Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LIGHT-ACTUATED AC ELECTROOSMOSIS FOR OPTICAL MANIPULATION OF NANOSCALE PARTICLES

We report on a novel light actuated ac electroosmosis (LACE) mechanism enabling optical manipulation of nanoscale particles on a featureless photoconductive surface using direct optical images. This mechanism applied optically patterned microfluidic vortices to circulate the nanoscopic particles onto the surface of light patterned virtual electrodes and trap them via the strong electrokinetic forces near the surface. For particles larger than 1 μm, we are able to achieve 31,000 individually addressable particle traps across a 1.3×1 mm area. Each trap is created by one micromirror pixel of the digital-micromirror-devices (DMD) spatial light modulator used for patterning the optical images. For nanoscale particles, we have demonstrated optically guided concentration and transportation of 200 nm fluorescent nanoparticles.
Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness and Oxidative Stress Parameters in Migraine Patients without Aura: A Pilot Study

Background: Migraine is one of the most common disorders and its pathophysiological mechanisms are still under research, oxidative stress being emphasized as an important contributor. This study aimed to analyze the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and oxidative/anti-oxidant balance in migraine patients. Methods: Two groups of subjects were evaluated: a group of patients with migraine and a control group of healthy volunteers. RNFL thickness was assessed for all subjects by the ocular coherence tomography spectral domain (OCT-SD). The oxidative stress parameter, namely nitric oxide (NOx), malondialdehyde (MDA), and total oxidative stress (TOS) were assessed. The antioxidant capacity of plasma was evaluated by assessing the level of catalase, and total anti-oxidative (TOS) capacity. Migraine severity was graded using the Migraine Disability Assessment Score (MIDAS) questionnaire. Results: All the oxidative stress parameters (NOx, MDA, and TOS) were significantly increased, and both parameters for anti-oxidative status were significantly decreased in the migraine group compared with the control group (p < 0.0001). Significant correlations with all the quadrants and different oxidative stress parameters were found, most involved being temporal quadrant. A significant positive correlation between catalase and macular RNFL thickness (inner ring, temporal quadrant) in migraine patients, for both eyes, was observed (p = 0.014 for the right eye and p = 0.12 for the left eye). Conclusion: The assessment of the oxidative stress/anti-oxidative balance together with RFLN thickness can constitute a promising method to evaluate the progression of the diseases. It can also contribute to the estimation of the efficiency of various therapies targeting oxidative stress and associated inflammation.
Time Series Analysis of Large Scale Rainfall Data Using Regression Automata Models

Rainfall is considered as the most important phenomena of the climate system. Due to the lack of adequate irrigation facilities, agriculture becomes vulnerable, which is the backbone of a country's economy. The rainfall can be able to predict by using selective appropriate predictors. Though several models have been developed for forecasting and predicting in Time Series (TS), there is no ideal model to predict the rainfall. In recent years, Automata is useful for forecasting and prediction of hydrological TS because automata help to predict the rainfall from the uncertainty data. The motivation of this work is to design a reliable tool for predicting daily rainfall in advance using Regression Automata (RA) models. The proposed method uses three different RA models for predicting rainfall from the collected data for four stations in Queensland State. The results clearly show that the all the three RA models can predict the rainfall very efficiently in various terms such as error rate, coefficients and
Nutritional Counseling in Midwifery and Obstetric Practice

It is generally acknowledged that pregnant women require healthy diets. However, the cultural idea of “eating for two” and what constitutes an “appropriate” diet during pregnancy have been contested grounds of research as guidelines have changed over the decades. Using a grounded theory approach, we examine how research on pregnancy nutrition is incorporated into practice and translated to patients by obstetricians and 2 categories of midwives—certified nurse midwives (CNMs) and direct-entry midwives (DEMs). Five themes emerged from interviews: (1) food and exercise as “two sides of the same coin”; (2) “good food” and “food that harms” dichotomies; (3) nutrition as holistic prevention; (4) institutionalized barriers to nutritional counseling; and (5) food and the obesity epidemic. An exploration of the conceptual connections between these themes by provider type suggests mechanisms that we argue may be functioning to produce, reproduce, and perpetuate midwifery and medical models of care and associated provider-effects on nutrition-related complications.
Poster : IDE Plugins for Secure Coding

Many vulnerabilities in products and systems could be avoided if better secure coding practices were in place. There exist a number of Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plugins which help developers check for security flaws while they code. In this work, we present a review of such plugins. We believe that this work lays the groundwork for future research in this area by synthesizing the information necessary to orient researchers choosing to tackle this underexplored space.
Causal and counterfactual dependence on probabilistic causal teams

