programming, how those students tend to program when in supervised laboratory sessions, and we have identified future directions of study driven by our initial observations. Our goal is to apply this research to the future development of BlueJ and instructional methodologies involving its use in the classroom.
Development of liquid-environment frequency modulation atomic force microscope with low noise deflection sensor for cantilevers of various dimensions

We have developed a liquid-environment frequency modulation atomic force microscope (FM-AFM) with a low noise deflection sensor for a wide range of cantilevers with different dimensions. A simple yet accurate equation describing the theoretical limit of the optical beam deflection method in air and liquid is presented. Based on the equation, we have designed a low noise deflection sensor. Replaceable microscope objective lenses are utilized for providing a high magnification optical view (resolution: <3μm) as well as for focusing a laser beam (laser spot size: ∼10μm). Even for a broad range of cantilevers with lengths from 35to125μm, the sensor provides deflection noise densities of less than 11fm∕Hz in air and 16fm∕Hz in water. In particular, a cantilever with a length of 50μm gives the minimum deflection noise density of 5.7fm∕Hz in air and 7.3fm∕Hz in water. True atomic resolution of the developed FM-AFM is demonstrated by imaging mica in water.
Interactions among dissolved organic carbon, microbial processes, and community structure in the mesopelagic zone of the northwestern Sargasso Sea

At the Bermuda Atlantic Time‐Series Study (BATS) site, the field observations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) dynamics indicate that seasonally produced “semilabile” DOC is resistant to rapid microbial degradation in the surface waters but available for microbial remineralization once it is delivered into the mesopelagic zone after convective overturn. In this study, we employed an experimental simulation of convective overturn events to determine whether the remineralization of semilabile DOC would occur in a controlled laboratory setting. Seawater culture experiments were conducted in which surface (≤10 m) and mesopelagic (250 m) 0.2‐mm filtrates were inoculated with unfiltered water from ≤10 and 250 m in an assortment of combinations to simulate various mixtures of nutrients, DOC quantity and quality, and microbial assemblages. Results indicate that (1) microbial inocula from the upper euphotic zone were incapable of remineralizing the seasonally accumulated semilabile DOC (µmol C L−1 resolution) on the timescales of the incubations; (2) the utilization of semilabile DOC was greatest when the inoculum source was from 250 m and the filtrate source was from the upper 10 m; and (3) the decrease in bacterioplankton diversity, estimated with the Shannon‐Wiener diversity index, was greater in treatments in which inoculum from 250 m was mixed with filtrate from 10 m than in treatments in which the surface inoculum was mixed with the surface filtrate. Our findings are that a portion of the surface semilabile DOC can be metabolized by microorganisms in a laboratory setting and that mesopelagic nutrients alone are insufficient to stimulate DOC drawdown >1.3 µmol L−1. Transformations of microbial community structure were associated with the drawdown of surface DOC in simulated mixing events and suggest that microbial community structure is a factor in surface‐layer DOC dynamics.
ON MATRIX PRODUCT GROUND STATES FOR REACTION-DIFFUSION MODELS

We discuss a new mechanism leading to a matrix product form for the stationary state of one-dimensional stochastic models. The corresponding algebra is quadratic and involves four different matrices. For the example of a coagulation - decoagulation model explicit four-dimensional representations are given and exact expressions for various physical quantities are recovered. We also find the general structure of n-point correlation functions at the phase transition.
CNN cell with memcapacitive synapses and threshold control circuit

This paper presents a concept of a solid-state memcapacitor based on a combination of memristor and capacitor, as well as its applications to cellular nanoscale networks. In addition to ultra-dense memories, memcapacitors can also be used for synaptic connections and threshold control in arrays with capacitively coupled processing units. In principle, the proposed CNN cell structure implements the basic McCulloch-Pitts neuron model. Although the cell relies on the binary programmability scheme with single-bit template coefficients, the proposed memcapacitive synapses allow for asynchronous processing of tasks, for which the traditional cloning templates contain both positive and negative values.
Family resilience and the emphasis on system resources

En este articulo, las reflexiones como investigadora sobre la capacidad de sacar un individuo de eventos adversos ha despertado el interes por revisar bibliografia e investigaciones para buscar unas respuestas aproximadas a la pregunta: ? Por que algunas personas pueden mantener o lograr una trayectoria de desarrollo positiva en circunstancias que muchos otros viviendo acontecimientos similares no lo logran? En otras palabras, ? De donde proviene la resiliencia individual? Se identifican factores protectores a nivel individual y se avanza en estudiar en el contexto cercano al individuo, es decir la familia, los aspectos que contribuyen a fomentar la resiliencia familiar y un analisis de esta, desde el enfoque sistemico.
Transporting Cells in Semi-Solid Gel Condition and at Ambient Temperature

