Showing papers by "Texas A&M University published in 2022"
TL;DR: This paper identified omitted variables as a primary source of endogeneity that can induce bias in empirical estimation and pointed out that omitted variables can be used as a source of bias in management research.
67 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a higher-order unified gradient elasticity theory is conceived in a mixed variational framework based on suitable functional space of kinetic test fields, and the intrinsic form of the differential and boundary conditions of equilibrium along with the constitutive laws is consistently established.
51 citations
TL;DR: A detailed report on the impact analysis of EV integration on the component and system levels is presented and techniques employed to effectively model the mobile nature of EV load and distributed EVs potential to provide ancillary solutions are explained.
Abstract: Electric vehicles (EVs) have remarkably emerged as an alternative for internal combustion engines. With high penetration levels of the EVs, its addition to the existing distribution line infrastructure affects the power quality and grid stability. Additionally, EV charging loads are characteristically different as they are mobile compared to other fixed node-connected loads. Proposing solutions without considering these factors may result in grid congestion and subsequent over/under compensations. Another emerging dynamics co-occurring in the distribution system is high penetration levels of renewable energy in the utility grid. Although these dynamics pose challenges in stable grid operation, it also gives opportunities for solving some of the grid integration issues of EV loads. Thus, the effect of adding EV charging load to the existing low voltage distribution system must be analyzed by considering different criteria such as grid impact with different EV chargers, mobile nature of EV load, power quality, voltage profile, and spread/peak demand of load curve. This paper presents a detailed report on the impact analysis of EV integration on the component and system levels. For analyzing the effect on power quality (component level), grid pollution contributed by EV chargers along with possible solutions is elucidated. Detailed discussion on the significance of EV load location, existing load distribution, and nature of EV charging load distribution is presented by considering different feeders and different load curves. These discussions are supported with simulated case studies followed by a review of existing literature for enhanced understanding. Finally, techniques employed to effectively model the mobile nature of EV load and distributed EVs potential to provide ancillary solutions are also explained.
51 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that NF-κB activation increased the retention while reducing the release of internalized pathogenic tau fibrils from primary microglia and rescued microglial autophagy deficits.
Abstract: Abstract Activation of microglia is a prominent pathological feature in tauopathies, including Alzheimer’s disease. How microglia activation contributes to tau toxicity remains largely unknown. Here we show that nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) signaling, activated by tau, drives microglial-mediated tau propagation and toxicity. Constitutive activation of microglial NF-κB exacerbated, while inactivation diminished, tau seeding and spreading in young PS19 mice. Inhibition of NF-κB activation enhanced the retention while reduced the release of internalized pathogenic tau fibrils from primary microglia and rescued microglial autophagy deficits. Inhibition of microglial NF-κB in aged PS19 mice rescued tau-mediated learning and memory deficits, restored overall transcriptomic changes while increasing neuronal tau inclusions. Single cell RNA-seq revealed that tau-associated disease states in microglia were diminished by NF-κB inactivation and further transformed by constitutive NF-κB activation. Our study establishes a role for microglial NF-κB signaling in mediating tau spreading and toxicity in tauopathy.
50 citations
TL;DR: An overview of virulence mechanisms and determinants for which roles have been demonstrated in vivo, primarily in mouse models of infection is provided.
Abstract: Lyme disease Borrelia are obligately parasitic, tick- transmitted, invasive, persistent bacterial pathogens that cause disease in humans and non-reservoir vertebrates primarily through the induction of inflammation. During transmission from the infected tick, the bacteria undergo significant changes in gene expression, resulting in adaptation to the mammalian environment. The organisms multiply and spread locally and induce inflammatory responses that, in humans, result in clinical signs and symptoms. Borrelia virulence involves a multiplicity of mechanisms for dissemination and colonization of multiple tissues and evasion of host immune responses. Most of the tissue damage, which is seen in non-reservoir hosts, appears to result from host inflammatory reactions, despite the low numbers of bacteria in affected sites. This host response to the Lyme disease Borrelia can cause neurologic, cardiovascular, arthritic, and dermatologic manifestations during the disseminated and persistent stages of infection. The mechanisms by which a paucity of organisms (in comparison to many other infectious diseases) can cause varied and in some cases profound inflammation and symptoms remains mysterious but are the subjects of diverse ongoing investigations. In this review, we provide an overview of virulence mechanisms and determinants for which roles have been demonstrated in vivo, primarily in mouse models of infection.
48 citations
TL;DR: A compressive analysis of recent advances in the electron exchange capacity (EEC) of biochar, focusing primarily on the mechanisms of EEC formation, factors affecting it and biochar applications in environmental cleanup is provided in this article.