In recent interventionist theories of causation (e.g.[6], [3]), one defines causal relationships in roughly the following way: the variable X is a (total) cause of the variable Y if there is an intervention on X which changes the probability of Y = y for some value y of Y . Thus, in order to give an account of causation, one needs to (i) be able talk about the probability of the values of the relevant variables; and (ii) to give an account of interventions. It is generally acknowledged (Woodward, Pearl) that if, in addition, one wants the causal relationship to be a robust one, that is, to sustain counterfactuals (if X = x had been the case, then Y = y would have been the case), then one also needs (iii) to specify explicitly a deterministic mechanism or a law (structural equation) which connects X and Y . In a joint work with Fausto Barbero, we introduced a probabilistic language interpreted over causal multiteams, an extension of the team semantics which was originally introduced by Hodges ([2]) to give an interpretation of Hintikka and Sandu’s Independence-friendly (IF) languages, and afterwards extensively used by Väänänen ([4]) and others as a semantical framework for Dependence Logic. The transition from teams to multiteams ([1]; [5]) is needed in order to capture step (i). To implement steps (ii) and (iii) we still need to extend multiteams with mechanisms representing interventions and structural equations. The result is a logical language which is more general than the ones existing in the standard literature on causation, being able to express various notions of causal, counterfactual, and probabilistic (in)dependence and which works for both recursive and non-recursive systems.
EFFECT ON POPULATION DYNAMICS TO HALOXYLON PERSICUM IN DIFFERENT EDAPHIC TYPES

This study investigated the age class structure of H. persicum populations in different edaphic types in Gurbantünggüt desert and analyzed the survival rate, mortality rate and spectral analysis characteristics. The results showed that the survival curve of H. persicum populations tended to be the type of Deevey-III, the mortality rate of H. persicum was high at early stage and low at late stage, There existed 2-4 death peak phases in the whole population life span. The natural regeneration process of the H. persicum population can be represented by the fluctuation of the distribution of the number of trees in different age classes. Spectral analysis showed that the fluctuation of H. persicum population was multi-harmonic superposition with large periodic containing small periodic, and had more than two periodic fluctuation. Upscaling process of spectral analysis indicated that the periodic fluctuation of H. persicum population becomes constant in relatively small sampling plot (4400-5600 m), when it is growing under relatively good environmental conditions in the Gurbantünggüt desert. On the other hand, when the growing conditions are poor, large plot (4000-9200 m) is needed to obtain constant population. Accordingly, different plot sizes should be used for spectral analysis to reveal the periodic fluctuation on the optimal scale.
3 D ResNets for 3 D object classification

During the last few years, deeper and deeper networks have been constantly proposed for addressing computer vision tasks. Residual Networks (ResNets) are the latest advancement in the field of deep learning that led to remarkable results in several image recognition and detection tasks. In this work, we modify two variants of the original ResNets, i.e. Wide Residual Networks (WRNs) and Residual of Residual Networks (RoRs), to work on 3D data and investigate for the first time, to our knowledge, their performance in the task of 3D object classification. We use a dataset containing volumetric representations of 3D models so as to fully exploit the underlying 3D information and present evidence that ‘3D ResNets’ constitute a valuable tool for classifying objects on 3D data as well.
Scattered Distribution of Transcription Start Sites Confers Retrotransposability to the Promoters

Retrotransposition is the molecular mechanism of forming processed pseudogenes in a wide range of genomes. In the process of a retrotransposition, a processed mRNA is first reversed transcribed to cDNA by endogenous reverse transcriptase and randomly integrated into certain chromosomal regions. Since transcription initiates downstream from a promoter sequence, the promoter is generally thought not to be transcribed. However, it has recently been shown that retroduplication of mRNA has also generated new functional genes [2] as often seen in segmental duplication. While most of these events have presumably resulted in pseudogenes or been negatively selected, others must have somehow resulted in the acquisition of a new active promoter. Hence, it is likely that promoter analysis of transcriptionally active retrotransposed genes offers a unique opportunity to investigate the evolutionary construction of promoter sequences. In this study, we identified 29 pairs of such genes in the human genome and found a retrotransposability of promoters per se.
Identification of the Suicid Attempt Risk Factors among Patients Admitted in a Central Trauma Hospital in Fars , Iran

