Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) loci encode glycoproteins that bind to foreign peptides and initiate immune responses through their interaction with T cells. MHC class II molecules are heterodimers consisting of a and b chains encoded by extremely variable genes; variation in exon 2 is responsible for the majority of observed polymorphisms, mostly concentrated in the codons specifying th…
1. Desert rivers are highly dynamic systems in which dry periods, frequently involving the cessation of superficial flow, alternate with violent flash floods. In spite of their territorial importance and high functional and biological diversity, desert rivers have received little attention in the scientific literature, especially in Northern Africa. 2. This study investigated the distribution …
The mechanisms most likely to determine the distribution of the two major herring Clupea harengus stocks in their common early summer feeding ground in the eastern North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat were investigated through analysis of acoustic survey data from six consecutive years. No change was detected in biomass of North Sea autumn spawning C. harengus (NSAS) over time, whereas the biomass…
The nuclear receptors dax1 and SF-1 play important and antagonistic roles in gonad differentiation in mammals. To study their potential functions in teleost fish, the full-length cDNAs of dax1 and SF-1 were cloned and characterized from spotted scat. Their expression patterns in adult tissues and juveniles treated with 17
A lactic acid bacterial strain, Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. tolerans F2, isolated from the intestine of Ramnogaster arcuata, was evaluated as a growth promoter in juvenile rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum, 1972) farming. In addition, the safety of the strain was assessed according to the FAO recommendations. Strain F2 was susceptible to most antibiotics tested and no evidence of he…
Dietary lipid source in aquaculture has become a central topic in research whilst natural resources availability diminishes. Hence, to weigh up and forecast consumers impressions, the impact of partial (70%) and complete (100%) dietary replacement of fish oil (FO) by linseed oil (LO) on sensory and quality attributes was studied during the edible shelf life of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata…
Abstract—Ensuring safe operation of stimulators is the most important issue in neural stimulation. Safety, in terms of stimulators’ electrical performances, can be related mainly to two factors; the zero-net charge transfer to tissue and the heat generated by power dissipation at tissue. This paper presents a safety ensuring neurostimulator for retinal vision prostheses, featuring precise …
Using supervised machine learning approaches to recognize human activities from on-body wearable accelerometers generally requires a large amount of labeled data.When ground truth information is not available, too expensive, time consuming or difficult to collect, one has to rely on unsupervised approaches. This paper presents a new unsupervised approach for human activity recognition from raw …
This paper aims at investigating the drop impact solder interconnect reliability of an advanced ultra-fine-pitch 3-D integrated circuit chip stacking packaging in accordance with JEDEC board-level test specification through finite-element (FE) simulation and experimental testing. To characterize the transient dynamic responses of the package, ANSYS/LS-DYNA incorporated with the Input-G method i…
Early detection of patients with elevated risk of developing diabetes mellitus is critical to the improved prevention and overall clinical management of these patients. We aim to apply association rule mining to electronic medical records (EMR) to discover sets of risk factors and their corresponding subpopulations that represent patients at particularly high risk of developing diabetes. Given…
The barrier properties of self-forming barrier aresensitive to the thickness, annealing temperature, annealing time, and impurity concentration of itself. In this paper, the properties of Cu/CuMn/SiO2 bilayer structures were investigated, and an optimized thickness of Cu and CuMn alloy used as barrier layers in these bilayer structures was also determined. The bilayer structure could reduce the…
Ciona intestinalis sp. A (Tunicata, Ascidiacea) is a marine invertebrate with a widespread distribution and high invasive potential, yet little is known about its ecology. Here, the macrodynamics of demographic and reproductive trends were first determined using archive data covering 2002–2012. Species abundance in the central Tyrrhenian Sea (Campania, Italy - NW Mediterranean) displayed Pois…
In this study, a laboratory of genetics and physiology 2 gene (lgp2) from common carp Cyprinus carpio was isolated and characterized. The full-length complementary (c)DNA of lgp2 was 3061 bp and encoded a polypeptide of 680 amino acids, with an estimated molecular mass of 77 341⋅2Da and a predicted isoelectric point of 6⋅53. The predicted protein included four main overlapping structural do…