46 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate building professionals' experience, awareness, and interest in occupant health in buildings, and assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their opinions, as well as to compare the research on occupant health to professionals' opinions.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a survey of 1478 travelers and multistep group structural equation model analysis revealed that the Health Belief Model constructs of cues to action (trust in third-party information sources), perceived severity of and susceptibility to COVID-19, and beliefs about the protection benefits of a COVID19 vaccine, subsequently elicited willingness to vaccinate and beliefs that others should vaccinate prior to travel and enhanced support for pre-travel vaccination mandates.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, three state-of-the-art occupancy sensing technologies were integrated into the real-time Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system control in commercial buildings.
40 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the dispersion characteristics of flexural waves in a functionally graded (FG) porous nanobeam and established integro-differential constitutive laws of the stress resultant fields with equivalent differential relations equipped with non-standard boundary conditions.
39 citations
TL;DR: A compressive analysis of recent advances in the electron exchange capacity (EEC) of biochar, focusing primarily on the mechanisms of EEC formation, factors affecting it and biochar applications in environmental cleanup is provided in this paper .
01 Jan 2022
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a computer vision system to automatically detect the violation of face mask wearing and physical distancing among construction workers to assure their safety on infrastructure projects during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many shutdowns in different industries around the world. Sectors such as infrastructure construction and maintenance projects have not been suspended due to their significant effect on people’s routine life. In such projects, workers work close together that makes a high risk of infection. The World Health Organization recommends wearing a face mask and practicing physical distancing to mitigate the virus’s spread. In this paper, we developed a computer vision system to automatically detect the violation of face mask wearing and physical distancing among construction workers to assure their safety on infrastructure projects during the pandemic. For the face mask detection, we collected and annotated 1000 images, including different types of face mask wearing, and added them to a pre-existing face mask dataset to develop a dataset of 1853 images and increased the dataset to 3300 images by data augmentation. Then, we trained and tested multiple Tensorflow state-of-the-art object detection models on the face mask dataset and chose the Faster R-CNN Inception ResNet V2 network that yielded the accuracy of 99.8%. For physical distance detection, we employed the Faster R-CNN Inception V2 to detect people. A transformation matrix was used to eliminate the camera angle’s effect on the object distances on the image. The Euclidian distance used the pixels of the transformed image to compute the actual distance between people. A threshold of six feet was considered to capture physical distance violation. We also used transfer learning for training the model. The final model was applied on four videos of road maintenance projects in Houston, TX, that effectively detected the face mask and physical distance. We recommend that construction owners use the proposed system to enhance construction workers’ safety in the pandemic situation.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss how to mitigate antimicrobial resistance and develop prebiotic and probiotic alternatives to in-feed antibiotics in animal production, while helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the urinary and fecal excretion of nitrogenous and other wastes to the environment, and sustain animal agriculture (including aquaculture).
Abstract: Consumption of high-quality animal protein plays an important role in improving human nutrition, growth, development, and health. With an exponential growth of the global population, demands for animal-sourced protein are expected to increase by 60% between 2021 and 2050. In addition to the production of food protein and fiber (wool), animals are useful models for biomedical research to prevent and treat human diseases and serve as bioreactors to produce therapeutic proteins. For a high efficiency to transform low-quality feedstuffs and forages into high-quality protein and highly bioavailable essential minerals in diets of humans, farm animals have dietary requirements for energy, amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, and water in their life cycles. All nutrients interact with each other to influence the growth, development, and health of mammals, birds, fish, and crustaceans, and adequate nutrition is crucial for preventing and treating their metabolic disorders (including metabolic diseases) and infectious diseases. At the organ level, the small intestine is not only the terminal site for nutrient digestion and absorption, but also intimately interacts with a diverse community of intestinal antigens and bacteria to influence gut and whole-body health. Understanding the species and metabolism of intestinal microbes, as well as their interactions with the intestinal immune systems and the host intestinal epithelium can help to mitigate antimicrobial resistance and develop prebiotic and probiotic alternatives to in-feed antibiotics in animal production. As abundant sources of amino acids, bioactive peptides, energy, and highly bioavailable minerals and vitamins, animal by-product feedstuffs are effective for improving the growth, development, health, feed efficiency, and survival of livestock and poultry, as well as companion and aquatic animals. The new knowledge covered in this and related volumes of Adv Exp Med Biol is essential to ensure sufficient provision of animal protein for humans, while helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the urinary and fecal excretion of nitrogenous and other wastes to the environment, and sustain animal agriculture (including aquaculture).