Background: Suicidal attempt is considered to be a major health problem around the world. Recent statistics in Iran indicate the rising trend of committing suicide in recent years. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors in subjects who attempted suicide and were admitted in Shahid Rajaee (Emtiaz) Trauma Hospital, Shiraz, Iran from 2010 to 2015. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 81 out of 243 suicidal attempt patients were selected to participate in the study and interviewed and 81 patients with unintentional injuries were selected by systematic random sampling from trauma patients who referred to the abovementioned hospital by other mechanisms of injury in the same period. Demographic data and risk factors were evaluated through a data collection form. Results : In this study, in suicidal attempt patients group, 87.7% were men and 12.3% women and for the unintentional injury group, 25.9% were women and 74.1% were men. Mean age for patient in case and control group were respectively 27±10.41 and 37.28±16.85. Age <30 (OR=0.89), gender (male: OR=6.17), and self-employment (OR=3.94), medication history (OR=10.17), beating history (OR=0.17), history of educational problem (OR=22.78), and living situation (unmarried: OR=36.06, alone: OR=35.93) were significant risk factors for attempting suicide. Conclusion: Youth is an important risk associated with suicidal attempt. Therefore, suicide prevention strategies are important in this vulnerable group. Also, most suicides were attempted by males. Self-employment, medication history, educational problems, a positive history of psychiatric disorder, and living alone or being unmarried were important risk factors for suicide and suicidal attempts.
Influence of Multifunctional Bio-Formulations on Productivity of Some Soybean Varieties

Two field experiments were conducted during summer seasons of 2012 and 2013, at Seds Agric. Res Station in Beni Sewif Governorate to study the effect of some bio-fertilizers (PGPR) combined with mineral N, P and K fertilizer on the soybean cultivars (Giza 21, 35 and 111) productivity. Five microbial inoculants, Bradyrhizobium Japonicum strain 110 , Bacillus megatherium var phosphaticum (B6) , Bacillus subtilis , Serratia sp and Psedumonas flurorescence combined with 1/3 mineral N and 1/2 P fertilizers were experimented randomized complete block design with three replications was applied. Results showed that inoculated plant hosted the highest No. of nodules /plant for varieties Giza 35 and Giza 111, while cultivar Giza 21 was the inferior. The highest increases in nodules dry weights were recorded in case of inoculation with biofertilizers in all treatments specially the mixture of Bradyrhizobium Japonicum strain 110 + Bacillus megatherium + Pseudomonas fluorescence + Bacillus subtilis + Serratia sp. + 1/3 N +1/2 P + full K. The effect of all treatments studies were significant affected increase on CO2 for Giza 35, Giza 21 and Giza111. On the other hand, the effect of application bio-fertilizers combined with mineral fertilizers on height plant (cm) was significant for variety Giza 35, while the Giza 21 and Giza 111 no significant effect. Flowering and maturity were no significantly influenced by the main effect of bio-fertilization combined with inorganic fertilizers on soybean varieties. The application of bio-fertilizer and inorganic fertilizer led to significantly increase of No. seeds /plant for all soybean varieties, while the weight of seeds yield (Mg/kg) was significant increase for Giza 35 and Giza 21. Concerning that the N content (mg/plant) and P concentration (%) in seeds of soybean inoculated with bio-fertilizers combined with mineral fertilization were no significant for Giza 35 and Giza 21, while the K concentration in seeds of soybean variety (Giz 21, 111 and 35) was significant. The effect of biofertilizers combined with mineral fertilizers on oil content (%) was no significant affected for Giza 21, 35 and 111, while the oil yield (kg /fed) was significant . respectively. From the above results could be recommend using bio-fertilizers and reduce the mineral fertilizers and cultivation soybean Giza 111 and 35 under the same conditions in the study.
Interferon-γ and tumor necrosis factor-α act synergistically to up-regulate tissue factor in alveolar epithelial cells

ABSTRACT Fibrin deposition mediated through activation of tissue factor (TF) in the airspace is central to the pathogenesis of acute lung injury. Defining the mechanisms of TF regulation in the lung is critical to understanding pulmonary fibrin formation. Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) up-regulates TF in the injured lung, and there is emerging evidence that another cytokine, interferon-γ (IFN-γ), also modulates expression. The effects of TNF-α and IFN-γ on regulation of TF were studied in alveolar epithelial A549 cells. In addition, potential mechanisms of modulation of TF expression by the 2 cytokines were analyzed with the hypothesis that IFN-γ acts synergistically with TNF-α to up-regulate alveolar epithelial TF through modulation of TNF receptor (TNFR) expression. TNF-α but not IFN-γ treatment increased TF mRNA, protein, and cell surface TF activity. The combination of IFN-γ and TNF-α treatment augmented the effects of TNF-α on TF up-regulation and also increased release of procoagulant microparticles (MPs) from A549 cells. IFN-γ modulated expression of both TNF-α receptors. Studies utilizing neutralizing antibodies against the two TNF receptors showed that the TF effects were mediated primarily through augmentation of TNFR1-dependent cellular responses. These findings have important implications for regulation of fibrin formation in the lung in the setting of acute inflammation.
The value of the existing natural gas system for hydrogen , the sustainable future energy carrier ( progress obtained in the NATURALHY-project )

