Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atomistic Study of the Strain- and Size-Dependence of Poisson’s Ratio of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Three armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) (7, 7), (12, 12), (17, 17) and three zigzag SWCNTs (12, 0), (16, 0), (20, 0) are investigated in this paper, using the molecular dynamic (MD) method with the second-generation Tersoff-Brenner (TB) potential. The Poisson’s ratio of these nanotubes under tensile and compressive loading is obtained. The effect of the strain and size on the Poisson’s ratio of nanotubes is analyzed systematically, from the viewpoints of the structure and the averaged atomic potential energy of nanotubes. The results show that the Poisson’s ratio of nanotubes decreases as the strain increases. The Poisson’s ratios of nanotubes of larger chiral angle decrease more quickly. For nanotubes of the same chiral angle, the larger the diameters of nanotubes are, the larger their Poisson’s ratios become. Moreover, the Poisson’s ratios of nanotubes of larger diameter are more approaching.
Zooids: Building Blocks for Swarm User Interfaces

This paper introduces swarm user interfaces, a new class of human-computer interfaces comprised of many autonomous robots that handle both display and interaction. We describe the design of Zooids, an open-source open-hardware platform for developing tabletop swarm interfaces. The platform consists of a collection of custom-designed wheeled micro robots each 2.6 cm in diameter, a radio base-station, a high-speed DLP structured light projector for optical tracking, and a software framework for application development and control. We illustrate the potential of tabletop swarm user interfaces through a set of application scenarios developed with Zooids, and discuss general design considerations unique to swarm user interfaces.
Combining Reinforcement Learning and Belief Revision - A Learning System for Active Vision

Computer vision can highly benefit from modern learning meth ods. In the context of an active vision environment we introduce a machine learning approach which is able to learn strategies of object acquisiti on. We propose a hybrid learning method, called Sphinx, that combines two approaches originating from seperate disciplines of computer science, namely reinforcement learning on the one hand and belief revision on the other. The former represents knowledge in a numerical way, while the latter is based on symbolic logic and allows reasoning. Sphinx is designed according to human cognition and interacts with its environment by rotating objects depending on past perceptions to acquire those views which are advantageous for recognition. Our method was successfully applied in simulations of object categorization tasks.
Research of Complex PZT Film Base on Shear Mode Energy Harvesting

The preparation of complex PZT with high d31 piezoelectric performance, which is used to the energy harvesting cantilever in vibration mode, is discussed in this paper. The Si/SiO2/Cr/Au/PT/PZT/PT structure base on (100) silicon crystallographic is growth through a PT transition layer before coating Sol-gel PZT film, which is in favor of the PZT film polarization processing in d31 shear mode. It is shown that the PZT film present the perovskite phase after optimize annealing at 700°C by XRD analysis. Piezoelectric properties test indicated that the PZT film has the coercive field at 23kV/cm and the remnant polarization is 60μC/cm2. The silicon-based cantilever with complex PZT film fabricated by MEMS technology is also given in the paper.
SHRINKAGE AND CREEP OF CONCRETE WITH RECYCLED MATERIALS AS COARSE AGGREGATES

At the Magnel Laboratory for Concrete Research of Ghent University, research was carried out concerning the shrinkage and creep behaviour of recycled material based concretes. Three recycled materials were compared with limestone and a lightweight material. First, the concrete mix design was studied. The porosity of the recycled materials had an important influence on the properties of fresh concrete. The compressive strength of some of the recycled material based concrete was found to be higher than expected. In the second part of the programme, shrinkage and creep tests were carried out on 15 different concrete types. Test data for more than one year was obtained. The actual available shrinkage and creep models seemed not to predict the deformations of the recycled material based concretes. Further research is now being undertaken to improve the existing mathematical models for the use of these materials. For the covering abstract see ITRD E112391.
Cross-Lingual Dependency Parsing with Late Decoding for Truly Low-Resource Languages