Mammalian cells including human cancer cells are usually transported in cryovials on dry ice or in a liquid nitrogen vapor shipping vessel between different places at long distance. The hazardous nature of dry ice and liquid nitrogen, and the associated high shipping cost strongly limit their routine use. In this study, we tested the viability and properties of cells after being preserved or shipped over long distance in Matrigel mixture for different days. Our results showed that cells mixed with Matrigel at suitable ratios maintained excellent viability (>90%) for one week at room temperature and preserved the properties such as morphology, drug sensitivity and metabolism well, which was comparable to cells cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen. We also sent cells in the Matrigel mixture via FedEx service to different places at ambient temperature. Upon arrival, it was found that over 90% of the cells were viable and grew well after replating. These data collectively suggested that our Matrigel-based method was highly convenient for shipping live cells for long distances in semi-solid gel condition and at ambient temperature.
The Secreted Pyomelanin Pigment of Legionella pneumophila Confers Ferric Reductase Activity

ABSTRACT The virulence of Legionella pneumophila is dependent upon its capacity to acquire iron. To identify genes involved in expression of its siderophore, we screened a mutagenized population of L. pneumophila for strains that were no longer able to rescue the growth of a ferrous transport mutant. However, an unusual mutant was obtained that displayed a strong inhibitory effect on the feoB mutant. Due to an insertion in hmgA that encodes homogentisate 1,2-dioxygenase, the mutant secreted increased levels of pyomelanin, the L. pneumophila pigment that is derived from secreted homogentisic acid (HGA). Thus, we hypothesized that L. pneumophila-secreted HGA-melanin has intrinsic ferric reductase activity, converting Fe3+ to Fe2+, but that hyperpigmentation results in excessive reduction of iron that can, in the case of the feoB mutant, be inhibitory to growth. In support of this hypothesis, we demonstrated, for the first time, that wild-type L. pneumophila secretes ferric reductase activity. Moreover, whereas the hyperpigmented mutant had increased secreted activity, an lly mutant specifically impaired for pigment production lacked the activity. Compatible with the nature of HGA-melanins, the secreted ferric reductase activity was positively influenced by the amount of tyrosine in the growth medium, resistant to protease, acid precipitable, and heterogeneous in size. Together, these data represent the first demonstration of pyomelanin-mediated ferric reduction by a pathogenic bacterium.
The diagnosis of infectious diseases by whole genome next generation sequencing: a new era is opening

As in other medical fields, the availability of next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques is about to revolutionize diagnostics of infectious diseases. The demonstration of the microbial origin of diseases and their diagnosis were initially based on the demonstration of the presence of a given pathogen in a given clinical sample, and was first dominated by culture assay for bacteria and later for viruses. These techniques do not advance prior hypotheses regarding the causative agents except their cultivability. In order to seek specific pathogens, specialized media—rich or selective—and culture conditions—defined oxygen tension or temperature—can be used. These techniques suffer a number of limitations, including the need for a dedicated specialized staff and their intrinsic inefficiency in the propagation of fastidious bacteria and several major viruses (Treponema palidum, Mycobacterium leprae, Hepatitis A, B, C and E viruses). They have been progressively complemented and sometimes replaced by nucleic acid-based tests like PCR or NASBA. The advantages of PCR are numerous: speed, low cost, automation, sensitivity, and specificity. The main drawback of targeted, pathogen-specific PCR is that it is only able to identify predefined targets, which supposes that the physician has elaborated an etiological hypothesis. Moreover, for a series of pathogens, and in particular highly variable RNA viruses like enteroviruses or DNA viruses such as papillomaviruses and adenoviruses that comprise multiple types, PCR-based tests target conserved loci that do not discriminate between genotypes.
A new approach for fuzzy clustering of Web documents

Most existing methods of document clustering are based on the classical vector-space model, which represents each document by a fixed-size vector of key terms or key phrases. In large and diverse document collections such as the World Wide Web, this approach suffers from a tremendous computational overload, since the constant size of the term vector equals to the total number of key terms in all documents. We propose a new fuzzy-based approach to clustering documents that are represented by vectors of variable size. Each entry in a vector consists of two fields. The first field is the name of a key phrase in the document and the second denotes an importance weight associated with this key phrase within the particular document. We will describe the proposed approach in detail and show how it is implemented in a real world application from the area of web monitoring.
An Induced Proximity Model for Caspase-8 Activation*

