Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diesel engine exhaust exposure in underground mines: Comparison between different surrogates of particulate exposure

ABSTRACT Exposure to diesel particulate matter (DPM) is frequently assessed by measuring indicators of carbon speciation, but these measurements may be affected by organic carbon (OC) interference. Furthermore, there are still questions regarding the reliability of direct-reading instruments (DRI) for measuring DPM, since these instruments are not specific and may be interfered by other aerosol sources. This study aimed to assess DPM exposure in 2 underground mines by filter-based methods and DRI and to assess the relationship between the measures of elemental carbon (EC) and the DRI to verify the association of these instruments to DPM. Filter-based methods of respirable combustible dust (RCD), EC, and total carbon (TC) were used to measure levels of personal and ambient DPM. For ambient measurements, DRI were used to monitor particle number concentration (PNC; PTrak), particle mass concentration (DustTrak DRX and DustTrak 8520), and the submicron fraction of EC (EC1;Airtec). The association between ambient EC and the DRI was assessed by Spearman correlation. Geometric mean concentrations of RCD, respirable TC (TCR) and respirable elemental EC (ECR) were 170 µg/m3, 148 µg/m3, and 83 µg/m3 for personal samples, and 197 µg/m3, 151 µg/m3, and 100 µg/m3 for ambient samples. Personal measurements had higher TCR:ECR ratios compared to ambient samples (1.8 vs. 1.50) and weaker association between ECR and TCR. Among the DRI, the measures of EC1 by the Airtec (ρ = 0.86; P < 0.001) and the respirable particles by the DustTrak 8520 (ρ = 0.74; P < 0.001) showed the strongest association with EC, while PNC showed a weak and non-significant association with EC. In conclusion, this study provided important information about the concentrations of DPM in underground mines by measuring several indicators using filter-based methods and DRI. Among the DRI, the Airtec proved to be a good tool for estimating EC concentrations and, although the DustTrak showed good association with EC, interferences from other aerosol sources should be considered when using this instrument to assess DPM.
Microsphere controlled drug delivery for local control of tooth movement

Summary Background Because orthodontic tooth movement is dependent upon osteoclast-mediated resorption of alveolar bone adjacent to the pressure side of tooth roots, biologic mediators that regulate osteoclasts can be utilized to control tooth movement. Objectives To develop a novel method to locally enhance orthodontic anchorage. Methods We encapsulated osteoprotegerin (OPG) in polymer microspheres and tested the effectiveness of microsphere encapsulated versus non-encapsulated OPG for enhancing orthodontic anchorage in a rodent model of tooth movement. A single injection of 1 mg/kg non-encapsulated or microsphere encapsulated OPG was delivered into the palatal mucosa mesial to the first maxillary molar 1 day prior to tooth movement. A positive control group received injections of 5 mg/kg non-encapsulated OPG every 3 days during tooth movement. After 28 days of tooth movement, hemi-maxillae and femurs were dissected. Molar mesial and incisor distal tooth movement was measured using stone casts that were scanned and magnified. Local alveolar, distant femur bone, and tooth root volumes were analyzed by micro computed tomography. Serum OPG levels were measured by ELISA. Osteoclast numbers were quantified by histomorphometry. Results The single injection of microsphere encapsulated OPG significantly enhanced orthodontic anchorage, while the single injection of non-encapsulated OPG did not. Injection of encapsulated OPG inhibited molar mesial movement but did not inhibit incisor tooth movement, and did not alter alveolar or femur bone volume fraction, density, or mineral content. Multiple injections of 5 mg/kg non-encapsulated OPG enhanced orthodontic anchorage, but also inhibited incisor retraction and altered alveolar and femur bone quality parameters. Increased OPG levels were found only in animals receiving multiple injections of non-encapsulated 5 mg/kg OPG. Osteoclast numbers were higher upon tooth movement in animals that did not receive OPG. Osteoclast numbers in OPG injected animals were variable within groups. Conclusions Microsphere encapsulation of OPG allows for controlled drug release, and enhances site-specific orthodontic anchorage without systemic side effects. With additional refinements, this drug delivery system could be applicable to a broad array of potential biologic orthodontic therapeutics.
Effects of Freestream Turbulence on the Pressure Acting on a Low-Rise Building Roof in the Separated Flow Region

