Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Membrane separations in ionic liquid assisted processing of lignocellulosic biomass

2nd genera on biofuels currently hold a significant market share. With increasing impact of biofuel its produc on routes have to be op mized in terms of CO2 emissions, compe onwith the food chain and u liza on of thewhole plant. The cluster of excellence "Tailor-made Fuels fromBiomass" inves gates processing of lignocellulosic biomass to next genera on biofuels. Complete u liza on of the rawmaterial is achieved by ini al separa on of its cons tuents cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin under mild condi ons. These three frac ons can be chemically or biocataly cally converted under independently op mized condi ons. This allows for the complete conversion of the plant material to valuable fuel compounds or side-products such as itaconic acid. The frac ona on of wooden biomass is performed with ionic liquid. Ionic liquid allows for the disintegra on of the strong ligno-cellulose bonds, resul ng in the dissolu on of the raw material. A feasible frac ona on of the cons tuents is part of the process design. Cellulose, for instance, is separated from the solu on via precipita on with water. The cellulose frac on is than hydrolysed to glucose, which is fermented to itaconic acid. Itaconic acid serves as intermediate for the forma on of 2-MTHF (2-methyltetrahydrofurane), a prospec ve fuel candidate. In this thesis the conversion of cellulose to glucose downstream of the wood dissolu on process in Ionic Liquid is discussed. This sub-process comprises the pretreatment of cellulose with ionic liquid to reduce its crystallinity. The amorphous cellulose is than enzyma cally hydrolysed to glucose. The separa on of the intermediate glucose from the reac on mixture is performed via mul ple membrane sepera on processes, namely ultrafiltra on, nanofiltra on and electrodialysis. The separa on of glucose from residual saccharides in ionic liquid/water mixtures is carried out with nanofiltra on. The mass transport of glucose across solvent-resistant nanofiltra on membranes is modeled with theMaxwell-Stefan approach. The semiempirical model, based on systema c experimental results, allows for the predic on of the glucose yield from the nanofiltra on as a unit opera on. The complete subprocess is economically evaluated with respect to a nearly complete recycle and dehydra on of ionic liquid. In the outlook nanofiltra on of highly concentrated ionic liquid solu ons stemming directly from the wood dissolu on process is discussed as well as the dissolu on of wooden biomass with alterna ve solvent systems.
The effects of minimal tillage and contour cultivation on surface runoff, soil loss and crop yield in the long‐term Woburn Erosion Reference Experiment on sandy soil at Woburn, England

Abstract. Over a 10‐year period, runoff and soil erosion on the plots of the Woburn Erosion Reference Experiment were concentrated in periods with sparse vegetation cover: in winter after the late planting of cereals; in spring after the planting of beets; or when soils were bare after harvest. The mean event runoff of 1.32 mm from plots cultivated up‐and‐downslope was significantly greater (P<0.05) than that from plots cultivated across‐slope (0.82 mm). However, mean event soil loss was not significantly different between the two cultivation directions. No significant differences were found between minimal and standard cultivations. Mean event runoff from the across‐slope/minimal tillage treatment combination (0.58 mm) was significantly less (P<0.01) than from the up‐and‐downslope/minimal tillage (1.41 mm), up‐and‐downslope/standard tillage (1.24 mm), and across‐slope/standard tillage (1.07 mm) treatment combinations. Runoff from the across‐slope/standard treatment combination was significantly (P<0.05) less than from the up‐and‐downslope/minimal tillage treatment. The across‐slope/minimal tillage treatment combination had a significantly smaller (P<0.05) event soil loss (67 kg ha−1) than the up‐and‐downslope/standard tillage (278 kg ha−1) and up‐and‐downslope/minimal tillage (245 kg ha−1) combinations. Crop yields were significantly (P<0.05) higher on across‐slope plots in 1988, 1996 and 1997 than on up‐and‐downslope plots, and were also higher (but not significantly) on the across‐slope plots in 7 of the 8 remaining years. Minimal cultivation decreased yield compared with standard cultivation in one year only. We recommend that across‐slope cultivation combined with minimal tillage be investigated at field scale to assess its suitability for incorporation into UK farming systems.
Quantitative analysis of arsenic losses during the formation of Au(Zn)/p‐GaAs ohmic contacts

The formation of Au(Zn)/p‐GaAs ohmic contacts by furnace annealing either in open or closed configurations with a dielectric cap has been investigated. Evaluation of the extent to which the GaAs substrate decomposes under these conditions was of primary concern. This was studied by measuring the amount of As losses, using the Cr‐collector method, and correlating this with the amount of Ga diffused into the Au(Zn) metallization. The thermally induced decomposition of GaAs in contact with Au(Zn) metallization strongly depends on both the application of the capping layer, and on the thickness of the metallization. The loss of As is reduced to 6×1014 atom/cm2 using thin 10 nm Au/10 nm Zn/30 nm Au metallization annealed with a insulating capping layer deposited by sputtering. Electrical measurements indicate that under these conditions good ohmic contacts are obtained. Thus, the contact reaction sufficient to produce good ohmic contacts can be limited to about one monoatomic layer of GaAs.
A Case Report of Congenital Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura: The Peripheral Blood Smear Lights the Diagnosis.