In cross-lingual dependency annotation projection, information is often lost during transfer because of early decoding. We present an end-to-end graph-based neural network dependency parser that can be trained to reproduce matrices of edge scores, which can be directly projected across word alignments. We show that our approach to cross-lingual dependency parsing is not only simpler, but also achieves an absolute improvement of 2.25% averaged across 10 languages compared to the previous state of the art.
Dispersion strengthening of copper by internal oxidation of rapidly solidified Cu-RE alloys Part II: Experimental study of internal oxidation

Combination of rapid solidification and internal oxidation was used for producing a fine dispersion of rare earth oxide particles in the copper matrix. An overall microstructural analysis has shown that the internal oxidation temperature, the rapidly solidified microstructure and its changing ahead of the internal oxidation front strongly influence the mechanism of the internal oxidation process and the resulting microstructure. The internal oxidation in a Cu-Yb alloy took place mainly by direct oxidation of intermetallic particles. Contrary to this, in a Cu-Er alloy two mechanisms of internal oxidation have been clearly observed: (i) Dissolution of intermetallic particles ahead of the internal oxidation front and oxidation of the erbium from the solid solution and (ii) direct oxidation of the Cu-Er intermetallic particles. While a reasonable optimum combination of processing conditions at internal oxidation in the solid state, yielding suitable oxide dispersions, seems to have been identified for the Cu-Er alloy, the same was not true for the Cu-Yb alloy. However, the internal oxidation of the Cu-Yb alloy in the semisolid state, which occurs by alternation of two processes - Yb oxides precipitation and Cu matrix solidification - led to a relatively uniform dispersion of Yb oxide particles.
E-mail bombs and countermeasures: cyber attacks on availability and brand integrity

The simplicity of SMTP mail can be combined with the robustness of the sendmail MTA program and misused in numerous ways to create extraordinary and powerful e-mail bombs. These e-mail bombs can be launched in many different attack scenarios which can easily flood and shut down chains of SMTP mail servers. Sendmail-based SMTP mail relays also can be used covertly to distribute messages and files that could be very damaging to the integrity and brands of victims. This article discusses mail-bombing techniques, automated attack tools, and countermeasures. Also discussed is an actual Internet-based attack that was launched in 1997 on the Langley AFB SMTP e-mail infrastructure. The authors also present an analysis of the cyber attack, graphs illustrating the attack volume, and a statistical e-mail bomb early warning system.
Labeling Schemes for Weighted Dynamic Trees ( Extended Abstract )

This paper studies β-approximate distance labeling schemes, which are composed of a marker algorithm for labeling the vertices of a graph with short labels, coupled with a decoder algorithm allowing one to compute a β-approximation of the distance between any two vertices directly from their labels (without using any additional information). As most applications for informative labeling schemes in general, and distance labeling schemes in particular, concern large and dynamically changing networks, it is of interest to focus on distributed dynamic labeling schemes. The paper considers the problem on dynamic weighted trees and cycles where the vertices of the tree (or the cycle) are fixed but the (positive integral) weights of the edges may change. The two models considered are the fully dynamic model, where from time to time some edge changes its weight by a fixed quanta, and the increasing dynamic model in which edge weights can only grow. The paper presents distributed β-approximate distance labeling schemes for the two models, for β > 1, and establishes upper and lower bounds on the required label size and the communication complexity involved in updating the labels following a weight change.
Punish Them or Engage Them? Teachers' Views of Unproductive Student Behaviours in the Classroom.

