Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design method for high-force electrorheological dampers

Electrorheological (ER) materials are suspensions of polarizable particles in a dielectrically strong suspension. When a strong electric field is applied to ER materials, their visco-elastic and, more importantly, yielding properties increase by orders of magnitude. While Newtonian viscous stresses are relatively field independent, dissipative forces in ER dampers are adjusted by varying the field-dependent yield stress. By varying the ratio of the flow-rate-independent yield stresses to Newtonian viscous stresses, ER dampers may be designed to match the requirements of a wide range of applications. In many cases, it is desirable for the ER damper to not only have high force capacities in a compact geometry, but also have a large range of controllable forces. A class of ER dampers is analysed and illustrated in this paper. The analysis of these device configurations is completed in closed form by virtue of a linear approximation to the non-Newtonian ER Poiseuille flow equation. These dampers feature multiple concentric cylindrical ducts which can be interconnected in parallel, in series or in combinations thereof. The hydraulic connectivity of the ducts determines, to a great extent, the force-velocity relationship of the device. Within overall size constraints, a tradeoff between the field-controllable force range and force magnitude is controlled by the format of the ducts. Other design variables considered in this paper are the across-flow dimension of the ducts and the number of ducts. Designs are evaluated based on force capacity, range of field-dependent forces, electrical energy requirements and response time. The effects of pre-yield elasticity and particle concentration inhomogeneity are also addressed. Numerical examples focus on a large-scale damper which requires a very modest amount of external energy (kJ), yet can regulate very large forces (200 kN) and can modify its force by a factor of ten or more within milliseconds.
Dendritic Signaling in Inhibitory Interneurons: Local Tuning via Group I Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors

Communication between neurons is achieved by rapid signal transduction via highly specialized structural elements known as synaptic contacts. In addition, numerous extrasynaptic mechanisms provide a flexible platform for the local regulation of synaptic signals. For example, peri- and extra-synaptic signaling through the group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) can be involved in the highly compartmentalized regulation of dendritic ion conductances, the induction of input-specific synaptic plasticity, and the local release of retrograde messengers. Therefore, extrasynaptic mechanisms appear to play a key role in the local tuning of dendritic computations. Here, we review recent findings on the role of group I mGluRs in the dendritic signaling of inhibitory interneurons. We propose that group I mGluRs provide a dual-mode signaling device that integrates different patterns of neural activity. By implementing distinct forms of intrinsic and synaptic regulation, group I mGluRs may be responsible for the local fine-tuning of dendritic function.
ASTEROSEISMOLOGY OF HYBRID PULSATORS MADE POSSIBLE: SIMULTANEOUS MOST SPACE PHOTOMETRY AND GROUND-BASED SPECTROSCOPY OF γ PEG

We have acquired simultaneous high-precision space photometry and radial velocities of the bright hybrid β Cep/Slowly Pulsating B pulsator γ Peg. Frequency analyses reveal the presence of six gravity (g) modes of high radial order together with eight low-order β Cep oscillations in both data sets. Mode identification shows that all pulsations have spherical degrees ℓ = 0–2. An 8.5 M☉ model reproduces the observed pulsation frequencies; all theoretically predicted modes in the β Cep domain are detected. We suggest, contrary to previous authors, that γ Peg is a single star; the claimed orbital variations are due to g-mode pulsation. γ Peg is the first hybrid pulsator for which a sufficiently large number of high-order g modes and low-order pressure (p) and mixed modes have been detected and identified to be usable for in-depth seismic modeling.
Behaviour of fibre reinforced cemented sand at high pressures

