Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endocytosis mediated by an atypical CUBAM complex modulates slit diaphragm dynamics in nephrocytes

ABSTRACT The vertebrate endocytic receptor CUBAM, consisting of three cubilin monomers complexed with a single amnionless molecule, plays a major role in protein reabsorption in the renal proximal tubule. Here, we show that Drosophila CUBAM is a tripartite complex composed of Amnionless and two cubilin paralogues, Cubilin and Cubilin2, and that it is required for nephrocyte slit diaphragm (SD) dynamics. Loss of CUBAM-mediated endocytosis induces dramatic morphological changes in nephrocytes and promotes enlarged ingressions of the external membrane and SD mislocalisation. These phenotypes result in part from an imbalance between endocytosis, which is strongly impaired in CUBAM mutants, and exocytosis in these highly active cells. Of note, rescuing receptor-mediated endocytosis by Megalin/LRP2 or Rab5 expression only partially restores SD positioning in CUBAM mutants, suggesting a specific requirement of CUBAM in SD degradation and/or recycling. This finding and the reported expression of CUBAM in podocytes suggest a possible unexpected conserved role for this endocytic receptor in vertebrate SD remodelling.
Potential Role of Heme Oxygenase-1 in the Resolution of Experimentally Induced Colitis through Regulation of Macrophage Polarization

Background/Aims Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) plays a central role in cellular defense against inflammatory insults, and its induction in macrophages potentiates their efferocytic activity. In this study, we explored the potential role of macrophage HO-1 in the resolution of experimentally induced colitis. Methods To induce colitis, male C57BL/6 mice were treated with 2% dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in the drinking water for 7 days. To investigate efferocytosis, apoptotic colon epithelial CCD 841 CoN cells were coincubated with bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs). Results Administration of the HO-1 inhibitor zinc protoporphyrin IX (ZnPP) blunted the resolution of DSS-induced intestinal inflammation and expression of the proresolving M2 macrophage marker CD206. BMDMs treated with apoptotic colonic epithelial cells showed significantly elevated expression of HO-1 and its regulator Nrf2. Under the same experimental conditions, the proportion of CD206-expressing macrophages was also enhanced. ZnPP treatment abrogated the upregulation of CD206 expression in BMDMs engulfing apoptotic colonic epithelial cells. This result was verified with BMDMs isolated from HO-1-knockout mice. BMDMs, when stimulated with lipopolysaccharide, exhibited increased expression of CD86, a marker of M1 macrophages. Coculture of lipopolysaccharide-stimulated BMDMs with apoptotic colonic epithelial cell debris dampened the expression of CD86 as well as the pro-inflammatory cytokines in an HO-1-dependent manner. Genetic ablation as well as pharmacologic inhibition of HO-1 significantly reduced the proportion of efferocytic BMDMs expressing the scavenger receptor CD36. Conclusions HO-1 plays a key role in the resolution of experimentally induced colitis by modulating the polarization of macrophages.
High power fiber sources

High power fiber lasers and amplifiers have reached several kilowatts of output power, and are now leading contenders for many important applications. Beyond raw power, fibers offer advantages such as control, efficiency, manufacturability, and reliability. These derive from the fundamental fiber geometry, as well as advances in fiber design, fabrication, and pump diodes, largely driven by the optical communications industry. We will review recent progress in a range of operating regimes, current research directions, and the underlying science and technology.
Electron Transport of Boron Nitride Nanoribbons Materials

The transport properties of hexagonal Boron Nitride nanoribbons (BNNRs) are investigated by the Green’s function method. The effect of triangle vacancy on the electron transport of BNNRs is different from that of perfect BNNRs. In particular, the features of the conductance steps are significantly changed in compared to perfect BNNRs. The conductance and density of state of zigzag Boron Nitride nanoribbons are calculated and analyzed in detail to explain these characteristic.
Reference Voltage Optimizer for Maximum Power Tracking in Single-Phase Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems

The problem of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) in photovoltaic (PV) arrays is addressed considering a PV system including a PV panel, a PWM DC/AC inverter connected to single-phase grid. The maximum power point (MPPT) of PV generators varies with solar radiation and temperature. To reduce the PV system cost, the MPPT is presently achieved without chopper, resorting to solar radiation and temperature sensors. The proposed strategy involves a multi-loop controller designed to meet the three main control objectives i.e. (i) voltage reference generator designed to meet maximum power point tracking (MPPT) despite solar radiation, (ii) tight DC Link voltage regulation for a wide range of voltage-reference variation and (iii) power factor correction (PFC). It is formally shown that the developed strategy control actually meets the MPPT requirement.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES STRATEGIC POLICY CHOICE IN STATE-LEVEL REGULATION: THE EPA'S CLEAN POWER PLAN