This paper presents the experimental design and subsequent findings from a comprehensive series of experiments in a large BLWT to investigate the variation of surface pressures with increasing upwind terrain roughness on low-rise buildings. Geometrically scaled models of the Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory (WERFL) experimental building were subjected to a wide range of turbulent boundary layer flows, through precise adjustment of a computer control terrain generator called the Terraformer. The study offers an in-depth examination of the effects of freestream turbulence on extreme pressures under the separation “bubble” for the case of the wind traveling perpendicular to wall surfaces, independently confirming previous findings that the spatial distribution of the peaks is heavily influenced by the mean reattachment length. Further, the study shows that the observed peak pressures collapse if data are normalized by the mean reattachment length and a non-Gaussian estimator for peak velocity pressure.
Security Vulnerabilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Countermeasures: An Experimental Study

Drones present a novel airborne platform for new commercial and consumer tasks. Due to their increasing use, security analysis has become necessary. In this paper, we present a collection of fatal attacks, minor observations and associated security vulnerabilities for DJI Phantom 4 Pro(P4P) and Parrot Bebop 2 drones. We also propose some countermeasures to bolster the security of the analyzed drones. In addition to this, we provided a brief overview of the system and embedded architecture of these vehicles. Although DJI has tried to improve security by introducing radio communication and partially encrypted firmware, the P4P still remains vulnerable to GPS spoofing, jamming and other vulnerabilities through DJI-SDK has been exposed in our experimental study. In contrast, Bebop drones are more vulnerable to wireless attacks and we have experimentally validated this for Bebop 2 drone.
scanPAV: a pipeline for extracting presence–absence variations in genome pairs

Abstract Motivation The recent technological advances in genome sequencing techniques have resulted in an exponential increase in the number of sequenced human and non-human genomes. The ever increasing number of assemblies generated by novel de novo pipelines and strategies demands the development of new software to evaluate assembly quality and completeness. One way to determine the completeness of an assembly is by detecting its Presence–Absence variations (PAV) with respect to a reference, where PAVs between two assemblies are defined as the sequences present in one assembly but entirely missing in the other one. Beyond assembly error or technology bias, PAVs can also reveal real genome polymorphism, consequence of species or individual evolution, or horizontal transfer from viruses and bacteria. Results We present scanPAV, a pipeline for pairwise assembly comparison to identify and extract sequences present in one assembly but not the other. In this note, we use the GRCh38 reference assembly to assess the completeness of six human genome assemblies from various assembly strategies and sequencing technologies including Illumina short reads, 10× genomics linked-reads, PacBio and Oxford Nanopore long reads, and Bionano optical maps. We also discuss the PAV polymorphism of seven Tasmanian devil whole genome assemblies of normal animal tissues and devil facial tumour 1 (DFT1) and 2 (DFT2) samples, and the identification of bacterial sequences as contamination in some of the tumorous assemblies. Availability and implementation The pipeline is available under the MIT License at https://github.com/wtsi-hpag/scanPAV. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Correlation analysis between code clone metrics and project data on the same specification projects

The presence of code clones is pointed out as a factor that makes software maintenance more difficult. On the other hand, some research studies reported that only a small part of code clones requires simultaneous changes and their negative influences on software maintenance are limited. Besides, some other studies reported that code clones often have positive effects on software development. Currently, the authors are researching exploring the effect of clones on software development and maintenance. In this paper, the authors report their exploratory results on the relationship between clone metrics and project data such as the number of test cases and the number of found bugs. The targets of this exploration are nine web-based software systems. Interestingly, all of them were developed based on the same specification. In other words, they are functionally the same software systems. By targeting such projects, we can explore how implementation differences affect software development. As a result, unit/integration/system testing become more difficult in case that many clones exist in a project.
Ultrasound Velocity Measurements in High-Chromium Steel Under Plastic Deformation

In the present study, the variation of the propagation velocity of ultrasound in the plastic deformation of corrosion-resistant high-chromium steel 40X13 with ferrite-carbide (delivery status), martensitic (quenched) and sorbitol (after high-temperature tempering) structures have beem studied/ It is found that each state shows its view of the loading curve. In the delivery state diagram loading is substantially parabolic throughout, while in the martensitic state contains only linear strain hardening step and in the sorbitol state the plastic flow curve is three-step. The velocity of ultrasonic surface waves (Rayleigh waves) was measured simultaneously with the registration of the loading curve in the investigated steel in tension. It is shown that the dependence of the velocity of ultrasound in active loading is determined by the law of plastic flow, that is, the staging of the corresponding diagram of loading. Structural state of the investigated steel is not only changing the type of the deformation curve under uniaxial tension, but also changes the nature of ultrasound speed of deformation.
Use of a Business Excellence Model to Improve Conservation Programs

