Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analytical and experimental study on shear performance of RCC beam elements reinforced with PSWC rebars: a comparative study

Early distress in RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) structures in the recent times poses a major problem for the construction industry. It is found that in most of cases, distresses in reinforced concrete structures are caused by corrosion of rebar embedded in the concrete. The HYSD (High Yield Strength Deformed) rebars which are used to offer excellent strength properties is detrimental to durability due to action of ribs as stress concentrators. Nowadays, concept of PSWC rebars (plain surface with wave type configuration rebars, formerly known as C-bars/mild steel rebar with curvy profile) is emerging to have a compromise between strength and durability. This investigation assesses the flexural behaviour of RCC elements reinforced with PSWC rebars. The flexural performance of RC beams of size 1000mm x 150mm x 150mm reinforced with PSWC rebars at 4mm and 6mm deformation level was studied by conducting test as per IS 516-1959 under four point loading. The performance of PSWC bar reinforced elements are compared with beams reinforced with mild steel rebars, HYSD rebars with spiral and diamond rib configuration to assess the viability of PSWC rebars to replace conventional reinforcement. The test results are validated by numerical analysis with the help of ANSYS software. Totally 15 beams are subjected to flexure test and the performance evaluators are first crack load, deflection at first crack load, ultimate load carrying capacity, deflection at ultimate load, loaddeflection behaviour, load-strain behaviour and failure pattern. It is found that PSWC rebars as reinforcement in concrete beams enhanced the ductile behaviour of beams as compared to conventional HYSD and mild steel rebar beams. The energy absorbing capacity has increased significantly for beams reinforced with PSWC rebars when compared with conventional HYSD and mild steel rebar beams. The load-deflection behaviour and failure mode of PSWC rebars reinforced concrete beams were found to be similar to that of high yield strength rebars irrespective of deformation level. The analytical investigation from ANSYS software gave good agreement with the experimental results. It is concluded that PSWC bar has the potential to replace conventional HYSD rebar. Further study needs to be done to optimize the profile level and stirrup locations; and usage with high concrete grade for effective exploitation. A R T I C L E I N F O
Prosodic Phrasing in Bangla: The Effect of Phrase Length and Speech Rate

The present study focuses on the effect of speech rate and the interaction of speech rate and phrase length on the prosodic organisation of utterances in Bangla. Drawing upon the idea of Prosodic Domains in languages and default phonological patterning of prosodic segmentation of utterances into rhythmic groups, the paper tries to shed light on the overriding factors such as syntactic phrase length and rate of speech on Prosodic phrasing. Declarative sentences of varied length, transitive and intransitive, have been examined and the observations denote the fact that with more casual and faster rate of speech syntactic boundaries does not correspond to prosodic boundary in Bangla. It also appears that the minimum requirement of words per P-phrase motivates the P-phrasing in Bangla rather than syntactic boundaries in few cases. Adjunct phrases, however constitute separate P-phrase and articles are phonologically null, therefore is always included in the preceding P-phrase.
Changes of Carbohydrate and Protein Contents in Bulbs of Tulipa gesneriana L.during Flower Bud Differentiation

Two different tulip cultivars,Tulipa gesneriana L.cv. 'Judith Leyster' and 'Big Smile',were adopted in the experiment.The course of flower bud differentiation was observed and the contents of carbohydrate and soluble protein were measured during flower bud differentiation.The results showed that the amounts of carbohydrate during the bud differentiation showed a similar tendency among the two cultivars.Along with the decrease of the water content,the contents of the total soluble sugar and protein increased at the beginning,reaching to the peaks in the outer petal differentiation stage then began to decline.The amylase activity increased to a stable level during bud differentiation,while the change of starch content exhibited a little fluctuation.It was the marker of the initiation of tulip flower bud morphological differentiation that soluble sugar content and amylase activity of the scales increased together.The primary source of nutrient in the flower bud differentiation periods is the inner scales relative to the outer scales.
The Effect of Dietary Teak Leaf Extract (Tectona grandis Linn. f) on Egg Quality of Laying Hens