The authors thank seminar participants at the Energy Institute at Haas, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Bushnell’s work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under award 1229008. Bushnell serves on the Market Surveillance Committee to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). The MSC is an independent advisory committee to the CAISO’s Board of Governors.
An Empirical Investigation of Relationship between Total Quality Management Practices and Quality Performance in Indian Service Companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and quality performance in Indian service companies.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data was collected using a self-administered instrument that was distributed to 600 Indian service companies. Of the 600 instrument e-mailed, 172 usable instrument were returned, yielding a response rate of 28.6 per cent. A stratified sampling procedure was utilized to obtain the minimum sample size of 600 from the four chosen service industries (i.e. Healthcare, Banking, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and Hospitality). The data was analyzed using factor, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple regression analyses.Findings – The findings revealed that TQM practices were found to be partially correlated with quality performance of the Indian service companies. It was also found that quality culture was perceived as the dominant TQM practice in quality performance. The other practices such as quality systems, training and education, teamwork, and benchmarking showed a positive relationship with quality performance.Research limitations/implications – The research paper was limited by including only four industries in the selection of service companies in India, making this a possibly biased selection and it may not be adequate to generalize the results for the entire Indian service companies.Originality/value – The study has contributed to the TQM literature with a better understanding of the 17 TQM practices and their association with a company’s quality performance that will provide valuable knowledge to top-management of service companies, to refine their current TQM practices and subsequently improve quality performance.
Numerical Simulation of High-Strength Steel Box-Shaped Columns Failing in Local and Overall Buckling Modes

An experimental research project was conducted to evaluate the compression stability of high strength steel sections. Two buckling modes (“local and overall buckling”) and the interaction between them were investigated. To further study the structural behavior of the columns thoroughly, finite element analyses were performed using ABAQUS. This paper presents a finite element analysis on the postbuckling behavior of thin-walled compression members of high strength steel with box-shaped columns fabricated from cold-reduced high strength steel plates with nominal yield stress of 550 MPa in 0.42 and 0.60 mm thicknesses. The effect of the input parameters such as the degree of prescribed initial imperfection and the size of the element mesh on the convergence of the solution was investigated and is discussed. The paper also shows the comparison of loads obtained numerically and experimentally with those predicted on the basis of AS/NZS4600 and the North American Specification. Accurate results of the numerical simulations show that the finite element analysis can be used to predict the ultimate loads of thin-walled members including the postbuckling behavior of thin-walled sections. It is demonstrated that the finite element analysis can therefore be used to design and optimize thin-walled sections of high strength steel.
Formal metatheory of second-order abstract syntax

Despite extensive research both on the theoretical and practical fronts, formalising, reasoning about, and implementing languages with variable binding is still a daunting endeavour – repetitive boilerplate and the overly complicated metatheory of capture-avoiding substitution often get in the way of progressing on to the actually interesting properties of a language. Existing developments offer some relief, however at the expense of inconvenient and error-prone term encodings and lack of formal foundations. We present a mathematically-inspired language-formalisation framework implemented in Agda. The system translates the description of a syntax signature with variable-binding operators into an intrinsically-encoded, inductive data type equipped with syntactic operations such as weakening and substitution, along with their correctness properties. The generated metatheory further incorporates metavariables and their associated operation of metasubstitution, which enables second-order equational/rewriting reasoning. The underlying mathematical foundation of the framework – initial algebra semantics – derives compositional interpretations of languages into their models satisfying the semantic substitution lemma by construction.
AMELIORATION EFFECTS OF VITAMIN E ON REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM IN MALE RATS EXPOSED TO BUSULFAN

Twenty four male rats ten weeks old, They weigh between 250-300 grams, were divided into four groups. First group as control, received an intraperitoneal injection of Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) daily for four weeks (also use as a solvent for other experiment materials(. Second group receive only single dosage of Busulfan 40mg\kg BW\IP. Third set was received single dose of Busulfan as 40 mg\kg BW/IP & Vitamin E as 100 m g \ k g BW / I P daily for 4 weeks & the fourth group receive only Vitamin E as 100 m g \ k g B W \ I P daily for 4 weeks. After the end of 4 weeks the Animals were sacrificed & the blood was collected for hormonal measuring & epidydmis was collected for sperm count & histological examination. The outcomes demonstrate that busulfan prompts significant rise in serum F S H & L H level although Testosterone level was significantly reduced. Additionally, busulfan initiated significant reduction in sperm count, motility & viability & significant rise in sperm abnormality. Alternatively, Co-administration of vit E with busulfan lead to ameliorate levels of hormone as well as sperm activity. Keyword: Busulfan , vitamin E, reproductive hormones.
Fixed-point auto-landing algorithm for UAV based on point tracking