The objective was to document the variations in the intermuscular bone counts among three carp strains: mirror carp, hybrid carp [Boshi carp (Cyprinus pellegrini) 9 Heilongjiang carp (Cyprinus carpio)], and a cold-resistant strain of Hebao carp. The intermuscular bone counts, lengths, and weights were obtained from 146 fish; the bone count ranged from 55 to 110 (mean 92.85) among the three str…
Most of the studies investigating synchrony in fluctuations of abundance of small pelagic fish have been based on catch data only, which do not describe the dynamics of populations as a relative abundance index. In this paper, catch, biomass, recruitment and recruitment rate, were used to compare synchronous changes for two stocks of anchovy (Engraulis ringens) from 1982 to 2004. One is the No…
1. We compared leaf litter conditioning in two artificial stream channels that were connected to a second-order stream (both in- and outflow). The water in one channel had the same temperature as the stream and in the other channel was warmed (3 °C above ambient stream water temperature). In addition to measuring leaf decomposition by microbes, we ran feeding trials in the artificial streams a…
During scientific surveys on the continental slopes north-west of Spitsbergen and off north-east Greenland (c. 600 and 1000m depths), two female Arctic skates Amblyraja hyperborea were caught while swallowing extraordinary large individuals of glacial eelpout Lycodes frigidus. The total length (LT) of the prey constituted 50 and 80% of the LT of the skates, which reveal that A. hyperborea are c…
Abstract—Fabrication of ultra-thin (1–20-μm thickness) polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films is enabled with a hexane dilution process and an underlying gelatin release layer. The release and transfer of these films over large areas (>5 cm) allows measurement of the thickness-dependent and process-dependent mechanical properties of ultra-thin PDMS membranes, reported for the first time. The e…
Abstract—A compact, low-power, single-loop third-order delta–sigma () time-to-digital converter (TDC) for time-mode signal processing is presented in this brief. In general, a high-resolution TDC requires a cascadable time integrator to increase the order of the loop filter. However, implementing the time integrator has been very challenging owing to the difficulty in storing time inf…
An analytical approach to predict initiation and growth of interfacial delamination in the through-silicon via structure is developed by combining a cohesive zone model with a shear-lag model. Two critical temperatures are predicted for damage initiation and fracture initiation, respectively. It is found that via extrusion significantly increases beyond the second critical temperature. The depe…
Abstract—Graph-based ranking models have been widely applied in information retrieval area. In this paper, we focus on a well known graph-based model - the Ranking on Data Manifold model, or Manifold Ranking (MR). Particularly, it has been successfully applied to content-based image retrieval, because of its outstanding ability to discover underlying geometrical structure of the given image d…
Recently, the temporal constraint satisfiability is regarded as an important criterion in Web service composition to guarantee its timely completion. This leads to a new challenge in analyzing the compatibility of Web services under temporal constraints. The existing methods either do not consider message mismatches between services in a composition or suffer from state-space explosion by verif…
Improving the efficacy of rapid response operations in acute care delivery to ensure patient safety and care quality is of significant importance. In this paper, we study the response time performance (RTP) in rapid response operations. Such performance is defined as the probability that an appropriate decision responding to patient deterioration can be made within a desired time period. First,…
The paper presents a model for freeway traffic performance evaluation and control in a First-Order Hybrid Petri Net (FOHPN) framework. Such a hybrid Petri net formalism includes continuous places holding fluid, discrete places containing a non-negative integer number of tokens and transitions, which are either discrete or continuous. In order to suitably describe the dynamics of the freeway tra…
We examine a non-cyclic scheduling problem of a wet station that performs cleaning processes for removing residual contaminants on wafer surfaces. Several chemical and rinse baths, and multiple robots for transporting jobs are linearly combined in a wet station. A wet station in a fab tends to have different types of jobs. Therefore, it is realistic to consider non-cyclic release of jobs into a…
