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Today’s forming technology faces the challenge that the variety and large quantity of new materials require the use of high and ultra-high strength materials to save resources during the service life of products. To serve these requirements, the tool and mould making industry relies on cemented carbide tools for mass forming processes, used, for example, in the newly developing e-mobility branch and in the lightweight design of machine parts. Recent studies have evaluated the use of high strength forming tools made of cemented carbide, and it is clear that these tools are not yet available to a broad field of industrial users. When it comes to high-strength forming tools, the process chain does not allow for effective tool making such as would achieve quick success and a short time-to-market. Due to time and cost pressures, there is increasing demand for high strength forming tools especially from small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), but the material suppliers of cemented carbide tools can only provide pre-shaped blanks in specific sizes and geometries. In the current process chain, these blanks must be processed in several onerous steps until the desired geometry and surface, as well as the material requirements are met. Most of the necessary process steps require both expensive equipment and, due to the high hardness, a considerable amount of time and knowledge. This project aims to shorten the process chain for the tool and mould making of cemented carbide tools, the material properties of which are adapted to their intended use during the manufacturing process. The goal is to make tools that have a longer tool life, and which can produce a larger number of parts before they fail. On the one hand, these goals can be achieved by a mechanical treatment (machine hammer peening, MHP) of the raw material (powder) during the near-net-shape blank fabrication process, followed by hard milling and grinding processes, as well as machine-assisted surface finishing. On the other hand, MHP is used to build up blanks by means of layer-by-layer compaction. Similarly, Material Extrusion AM (MEAM, an FFF-based process) is used to additively produce a green body for subsequent sintering of the cemented carbide. As AM processes, these methods will greatly expand the scope for design and offer high flexibility for small and medium series. Combined with the material classification, great potentials can be leveraged. Especially SMEs will benefit from such modified process chains because of the use of lower-cost machines and better tool availability, enabling them to compete with larger enterprises in the tool and mould making sector. The achievements of this project can easily be exploited since several steps of the new process chain are already in use at an industrial level. Up to now, there has been no research in the field of pre-compressed cemented carbide tools, and all the companies participating in this project have a great need of reliable data in this field of mechanical engineering. Therefore, the project consortium consists of the German Cold Forging Group as project leader, the Institute PtU of the Technical University of Darmstadt, the Institutes wbk/IAM-WK of the KIT in Karlsruhe, the research foundation ecoplus, RHP and the IFT of TU Wien from Austria. All the participants have a high reputation in their field of research and are known for their ability to carry out a CORNET project together.

In the laser powder bed fusion process (PBF-LB), components are built up incrementally by locally melting metal powder with a laser beam. This process leads to inhomogeneous material properties of the manufactured components. By integrating these specific material properties into a topology optimization algorithm, product developers can be supported in the early phases of the product development process, such as design finding. For this purpose, a topology optimization method was developed, which takes the inhomogeneous material properties of components fabricated in the PBF-LB process into account. The complex pore architecture in PBF-LB components was studied with micro-computed tomography (µCT). Thereby, three characteristic regions of different porosity were identified and analyzed. The effective stiffness in each of these regions was determined by means of resonant ultrasonic spectroscopy (RUS) as well as finite element analysis. Afterward, the effective stiffness is iteratively considered in the developed topology optimization method. The resulting design proposals of two optimization cases were analyzed and compared to design proposals derived from a standard topology optimization. To evaluate the developed topology optimization method, the derived design proposals were additionally manufactured in the PBF-LB process, and the characteristic pore architecture was analyzed by means of µCT.