We report on a 12-year-old boy with congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, on who had an erroneous diagnosis as chronic immune thrombocytopenia. The patient presented with complaints of jaundice and skin rash. Laboratory analysis showed nonimmune hemolytic anemia and severe thrombocytopenia. Peripheral blood smear showed 8% schistocytes, polychromasia, and anisocytosis. The ADAMTS13 antigen and activity were suspected to be lower than 5% with any antibodies against the enzyme. The DNA sequence analyses resulted in compound heterozygosity consisting of c. 291_391del in exon 3 and c.4143dupA in exon 29. Schistocyte (fragmented erythrocytes) on the peripheral blood smear is a light that illuminates the diagnosis. Early recognition of the disease can prevent inappropriate treatments and morbidities due to organ damage.
Robot-assisted Cochlear Implant Electrode Array Insertion in Adults: A Comparative Study With Manual Insertion.

OBJECTIVE To describe the first cochlear array insertions using a robot-assisted technique, with different types of straight or precurved electrode arrays, compared with arrays manually inserted into the cochlea. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective review. SETTING Tertiary otologic center. PATIENTS Twenty cochlear implantations in the robot-assisted group and 40 in the manually inserted group. INTERVENTIONS Cochlear implantations using a robot-assisted technique (RobOtol) with straight (eight Cochlear CI522/622, and eight Advanced Bionics Hifocus Slim J) or precurved (four Advanced Bionics Hifocus Mid-Scala) matched to manual cochlear implantations. Three-dimensional reconstruction images of the basilar membrane and the electrode array were obtained from pre- and postimplantation computed tomography. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Rate and localization of scalar translocations. RESULTS For straight electrode arrays, scalar translocations occurred in 19% (3/16) of the robot-assisted group and 31% (10/32) of the manually inserted group. Considering the number of translocated electrodes, this was lower in the robot-assisted group (7%) than in the manually inserted group (16%) (p < 0.0001, χ test). For precurved electrode arrays, scalar translocations occurred in 50% (2/4) of the robot-assisted group and 38% (3/8) of the manually inserted group. CONCLUSION This study showed a safe and reliable insertion of different electrode array types with a robot-assisted technique, with a less traumatic robotic insertion of straight electrode arrays when compared with manual insertion.
TUA1 at the NTCIR-15 DialEval-1 Task

In this paper we report the work of TUA1 team in the dialogue evaluation (DialEval-1) task of NTCIR-15, for the Chinese dialogue quality (DQ) and nugget detection (ND) subtasks. In the proposed method, first we employ a pre-trained BERT network for feature extraction from a dialogue sequence, and feed these feature vectors to a Bi-LSTM network together with a speaker embedding which is learned to separate the customer and helpdesk semantically. Then we feed the output, which is a sequence of semantic vectors, into a self-attention network, where a few attention heads are learned to assign evaluation weights over the sequence of vectors and summarize them into several high-level semantic vectors. Finally we concatenate these high-level semantic vectors and put them through several feed-forward neural network layers to finally predict the dialogue quality scores. We train the networks based on the criteria of mean squared error and Sinkhorn divergence respectively for dialogue quality prediction and on that of mean sequared error for nugget detection. The results suggest that the proposed method is promising in learning a dialogue quality prediction system for generating very close predictions to the human annotators.
Word and Nonword Reading Efficiency in Postlingually Deafened Adult Cochlear Implant

