Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corrosion Evaluation of the Welded Zone between Carbon Steel and Stainless Steel Embedded in Concrete and Exposed to a Marine-Like Environment

In this study, an evaluation of the corrosion susceptibility of concrete reinforcement steel welded to stainless steel is reported, which is proposed as a potential solution to the repair and rehabilitate structures. An evaluation was conducted over 390 days by measuring the corrosion potential and current density levels by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy applied to a solution that simulated a marine environment. The welded carbon-stainless steel samples were found to be more resistant to corrosion than the carbon steel samples. These results were confirmed by visual inspection, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy of the welded zone. These findings support the concept of rehabilitating structures by replacing damaged carbon steel with stainless steel welded to the remaining structures.
NGSEA: Network-Based Gene Set Enrichment Analysis for Interpreting Gene Expression Phenotypes with Functional Gene Sets

Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) is a popular tool to identify underlying biological processes in clinical samples using their gene expression phenotypes. GSEA measures the enrichment of annotated gene sets that represent biological processes for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in clinical samples. GSEA may be suboptimal for functional gene sets, however, because DEGs from the expression dataset may not be functional genes per se but dysregulated genes perturbed by bona fide functional genes. To overcome this shortcoming, we developed network-based GSEA (NGSEA), which measures the enrichment score of functional gene sets using the expression difference of not only individual genes but also their neighbors in the functional network. We found that NGSEA outperformed GSEA in identifying pathway gene sets for matched gene expression phenotypes. We also observed that NGSEA substantially improved the ability to retrieve known anti-cancer drugs from patient-derived gene expression data using drug-target gene sets compared with another method, Connectivity Map. We also repurposed FDA-approved drugs using NGSEA and experimentally validated budesonide as a chemical with anti-cancer effects for colorectal cancer. We, therefore, expect that NGSEA will facilitate both pathway interpretation of gene expression phenotypes and anti-cancer drug repositioning. NGSEA is freely available at www.inetbio. org/ngsea.
Effects of fatigue and time-out on physiological, time-motion indicators and in patterns of spatial organization of the teams in basketball

The aim of this study was to identify the effects of fatigue on physiological variables, time-motion indicators and patterns of spatial organization of the teams in basketball. The study sample consisted of 10 basketball players of the under-18 with a mean age of 17.5 ± 0.3 years. There were two sessions: session a) game continuous (C1) 10 minutes - yo-yo intermittent recovery test (level 1) - 1 minute timeout - game continuous (C2) 10 minutes. Session b) game interrupted (I1) 5 minutes - 1 minute timeout - 5 minutes game - yo-yo intermittent recovery test (level 1) -1 minute timeout - game interrupted (I2) - 5 minutes - 1 minute timeout - 5 minutes game. HR values were determinate by the YYIRTL1 and registered by short range radio- telemetry heart-rate monitors (Polar Team System, Polar Electro, Finland), time-motion analysis were registered with GPS (SPI Elite. GPSports Systems, Australia), and a digital camera was used to record the game. The results suggest that the fatigue and the time-outs promote betters patterns of spatial organization. Additionally the results showed that with the accumulated fatigue the players covered a less total distance and in a slower way.
Fertilisation and Cell Cycle in Angiosperms

Fertilisation is the result of successful fusion of female and male gametes, forming a zygote that develops into the embryo. From the perspective of cell cycle control, fertilisation is a hat‐trick. Firstly, the generation of gametes depends on the generation of haploid spores by meiosis and a sequence of mitotic divisions. Mitosis is required to produce the cells of the gametophyte, closely associated with differential fate acquisition. Secondly, cell cycle progression in both male and female gametes has to be synchronised in order to avoid chromosomal imbalance at karyogamy, and last but not least, the cell cycle should only be relaunched after a successful fusion. Here, we seek to survey our current knowledge of these processes from a cell cycle perspective and explore possible mechanisms involved in cell cycle control and coordination.
The role of online communities and the impact of educational social media on Saudi female college students in the United States

ABSTRACT The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the role of online communities and the impact of educational social media on 14 Saudi female college students who were studying in the United States. The findings revealed that social media was important to the participants for maintaining relationships and seeking out information from others. Social media was also an important way for participants to remain close to their communities and keep in contact with Saudi friends and family; however, the use of social media to interact with their communities was often shaped by Saudi cultural expectations. Most of the participants enjoyed online education and interacting with others in an online educational setting because it promotes collaborative learning and cultural interaction. Overall, social media used for educational purposes was mostly seen by the participants as a positive and beneficial part of their educational experiences.
Privacy, Trust, and Manipulation in Online Relationships