DOI: 10.21276/sjavs.2018. 5.9. 3 Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of teak leaf extract (Tectona grandis Linn. f) as feed additive on egg quality of laying hens. The materials used were 240 Isa Brown laying hens aged at 30 weeks old with average egg mass was 53.13±3.26 g. The method used was experiment in a completely randomized design. The birds were divided into six dietary treatments with four replications (10 birds of each replication). The treatments used were basal diet without teak leaf extract as negative control (R0), basal diet with 0.015% of virginiamycin as positive control (R1), and basal diet with teak leaf extract at 0.4% (R2), 0.8% (R3), 1.2% (R4), and 1.6% (R5). Variables measured in this study were egg weight, albumen weight, yolk weight, eggshell weight, albumen percentage, yolk percentage, eggshell percentage, Haugh unit, shell thickness, and yolk color score. Data were analyzed by using analysis of variance, while the significance of differences among treatment means were evaluated by using Duncan Multiple Range Test. The results showed that the addition of teak leaf extract in the laying hens diets significantly affect (P<0.01) egg weight, albumen weight, eggshell weight, eggshell percentage, Haugh unit, shell thickness, and yolk color score. The inclusion of 1.2% teak leaf extract in the diet gives the best effect on the egg quality of laying hens.
SEGMENTATION OF VESSELS IMAGES ON ANGIOGRAMS IN SPACE OF TRANSFORMATION COEFFICIENTS WITH COMMON WAVELET FUNCTIONS

: The method of vessel segmentation on angiogram is elaborated. It includes the analysis of own values of Hessian for every pixel of image. The elements of Hessian calculated from the image convolution by the common wavelet functions with a compact support. This decreases the conputational complexity of method of segmentation of angiograms due to replacement of a few levels of data processing by one.
Training and certification in intensive and acute cardiovascular care

Acute cardiovascular care (ACVC) is now a complex and technical subspecialty of cardiology. Specific training in ACVC is warranted, in addition to skills acquired during the initial phase of cardiology training. Data are available that show that this training brings benefits to patients and improves their outcome. The Association for Acute CardioVascular Care (ACVC) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) offers a comprehensive postgraduate programme in ACVC. This programme is in line with the three levels of expertise described for intensive cardiac care unit organization. A curriculum focused on initial training is also available through the American College of Cardiology. Both curricula are competencybased. Teaching practical knowledge and skills through simulation should be integrated throughout training in ACVC. To measure specific and overall achievement in competencies, different and complementary tools are available. Diffusion of the certification process, like the one provided by the ESCACVC, is important for ACVC to be recognized as a cardiology subspecialty.
Niche Breadth: Causes and Consequences for Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation

Niche breadth is a unifying concept spanning diverse aspects of ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Niche breadth usually refers to the diversity of resources used or environments tolerated by an individual, population, species, or clade. Here we review key research in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology in light of niche breadth. Namely, we explore the role of niche breadth in shaping geographic distributions and species richness from local to landscape scales, how niche breadth evolves and influences lineage diversification, and its use for understanding species invasions, responses to climate change, vulnerability to extinction, and ecosystem functioning. This diverse literature informs a research agenda that identifies focused needs for further progress: testing the hierarchical nature of niche breadth (e.g., of individuals, populations, and species); quantifying correlations in niche breadth among different niche axes and the role of environmental drivers and organismal constraints in generating these correlations; and evaluating the factors that decouple fundamental and realized niches. We describe how this research agenda could help unify disparate subdisciplines and shed light on key questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation.
The Relationship Between TSH Level and Stage of Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels during the diagnosis of patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma could be used for the prediction of cancer behavior. Material and Methods: The records of 329 patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma who did not use levothyroxine at the time of diagnosis were reviewed retrospectively. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the cases and serum TSH levels were recorded at the time of diagnosis and statistically analyzed. Results: A total of 329 cases with 322 papillary carcinomas and 7 follicular carcinomas were included in the study. The median age of the participants at the time of diagnosis was 45 (17-76) years. Eighty-three percent of the cases were diagnosed in stage 1, 6.7% in stage 2, 3.3% in stage 3, and 7.0% in stage 4. The median serum TSH level at the time of diagnosis of the cases was 1.34 (0.019.97) mIU/mL. We did not observe any statistically significant relationship between the serum TSH level and the stage of differentiated thyroid carcinoma, although higher serum TSH level was associated with lymph node metastasis and higher risk group in the American Thyroid Association (ATA) classification. Conclusion: The relationship between serum TSH level and thyroid cancer has not been clearly determined, but high TSH levels at the time of diagnosis were found to be associated with lymph node metastasis and medium-high ATA risk score.
Distalization of the entire maxillary arch with mini-implants in the posterior palatal alveolus- A case report