Hypothesis: This study tested the hypotheses that 1) experienced adult cochlear implants (CI) users demonstrate poorer reading efficiency relative to normal-hearing controls, 2) reading efficiency reflects basic, underlying neurocognitive skills, and 3) reading efficiency relates to speech recognition outcomes in CI users. Background: Weak phonological processing skills have been associated with poor speech recognition outcomes in postlingually deaf adult CI users. Phonological processing can be captured in nonauditory measures of reading efficiency, which may have wide use in patients with hearing loss. This study examined reading efficiency in adults CI users, and its relation to speech recognition outcomes. Methods: Forty-eight experienced, postlingually deaf adult CI users (ECIs) and 43 older age-matched peers with age-normal hearing (ONHs) completed the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2), which measures word and nonword reading efficiency. Participants also completed a battery of nonauditory neurocognitive measures and auditory sentence recognition tasks. Results: ECIs and ONHs did not differ in word (ECIs: M ¼ 78.2, SD ¼ 11.4; ONHs: M ¼ 83.3, SD ¼ 10.2) or non-word reading efficiency (ECIs: M ¼ 42.0, SD ¼ 11.2; ONHs: M ¼ 43.7, SD ¼ 10.3). For ECIs, both scores were related to untimed word reading with moderate to strong effect sizes ( r ¼ 0.43–0.69), but demonstrated differing relations with other nonauditory neurocognitive measures with weak to moderate effect sizes (word: r ¼ 0.11–0.44; nonword: r ¼ ( (cid:3) )0.15 to ( (cid:3) )0.42). Word reading efficiency was moderately related to sentence recognition outcomes in ECIs ( r ¼ 0.36–0.40). Conclusion: Findings suggest that postlingually deaf adult CI users demonstrate neither impaired word nor nonword reading efficiency, and these measures reflect different underlying mechanisms involved in language processing. The relation between sentence recognition and word reading efficiency, a measure of lexical access speed, suggests that this measure may be useful for explaining outcome variability in adult CI users.
PROPOSAL OF METHODOLOGY FOR OPTIMIZED DIFFUSER DESIGN

In this paper, we propose a methodology based on empirical relations to determine the best diffuser configuration. The methodology consists in verifying the dimensions of some characteristics and the limits of some parameters, in a defined sequence. Throughout the procedure, configurations are discarded and the number of possible combinations is reduced significantly. The development of this methodology was based on the studies presented by Roberts et al. (2010). The idea of this methodology is to follow some hydraulic criteria to obtain the best diffuser. For the application of the methodology a Matlab script was developed. In this script the parameter values are selected and, in the end, only some possible configurations remain. The best configuration is chosen by cost or environmental criteria. This methodology is applicable to small and medium sized outfall installed in shallow water and in flat sea bed conditions, as the great majority of outfalls in Brazil. A study case is presented to demonstrate the validity of this methodology.
Radioactive Tracer Techniques for Study of Reactions on Industrial Catalysts .II. Enhanced Desorption of CO from a Pd/Al2O3 Catalyst Due to the Influence of C2H2 and NO in the Gas Phase

Abstract Preadsorbed 14CO on Pd/Al2O3 corresponding to a complete coverage of CO was exchanged by C2H2 (1000 ppm in Ar) or NO (1000 ppm in Ar) at atmospheric pressure and at different temperatures (230-375 K). The rate of the displacement and the amount of displaced labelled CO were dependent on the temperature. The exchange process was followed with an in situ method for measuring radioactivity of soft β− emitters. Different mechanisms of this displacement process are discussed.
The role of water and proton-transfer processes in hydrogen-bonded chains with large proton polarizability

The conditions under which hydrogen-bonded chains show large proton polarizability due to collective proton motion are discussed on the basis of theoretical as well as experimental results. These chains are very suitable pathways for the conduction of protons, since they can easily be regulated by electric fields. Three such pathways present in biological systems are discussed in which water molecules are believed to play an important role: (1) the proton-conducting system in the bacteriorhodopsin molecule; (2) the proton pathway in the F0 subunit of ATP synthase; (3) the proton pathway in the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase.
Influence of a genetic variant of CHAT gene over the profile of plasma soluble ChAT in Alzheimer disease

Abstract The choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) are fundamental to neurophysiological functions of the central cholinergic system. We confirmed and quantified the presence of extracellular ChAT protein in human plasma and also characterized ChAT and VAChT polymorphisms, protein and activity levels in plasma of Alzheimer's disease patients (AD; N = 112) and in cognitively healthy controls (EC; N = 118). We found no significant differences in plasma levels of ChAT activity and protein between AD and EC groups. Although no differences were observed in plasma ChAT activity and protein concentration among ChEI-treated and untreated AD patients, ChAT activity and protein levels variance in plasma were higher among the rivastigmine-treated group (ChAT protein: p = 0.005; ChAT activity: p = 0.0002). Moreover, AD patients homozygous for SNP rs1880676 A allele exhibited higher levels of ChAT activity. Considering this is the first study to report the influence of genetic variability of CHAT locus over ChAT activity in AD patients plasma, it opens a new set of important questions on peripheral cholinergic signaling in AD.
Differential admixture in Latin American populations and its impact on the study of colorectal cancer