Abstract: The current shortfall in effectiveness within conservation biology is illustrated by increasing interest in “evidence‐based conservation,” whose proponents have identified the need to benchmark conservation initiatives against actions that lead to proven positive effects. The effectiveness of conservation policies, approaches, and evaluation is under increasing scrutiny, and in these areas models of excellence used in business could prove valuable. Typically, conservation programs require years of effort and involve rigorous long‐term implementation processes. Successful balance of long‐term efforts alongside the achievement of short‐term goals is often compromised by management or budgetary constraints, a situation also common in commercial businesses. “Business excellence” is an approach many companies have used over the past 20 years to ensure continued success. Various business excellence evaluations have been promoted that include concepts that could be adapted and applied in conservation programs. We describe a conservation excellence model that shows how scientific processes and results can be aligned with financial and organizational measures of success. We applied the model to two well‐documented species conservation programs. In the first, the Po’ouli program, several aspects of improvement were identified, such as more authority for decision making in the field and better integration of habitat management and population recovery processes. The second example, the black‐footed ferret program, could have benefited from leadership effort to reduce bureaucracy and to encourage use of best‐practice species recovery approaches. The conservation excellence model enables greater clarity in goal setting, more‐effective identification of job roles within programs, better links between technical approaches and measures of biological success, and more‐effective use of resources. The model could improve evaluation of a conservation program's effectiveness and may be used to compare different programs, for example during reviews of project performance by sponsoring organizations.
A retrospective of production and test code co-evolution in an industrial project

Production and test code co-evolution is known to result in high quality, maintainable, more sustainable software artifacts. This report discusses the challenges and experiences obtained in the transformation from a traditional development process, where most of the testing has been conducted manually and in a subsequent development step, to an agile development process that enforces a certain number of test code coverage by automated tests. Within an industrial project we analyze the deviations from the aimed co-evolution path by means of customized visualizations and list and discuss the observed challenges.
Towards a Strong Spin–Orbit Coupling Magnetoelectric Transistor

Here, we outline magnetoelectric (ME) device concepts based on the voltage control of the interface magnetism of an ME antiferromagnet gate dielectric formed on a very thin semiconductor channel with large spin–orbit coupling (SOC). The emphasis of the ME spin field-effect transistors (ME spin FET) is on an antiferromagnet spin–orbit read logic device and a ME spin-FET multiplexer. Both spin-FET schemes exploit the strong SOC in the semiconducting channel materials but remain dependent on the voltage-induced switching of an ME, so that the switching time is limited only by the switching dynamics of the ME. The induced exchange field spin polarizes the channel material, breaks time-reversal symmetry, and results in the preferential charge transport direction, due to the spin–orbit-driven spin-momentum locking. These devices could provide reliable room temperature operation with large on/off ratios, well beyond what can be achieved using magnetic tunnel junctions. All of the proposed device spintronic functionalities without the need to switch a ferromagnet, yielding a faster writing speed (~10 ps) at a lower cost in energy (~10 aJ), excellent temperature stability (operational up to 400 K or above), and requiring far fewer device elements (transistor equivalents) than CMOS.
A Belief-Theoretical Approach to Example-Based Pose Estimation

In example-based human pose estimation, the configuration of an evolving object is sought given visual evidence, having to rely uniquely on a set of sample images. We assume here that, at each time instant of a training session, a number of feature measurements is extracted from the available images, while ground truth is provided in the form of the true object pose. In this scenario, a sensible approach consists in learning maps from features to poses, using the information provided by the training set. In particular, multivalued mappings linking feature values to set of training poses can be constructed. To this purpose we propose a belief modeling regression (BMR) approach in which a probability measure on any individual feature space maps to a convex set of probabilities on the set of training poses, in a form of a belief function. Given a test image, its feature measurements translate into a collection of belief functions on the set of training poses which, when combined, yield there an entire family of probability distributions. From the latter either a single central pose estimate or a set of extremal ones can be computed, together with a measure of how reliable the estimate is. Contrarily to other competing models, in BMR the sparsity of the training samples can be taken into account to model the level of uncertainty associated with these estimates. We illustrate BMR's performance in an application to human pose recovery, showing how it outperforms our implementation of both relevant vector machine and Gaussian process regression. Finally, we discuss motivation and advantages of the proposed approach with respect to its most direct competitors.
Model-Based Statistical Features for Mobile Phone Image of Tomato Plant Disease Classification