This paper reports on a study that investigated the extent to which student behaviour is a concern for school teachers. A questionnaire was used to investigate teachers' views about student behaviour in their classes. The results suggest that low-level disruptive and disengaged student behaviours occur frequently and teachers find them difficult to manage. Aggressive and anti-social behaviours occur infrequently. Teachers employ strategies to manage unproductive behaviours that locate the problem with the student. This paper argues that teachers could benefit from understanding how the classroom ecology influences engagement and therefore student behaviour, rather than focusing on 'fixing' unproductive behaviour.
Three Dimensional Micro-Mechanical Modeling of Woven Fabric Composites

A three dimensional micro-mechanical model is developed by using a three dimensional geometric model and the variational principles for woven fabric composites. The unified modeling strategy starts with developing the three dimensional description of the general woven fabric geometry based on textile processing science, and then a variational potential energy method and a variational complementary energy method are presented respectively to obtain the three dimensional stiffness and compliance matrices associated with the geometric model. This method takes into account the continuity of the yarn without having to discretize it as previous methods. This study results in new closed form of continuous integration formulae to predict 3D elastic properties for woven fabric composites, which can provide a link between micro-structural design and macro-structural analysis. The model is validated by experiments available in the literature [35,36].
Chemical pathology in brain white matter of recently detoxified alcoholics: a 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy investigation of alcohol-associated frontal lobe injury.

BACKGROUND Investigations have suggested that frontal lobe abnormalities are a prominent feature of the alcoholic brain, indicated by impaired neuropsychological performance on tests of frontal lobe function and by reduced frontal lobe volume in neuroimaging and neuropathological examinations. White matter compartment volume loss may underlie observed brain shrinkage and cognitive deficits associated with the frontal lobes, although the nature of this change has not been well-characterized. METHOD To investigate the susceptibility of frontal lobe white matter to alcohol-associated metabolic change and to understand the nature of alcohol-related white matter injury, 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to measure concentrations of metabolites in frontal white matter (FWM) and parietal white matter (PWM) of recently detoxified alcoholics (RDA) and nonalcoholic controls (CON). Concentrations of N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline-containing compounds (Cho), myo-inositol (Ins), and creatine plus phosphocreatine (Cr) were measured in 37 RDA (mean age, 40.4 years; mean length of abstinence, 27.9 days) and 15 CON (mean age, 38.0 years). RESULTS Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a group by region of interest interaction for concentrations of NAA. Simple effects analysis revealed a significant 14.7% reduction in FWM NAA, while NAA levels in PWM were similar in RDA and CON. In addition, RDA had an 11.8% increase (averaged across both regions of interest) in brain white matter Ins relative to CON. Reductions in FWM NAA were associated with a longer drinking history in the RDA group, but this result was not found when both age and drinking history were used to predict the level of FWM NAA. CONCLUSIONS Alcohol-associated reductions in FWM NAA may be the result of neuronal loss or dysfunction in the metabolism of NAA. While alcohol-induced oxidative stress may cause global brain impairments in the metabolism and subsequent reduction of NAA, the frontal lobes are particularly rich in excitatory amino acid pathways, and axonal damage or destruction secondary to glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity during alcohol withdrawal may cause frontal lobe-specific reductions in NAA. Elevations in brain white matter Ins may reflect astrocyte proliferation as well as an osmotic response to cell shrinkage.
The B-Box Family Gene STO (BBX24) in Arabidopsis thaliana Regulates Flowering Time in Different Pathways

Flowering at the appropriate time is crucial for reproductive success and is strongly influenced by various pathways such as photoperiod, circadian clock, FRIGIDA and vernalization. Although each separate pathway has been extensively studied, much less is known about the interactions between them. In this study we have investigated the relationship between the photoperiod/circadian clock gene and FRIGIDA/FLC by characterizing the function of the B-box STO gene family. STO has two B-box Zn-finger domains but lacks the CCT domain. Its expression is controlled by circadian rhythm and is affected by environmental factors and phytohormones. Loss and gain of function mutants show diversiform phenotypes from seed germination to flowering. The sto-1 mutant flowers later than the wild type (WT) under short day growth conditions, while over-expression of STO causes early flowering both in long and short days. STO over-expression not only reduces FLC expression level but it also activates FT and SOC1 expression. It also does not rely on the other B-box gene CO or change the circadian clock system to activate FT and SOC1. Furthermore, the STO activation of FT and SOC1 expression is independent of the repression of FLC; rather STO and FLC compete with each other to regulate downstream genes. Our results indicate that photoperiod and the circadian clock pathway gene STO can affect the key flowering time genes FLC and FT/SOC1 separately, and reveals a novel perspective to the mechanism of flowering regulation.
Handling Transient and Persistent Imbalance Together in Distributed and Shared Memory