Hydrogen is foreseen as an important energy carrier in the future sustainable energy society. The transition towards the situation in which hydrogen becomes an important energy carrier will be lengthy (decades), costly and needs a significant effort for R&D. In view of this, an examination of the potential of using the existing natural gas pipeline system for the transmission and distribution of hydrogen is a logical first step. The NATURALHY-project investigates the conditions under which hydrogen can be added to natural gas with acceptable consequences for safety, durability of the system, gas quality management and performance of the end-user appliances. Membranes will be developed to subtract hydrogen from a hydrogen/natural gas mixture for use by hydrogen powered equipment. The NATURALHY-project is the main European project on hydrogen delivery, in which 39 partners participate. The project is financially funded by the European Commission, and is recognised by the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy. The existing natural gas system has been designed for natural gas. The physical properties of hydrogen differ from natural gas and consequently the impact of hydrogen added to natural gas on the durability of the materials of the grids should be studied in order to up-date the tools of integrity management previously assessed with only natural gas. Therefore the following subjects will be assessed: effect of H2 on failure behaviour and corrosion of transmission pipes and their burst resistance, permeability and ageing of distribution pipes, reliability and ageing of domestic gas meters, tightness to H2 of domestic appliances and their connections. In terms of safety, the addition of hydrogen to the natural gas within the pipeline has the potential to change (increase) the level of risk presented to the public, because of the different physical and chemical properties of this gas. In particular, hydrogen could increase the likelihood of failures occurring and might increase the severity of the consequences due to the increased reactivity of hydrogen. Therefore, within the NATURALHY project, the risks presented to the public by operating a natural gas network conveying a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen must be examined. A major part of this work will be to assess the fire and explosion hazards presented by accidental releases of natural gas/hydrogen mixtures for comparison with natural gas alone. This will be achieved by conducting large scale experiments and developing improved mathematical models. By combining new information on failure frequency with a revised assessment of the consequences, the risks presented to the public by the proposed introduction of hydrogen can be reassessed. In particular, by varying the level of hydrogen, it may be possible to identify the maximum ‘safe’ level which could be introduced whilst maintaining an acceptable risk to the public.
Intraspecific variability in egg maturation patterns and associated life-history trade-offs in a polyembryonic parasitoid wasp

1. Life-history theory predicts a trade-off between the resources allocated to reproduction and those allocated to survival. Early maturation of eggs (pro-ovigeny) is correlated with small body size and low adult longevity in interspecific comparisons among parasitoids, demonstrating this trade-off. The handful of studies that have tested for similar correlations within species produced conflicting results. 2. Egg maturation patterns and related life-history traits were studied in the polyembryonic parasitoid wasp, Copidosoma koehleri (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae). Although the genus Copidosoma was previously reported to be fully pro-ovigenic, mean egg loads of host-deprived females almost doubled within their first 6 days of adulthood. 3. The initial egg-loads of newly emerged females were determined and age-specific realised fecundity curves were constructed for their clone-mate twins. The females’ initial egg loads increased with body size, but neither body size nor initial egg load was correlated with longevity and fecundity. 4. The variation in initial egg loads was lowest among clone-mates, intermediate among non-clone sisters and highest among non-sister females. The within-clone variability indicates environmental influences on egg maturation, while the between-clone variation may be genetically based. 5. Ovaries of host-deprived females contained fewer eggs at death (at∼29 days) than on day 6. Their egg loads at death were negatively correlated with life span, consistent with reduced egg production and/or egg resorption. Host deprivation prolonged the wasps’ life span, suggesting a survival cost to egg maturation and oviposition. 6. It is concluded that adult fecundity and longevity were not traded off with pre-adult egg maturation.
START UP WITH DESIGN-FOSTERING DESIGN ORIENTATION IN START-UP COMPANIES

In this paper we investigate how the integration of designers’ work approaches and their problem solving skills may become an integral part of entrepreneurial behavior. The goal of our research is to explore whether a certain design orientation can be established, and if the successful implementation of such a design orientation may help a company solve various strategic problems. As playground for these investigations we use a third-party project, which strives for initiating, fostering and integrating design orientation into the strategy process of start-up companies. Two of our project partners developed a series of design workshops, which aim to immerse participants in design thinking and therefore apply a learning process based on learning-by-doing and experiencing. As an evaluation methodology for these workshops we use semi-structured interviews. Current results indicate that the inclusion of designer’s work practices during the initiation and early working phases of start-up companies leads to the implementation and fostering of design orientation.