Several well established techniques of soil stabilisation and soil reinforcement are available to improve properties of geotechnical materials. However, the addition of fibre into soils has its unique potential as a reinforcing agent. This is because a friction between fibre and soil particles increases the bonding between the particles of soils and this can improve the plasticity, stress-strain behaviour and failure characteristics of both cemented and uncemented soils. It also reduces the brittleness of the cemented sand. Numerous experiments on fibre-reinforced granular materials have been carried out by several researchers. However, the behaviour of fibre-reinforced cemented granular soils has not been fully understood yet. Furthermore, most experimental studies of fibre reinforced cemented materials have been carried out at relatively low confining pressures. As a result, more experiments are still needed to understand complicated behaviour of soil-cement-fibre composite materials. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse the behaviour of fibre reinforced cemented sand under wide range of confining pressures. For this GDS high pressure triaxial cell apparatus and Bishop and Wesley conventional triaxial cell apparatus have been used to carry out the tests at wide range of confining pressures from 50kPa to 20MPa. Drained and undrained tests have been carried out on polypropylene fibre reinforced sand with and without the addition of cement. Samples with varying fibre and cement content were prepared by the method of undercompaction and were cured for 28 days prior to testing. The experimental results indicate that there is a significant effect from the addition of fibre and/or cement contents and confining pressures on the mechanical behaviour of Portaway sand. Particularly, these effects were noted in drained and undrained triaxial tests, particularly peak strength, strength parameters, shear banding, particle crushing, yielding, and stress-dilatancy relationships. The addition of fibres increases the peak, yield, and ultimate strengths. Increase in confining pressure also increases the strength but the individual effect of the addition of fibres was more pronounced at low confining pressures. Progressive suppression in the dilation by the gradual increase in confining pressures as well as an increase in dilation with the addition of fibres during triaxial compression was also worth noticeable. Although, no noticeable affect was observed in isotropic compression due to the addition of fibre in both cemented and uncemented sand. An extensive series of tests were carried out but due to time constraint only one type and length of fibre was used. Therefore, more research needs to be carried out at different fibre lengths and types in order to see that whether these change the behaviour observed in this research.
Schedule-dependent therapeutic efficacy of L19mTNF-α and melphalan combined with gemcitabine

L19‐tumor necrosis factor alpha (L19mTNF‐α; L), a fusion protein consisting of mouse TNFα and the human antibody fragment L19 directed to the extra domain‐B (ED‐B) of fibronectin, is able to selectively target tumor vasculature and to exert a long‐lasting therapeutic activity in combination with melphalan (M) in syngeneic mouse tumor models. We have studied the antitumor activity of single L19mTNF‐α treatment in combination with melphalan and gemcitabine (G) using different administration protocols in two histologically different murine tumor models: WEHI‐164 fibrosarcoma and K7M2 osteosarcoma. All responding mice showed significant reduction in myeloid‐derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and an increase in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the tumor infiltrates, as well as significant reduction in regulatory T cells (Treg) at the level of draining lymph nodes. What is important is that all cured mice rejected tumor challenge up to 1 year after therapy. Targeted delivery of L19mTNF‐α synergistically increases the antitumor activity of melphalan and gemcitabine, but optimal administration schedules are required. This study provides information for designing clinical studies using L19mTNF‐α in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs.
Symptoms reported by women in midlife: menopausal transition or aging?

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine which symptoms commonly reported by women at midlife are associated with the menopausal transition, after adjusting for aging, life events, sociodemographics, and lifestyle factors. Methods: Middle-aged women participating in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health between 1996 (survey 1, ages 45-50 y) and 2007 (survey 5) were included in the analyses if natural menopause status could be determined at any survey (n = 8,649 of 13,716 participants). Natural menopause status was determined from reported menstruation patterns. A survival function describing age at menopause was computed. Logistic regression models for repeated measures were used to estimate the association between menopausal stage and symptom prevalence. Results: There were 6,814 (79%) women who reached natural menopause before 2007. The median age at menopause was 52 years. Compared with the premenopausal phase, menopause was associated with hot flushes (odds ratio, 8.6 [95% CI, 7.5-9.9]), night sweats (odds ratio, 5.5 [95% CI, 4.8-6.3]), and, to a lesser extent, stiff or painful joints (odds ratio, 1.6 [95% CI, 1.4-1.8]), difficulty sleeping (odds ratio, 1.4 [95% CI, 1.2-1.6]), and poor/fair self-rated health (odds ratio, 1.6 [95% CI, 1.3-1.9]), after controlling for confounders. Prevalence of some symptoms was still raised more than 7 years after menopause. Headaches/migraines were negatively associated with aging, and urinary incontinence was positively associated with aging. Conclusions: Treatment such as hormone therapy should be targeted to vasomotor symptoms, which are most strongly associated with menopause rather than to less specific symptoms related to aging per se.
Determinants of community-acquired pneumonia in children and young adults in primary care