A new automatic fixed-point landing algorithm for UAV using the instantaneous speed obtained by image sensors and computer vision method is proposed. In the proposed scheme, once the specified land pad for landing is captured, the UAV will switch from auto-seeking mode to landing mode. In the landing mode, the feature point of the prospective zone is extracted and then being tracked. The noise in the motion parameter introduced by the feature point mismatching is reduced by fast iterative least square algorithm, and the accurate instantaneous speed of UAV is obtained. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm efficiently improve the accuracy of the estimation of instantaneous velocity for the fixed-point landing system of UAV.
Inclusive Adaptation of Existing Board Games for Gamers with and without Visual Impairments using a Spatial Augmented Reality Framework for Touch Detection and Audio Feedback

Board games allow us to share collective entertainment experiences. They entertain because of the interactions between players, physical manipulation of tokens and decision making. Unfortunately, most board games exclude people with visual impairments as they were not initially designed for players with special needs. Through a user-centered design process with an accessible game library and visually impaired players, we observed challenges and solutions in making existing board games accessible through handcrafted solutions (tactile stickers, braille labels, etc.). In a second step, we used Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), to make existing board games inclusive by adding interactivity (GameARt). In a case study with an existing board game considered as not accessible (Jamaica), we designed an interactive SAR version with touch detection (JamaicAR). We evaluated this prototype in a user study with 5 groups of 3 players each, including sighted, low vision and blind players. All players, independent of visual status, were able to play the Augmented Reality game. Moreover, the game was rated positively by all players regarding attractiveness, play engrossment, enjoyment and social connectivity. Our work shows that Spatial Augmented Reality has the potential to make board games accessible to people with visual impairments when handcrafted adaptations fall short.
Five Ways Not To Fool Yourself

Performance experiments are often used to show that a new system is better than an old system, and to quantify how much faster it is, or how much more efficient it is in the use of some resource. Frequently, these experiments come toward the end of a project and - at times - seem to be conducted more with the aim of selling the system rather than providing understanding of the reasons for the differences in performance or the scenarios in which similar improvements might be expected. Mistrust in published performance numbers follows from the suspicion that we measure what we have already optimized.
Live Migration of Operating System Containers in Encrypted Virtual Machines

With the widespread use of Docker and Kubernetes, OS-level virtualization has become a key technology to deploy and run software. At the same time, data centers and cloud providers offer shared computing resources on demand. The use of these resources usually leads to a larger trusted computing base and less control over the data. We present a confidential computing concept for the migration of operating system containers in secure encrypted virtual machines so that these are protected from the operator and administrator. In our approach, processes inside of the containers remain intact, i.e., they keep their state and do not have to be restarted. Network services inside of the containers remain unchanged and reachable. This is typically called live migration. Integrity and confidentiality of the data inside of the containers is enforced during migration as well as on the destination platform, namely in transit, in use and at rest. The authenticity and integrity of the destination platform is verified using remote attestation before any data is transferred. While our core concept is not specific to a particular hardware, we present two different approaches corresponding to the first generation of AMD SEV as well as SEV-SNP. Our proof of concept implementation is based on the first generation of SEV.
Forming the Dog Internet

Over the past decade, many systems have been developed for humans to remotely connect to their pets at home. Yet little attention has been paid to how animals can control such systems and what the implications are of animals using internet systems. This paper explores the creation of a video call device to allow a dog to remotely call their human, giving the animal control and agency over technology in their home. After building and prototyping a novel interaction method over several weeks and iterations, we test our system with a dog and a human. Analysing our experience and data, we reflect on power relations, how to quantify an animal's user experience and what interactive internet systems look like with animal users. This paper builds upon Human-Computer Interaction methods for unconventional users, uncovering key questions that advance the creation of animal-to-human interfaces and animal internet devices.
Costs and Benefits of Software Process Improvement

Abstract : There are numerous problems in DoD software development projects. The ad hoc practices used in the military services and in industry have resulted in unpredictable costs and schedules and low-quality products. This thesis proposes that one solution to these problems is to integrate Software Process Improvement (SPI) activities based on a proven model into software development projects. Both a formal and an informal approach to SPI will be discussed. The thesis will also describe not only the problems encountered in most software development projects, but also the activities defined in these SPI approaches that are designed to solve these problems. A case study of a military project that has spent several years implementing SPI activities based on Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is presented. The SPI activities were implemented in an effort to deliver a high quality product with high reliability while maintaining a high level of control of costs and schedule. This project has succeeded in its goals and the costs and benefits of the project's efforts will be presented.
Electromagnetic Analysis of Flux Barrier U-Shaped Permanent Magnet Vernier Motor