Abstract This work studies factors that influence personal information disclosure coming from vulnerable users who may adopt risky online behavior on social media. These users trust their online relationships and reveal confidential or sensitive information, causing damage to themselves and their relatives and friends. We carried a survey-based study on 1,532 participants to see if they would reveal sensitive information when they have close online relationships whom they trust. The results led to several discoveries, especially concerning the factors affecting the disclosure in online relationships, and those affecting the attitude toward online manipulation. Moreover, this study attested a strong positive relation between disclosure issues and the user’s attitudes toward manipulation. The latter which is affected by their online behavior and social interaction ties. In a nutshell, users attitudes toward manipulation may lead to self-disclosure on the one hand, and these attitudes could be identified through their social behavior on the other hand.
Suppression history of distractor location biases attentional and oculomotor control

ABSTRACT Past selection experience greatly affects the deployment of attention such that targets are more readily selected if their features or locations were more frequently selected in the past. Crucially, recent studies have shown similar experience-dependent effects also for salient task irrelevant stimuli: distractors exerted less interference if they appeared at a location where they were presented more often, relatively to other possible locations. Here we investigated the effects of such suppression history on the immediate behavioural correlates of attentional deployment, i.e., eye movements. Participants were to make saccadic eye movements to a target stimulus, while ignoring a highly distracting irrelevant visual onset appearing abruptly on the screen in a proportion of trials. Crucially, this irrelevant onset occurred more frequently in two locations on the visual display and our results showed that, relatively to distractors elsewhere, onsets presented at these locations became easier to ignore, giving rise to reduced oculomotor capture. Consistent with the notion that experience can alter attentional deployment towards spatial locations, these findings indicate that, through learning, the priority of high frequency locations becomes suppressed, attenuating the intrinsic saliency of distractors appearing therein. Traces left by individual events of attentional suppression decrease the processing priority of coordinates within topographic maps of the visual space.
Native American Land-Use Impacts on a Temperate Forested Ecosystem, West Central New York State

Land survey records (LSRs) describing forest species composition prior to extensive European American settlement are critical sources of information on past environmental controls of forest dynamics in eastern North America. Embedded within these historical data sources is evidence of prior Native American land use. This study expands on previous LSR-based analyses of Seneca and Iroquoian populations’ impacts on the temperate forests of west central New York State. We use an enhanced array of geospatial LSR vegetation data beyond conventional bearing tree data and implement, for the first time, combined indirect ordination of vegetation data along major environmental gradients and numerical classification of discrete upland vegetation communities. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed three main drivers of vegetation dynamics in the study area: (1) fire frequency (53.7 percent of total variance); (2) soil productivity (22.6 percent variance); and (3) Native American land use (15.9 percent variance). Agglomerative hierarchical clustering reinforced the primacy of these gradients by delineating two major forest types differentiated primarily by fire frequency and secondarily by soil productivity. Seneca and Iroquoian agricultural villages were preferentially concentrated within fire-tolerant dry upland forests on high-productivity soils within the interior portion of the Lake Ontario Lowland. Fire-tolerant, dry upland forests on low-productivity soils were situated on the adjacent Appalachian Plateau, which was likely used by indigenous populations for silvicultural land-use activities. Native American disturbance of temperate forested ecosystems likely varied across the diverse culture areas of eastern North America, with the Seneca and Iroquois representing an extreme end-member within a broad continuum of anthropogenic disturbance. Key Words: forest composition, land survey records, land-use history, Native Americans, vegetation disturbance.
P300 Event-Related Potentials to a Phoneme Discrimination Task Requiring a Motor Response

P300 Event-Related Potentials to a Phoneme Discrimination Task Requiring a Motor Response Kaitlyn Chelsea Turner Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Speech perception typically takes place within the auditory cortex as evidenced by data collected using quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG). The purpose of this study was to determine if motor responses influence speech perception. We examined P300 event-related potentials during oddball stimulus recognition tasks that either required or did not require a motor response. Based on a review of the literature, it was hypothesized that similar areas of the brain would be activated in both the motor response task and the same task without a motor response immediately following the button-push condition. Two syllables, /ba/ and /ga/, were presented to 20 native English speakers (10 females and 10 males) between the ages of 19 and 30 years. An oddball paradigm consisting of standard and deviant stimuli was presented in three trials: passive listening, mental counting, and button-push. Participants were randomly assigned an order to the trials for passive listening and mental count; however, the button-push response was completed second each time. Data from event-related potentials were recorded for each participant using qEEG and combined across participants to create grand averaged waveforms. Cortical regions of activation were identified and compared across conditions. Results showed that different cortical areas were activated when the mental counting and passive listening conditions were done before and after the motor response condition. Requiring a more complicated response than is typically used to discriminate phonemes, such as with the button push response, may alter speech perception based on the cortical regions activated as measured through source localization. Further research on latencies and amplitudes of the even-related potential (ERP) waveforms is needed to determine how speech perception changes.
Homofobia sutil en espacios universitarios