When the amount of reactive oxygen species produced by human metabolism cannot be balanced by antioxidants, this phenomenon is commonly referred to as oxidative stress. It is hypothesised that diets with high amounts of plant food products may have a beneficial impact on oxidative stress status. However, few studies have examined whether a vegan diet is associated with lower oxidative stress compared to an omnivorous diet. The present cross-sectional study aimed to compare the levels of five oxidative stress biomarkers in vegans and omnivores. Data of 36 vegans and 36 omnivores from Germany and of 21 vegans and 18 omnivores from Finland were analysed. HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry or fluorescence detection and ELISA methods were used to measure the oxidative stress biomarkers malondialdehyde (MDA), protein carbonyls and 3-nitrotyrosine in plasma and 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and 8-iso-prostaglandin F2α (8-iso-PGF2α) in 24 h urine. Analyses of variance and covariance, considering potential confounders, were used. Vegans and omnivores showed no differences in MDA and protein carbonyl concentrations. In Finnish but not in German vegans, the concentrations of 3-nitrotyrosine were lower compared to those in omnivores (p = 0.047). In Germany, vegans showed lower excretion levels of 8-iso-PGF2α than omnivores (p = 0.002) and with a trend also of 8-OHdG (p = 0.05). The sensitivity analysis suggests lower 8-iso-PGF2α excretion levels in women compared to men, independently of the dietary group. The present study contributes to expanding our knowledge of the relationship between diet and oxidative stress and showed that 3-nitrotyrosine, 8-OHdG and 8-iso-PGF2α tended to be lower in vegans. Furthermore, studies are recommended to validate the present findings.

Background: The consumption of legumes is promoted as part of a healthy diet in many countries but associations of total and types of legume consumption with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are not well established. Analyses across diverse populations are lacking despite the availability of unpublished legume consumption data in prospective cohort studies. Objective: To examine the prospective associations of total and types of legume intake with the risk of incident T2D. Methods: Meta-analyses of associations between total legume, pulse, and soy consumption and T2D were conducted using a federated approach without physical data-pooling. Prospective cohorts were included if legume exposure and T2D outcome data were available and the cohort investigators agreed to participate. We estimated incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and CIs of associations using individual participant data including ≤42,473 incident cases among 807,785 adults without diabetes in 27 cohorts across the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, and Western Pacific. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to combine effect estimates and estimate heterogeneity. Results: Median total legume intake ranged from 0-140 g/d across cohorts. We observed a weak positive association between total legume consumption and T2D (IRR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.04) per 20 g/d higher intake, with moderately high heterogeneity (I2 = 74%). Analysis by region showed no evidence of associations in the Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Pacific. The positive association in Europe (IRR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.10, I2 = 82%) was mainly driven by studies from Germany, UK, and Sweden. No evidence of associations was observed for the consumption of pulses or soy. Conclusions: These findings suggest no evidence of an association of legume intakes with T2D in several world regions. The positive association observed in some European studies warrants further investigation relating to overall dietary contexts in which legumes are consumed, including accompanying foods which may be positively associated with T2D. Funding for the InterConnect project was provided by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 602068. Additionally, investigators acknowledge funding from the following agencies: NJW, NGF, FI, and MP acknowledge funding from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit (MC_UU_12015/1 and MC_UU_12015/5); NJW and NGF acknowledge support from National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre Cambridge: Nutrition, Diet, and Lifestyle Research Theme (IS-BRC-1215-20014). TB acknowledges funding from EUCAN-Connect under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 824989). MBR and MAMG acknowledge funding from the Spanish Government Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) (PI17/01795). JK acknowledges funding from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ministry for Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (4845-301 and 4851-302), and the Collaborative Genome Program for Fostering New Post-Genome Industry of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2017M3C9A6047623). RM acknowledges funding from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (grant number: 81/15), Cancer Research UK (grant number: C20/A5860), the Intramural Research Program of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, NIH, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. LB acknowledges that the Cohort of Swedish Men (COSM) and the Swedish Mammography Cohort (SMC) are part of the Swedish Infrastructure for Medical Population-Based Life-Course and Environmental Research (SIMPLER), which receives funding from the Swedish Research Council (2017-00644). BD is an investigator of the Brazilian National Health Technology Assessment Institute and SC received a fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development Fund (FEDER) (PI17/01795). The Zutphen Elderly Study was funded by The Netherlands Prevention Foundation, The Hague, The Netherlands and the National Institute of Aging, Bethesda, MD, USA. The funding sources did not participate in the design or conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; or preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

The Al-Mn-Sc-based alloys specific for additive manufacturing (AM) have been recently developed and can reach ultrahigh strength and adequate elongation. However, these alloys commonly exhibit non-uniform plasticity during tensile deformation, which is a critical issue hindering their wider application. In this work, the origin of this non-uniform plasticity of the alloys produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) has been systematically investigated for the first time. The results show that the loss of uniform plasticity in the alloy originates from microstructural regions containing equiaxed fine-grains (FGs) (∼650 nm in size) at the bottom of the melt pools. In micro-tensile tests, the strength of these FG regions can reach a peak of ∼630 MPa. After this, an apparent yield drop occurs, followed by rapid strain softening. This FG behavior is associated with intermetallic particles along grain boundaries and a lack of uniform mobile dislocations during deformation. The columnar coarse-grain (CG) regions in the remaining melt pools show uniform plasticity and moderate work hardening. Furthermore, the quantitative calculations indicate that the solid solution strengthening in these two regions is similar. Nevertheless, secondary Al3Sc precipitates contribute to ∼260 MPa strength in the FG, compared to 310 MPa in the CG due to their different number density. In addition, grain boundary strengthening can reach 230 MPa in the FG region; nearly double the CG region value.