Permanent magnet Vernier machines are well suited for direct-drive industrial applications such as ship propulsion drives, because of their ability to generate high torque at low speeds. In this paper, a flux-barrier tapered-U-shaped permanent magnet Vernier (FBU-PMV) machine topology is proposed. This topology is compared with the spoke-array permanent magnet Vernier (SA-PMV) and the flux-barrier spoke-array permanent magnet (FBSA-PMV) machine topologies. The comparison is done in terms of back-EMF, PM flux, air-gap flux density, synchronous inductance, torque, and power factor, by employing finite element (FE) analysis for the same machine dimensions. It is shown that the proposed FBU-PMV machine topology competes reasonably well with the existing ones even with 25% less PM usage. In addition, the mechanical construction of this new topology also possesses certain advantages.
Discussion on the paper by A. Khalak & C.H.K., Williamson Dynamics of a Hydroelastic Cylinder with Very low Mass and Damping

Abstract An experimental facility for the study of the forces and response associated with vortex-induced vibration of a rigid cylinder has been constructed with extraordinarily low normalized mass and normalized damping. This facility achieves a level of combined mass and damping which is an order of magnitude less than previous studies of this type. Measurements of the total integrated forces on a static cylinder demonstrate the importance of the end conditions. By varying the end conditions, the case of vortices shed parallel to the cylinder was compared to the oblique shedding case. The results show that the mean drag is consistently higher in the parallel shedding case, throughout our range of Reynolds number, whereas the variation in r.m.s. lift is highly dependent on Reynolds number. At Re=12 000, the parallel case had five times the r.m.s. lift of the oblique case, a ratio which would become larger as the aspect ratio of the cylinder increases. However, despite this dependence upon Reynolds number in the magnitude of the lift force, the dominant nondimensional frequencies of the lift force were independent of Reynolds number, even in the present case of cellular shedding. Our study of the response in the hydroelastic case has brought two previously neglected points to the fore. Our data at very low mass-damping ratio shows that the response has two branches of resonance. The implication at low mass-damping ratios is that there are actually two distinct levels of resonance, rather than a single one as previously assumed. The second observation is that the adjustment of the mass ratio affects the response, even when the combined mass-damping ratio is kept constant. An equation of motion is developed here, with inclusion of the inviscid “added-mass” force which will necessarily become important at low mass ratios.
Prediction of Dominant Ocean Parameters for Sustainable Marine Environment

Prediction of ocean parameters is the rising interest in ocean-related fields to perceive variations in climatic conditions. Most of the existing methods reveal that predictions involve a single parameter, namely Sea Surface Temperature (SST). This paper proposed a deep learning technique of Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) with Multi-Variant Convolutional (MVC) High Speed (HS) Long and short-Term Memory (HM-LSTM) model to predict the four essential parameters - temperature, pressure, salinity and density at three different Oceans -the Bay of Bengal, Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. The traditional method is limited to time sequence prediction without considering its spatial linkage. The horizontal and vertical parametric variations with spatial and temporal dependencies at 2000 m below the ocean is the observation considerations for the proposed prediction model. The ARGO provides the thermocline, pycnocline, and halocline layers data to perform the parameter prediction. Its results demonstrate the excellent overall accuracy, low Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and low Mean Absolute Error (MAE) without any overfitting or underfitting compared to the current State-of-the-art. The forecasting of ocean weather helps conserve the ocean environment for human life in food security, developing the global economy, biomedical exploration, medicines, treatments, diagnostic analysis, and producing a significant passenger transport and tourism source.
A Trajectory Planning Algorithm of Spray Robot for Workpieces with Complex Geometric Features based on 3D Point Cloud

Trajectory planning of spray robot for workpieces with complex geometric features is always a challenging problem. Combined with the actual process requirements of surface spraying and edge spraying, a new spraying path design method based on 3D point cloud is proposed in this paper. During surface spraying, the automatic segmentation algorithm of spraying area based on the determination of hole ratio and Euclidean clustering is studied. For the area with dense features, the point cloud slicing algorithm is used to generate the spray path. For the narrow area, the flexible midline extraction algorithm is proposed. We also discussed the edge extraction algorithm to generate the edge spray path. According to the simulation results of coating thickness, this method can not only ensure the uniformity of coating thickness, but also ensure high spraying efficiency with low paint waste.