TL;DR: In this paper , the use of a cheap and effective adsorption approach based on biomass-activated carbon (AC) to remediate heavy metal contamination is clearly desirable for developing countries that are economically disadvantaged yet have abundant biomass.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors present a systematic approach to evaluate the time interval of optimal maintenance strategy for the subsea process system influenced by Microbiological Influenced Corrosion (MIC) within multiple defects.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic approach to evaluate the time interval of optimal maintenance strategy for the subsea process system influenced by Microbiological Influenced Corrosion (MIC) within multiple defects. The proposed method incorporates the non-homogeneous Poisson, homogeneous gamma, and non-homogeneous Markov processes for modeling the generation of multiple defects, the average pit depth growth, and maximum pit depth, respectively. The maintenance strategy comprises industrial procedure, probability of failure detection, errors sizing in-line inspection tools, management actions costs, and failure cost. The developed framework simulates maintenance strategies considering time interval, cost, probability of detection, average pit depth, and maximum pit depth and identifies the optimal strategy. The practical application is demonstrated in a North Sea subsea pipeline system under MIC’s influence. This work assists decision-makers in selecting the optimal conditioned-based maintenance strategy for the processing system. While the application is demonstrated to subsea process systems under MIC influence, the developed approach is equally applicable to other process systems.
TL;DR: A hybrid Koopman model predictive control framework for a batch pulping process is developed to regulate the Kappa number and the cell wall thickness of fibers to produce pulp with desired properties in the presence of feed fluctuations.
University of Seville1, University of Almería2, Texas A&M University3, University of Granada4, University of New South Wales5, University of Padua6, University of Monterrey7, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University8, University of Toronto9, Lebanese American University10, Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University11, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University12, University of Minho13, Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo14, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology15, Kozminski University16, Tanta University17, University of Batna18, University of Nigeria, Nsukka19, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo20, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology21, Rutgers University22, Tarumanagara University23, Claude Bernard University Lyon 124, Dr Emilio B Espinosa Sr Memorial State College of Agriculture and Technology25, University of London26, Örebro University27, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg28, Pathumwan Institute of Technology29, University of Ljubljana30, National Research University – Higher School of Economics31
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the role of different psychological coping mechanisms in mental and physical health during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis with an emphasis on meaning-centered coping.
TL;DR: A review of recent technological advances in applying TENG technology to key sustainable and renewable energy applications can be found in this paper , where the authors examine progress of TENG applications in four key areas such as wearables, wave, wind and transport.
Abstract: Almost ten years after the publication of the first triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) paper in 2012, this review gives a brief overview of recent technological advances in applying TENG technology to key sustainable and renewable energy applications. The paper examines progress of TENG applications in four key areas such as wearables, wave, wind and transport. TENGs have advanced hugely since its inception and approaches to apply them to a host of freely available sources of kinetic energy have been developed. However, electrical output remains low (mostly less than 500 W/m2) compared to some other forms of energy generation and the main challenges for the future appear to be further boosting output power and current, fabricating advanced TENGs economically and designing TENGs for lifetime survival in various practical environments. It concludes with a discussion of pressing challenges for realizing the full potential of TENGs in these application areas particularly from the perspective of materials and fabrication. It is noted that considerable research and development should be required to enable large-scale manufacture of TENG based devices. TENGs will be instrumental in the future evolution of the Internet of Things (IoTs), human-machine interfacing, machine learning applications and ‘net-zero emission’ technologies.
TL;DR: In this paper, the enhanced version of Kudryashov's scheme was employed to recover optical soliton solution in fiber Bragg gratings that were considered with five different nonlinear forms.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors investigated the removal of Bisphenol E (bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) ethane, BPE), as a typical endocrine disrupting chemical, is commonly detected in source water and drinking water, which poses potential risks to human health and ecological environment.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors combine DFT calculations with necessary configurational averaging, machine-learning (ML) and physics-based models to predict the stacking fault energy (SFE) in the CoCrFeMnNiV-Al high-entropy alloy space.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors studied the dynamical behaviors and optical solitons in DWDM networks with Schrödinger-Hirota equation and obtained a range of new soliton solutions.
TL;DR: In this paper, a dual heterostructure in brass that consists of the heterogeneous lamella and gradient structure, fabricated by rolling, partial annealing, and rotationally accelerated shot peening (RASP) is presented.