Abstract Genome-wide association studies focused on searching genes responsible for several diseases. Admixture mapping studies proposed a more efficient alternative capable of detecting polymorphisms contributing with a small effect on the disease risk. This method focuses on the higher values of linkage disequilibrium in admixed populations. To test this, we analyzed 10 genomic regions previously defined as related with colorectal cancer among nine populations and studied the variation pattern of haplotypic structures and heterozygosity values on seven categories of SNPs. Both analyses showed differences among chromosomal regions and studied populations. Admixed Latin-American samples generally show intermediate values. Heterozygosity of the SNPs grouped in categories varies more in each gene than in each population. African related populations have more blocks per chromosomal region, coherently with their antiquity. In sum, some similarities were found among Latin American populations, but each chromosomal region showed a particular behavior, despite the fact that the study refers to genes and regions related with one particular complex disease. This study strongly suggests the necessity of developing statistical methods to deal with di- or tri-hybrid populations, as well as to carefully analyze the different historic and demographic scenarios, and the different characteristics of particular chromosomal regions and evolutionary forces.
SiC coating as hydrogen permeation reduction and oxidation resistance for nuclear fuel cladding

Silicon carbide (SiC) coating is one of the countermeasures for the prevention of oxidation and hydrogen embrittlement of fuel claddings because SiC has high resistance of oxidation and hydrogen permeation. Hydrogen permeation and oxidation experiments for the cladding materials with SiC coatings were conducted in unirradiated conditions. The sputtering method was employed to make SiC coatings. In the hydrogen permeation experiment, 316 type of stainless steel (SS316) was used as a base material of the coating. SS316 with SiC coatings showed hydrogen permeation reduction by one order of magnitude. In the oxidation experiments, Zircaloy 4 (Zry-4) and SS316 were used as base materials of the coatings. The weight gain of the Zry-4 specimens with a SiC coating decreased by about one-fifth compared to the uncoated ones at 750 °C and 1200°C. This phenomenon was observed for SS316 at 750 °C as well. The peel-off of the coating was observed in several experiments, and it is considered that the peel-off was caused by the difference of the thermal expansions between coatings and base materials. Thicker coatings showed better oxidation resistance, but thinner coatings showed more tolerance of peel-off.
Effect of the Acoustic Impedance Mismatch at the Bone-Soft Tissue Interface as a Function of Frequency in Transcranial Ultrasound: A Simulation and In Vitro Experimental Study

The transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound is a method that uses a handheld low-frequency (2–2.5 MHz), pulsed Doppler phased array probe to measure blood velocity within the arteries located inside the brain. The problem with TCD lies in the low ultrasonic energy penetrating inside the brain through the skull, which leads to a low signal-to-noise ratio. This is due to several effects, including phase aberration, variations in the speed of sound in the skull, scattering, the acoustic impedance mismatch, and absorption of the three-layer medium constituted by soft tissues, the skull, and the brain. The goal of this article is to study the effect of transmission losses due to the acoustic impedance mismatch on the transmitted energies as a function of frequency. To do so, wave propagation was modeled from the ultrasonic transducer into the brain. This model calculates transmission coefficients inside the brain, leading to a frequency-dependent transmission coefficient for a given skin and bone thickness. This approach was validated experimentally by comparing the analytical results with measurements obtained from a bone phantom plate mimicking the skull. The average position error of the occurrence of the maximum amplitude between the experiment and analytical result was equivalent to a 0.06-mm error on the skin thickness given a fixed bone thickness. The similarity between the experimental and analytical results was also demonstrated by calculating correlation coefficients. The average correlation between the experimental and analytical results came out to be 0.50 for a high-frequency probe and 0.78 for a low-frequency probe. Further analysis of the simulation showed that an optimized excitation frequency can be chosen based on skin and bone thicknesses, thereby offering an opportunity to improve the image quality of TCD.
Highly accurate solutions for the confined hydrogen atom

The model of the confined hydrogen atom (CHA) was developed by Michels et al. 1 in the mid-1930s to study matter subject to extreme pressure. However, since the eigenvalues cannot be obtained analytically, even the most accurate calculations have yielded little more than 10 figure accuracy. In this work, we show that it is possible to obtain the CHA eigenvalues with extremely high accuracy (up to 100 decimal digits) and we do that using two completely different methods. The first is based on formal solution of the confluent hypergeometric function while the second uses a series method. We also compare radial expectation values obtained by both methods and conclude that the wave functions obtained by these two different approaches are of high quality. In addition, we compute the hyperfine splitting constant, magnetic screening constant, polarizability in the Kirkwood approximation, and pressure as a function of the box radius. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2007
Simulation and Analysis of Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles

SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF CADMIUM SULFIDE NANOPARTICLES Chad Junkermeier Department of Physics and Astronomy Doctor of Philosophy I used ab initio molecular dynamics calculations to model cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were originaly spherical, bulk-like zinc-blende structures. Constant temperature molecular dynamics calculations reveals that CdS nanoparticles that are about 2 nm in diameter and have unpassivated surfaces are in an amorphous structure with short range order. The nearest neighbor distance on the surface of the nanoparticles being near the wurtzite nearest neighbor distance. I wrote the program xyzSTATS and used its results in justifying the amorphous nanoparticles claim. I also estimated the band gap of the CdS nanoparticles with unpassivated dangling bonds.