To study the manufacturability and mechanical properties of a low alloy heat treatable medium carbon steel by additive manufacturing, 42CrMo4 (AISI4140) specimens were manufactured by laser powder bed fusion. Influences of processing parameters on relative density and crack density were investigated. Moreover, Charpy impact tests, microhardness, and tensile tests for specimens with and without preheating were also studied. Results showed that the primary defects in the microstructure of additively manufactured samples were the lack of fusion pores and microcracks. The variation of processing parameters influences the porosity and microcracks prominently. The impact toughness of specimens with preheating is around three times higher than specimens without preheating. However, post heat treatment for as-built specimens, such as tempering at different temperature ranges, did not improve the impact toughness further. The detailed fracture mechanism for the massive difference in the impact toughness was investigated.

A vegan diet could impact microbiota composition and bacterial metabolites like short-chain (SCFA) and branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA). The aim of this study was to compare the concentrations of SCFA, BCFA, ammonia, and fecal pH between vegans and omnivores. In this cross-sectional study (vegans n = 36, omnivores n = 36), microbiota composition, fecal SCFA, BCFA, and ammonia concentrations and pH were analyzed in complete stool samples. A random forest regression (RFR) was used to identify bacteria predicting SCFA/BCFA concentrations in vegans and omnivores. No significant differences in SCFA and BCFA concentrations were observed between vegans and omnivores. Fecal pH (p = 0.005) and ammonia concentration (p = 0.01) were significantly lower in vegans than in omnivores, while fiber intake was higher (p &lt, 0.0001). Shannon diversity was higher in omnivores compared to vegans on species level (p = 0.04) only. In vegans, a cluster of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Prevotella copri, Dialister spp., and Eubacterium spp. was predictive for SCFA and BCFA concentrations. In omnivores, Bacteroides spp., Clostridium spp., Ruminococcus spp., and Prevotella copri were predictive. Though SCFA and BCFA did not differ between vegans and omnivores, the results of the RFR suggest that bacterial functionality may be adapted to varying nutrient availability in these diets.

A zirconia-based potentiometric solid electrolyte gas sensor with internal solid state reference was used to study the response behavior of platinum cermet and indium tin oxide sensing electrodes. Target gases included both oxygen and carbon monoxide in nitrogen-based sample gas mixtures. It was found that with the indium tin oxide sensing electrode, the low-temperature behavior is mainly a result of incomplete equilibration due to contaminations of the electrode surface. On the other hand, some of these contaminant species have been identified as being pivotal for the higher carbon monoxide sensitivity of the indium tin oxide sensing electrode as compared to platinum cermet electrodes.

In this study, the influence of cold rotary swaging on microstructure and mechanical properties of the precipitation-strengthened nickel-based superalloy 718 (Alloy 718) was investigated. The initial stages of work-hardening were characterized by means of microhardness, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. Furthermore, attention was devoted to the mechanical behavior at ambient and elevated temperature (550 °C) in uniaxial tension and compression. Rotary swaging to different true strains of maximum $$\varphi = 0.91$$ φ = 0.91 caused a moderate increase of microhardness and enhanced markedly the load-bearing capacity in tension, giving rise to yield strength beyond 2000 MPa. The mechanical strength $$R_{p0.2}$$ R p 0.2 in tension subsequent to rotary swaging perfectly correlates with increasing dislocation density $$\rho $$ ρ estimated from XRD in the form of a Taylor-like relationship $$R_{p0.2} \propto \sqrt{\rho }$$ R p 0.2 ∝ ρ . In compression, transient stress–strain evolution without the occurrence of a clear elastic range and distinct yield phenomenon was observed. Restoration of the elastic range, accompanied by a pronounced increase of microhardness, was obtained by a post-swaging tempering treatment at 600 °C.