A 22 year old male patient reported to the hospital with a chief complaint of forwardly placed teeth. On examination patient had Angle’s Class I malocclusion and proclination of the anterior teeth. There were signs of frictional keratosis on the buccal mucosa. Treatment plan was to extract the third molars alone and distalize the entire maxillary arch with palatal mini-implants. 0.022 MBT brackets were bonded on the buccal aspect. 0.019” x 0.025” stainless steel wire was placed sequentially. Mini-implants were placed on the posterior alveolus on the palatal surface of maxilla. Retractive force was applied from an attachment bonded on the palatal aspect of the maxillary canine. Patient was reviewed periodically. Comparison of pre-treatment and posttreatment results revealed that the entire maxillary arch intruded and translated distally with a counterclockwise rotation of the mandible with reduction in LAFH. There was a mild reduction in inter-canine with marginal expansion in the premolar and molar region. An improvement in facial profile was noted with no sign of root resorption. Thus, the posterior alveolus may be considered as a new and appropriate site for placement of mini-implant to bring about distal movement of the entire maxillary dentition.KeywordsOrthodontic anchorage procedures; Bone screw; Palate.
Short Communication The Effect of Interferon β-1a on MMP-2 and MMP-9 Proteolytic Activity (IFN β-1a / MMP-2 / MMP-9 / zymography)

Metalloproteinaze (MMP) MMP-2 and MMP-9 are Zn2+-dependent endopep tidases that degrade compounds of extracellular matrix ECM such as different types of collagen (mainly type IV), elastin, and laminin (Chandler et al., 1997). MMP-2 and MMP-9 disrupt the subendothelial basal membrane; therefore, they are responsible for the facilitation of leukocyte migration across the vessel wall and the development of the inflammatory process (Opdenakker et al., 2001). Both enzymes play a significant role in numerous physiological and pathological processes. An example is multiple sclerosis (MS), where MMP-2 and MMP-9 are involved in blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption. MMP-9 seems to be associated with the active MS, whereas MMP-2 is more specific for chronic progressive MS (Avolio et al., 2003). Recombinant interferon β-1a (IFN β-1a) exerts immunomodulatory properties during MS treatment, decreases gandolinium-enhancing lesions of the white matter on magnetic resonance imagin (MRI) scans and restores the BBB mainly due to downregulation of MMP-9 expression (Avolio et al., 2005). Previous studies showed that IFN β-1b can also inhibit MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity at the posttranslational level, probably through interaction between the drug and the enzyme (Kieseier and Hartung, 2004). IFN β-1b displays some differences in comparison with IFN β-1a (a slightly different amino acid structure and lack of the glycosylated moiety). The structure of IFN β-1a is consistent with natural human IFN-β with a high glycosylation ratio. The aim of our study was to evaluate the direct effect of IFN β-1a on serum MMP-2 and MMP-9 gelatinolytic activity.
Biodentine™ – use in dentistry. Literature review