We introduce a set of statistical features and propose the SIFT texture features descriptor model on statistical image processing. The proposed feature is applied to plant disease classification with PlantVillage image dataset. The input is plant leaf image taken by phone camera whereas the output is the plant disease name. The input image is preprocessed to remove background. The SIFT features are extracted from the preprocessed image. As a main contribution, the extracted SIFT features are model by Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) Distribution to represent an image information in a small number of dimensions. We focus on the statistical feature and model-based texture features to minimize the computational time and complexity of phone image processing. The propose features aim to be significantly reduced in computational time for plant disease recognition for mobile phone. The experimental result shows that the proposed features can compare with other previous statistical features and can also distinguish between six tomato diseases, including Leaf Mold, Septoria Leaf Spot, Two Spotted Spider Mite, Late Blight, Bacterial Spot and Target Spot.
IBBAS: A Visual Analytics System of Large-Scale Traffic Data for Bus Body Advertising

Bus body advertising planners have been plagued for a long time for formulating solutions effectively and comparing different solutions efficiently, because there is no such decision support system. In this study, we attempt to use the state-of-the-art data mining and visualization techniques to solve this problem. Using the traffic data, we design a visual analytics system named IBBAS (Intelligent Bus Body Advertising System). This system can deal with two main challenges of the problem: new brand promotion and target group advertising. First, we propose two algorithms: DivideT and EstimateT. DivideT is used for the bus frequency division and EsitimateT is used for the bus arrival time estimation. Then, based on LDA topic model, we design an optimization algorithm to generate bus body advertising solution based on multiple constraints. Finally, we use the visualization techniques to create a system. There are some functional modules used in the system: the heatmap changing with time displays the passenger flow volume of each bus station; the candidate panel allows users to expediently modify the original solution and forms a tailored solution; the compare panel clearly uncovers the differences among multiple solutions with a flexible ranking tool. This system has been demonstrated using case studies with a real-world dataset. We also collected feedback from domain experts and conducted a preliminary evaluation criteria.
A case-control design for testing and estimating epigenetic effects on complex diseases

Epigenetic modifications may play an important role in the formation and progression of complex diseases through the regulation of gene expression. The systematic identification of epigenetic variants that contribute to human diseases can be made possible using genome-wide association studies (GWAS), although epigenetic effects are currently not included in commonly used case-control designs for GWAS. Here, we show that epigenetic modifications can be integrated into a case-control setting by dissolving the overall genetic effect into its different components, additive, dominant and epigenetic. We describe a general procedure for testing and estimating the significance of each component based on a conventional chi-squared test approach. Simulation studies were performed to investigate the power and false-positive rate of this procedure, providing recommendations for its practical use. The integration of epigenetic variants into GWAS can potentially improve our understanding of how genetic, environmental and stochastic factors interact with epialleles to construct the genetic architecture of complex diseases.
Clinical staging in severe mental disorder: evidence from neurocognition and neuroimaging

Summary A new approach to understanding severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and affective disorders is to adopt a clinical staging model. Such a model defines the extent of the illness such that earlier and milder phenomena are distinguished from later, more impairing features. Part of the appeal of such a model is that it should have cross-diagnostic applications, but to date there has been no attempt to examine imaging or neurocognrtive evidence for staging in this way. We review these two domains of study with particular focus on major depression and bipolar affective disorder. Although there is some support for the staging model in affective disorders, conclusions are limited by the large variability in the clinical samples studied, especially with regard to the presence of psychotic symptoms. We suggest that future research needs to take a transdiagnostic and longitudinal approach.
Chloroplast Translation: Structural and Functional Organization, Operational Control, and Regulation[OPEN]

Chloroplast translation is essential for cellular viability and plant development. Its positioning at the intersection of organellar RNA and protein metabolism makes it a unique point for the regulation of gene expression in response to internal and external cues. Recently obtained high-resolution structures of plastid ribosomes, the development of approaches allowing genome-wide analyses of chloroplast translation (i.e., ribosome profiling), and the discovery of RNA binding proteins involved in the control of translational activity have greatly increased our understanding of the chloroplast translation process and its regulation. In this review, we provide an overview of the current knowledge of the chloroplast translation machinery, its structure, organization, and function. In addition, we summarize the techniques that are currently available to study chloroplast translation and describe how translational activity is controlled and which cis-elements and trans-factors are involved. Finally, we discuss how translational control contributes to the regulation of chloroplast gene expression in response to developmental, environmental, and physiological cues. We also illustrate the commonalities and the differences between the chloroplast and bacterial translation machineries and the mechanisms of protein biosynthesis in these two prokaryotic systems.