El objetivo de la investigacion es avanzar en el conocimiento de las formas en las que la homofobia se expresa en un espacio universitario y en como la experimentan sus estudiantes. Se intentara demostrar a partir de la recuperacion y el analisis de testimonios, si las y los jovenes universitarios han experimentado la homofobia de distintas maneras, ya que si bien es cierto que sus discursos expresan rechazo a la homofobia y reivindican el derecho a ser diferente, tambien es posible identificar en sus relatos y experiencias distintas manifestaciones de la cultura homofobica. Abstract The objective of the research is to advance knowledge of the ways in which homophobia is expressed in a University space and how is it experienced by the students. We will attempt to prove from the recovery and analysis of evidence, if the students have experienced homophobia in different ways, and that if it is true that their speeches expressed rejection of homophobia and claim the right to be different, it is also possible to identify in their stories and experiences different manifestations of homophobic culture.
In: Downward Processes in the Perception Representation Mechanisms, C. Taddei-Ferretti and C. Musio (eds), World Scientific, Singapore, New Jersey, London, Hong Kong, 1998, pp 171-188. GENERALIZATION TO NOVEL VIEWS OF FACES: PSYCHOPHYSICS AND MODELS CONCERNING THE ROLE OF BILATERAL SYMMETRY

Human faces are approximately bilaterally symmetric. We study the ability to generalize to novel views of human faces focusing on the role of that symmetry. Our hypothesis is that the ability to identify mirror symmetric images is used for viewpoint generalization by approximating the symmetric view of a learned view by its mirror symmetric image. Two psychophysical experiments are performed using a same/different paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that generalization to the symmetric view is better than generalization to otherwise different views. If the symmetric view is replaced by the mirror reversed learning view, performance further increases. Experiment 2 shows that the match between the learned view and the testing image is performed directly on the level of the images. Performance drops significantly if the symmetry between the intensity patterns of learning and testing view is disturbed by an asymmetric illumination, although the symmetry between the spatial arrangement of high-level features is retained. We show that a simple image-based model can explain important aspects of the data and we show how this model can be extended towards a general algorithm for image comparison. Experimental results are discussed in terms of their relation to existing approaches to object recognition.
Adapted Compressed Sensing for Effective Hardware Implementations: A Design Flow for Signal-Level Optimization of Compressed Sensing Stages

Chapter 1. Introduction to Compressed Sensing: Fundamentals and Guarantees -- Chapter 2.How (Well) Compressed Sensing Works in Practice -- Chapter 3. From Universal to Adapted Acquisition: Rake that Signal! -- Chapter 4.The Rakeness Problem with Implementation and Complexity Constraints -- Chapter 5.Generating Raking Matrices: a Fascinating Second-Order Problem -- Chapter 6.Architectures for Compressed Sensing -- Chapter 7.Analog-to-information Conversion -- Chapter 8.Low-complexity Biosignal Compression using Compressed Sensing -- Chapter 9.Security at the analog-to-information interface using Compressed Sensing.
Financial Performance of Construction, Property, and Trading Companies Based on Working Capital, Liquidity Ratio, and Profitability Ratio

An investor needs to do an analysis to choose the best investment. This decision should be carried out with the right calculation and analysis of the company's performance. This research evaluates financial performance of several companies based on their working capital, liquidity, and profitability. Profitability ratio indicates company’s ability to make a profit. Liquidity ratio indicates company’s ability to pay debt in due date condition. Working investment shows that working capital needed by the company. Profitability and liquidity of the company is determined by financial ratio. This research is focused on investigating financial performances of three types of companies, namely construction, developer, and trade industry. The results of the liquidity and profitability ratios show that developer companies has the best liquidity ratio compared to construction and trading companies. The results of calculation of working capital show that construction companies need the minimal working capital than the other companies.
Manufacturing Tough Amorphous Thermoplastic-Graphene Nanocomposites

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET)–graphene nanocomposites were prepared using high speed industrial scale injection molding. Nanocomposites with 0.6% and 1.2% of graphene platelets weight fractions were injection molded using a blended master-batch. X-ray tomography and ultrasonic imaging were applied for non-destructive analysis of the nanocomposites to evaluate the processing method. Mechanical testing of the nanocomposites show an improvement in stiffness up to 8% with a slight increase in the strength and toughness compared to the control. The matrix of the nanocomposites prepared was amorphous. Furthermore, increase in the stiffness was corroborated based on numerical predictions.
Fungal endophyte diversity from tropical forage grass Brachiaria