TL;DR: In this article, two heterocyclic azole compounds, 3-(2,3-dihydrobenzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)-4H-chromen-4-one (SVS1) and 5-(1H-indol-3-yl)methylene)-N-methylhydrazine-1-carbothioamide(SVS2), were obtained from 2-aminothiophenol and 4-oxo-4h-chromene-3 -carbaldehyde (for SVS1),
TL;DR: Automatic Text Summarization (ATS) is an important area in Natural Language Processing (NLP) with the goal of shortening a long text into a more compact version by conveying the most important points in a readable form as mentioned in this paper.
TL;DR: Recently, growing evidence supports significant involvement of immune dysfunction in the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases, several of which also display prominent sex differences across prevalence, pathology, and symptomology as discussed by the authors.
TL;DR: Aquatic animals have particularly high requirements for dietary amino acids (AAs) for health, survival, growth, development, and reproduction, and therefore are the determinants of the growth performance and feed efficiency of farmed fish as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Aquatic animals have particularly high requirements for dietary amino acids (AAs) for health, survival, growth, development, and reproduction. These nutrients are usually provided from ingested proteins and may also be derived from supplemental crystalline AA. AAs are the building blocks of protein (a major component of tissue growth) and, therefore, are the determinants of the growth performance and feed efficiency of farmed fish. Because protein is generally the most expensive ingredient in aqua feeds, much attention has been directed to ensure that dietary protein feedstuff is of high quality and cost-effective for feeding fish, crustaceans, and other aquatic animals worldwide. Due to the rapid development of aquaculture worldwide and a limited source of fishmeal (the traditionally sole or primary source of AAs for aquatic animals), alternative protein sources must be identified to feed aquatic animals. Plant-sourced feedstuffs for aquatic animals include soybean meal, extruded soybean meal, fermented soybean meal, soybean protein concentrates, soybean protein isolates, leaf meal, hydrolyzed plant protein, wheat, wheat hydrolyzed protein, canola meal, cottonseed meal, peanut meal, sunflower meal, peas, rice, dried brewers grains, and dried distillers grains. Animal-sourced feedstuffs include fishmeal, fish paste, bone meal, meat and bone meal, poultry by-product meal, chicken by-product meal, chicken visceral digest, spray-dried poultry plasma, spray-dried egg product, hydrolyzed feather meal, intestine-mucosa product, peptones, blood meal (bovine or poultry), whey powder with high protein content, cheese powder, and insect meal. Microbial sources of protein feedstuffs include yeast protein and single-cell microbial protein (e.g., algae); they have more balanced AA profiles than most plant proteins for animal feeding. Animal-sourced ingredients can be used as a single source of dietary protein or in complementary combinations with plant and microbial sources of proteins. All protein feedstuffs must adequately provide functional AAs for aquatic animals.
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of concentrations of Fe(VI) and PAA showed that complete removal (degradation below detection limit) of a pharmaceutical, carbamazepine (CBZ, 10.0 and 100.0 µm PAA under mild alkaline condition (pH 9.0).
TL;DR: In this article, a novel bond-level latent fragility measure based on asset illiquidity of mutual funds holding the bond was proposed to find that corporate bonds bearing higher fragility subsequently experience higher return volatility and more outflows-induced mutual fund selling over the period of 2006-2019.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the value of energy performance contracting in a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one supplier and two financially asymmetric manufacturers under carbon tax regulation for climate change mitigation.
Abstract: Energy performance contracting is a turnkey service for an enterprise to achieve the goal of energy-saving or emission abatement. This study investigates the value of energy performance contracting in a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one supplier and two financially asymmetric manufacturers under carbon tax regulation for climate change mitigation. The supplier provides a trade credit for a financially weak manufacturer who engages in Cournot competition with a financially strong manufacturer. Furthermore, the supplier can act as an energy service company to offer energy performance contracting for the two manufacturers to achieve carbon tax savings. The impact of sharing ratio of energy performance contracting and coefficient of variable cost are analyzed to explore whether and which manufacturer should be chosen by the supplier to implement energy performance contracting. The results suggest that when the coefficient of variable cost is within a high range, the supplier will not provide energy performance contracting for any manufacturer. However, when the coefficient of variable cost and sharing ratio are not very high, the supplier prefers to provide energy performance contracting for the financially weak manufacturer. With the increasing of sharing ratio, the supplier changes the decision to select the financially strong one. Moreover, the model is extended to consider the impact of demand uncertainty and coefficient of investment cost. Furthermore, the result of numerical studies indicates that there exists a Pareto zone for the three supply chain members to achieve a multi-win situation, if the supplier provides the energy performance contracting for both the manufacturers.