Materials 13(22), (2020). doi:10.3390/ma13225058, Published by MDPI, Basel

This study aims at a thorough characterization of the relationship of interstitially solved carbon and nitrogen on the γ → α′ transformation in PM steels, the accompanied volume change and the resulting hardness. Furthermore, the investigations include multiple porosity levels of 6.9, 7.2 and 7.35 g/cm3 to characterize porosity effects. Dilatometric samples were carburized and carbonitrided to seven distinct compositions to account for common compositions in the process of thermochemical case hardening heat treatment. The dilatometric samples were rapidly austenitized and quenched and the dilatometric response was evaluated. To fully characterize the martensitic transformation of PM steels, X-ray diffractometry evaluated the amount of retained austenite after quenching. Conclusive results of iterative quenching procedures along with elemental analysis after heat treatment give distinct evidence that PM steels underlie rapid decarburization. This effect ultimately leads to an erroneous evaluation of the martensite transformation kinetics, especially the often proposed effect of porosity on MS. However, a distinct effect on the accompanied volume change from austenite to martensite is proposed. To account for an interplay of solved carbon and nitrogen, an effective nitrogen contribution of 25% based on carbon equivalent is proposed. Utilizing the effective content, the impact of nitrogen can be projected on carbon within the range of common carbon and nitrogen contents, and a good predictability of the martensite transformation can be achieved. Regarding the resulting hardness, a dependency solely on carbon is suggested. The overall hardness shows a typical maximum at approximately 0.6–0.7 wt%, irrespective of the solved amount of nitrogen.

24th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP 2019), CHEP 2019, Adelaide, Australia, 4 Nov 2019 - 8 Nov 2019; The European physical journal / Web of Conferences 245, 07036 (2020). doi:10.1051/epjconf/202024507036, DESY is one of the largest accelerator laboratories in Europe. It develops and operates state of the art accelerators for fundamental science in the areas of high energy physics, photon science and accelerator development. While for decades high energy physics (HEP) has been the most prominent user of the DESY compute, storage and network infrastructure, various scientific areas as science with photons and accelerator development have caught up and are now dominating the demands on the DESY infrastructure resources, with significant consequences for the IT resource provisioning. In this contribution, we will present an overview of the computational, storage and network resources covering the various physics communities on site.Ranging from high-throughput computing (HTC) batch-like offline processing in the Grid and the interactive user analyses resources in the National Analysis Factory (NAF) for the HEP community, to the computing needs of accelerator development or of photon sciences such as PETRA III or the European XFEL. Since DESY is involved in these experiments and their data taking, their requirements include fast low-latency online processing for data taking and calibration as well as offline processing, thus high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, that are run on the dedicated Maxwell HPC cluster.As all communities face significant challenges due to changing environments and increasing data rates in the following years, we will discuss how this will reflect in necessary changes to the computing and storage infrastructures.We will present DESY compute cloud and container orchestration plans as a basis for infrastructure and platform services. We will show examples of Jupyter notebooks for small scale interactive analysis, as well as its integration into large scale resources such as batch systems or Spark clusters.To overcome the fragmentation of the various resources for all scientific communities at DESY, we explore how to integrate them into a seamless user experience in an Interdisciplinary Data Analysis Facility., Published by EDP Sciences, Les Ulis

OBJECTIVE Plasma protein N-glycan profiling integrates information on enzymatic protein glycosylation, which is a highly controlled ubiquitous posttranslational modification. Here we investigate the ability of the plasma N-glycome to predict incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs; i.e., myocardial infarction and stroke). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Based on the prospective European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC)-Potsdam cohort (n = 27,548), we constructed case-cohorts including a random subsample of 2,500 participants and all physician-verified incident cases of type 2 diabetes (n = 820; median follow-up time 6.5 years) and CVD (n = 508; median follow-up time 8.2 years). Information on the relative abundance of 39 N-glycan groups in baseline plasma samples was generated by chromatographic profiling. We selected predictive N-glycans for type 2 diabetes and CVD separately, based on cross-validated machine learning, nonlinear model building, and construction of weighted prediction scores. This workflow for CVD was applied separately in men and women. RESULTS The N-glycan–based type 2 diabetes score was strongly predictive for diabetes risk in an internal validation cohort (weighted C-index 0.83, 95% CI 0.78–0.88), and this finding was externally validated in the Finland Cardiovascular Risk Study (FINRISK) cohort. N-glycans were moderately predictive for CVD incidence (weighted C-indices 0.66, 95% CI 0.60–0.72, for men; 0.64, 95% CI 0.55–0.73, for women). Information on the selected N-glycans improved the accuracy of established and clinically applied risk prediction scores for type 2 diabetes and CVD. CONCLUSIONS Selected N-glycans improve type 2 diabetes and CVD prediction beyond established risk markers. Plasma protein N-glycan profiling may thus be useful for risk stratification in the context of precisely targeted primary prevention of cardiometabolic diseases.