In dimensional inspection using coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), the following issues are critical to achieve accurate inspection while minimizing the cost and time: 1) How can we select the sampling positions of the measurements so that we can get as much information from a limited number of samples as possible and 2) given the limited number of measurements, how can we assess the form er…
The purpose of this paper is based on the estimation of power MOSFET junction temperature during a shortduration avalanche mode. Therefore, an experiment has been developed and results have been correlated with simple electrothermal modeling. The simple electrothermal model allows monitoring of junction temperature by simple measurements of the ID(t) andBVdss(t) waveforms. Accurate extraction …
Disassembly planning is aimed to perform the optimal disassembly sequence given a used or obsolete product in terms of cost and environmental impact. However, the actual disassembly process of products can experience great uncertainty due to a variety of unpredictable factors. To deal with such uncertainty, this work presents some chance constrained programming models for disassembly cost from …
This paper analyzes the motion planning of a custom-built all position autonomous mobile welding robot. It proposes a novel motion planning method that allows the robot to complete fillet seamwelding while the vehicle turns around the right angle seam simultaneously. The global optimal solution is obtained through model modification. Note to Practitioners—This paper ismotivated by the proble…
The use of passive ultra high-frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) integrated into plywood boards is proposed to enable the identification and tracking of individual plywood boards and end products of plywood. For the first time, tags are embeddable inside plywood by direct inkjet-printing tag antennas on pure birch veneer. The use of passive UHFRFIDtechnology in the applicat…
A combination of stomach contents, nitrogen stable-isotope and tissue C:N values are presented to demonstrate feeding activity of Atlantic bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus on the Gulf of Mexico (GOMEX) spawning grounds. Diets include teleosts, cephalopods, crustaceans and a pelagic tunicate (Pyrosoma atlanticum). Results reveal the need to classify the GOMEX as a T. thynnus feedingground. Key wo…
The Brazilian Government has been promoting studies on the zoning and demarcation of aquaculture parks dedicated to the production of fish in net-cages in the large public reservoirs of the country. The methodology employed for the zoning of these aquaculture parks consists of the execution in three consecutive stages of multidisciplinary evaluations for their social, environmental and economic…
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of 11 different culture media for production of the free-living nematode Turbatrix aceti. Several other harvesting methods were tested in addition to mass production. A further focus was the investigation of amino acid alterations caused by the application of various media during the culture of T. aceti and two additional nematode s…
Following the 1989 MV Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) and subsequent herring population collapse in Alaska’s Prince William Sound (PWS), the Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) fishery was closed. In the 25 yr since EVOS, herring and several herring-dependent marine bird species have failed to reach pre-spill population levels. One hypothesis is that intense predation pressure may be inhibiting…
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of inbreeding on body weight (BW) at harvest size (130 d of age) and grow-out survival rate (SR) (65–130 d of age) in a nucleus breeding population of Penaeus (Litopenaeus) vannamei. An experiment was designed to generate inbred families the product of sibling matings, as well as groups of families with different inbreeding coefficient…
The effect of various dietary starch to proteins ratios (STA/P) on growth performance, oxidative status and liver enzyme activities involved in intermediary metabolism in juvenile Nile tilapia was evaluated. Four isocaloric-practical diets (12.73 MJ kg 1 digestible energy) with increasing STA/CP ratios were formulated. These were designated D0 (344 g crude protein (CP) and 163.5 g starch (STA)…
When confronted with similar environmental challenges, different organisms can exhibit dissimilar phenotypic responses. Therefore, understanding patterns of phenotypic divergence for closely related species requires considering distinct evolutionary histories. Here, we investigated how a common form of human-induced environmental alteration, habitat fragmentation, may drive phenotypic divergen…
A basal practical diet for juvenile tench (Tinca tinca) was formulated and elaborated to test several protein contents and substitution possibilities of fish meal (FM) by soybean meal (SBM) in a 90- day trial with 5-month-old juveniles (30.54 mm TL, 0.30 g W). A factorial design included nine feeding treatments: three protein contents (50%, 40% or 30%) and three levels of replacement (0%, 25% o…