The assembly of the CD-95 (Fas/Apo-1) receptor death-inducing signaling complex occurs in a hierarchical manner; the death domain of CD-95 binds to the corresponding domain in the adapter molecule Fas-associated death domain (FADD) Mort-1, which in turn recruits the zymogen form of the death protease caspase-8 (FLICE/Mach-1) by a homophilic interaction involving the death effector domains. Immediately after recruitment, the single polypeptide FLICE zymogen is proteolytically processed to the active dimeric species composed of large and small catalytic subunits. Since all caspases cleave their substrates after Asp residues and are themselves processed from the single-chain zymogen to the two-chain active enzyme by cleavage at internal Asp residues, it follows that an upstream caspase can process a downstream zymogen. However, since FLICE represents the most apical caspase in the Fas pathway, its mode of activation has been enigmatic. We hypothesized that the FLICE zymogen possesses intrinsic enzymatic activity such that when approximated, it autoprocesses to the active protease. Support for this was provided by (i) the synthesis of chimeric Fpk3FLICE molecules that can be oligomerizedin vivo by the synthetic cell-permeable dimerizer FK1012H2. Cells transfected with Fpk3FLICE underwent apoptosis after exposure to FK1012H2; (ii) the creation of a nonprocessable zymogen form of FLICE that retained low but detectable protease activity.
Accumulating Evidence of Fraud Using a Continuous Time Hidden Markov Model

This article presents a hidden Markov model designed to screen a telephone, computer , or other type of account for criminal activity. An augmented variables sampler is used to draw model parameters from their posterior distribution. Using estimated parameters , the forward-backward algorithm for hidden Markov models rapidly computes the probability of a criminal presence on the account at any point in time. The model allows temporally close transactions to share information about criminal activity. The model accepts covariate information produced by fraud detection procedures focusing on individual transaction characteristics, resulting in a principled accumulation of evidence over time. The model may be used to estimate the nancial loss the account has experienced due to fraud. The model is illustrated on a data set containing information about fraud in international telephone traac.
High performance in minimizing of term-document matrix representation for document clustering

Document clustering usually involves high dimensional term space, which makes it difficult for organizing data into a small number of meaningful clusters. Clustering based on similar terms without considering the content or meaning is often unsatisfactory as it ignores the relationship between important terms that do not co-occur literally. In this paper, we propose to integrate the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) concept to our document clustering. This involves the use of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) which creates a new abstract and uses a way of finding pattern document collection in matrix representation, so that it can identify between the terms and documents which are similar. By using various numbers of patterns (rank) of SVD, the proposed method is applied to cluster documents using the Fuzzy C-Means algorithm. The results of the experiment show that the performance of document clustering to be better when applied to the LSI method.
African women are ready to lead

When the young Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika was sent off to an all-girls boarding school in Zambia renowned for its academic excellence and sporting discipline, she had no idea she was laying the foundation for a career in leadership. She had plenty of time to concentrate on her studies, unlike many other girls her age who had to divide time between school and household responsibilities. Today she represents her country as ambassador to the US, has served in parliament, and in 2001 became the first woman to run for president in Zambia.
Exploiting state information to support QoS in Software-Defined WSNs

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a promising paradigm initially proposed for the wired networks which has the potential to change the way in which networks are designed and managed. Recently, its use has been extended to wireless infrastructure-less networks such as ad-hoc and wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we take inspiration from our previous work where a scheme that extends the SDN paradigm to WSNs - called SDN-WISE - was proposed. Differently from OpenFlow, SDN-WISE is stateful; accordingly in this paper we investigate how state can be used to support different levels of QoS in WSNs. In fact, state can be used to represent the level of congestion of a node and rules can be given to the nodes that set different drop probabilities for different flows depending on the level of congestion. By reporting their state, the sensor nodes can inform the Controller about their level of congestion; thus, the Controller can select and set alternative routes for traffic flows in order to mitigate congestion. Numerical results assess the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Improving NoC Performance by Non-contention Ejection Architecture

In this paper, we propose a non-contention ejection architecture to improve the performance of Network-on-Chip (NoC). In this architecture, the contention is avoided by allocating a dedicated channel for every packet which may be ejected simultaneously, which make sure that packets in the network can be ejected promptly, and thus the number of packets stayed in the network is decreased and the communication performance is improved. Results show that compared with traditional ejection architecture, the proposed architecture improves the communication performance greatly with reasonable area increase.
A Statistical Model for Positron Emission Tomography

Abstract Positron emission tomography (PET)—still in its research stages—is a technique that promises to open new medical frontiers by enabling physicians to study the metabolic activity of the body in a pictorial manner. Much as in X-ray transmission tomography and other modes of computerized tomography, the quality of the reconstructed image in PET is very sensitive to the mathematical algorithm to be used for reconstruction. In this article, we tailor a mathematical model to the physics of positron emissions, and we use the model to describe the basic image reconstruction problem of PET as a standard problem in statistical estimation from incomplete data. We describe various estimation procedures, such as the maximum likelihood (ML) method (using the EM algorithm), the method of moments, and the least squares method. A computer simulation of a PET experiment is then used to demonstrate the ML and the least squares reconstructions. The main purposes of this article are to report on what we believe is an.