ABSTRACT Background Microbial endophytes can be beneficial to host plants, improving resistance against biotic and abiotic stress. While beneficial fungal endophytes have been well characterised in temperate grasses, knowledge about fungal endophytes of tropical grasses is limited. Aims We investigated the diversity of fungal endophytes associated with Brachiaria, a tropical grass genus native to Africa to source candidate endophytes for developing as beneficial inoculants for cultivated Brachiaria. Methods Fungi were isolated from asymptomatic tillers of nine Brachiaria species. Morphological and molecular techniques were used to investigate the taxonomic identities and phylogenetic relationships of the putative fungal endophytes. Results One hundred and seventy-seven fungi were isolated, generating 38 operational taxonomic units (OTU) in total, which were predicted to represent 38 potential species. The most common isolates were related to Acremonium, Cladosporium, Emericellopsis, Plectosphaerella and Sarocladium. Multiple strains of Sarocladium terricola were detected and shown by molecular and morphological characterisation as identical to the first recorded seed-transmitted endophyte from Brachiaria, originally identified as Acremonium implicatum. Conclusion A large and genetically diverse collection of putative endophytes from Brachiaria have been identified. Future work will elucidate whether any of these could be developed as beneficial endophyte inoculations able to offer bio-protective benefits for the health of Brachiaria.
Histopathological Efficacy of Docetaxel Versus Paclitaxel As First Line Chemotherapy for Epithelial Ovarian Carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and compare efficacy of docetaxel and paclitaxel combining with carboplatin in the first line chemotherapy of epithelial ovarian carcinoma according to hystopathological findings of second look laparatomy. STUDY DESIGN: Thirty two patients having stage II-IV epithelial ovarian cancer (17 cases in the paclitaxel-carboplatin group,15 cases in the docetaxel-carboplatin group) and operated in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynecologic Oncology were entered in this study. The cases were randomized for the treatment. All cases had inform-consent about the treatment options and second look procedures. The cases who completed chemotherapy and had a second look laparatomy were included the study. Pathological responses were evaluated with second look findings proved with biopsy. Statistical analyses were performed with Chi square and Mann-Whitney U tests. Survival analyses were calculated with using Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Log Rank test. P>0.05 was accepted for statistical significance. RESULTS: There were no differences in demographic characteristics and rate of optimal cytoreduction between two groups. Eight cases (47,1%) in the paclitaxel-carboplatin group and 3 cases (20%) in the docetaxel-carboplatin group were hystopathological tumor positive in the second look operation without statistically significance. Also there was no significant difference between two groups in mean survival time(p 0.06). CONCLUSION: Efficacy of docetaxel and paclitaxel are the same in terms of hystopathological findings of second look laparatomy in the treatmet of first-line epithelial ovarian cancer.
An Acute Pharyngeal-Cervical-Brachial (PCB) variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome

Acute Guillain Barre Syndrome [GBS] is characterized by an acute onset of limb weakness and areflexia. There are a few rare variants that have been described and one of them is the pharyngeal–cervical-brachial[PCB] variant [involving oropharynx, neck and proximal upper limb muscles]. Many neurologists and physicians are unaware of this variant which is often misdiagnosed as myasthenia gravis, brainstem stroke or botulism. A 37 year old female patient presented with the classical characteristics including bulbar weakness, cervicobrachial weakness and are flexia in the upper limbs, with relatively preserved lower limbs. Her systemic review was unremarkable. Her physical examination was compatible with GBS. Nerve conduction studies revealed Motor Axonal Radiculoneuropathy. She received 5 day course of IVIG and showed significant improvement over next 1 week. The patient recovered well and was discharged after 12 days. Keywords: Guillain Barre Syndrome, Pharyngeal-Cervical-Brachial Variant
Transformation follows strategy : Transformation und Strategieentwicklung von Innen

Neue Managementkonzepte und Instrumente werden in ffentlichen und privatwirtschaftlichen Betrieben oft in einer Art und Weise implementiert, die den Grundprinzipien des Managementansatzes widersprechen. Strategie- und Ver nderungsarbeit werden oft losgel st voneinander betrieben, eventuell von unterschiedlichen Beratungssystemen unterst tzt. Der Autor entwickelt eine schl ssige Darstellung von Strategieentwicklung und Ver nderungsmanagement. Anhand der Unterscheidung von Change-Management, klassischer Organisationsentwicklung und Transformationsmanagement wird die Ausdifferenzierung von Ver nderungsans tzen dargestellt. Die Strategieentwicklungsarbeit wird durch vier Fallbeispiele bis hin auf die Ebene von Instrumenten und Designs veranschaulicht. Strategie- und Organisationsentwicklung werden dabei konsequent in Beziehung gesetzt. Anhand der ausf hrlichen Fallbeispiele aus der Strategieberatung werden auch die Gemeinsamkeiten mit dem Beratungsverst ndnis des Transformationsmanagements aufgezeigt.