Abstract Introduction: The concept of “regenerative endodontics”, adopted by the American Association of Endodontics in 2007 was, to an appreciable extent, connected with the introduction of bioactive materials such as Biodentine™ to dental treatment. In the field of biomedical therapeutic materials, the concept of tissue engineering is distinguishable with respect to establishing procedures and materials such as Biodentine™ aimed at replacing injured tissues with those newly developed. The use of Biodentine™ has quickly become a widespread practice in dentistry, commonly used in the biological treatment of pulp and root canal treatment. The aim of this article is a literature review on the use of Biodentine™ in dental practice and its specific characteristics, based on the latest scientific knowledge. Materials and methods: Articles published since the launch of the material into the market were sourced and classified according to the topic they focussed on. A total of 52 papers were chosen, encompassing those directly focusing on Biodentine™, as well as other relevant papers not mentioning Biodentine™, but pertaining to dental materials in general. Conclusion: On the grounds of this analysis of literature on the subject, it can be concluded that bioactive materials such as Biodentine™ have a wide range of application in therapeutic dental procedures. There are numerous studies presenting the advantages of this group of materials. However, the use of Biodentine™ still requires a comprehensive and long-term analysis to unequivocally confirm its therapeutic success following use of this material.
Interaction of Some Heavy Metals with Copper Content in Dock Plant

Bu calismada, Labada bitkisinde bakir icerigi ve bazi agir metallerle (Cr, Cd ve Pb) interaksiyonu arastirilmistir. Bazi agir metallerle (Cr, Cd ve Pb) kirlenmis topraklarda yetisen tibbi aromatik bir bitki olan Labada (Rumex patientia L.), yetistirilmistir. Bu amacla, her saksiya 100 mgkg-1 Cr, Cd ve Pb uygulandi. Topraklarindaki bakir icerigi 1,50 mgkg-1 olarak bulunmustur. Metallerle kontamine olmus topraklara artan dozlarda (0, 5, 10 ve 15 mmol kg-1) EDTA selat verilmistir. Iki aylik denemenin sonunda, bitkiler hasat edildi. Denemede labada bitkisine artan dozlarda verilen selat ile sabit dozda verilen agir metaller ile bakir icerikleri karsilastirilmistir. Deneme sonuclarina gore, artan dozlarda selat uygulamalari ozellikle kursun ve kadmiyum iceriklerinin arttirilmasi, bitki yapraklarinda bakir iceriginin azalmasina neden olmustur. Ancak, bitki kok bolgesinde tam tersi bir durum gozlenmistir. Bu artislar % 1 duzeyinde istatistiksel olarak anlamli bulunmustur. Labada, agir metalleri biriktirme ozelligine sahip aromatik ve hiperakumulator bitki olarak belirlenmistir. Topraklarin islahinda, otoyol veya karayollari kenarlarinda yer alan tarim arazilerinde biriken agir metallerin gideriminde labada bitkisi kullanilabilir.
MOMENT METHOD TREATMENT OF CORRUGATIONS WITH FINS OVER RIDGES AND STRATIFIED COVERS USING DYADIC CAVITY AND MULTILAYER GREEN'S FUNCTIONS FOR STUDIES OF HIGHER-ORDER DIFFRACTION MODES

Herein presented is a numerical treatment of plane-wave scattering by gratings with metallic strip linings over both exterior surfaces of each conducting bar to create flanged groove apertures, which altogether is covered on both sides by multiple dielectric layers. The technique hinges on the method of moments that employs parallel-plate waveguide cavity dyadic Green’s functions and a numerical spectral Green’s function for planar stratified media along with Floquet concepts as well as the PEC equivalence theorem. In terms of reflection and transmission characteristics as well as surface wave modal dispersion, results computed by codes written based on this formulation are validated with those simulated by a commercial solver as well as in literature. Arising from the special complex geometry, the additional degrees of freedom offer measures for enhancing the performances of various applications such as beam deflectors, resolution of spectroscopic gratings, grating couplers, and grating pulse compression/decompression.
Y-SHAPED CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK FOR 3D ROOF ELEMENTS EXTRACTION TO RECONSTRUCT BUILDING MODELS FROM A SINGLE AERIAL IMAGE