Discards are the portion of animal and plant material in the catch that is dumped back at sea. The Common Fisheries Policy plan proposed by the European Commission for 2014–2020 presents a controversial goal: to enforce the landing of fishing discards as a measure to encourage their reduction. This historical and political decision will shape the future of the fishing exploitation in European…
The impacts of Cu contamination from a backside surface of a thinned wafer and Cu via on device reliabilities in 3-D IC integration are electrically evaluated. Intrinsic gettering (IG) layer, which was formed by high density oxygen precipitate, shows excellent Cu retardation characteristics from the backside surface of the thinned wafer. Extrinsic gettering (EG) layer, which was formed by postg…
Partition-based random search (PRS) provides a class of effective algorithms for global optimization. In each iteration of a PRS algorithm, the solution space is partitioned into subsets which are randomly sampled and evaluated. One subset is then determined to be the promising subset for further partitioning. In this paper, we propose the problem of allocating samples to each subset so that th…
This paper describes automated procedures for the design and deployment of artificial skin for humanoid robots. This problem is challenging under different perspectives: on the one hand, different robots are characterized by different shapes, thereby requiring a high degree of skin customization; on the other hand, it is necessary to define optimal criteria specifying how the skin must be plac…
Despite a large number of proofs of concept in nanotechnologies (e.g., nanosensors), nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) hardly come to the market. One of the bottlenecks is the packaging of NEMS which require handling, positioning, assembling and joining strategies in the mesoscale (from 100 nm to 10 , between nanoscale and microscale).It requires models of the interaction forces and adhesio…
This paper presents the results of a combined experimental and theoretical study of interfacial fracture in organic electronic structures. Interfacial fracture toughness is investigated as a function of mode mixity using Brazil disk specimens. The measured fracture toughness values are then compared with predictions determined from crack-tip shielding estimates and atomic force microscopy measu…
The reliability of structural and electrical properties of mixed As/Sb staggered gap tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) for high-temperature operation was comprehensively investigated from 25 ◦C to 150 ◦C. Temperature-dependent X-ray measurements showed identical strain relaxation of the active region, indicating that no additional dislocations were introduced at 150 ◦C. Symmetric 2-…
This paper presents the analysis, design, and closedloop motion control of a mobile microrobotic platform capable of micrometer positioning on a plane. The mobile microrobot, including chassis, actuators, drives, microprocessor, and electronics, is of low cost (less than $20), can be fabricated rapidly and is made of commercially available components. Its motion is induced by centrifugal forces…
This paper reports on the supply voltage dependency of single-event transient (SET) propagation and multinode charge collection phenomena in integrated circuits. We have found that the SET pulsewidth propagating to subsequent stages in a circuit may decrease with reduced power supply voltage, which runs counter to the general conclusion that ultralow power applications are much more susceptibl…
To assist nature observation, we develop two algorithms to enable automatic bird species filtering using crowd sourced videos as inputs where camera motion and parameters are often unknown. The first algorithm recognizes the time series of salient extremities, which is the inter-wing tip distance (IWTD), from motion segmented bird contours. To analyze the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, …
This paper presents measurement results of alphaparticle-induced soft errors and multiple-cell upsets (MCUs) in 65-nm 10T SRAM with a wide range of supply voltage from 1.0 to 0.3 V. We reveal that the soft-error rate (SER) at 0.3 V is six times higher than that at 1.0 V and the MCU rate significantly increases in the subthreshold region. To investigate the reason for the MCU increase, the depe…
Supervisory control is usually considered as an external control mechanism to a system by controlling the occurrences of its controllable events. There exist Petri net models whose legal reachability spaces are nonconvex. In this case, they cannot be optimally controlled by the conjunctions of linear constraints. For Petri net models of flexible manufacturing systems, this work proposes a metho…