Anisotropic behavior of metals can influence manufacturing processes including acting thermo-mechanical loads and resulting surface layer states. In additive manufacturing, the build-up direction influences material states like microstructure, density distribution and stress fields, possibly leading to anisotropic behavior. In this work, additively manufactured AlSi10Mg is characterized in tension tests in order to determine the anisotropic material deformation behavior due to the build-up procedure. This was implemented in 2D cutting simulations using finite element method. Additionally, orthogonal cutting experiments were performed in order to determine process forces and chip formation, which finally were used in order to validate simulations.

Background Metabolite networks are suggested to reflect biological pathways in health and disease. However, it is unknown whether such metabolite networks are reproducible across different populations. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate similarity of metabolite networks in four German population-based studies. Methods One hundred serum metabolites were quantified in European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam (n = 2458), EPIC-Heidelberg (n = 812), KORA (Cooperative Health Research in the Augsburg Region) (n = 3029) and CARLA (Cardiovascular Disease, Living and Ageing in Halle) (n = 1427) with targeted metabolomics. In a cross-sectional analysis, Gaussian graphical models were used to construct similar networks of 100 edges each, based on partial correlations of these metabolites. The four metabolite networks of the top 100 edges were compared based on (i) common features, i.e. number of common edges, Pearson correlation (r) and hamming distance (h); and (ii) meta-analysis of the four networks. Results Among the four networks, 57 common edges and 66 common nodes (metabolites) were identified. Pairwise network comparisons showed moderate to high similarity (r = 63–0.96, h = 7–72), among the networks. Meta-analysis of the networks showed that, among the 100 edges and 89 nodes of the meta-analytic network, 57 edges and 66 metabolites were present in all the four networks, 58–76 edges and 75–89 nodes were present in at least three networks, and 63–84 edges and 76–87 edges were present in at least two networks. The meta-analytic network showed clear grouping of 10 sphingolipids, 8 lyso-phosphatidylcholines, 31 acyl-alkyl-phosphatidylcholines, 30 diacyl-phosphatidylcholines, 8 amino acids and 2 acylcarnitines. Conclusions We found structural similarity in metabolite networks from four large studies. Using a meta-analytic network, as a new approach for combining metabolite data from different studies, closely related metabolites could be identified, for some of which the biological relationships in metabolic pathways have been previously described. They are candidates for further investigation to explore their potential role in biological processes.

Fibre orientation represents one of the most important micro-structural characteristics for fibre reinforced composite materials. Its influence on mechanical behaviour, material anisotropy and damage evolution has, especially with the modern trend to mass production of structural composite parts, moved back into the focus of micro-structural analysis. Following this development and the enormous improvements of X-ray computed tomography resolution and evaluation techniques in the field of composites the 3D analysis of fibre orientations throughout macroscopic components has become possible. Therefore, the complex connection between manufacturing process and manifested fibre architecture can be determined and correlated. Various image analysis methods exist in the material science and image analysis community which can be employed to extract fibre orientations of an image. In this work we compare three methods based on anisotropic Gaussian filtering, Hessian matrix calculation or structure tensor calculation in their ability to describe correct fibre orientations and their error-proneness with respect to imaging modalities and material composition. Those methods have become popular also in commercial software platforms for micro-structure analysis in user-friendly forms. All three algorithms were implemented with the open source imaging tool-kit ITK. In order to compare those methods, error estimates and testing procedures will be described herein.