The recent trend of rapid increase in the number of cores per chip has resulted in vast amount of on-node parallelism. Not only the number of cores per node is increasing substantially but also the cores are becoming heterogeneous. The high variability in the performance of the hardware components introduce imbalance due to heterogeneity. The applications are also becoming more complex resulting in dynamic load imbalance. Load imbalance can result in loss of performance and decrease in system utilization. We address the challenge of handling both transient and persistent load imbalance while maintaining locality and incurring low overhead. In this paper, we propose a new integrated runtime system that combines the Charm++ distributed programming model with concurrent tasks to handle the load imbalance problem. It utilizes an infrequent periodic assignment of work to cores based on load measurement, in combination with user created tasks to handle load imbalance. We integrate OpenMP with Charm++ so as to enable creation of potential tasks via OpenMP’s parallel loop construct. This is not specific to Charm++ and is also available to MPI applications as well through Adaptive MPI implementation. We show the benefit of using this integrated runtime system on three different applications. We show improvements of 2X on ChaNGa on 128K cores and more than 3X on NAMD at 2K cores. We also show the benefit on an MPI application, Kripke, using Adaptive MPI.
Two Indices Affecting the Directions of the Sylvian Fissure Dissection in Middle Cerebral Artery Bifurcation Aneurysms

Objective This study proposes more objective methods for deciding the appropriate direction of the sylvian fissure dissection during surgical clipping in middle cerebral artery (MCA) bifurcation aneurysms. Methods We reviewed data of 36 consecutive patients with MCA bifurcation aneurysms. We measured 2 indices preoperatively on 3-dimensional computed tomography angiography (3D-CTA). Analysis of the calculated data allowed us to select the appropriate direction of sylvian fissure dissection for ease of proximal control of M1. Statistically, Mann-Whitney test was used. Results We classified subjects into 2 groups based on the technical level of M1 exposure during surgical clipping. When it was difficult to expose M1, subjects were assigned to Group I, and Group II were subjects in whom M1 exposure was easy. The mean difference between the distances extending from the limbus sphenoidale (LS) line to the internal carotid artery bifurcation and extending from the LS line to the MCA bifurcation was 1.00 ± 0.42 mm in group I and 4.39 ± 2.14 mm in group II. The mean M1 angle was 9.36 ± 3.73° in the group I and 34.05 ± 16.71° in the group II (M1 slope gap p < 0.05, M1 angle p < 0.05). Conclusion We have found an objective method for preoperatively verifying ease of exposure of M1 artery during surgical clipping. Therefore, we suggest use of the preoperative M1 slope gap and M1 angle as indicators in 3D-CTA selecting the direction of sylvian fissure dissection for easy proximal control of M1.
Breast Cancer Incidence Patterns among California Hispanic Women: Differences by Nativity and Residence in an Enclave

Background: Breast cancer incidence is higher in U.S.-born Hispanic women than foreign-born Hispanics, but no studies have examined how these rates have changed over time. To better inform cancer control efforts, we examined incidence trends by nativity and incidence patterns by neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and Hispanic enclave (neighborhoods with high proportions of Hispanics or Hispanic immigrants). Methods: Information about all Hispanic women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1988 and 2004 was obtained from the California Cancer Registry. Nativity was imputed from Social Security number for the 27% of cases with missing birthplace information. Neighborhood variables were developed from Census data. Results: From 1988 to 2004, incidence rates for U.S.-born Hispanics were parallel but lower than those of non-Hispanic whites, showing an annual 6% decline from 2002 to 2004. Foreign-born Hispanics had an annual 4% increase in incidence rates from 1995 to 1998 and a 1.4% decline thereafter. Rates were 38% higher for U.S.- than foreign-born Hispanics, with elevations more pronounced for localized than regional/distant disease, and for women >50 years of age. Residence in higher SES and lower Hispanic enclave neighborhoods were independently associated with higher incidence, with Hispanic enclave having a stronger association than SES. Conclusions: Compared with foreign-born, U.S.-born Hispanic women in California had higher prevalence of breast cancer risk factors, suggesting that incidence patterns largely reflect these differences in risk factors. Impact: Further research is needed to separate the effects of individual- and neighborhood-level factors that affect incidence in this large and growing population. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(5); 1208–18. ©2010 AACR.
Effect of ovariectomy on reference memory version of Morris water maze in young adult rats.