Abstract. Fast and efficient detection and reconstruction of buildings have become essential in real-time applications such as navigation, 3D rendering, augmented reality, and 3D smart cities. In this study, a modern Deep Learning (DL)-based framework is proposed for automatic detection, localization, and height estimation of buildings, simultaneously, from a single aerial image. The proposed framework is based on a Y-shaped Convolutional Neural Network (Y-Net) which includes one encoder and two decoders. The input of the network is a single RGB image, while the outputs are predicted height information of buildings as well as the rooflines in three classes of eave, ridge, and hip lines. The extracted knowledge by the Y-Net (i.e. buildings’ heights and rooflines) is utilized for 3D reconstruction of buildings based on the third Level of Detail (LoD2). The main steps of the proposed approach are data preparation, CNNs training, and 3D reconstruction. For the experimental investigations airborne data from Potsdam are used, which were provided by ISPRS. For the predicted heights, the results show an average Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and a Normalized Median Absolute Deviation (NMAD) of about 3.8 m and 1.3 m, respectively. Moreover, the overall accuracy of the extracted rooflines is about 86%.
Coordination Mechanism of Supply Chain considering the Bullwhip Effect under Digital Technologies

The bullwhip effect (BWE) and stochastic demand coexist in supply chain operation management, which leads to a lower performance. In recent years, with the development of blockchain, cloud computing, big data, and other digital technologies (DTs), many enterprises hope to use them to weaken the BWE and improve profits. This paper focuses on improving the application level of DTs in the supply chain through coordination for enhancing the performance. We consider a supply chain with one-supplier-one-retailer and coordinate it with the cost-sharing contract and revenue-cost-sharing contract (the improved contract). We find out that the retailer and supplier did not always have the willingness to use DTs to alleviate the BWE. Even if they have the intention to use DTs, their ideal application level is not the same. After coordination, both the application level of DTs and the performance of the supply chain are improved, and we find that the improved contract has a better coordination effect. Finally, we validate our model by numerical simulation.
Terahertz Massive MIMO With Holographic Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

We propose a holographic version of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and investigate its application to terahertz (THz) massive multiple-input multiple-output systems. Capitalizing on the miniaturization of THz electronic components, RISs can be implemented by densely packing sub-wavelength unit cells, so as to realize continuous or quasi-continuous apertures and to enable holographic communications. In this paper, in particular, we derive the beam pattern of a holographic RIS. Our analysis reveals that the beam pattern of an ideal holographic RIS can be well approximated by that of an ultra-dense RIS, which has a more practical hardware architecture. In addition, we propose a closed-loop channel estimation (CE) scheme to effectively estimate the broadband channels that characterize THz massive MIMO systems aided by holographic RISs. The proposed CE scheme includes a downlink coarse CE stage and an uplink finer-grained CE stage. The uplink pilot signals are judiciously designed for obtaining good CE performance. Moreover, to reduce the pilot overhead, we introduce a compressive sensing-based CE algorithm, which exploits the dual sparsity of THz MIMO channels in both the angular domain and delay domain. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of holographic RISs over the non-holographic ones, and the effectiveness of the proposed CE scheme.
FusionStitching: Boosting Memory Intensive Computations for Deep Learning Workloads

We show in this work that memory intensive computations can result in severe performance problems due to off-chip memory access and CPU-GPU context switch overheads in a wide range of deep learning models. For this problem, current just-in-time kernel fusion and code generation techniques have limitations, such as kernel schedule incompatibilities and rough fusion plan exploration strategies. We propose FusionStitching, a Deep Learning compiler capable of fusing memory intensive operators, with varied data dependencies and non-homogeneous parallelism, into large GPU kernels to reduce global memory access and operation scheduling overhead automatically. FusionStitching explores large fusion spaces to decide optimal fusion plans with considerations of memory access costs, kernel calls and resource usage constraints. We thoroughly study the schemes to stitch operators together for complex scenarios. FusionStitching tunes the optimal stitching scheme just-in-time with a domain-specific cost model efficiently. Experimental results show that FusionStitching can reach up to 2.78x speedup compared to TensorFlow and current state-of-the-art. Besides these experimental results, we integrated our approach into a compiler product and deployed it onto a production cluster for AI workloads with thousands of GPUs. The system has been in operation for more than 4 months and saves 7,000 GPU hours on average for approximately 30,000 tasks per month.