In this study, micron-sized pored membranes, based on the co-polymer polyvinylidene difluoride hexafluoropropylene (PVdF-HFP) were prepared via phase inversion techniques. The aim of the approach was to find less harmful and less toxic solvents to fabricate such films. Therefore, the Hansen solubility approach was used to identify safer and less toxic organic solvents for the phase inversion process, relative to present solvent mixtures, based on acetone, dimethyl formamide, dimethyl acetamide or methanol. With this approach, it was possible to identify cyclopentanone, ethylene glycol and benzyl alcohol as suitable solvents for the membrane preparation process. Physicochemical and mechanical properties were analyzed and compared, which revealed a uniform membrane structure through the cross section. Differences were observed at the top surface, in dependence of both preparation approaches, which are described in detail.

In order to reduce fuel consumption due to environmental aspects, weight of automotive components has to be reduced. Fibre reinforced polymers have high potential to contribute to this aim as they feature a high ratio of stiffness to weight. The direct processing route for long fibre reinforced polymers is a potential process for the net shape series production of automotive parts. To retain safety and comfort, the material properties of polymers processed in such a way have to be investi-gated thoroughly implementing a deeper understanding of elastic response and damage mechanisms. This work deals with glass fibre reinforced polypropylene manufactured by a direct LFT processing route (D-LFT). After introducing basic properties, studies to determine damage evolution are presented. In this regard, the decrease of stiffness with increasing strain was analyzed using tensile tests featuring loading-unloading cycles. The materials properties have been correlated to fibre orientation measurements from X-ray computed tomography. The stiffness decrease is compared to stiffness measurements carried out by ultrasonic phase spectroscopy (UPS) tests, carried out on juvenile, undamaged specimens. This method is used in this study for the first time to describe the elastic properties of long fibre reinforced thermoplastics.

Background The application of metabolomics in prospective cohort studies is statistically challenging. Given the importance of appropriate statistical methods for selection of disease-associated metabolites in highly correlated complex data, we combined random survival forest (RSF) with an automated backward elimination procedure that addresses such issues. Methods Our RSF approach was illustrated with data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam study, with concentrations of 127 serum metabolites as exposure variables and time to development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) as outcome variable. Out of this data set, Cox regression with a stepwise selection method was recently published. Replication of methodical comparison (RSF and Cox regression) was conducted in two independent cohorts. Finally, the R-code for implementing the metabolite selection procedure into the RSF-syntax is provided. Results The application of the RSF approach in EPIC-Potsdam resulted in the identification of 16 incident T2D-associated metabolites which slightly improved prediction of T2D when used in addition to traditional T2D risk factors and also when used together with classical biomarkers. The identified metabolites partly agreed with previous findings using Cox regression, though RSF selected a higher number of highly correlated metabolites. Conclusions The RSF method appeared to be a promising approach for identification of disease-associated variables in complex data with time to event as outcome. The demonstrated RSF approach provides comparable findings as the generally used Cox regression, but also addresses the problem of multicollinearity and is suitable for high-dimensional data.

A multiscale modeling approach is utilized to evaluate the contribution of irregularly shaped three-dimensional pores to the overall elastic properties of carbon/carbon composites. The degree of anisotropy of a carbon matrix depends on nanotexture, which is defined by manufacturing conditions. Elastic properties of the matrix are predicted assuming a Fisher distribution of orientations of graphene planes with respect to the pyrolytic carbon deposition direction. X-ray computed microtomography is employed to identify pores in a sample of carbon/carbon composite. The pores have highly irregular shapes so that micromechanical modeling based on the analytical solutions of elasticity becomes inapplicable. Thus, the cavity compliance tensor of an individual pore is found numerically by finite element method, and then used in a micromechanical modeling procedure. Examples of pores in isotropic and transversely isotropic pyrolytic carbon matrices are considered. The accuracy of pore approximation by ellipsoidal shapes is evaluated.

This paper analyzes a heterogeneous-agents endogenous-growth model incorporating both transaction costs and social capital. An individual can either become an active part of the society?s middle-class networks of trust and mutual cooperation, thus making a positive contribution to overall social capital. Alternatively, the individual can stay socially disintegrated and free-ride on the community?s social capital. Due to the existence of asymmetric information, agents face a moral-hazard problem on the credit market which gives rise to transaction costs and can be alleviated by private, governmental or social governance structures. An increase in inequality and shrinking of the middle class depresses the community?s social capital, which, in turn, weakens the informal social governance system and increases economy-wide transaction costs. As a result a more unequal distribution lowers the economy?s growth rate.