BACKGROUND The effect of ovariectomy and accompanying sudden loss of circulating gonad hormones on spatial learning performance in the young adult rats was examined. We hypothesized that spatial learning and memory in a considerable number of women who undergo a surgical menopause and estrogen deprivation before their natural menopause be impaired. METHODS In this study, we used 26 Wistar rats (approximately five months of age) and divided them into two groups: intact and ovariectomized (OVX). They were tested for spatial reference memory in Morris water maze 6 weeks after OVX. RESULTS The results showed that the performance of OVX group in the water maze was significantly lower than the control group. Although, mean path length decreased across blocks in both groups, OVX rats had significantly longer path length than controls across blocks 2-6 (P<0.05). OVX rats had lower percent of total time spent in target quarter than controls in probe trials (P<0.05). Body weight gain was significant only in OVX group during the experiment (P<0.05). Plasma estrogen significantly decreased after OVX (P<0.05). CONCLUSION This finding provides further evidence for the role of estrogen, a gonadal steroid hormone, in the manipulation of functions related to learning and memory. It is suggested that estrogen loss following OVX impaired spatial reference memory in young adult rats. Our results suggest that it is necessary to protect women who undergo a surgical menopause before their natural menopause from cognition impairments.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy may benefit patients with left ventricular ejection fraction >35%: a PROSPECT trial substudy

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is currently limited to those with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤35%. To evaluate whether patients with LVEF >35% might benefit from CRT, we performed a retrospective analysis of the predictors of response to CRT (PROSPECT) database.
Population Structure and Evolution of the Bacillus cereus Group

ABSTRACT Representative strains of the Bacillus cereus group of bacteria, including Bacillus anthracis (11 isolates), B. cereus (38 isolates), Bacillus mycoides (1 isolate), Bacillus thuringiensis (53 isolates from 17 serovars), and Bacillus weihenstephanensis (2 isolates) were assigned to 59 sequence types (STs) derived from the nucleotide sequences of seven alleles, glpF, gmk, ilvD, pta, pur, pycA, and tpi. Comparisons of the maximum likelihood (ML) tree of the concatenated sequences with individual gene trees showed more congruence than expected by chance, indicating a generally clonal structure to the population. The STs followed two major lines of descent. Clade 1 comprised B. anthracis strains, numerous B. cereus strains, and rare B. thuringiensis strains, while clade 2 included the majority of the B. thuringiensis strains together with some B. cereus strains. Other species were allocated to a third, heterogeneous clade. The ML trees and split decomposition analysis were used to assign STs to eight lineages within clades 1 and 2. These lineages were defined by bootstrap analysis and by a preponderance of fixed differences over shared polymorphisms among the STs. Lineages were named with reference to existing designations: Anthracis, Cereus I, Cereus II, Cereus III, Kurstaki, Sotto, Thuringiensis, and Tolworthi. Strains from some B. thuringiensis serovars were wholly or largely assigned to a single ST, for example, serovar aizawai isolates were assigned to ST-15, serovar kenyae isolates were assigned to ST-13, and serovar tolworthi isolates were assigned to ST-23, while other serovars, such as serovar canadensis, were genetically heterogeneous. We suggest a revision of the nomenclature in which the lineage and clone are recognized through name and ST designations in accordance with the clonal structure of the population.