A data mining approach to classify serum creatinine values in patients undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis

Wireless Networks - Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) is a treatment used by patients in the end-stage of chronic kidney diseases. Those patients need to be monitored using blood...     

Experimental determination of 3D crack propagation scenario in resistance spot welds of a martensitic stainless steel

International Journal of Fracture - The development of high-performance automotive steels involves increasingly complex chemistries and heat treating sequences, to produce stronger and lighter...     

Hydrogen storage performance of methyl-substituted mesoporous silica with tailored textural characteristics

Journal of Porous Materials - The present study reports a systematic analysis of morphology and hydrogen sorption capacity of mesoporous organic-inorganic silica prepared by varying the silica...     

Spinal Excitatory Dynorphinergic Interneurons Contribute to Burn Injury-Induced Nociception Mediated by Phosphorylated Histone 3 at Serine 10 in Rodents

The phosphorylation of serine 10 in histone 3 (p-S10H3) has recently been demonstrated to participate in spinal nociceptive processing. However, superficial dorsal horn (SDH) neurons involved in p-S10H3-mediated nociception have not been fully characterized. In the present work, we combined immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization with the retrograde labeling of projection neurons to reveal the subset of dorsal horn neurons presenting an elevated level of p-S10H3 in response to noxious heat (60 °C), causing burn injury. Projection neurons only represented a small percentage (5%) of p-S10H3-positive cells, while the greater part of them belonged to excitatory SDH interneurons. The combined immunolabeling of p-S10H3 with markers of already established interneuronal classes of the SDH revealed that the largest subset of neurons with burn injury-induced p-S10H3 expression was dynorphin immunopositive in mice. Furthermore, the majority of p-S10H3-expressing dynorphinergic neurons proved to be excitatory, as they lacked Pax-2 and showed Lmx1b-immunopositivity. Thus, we showed that neurochemically heterogeneous SDH neurons exhibit the upregulation of p-S10H3 shortly after noxious heat-induced burn injury and consequential tissue damage, and that a dedicated subset of excitatory dynorphinergic neurons is likely a key player in the development of central sensitization via the p-S10H3 mediated pathway.     

Enriched multi-agent middleware for building rule-based distributed security solutions for IoT environments

The Journal of Supercomputing - The increasing number of connected devices and the complexity of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems are demanding new architectures for managing and securing these...     

Structural,electronic paramagnetic resonance and magnetic properties of praseodymium-doped rare earth CeO2 semiconductors

In this work, praseodymium (Pr) doped cerium oxide (CeO₂) was prepared using the microwave-assisted hydrothermal method (MAH) and the properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Field Emission Gun Scanning Electron Microscope (FEG-SEM), BET method, Photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis), Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) and Magnetometry. The results showed that increasing the Pr-doping promotes a structural disorder due to increased oxygen vacancies. XRD confirmed a cubic structure without deleterious phases with modifications in the structure caused by alteration in the cerium oxidation state as well as changes in the crystallite size and strain obtained by Wellinson-Hall method. Raman spectroscopy shows that changing the Pr content results in samples with different defect densities at short range. FEG-SEM showed that the nanocrystals are agglomerated with small particles tend to aggregate spontaneously to decrease the surface energy. BET method showed that the Pr doping results in a gain of specific surface area. PL indicated that Pr³⁺ leads to distinct emissions; red emission associated to oxygen vacancies located near the conduction band (shallow defects), green emission associated to electron-hole recombination and orange emission associated to shallow defects and electron-hole recombination. FTIR indicated the complete process of nucleation with no other phase. UV–Vis showed the transitions between oxygen 2p, cerium 4f and praseodymium 4f states. The EPR signal shows events occurring around 344 mT. These events can be related due the presence of paramagnetic elements containing unpaired electrons, such as Ce (III), which is indicative of cerium reduction caused by Pr ions, as evidenced by Rietveld data. Regardless of the Pr concentration used in this research, the magnetic measurements show a superparamagnetic system below the blocking temperature of ~20 K and a paramagnetic system above this temperature, which indicates no significant changes in the average size of the nanoparticles. Surface area, crystallite size and the temperature are important parameters, which control the magnetic properties of such N-type semiconductors.     

Effect of height on the corrosion of steel and galvanized steel in nontropical coastal marine environments

In this study, the behavior of carbon steel and galvanized steel in nontropical coastal marine environments was evaluated. Evaluation was carried out with specimens with dimensions of 10 cm × 10 cm × 0.3 cm. These specimens were exposed to four testing stations (Iquique, Mejillones, Los Vilos, and San Vicente), where racks were installed both at ground level (ground), as well as in the upper zone of electrical transmission towers (tower). In each station, 24 specimens of A36 carbon steel and galvanized steel were placed (12 each). The corrosivity of the environment was measured using the ISO 9223, 9225, and 9226 standards. The specimens were evaluated on-site, monthly, through visual inspection and photographic record. Once withdrawn, the corrosion rate was determined and the corrosion products were analyzed through Raman and Fourier-transform infrared. The results show that, in all cases, the corrosion rate is greater in the tower than on the ground. However, even though the Los Vilos station is located farther from the sea (3,500 vs. ≈500 m), the corrosion rate of steel in the tower is the highest. This is caused by the generation of HCl from the transformation of lepidocrocite into goethite, in the presence of low chloride content, which acidifies the steel/corrosion product interface. In the case of galvanized steel, the corrosion rate is a function of the chloride content in the atmosphere, obtaining an excellent correlation between both parameters.     

Fuzzy Time Series Models Using Pliant- and Asymptotically Pliant Arithmetic-Based Inference

Neural Processing Letters - The fuzzy time series modeling techniques proposed in this study are based on a fuzzy inference method in which the fuzzy output is either a so-called pliant or quasi...