Most studies on determinants of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in primary care have focused primarily on the elderly. Using a case–control study in four Dutch healthcare centres, determinants of CAP among children and young adults were identified. Cases included 156 young adults (aged 16–40 yrs) and 107 children (aged 0–15 yrs) diagnosed with CAP during 1999–2008. For each case, three controls were selected from the same age group. Separate logistic regression analyses were used to identify determinants in young adults and children. Lower age, asthma and previous upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) were independently associated with CAP in children. Increasing age, asthma, three or more children at home, current smoking and three or more previous URTIs were independent determinants of CAP in young adults. The present study has three remarkable findings: 1) increasing age was an independent determinant of CAP in young adults; 2) having young children increased the risk of the development of CAP in young adults; and 3) the number of previous URTIs was independently associated with CAP in both children and young adults, possibly due to higher infection susceptibility. Further studies are required in order to better understand the aetiology of CAP and permit better diagnosis and treatment of this serious condition.
IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 is associated with synaptic ribbons in the mouse retina

IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for ADP ribosylation factors (Arfs), which are implicated in membrane trafficking and actin cytoskeleton dynamics. In this study, we examined the immunohistochemical localization of IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 in the adult mouse retina using light and electron microscopy. IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 was distributed in a punctate manner and colocalized well with RIBEYE in both the outer and inner plexiform layers. Immunoelectron microscopic analysis showed that IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 was localized at the synaptic ribbons of photoreceptors. When heterologously expressed in HeLa cells, IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 was recruited to RIBEYE‐containing clusters and formed an immunoprecipitable complex with RIBEYE. Furthermore, immunoprecipitation analysis showed that anti‐IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 antibody efficiently pulled down RIBEYE from retinal lysates. These findings indicate that IQ‐ArfGEF/BRAG1 is a novel component of retinal synaptic ribbons and forms a protein complex with RIBEYE.
BlueDBM

Complex data queries, because of their need for random accesses, have proven to be slow unless all the data can be accommodated in DRAM. There are many domains, such as genomics, geological data, and daily Twitter feeds, where the datasets of interest are 5TB to 20TB. For such a dataset, one would need a cluster with 100 servers, each with 128GB to 256GB of DRAM, to accommodate all the data in DRAM. On the other hand, such datasets could be stored easily in the flash memory of a rack-sized cluster. Flash storage has much better random access performance than hard disks, which makes it desirable for analytics workloads. However, currently available off-the-shelf flash storage packaged as SSDs does not make effective use of flash storage because it incurs a great amount of additional overhead during flash device management and network access. In this article, we present BlueDBM, a new system architecture that has flash-based storage with in-store processing capability and a low-latency high-throughput intercontroller network between storage devices. We show that BlueDBM outperforms a flash-based system without these features by a factor of 10 for some important applications. While the performance of a DRAM-centric system falls sharply even if only 5% to 10% of the references are to secondary storage, this sharp performance degradation is not an issue in BlueDBM. BlueDBM presents an attractive point in the cost/performance tradeoff for Big Data analytics.
Growth and Characterization of Multiphased Mixed Crystals of NaBr and KBr

Mixed crystals of NaBr and KBr were prepared from melt and physically characterized. Bulk composition of the crystals was estimated using the measured density values. X-ray diffraction analysis indicates the existence of two phases in the mixed crystals. Thermal parameters determined from the X-ray powder diffraction data are found to vary nonlinearly with bulk composition. DC and AC electrical measurements were carried out at various temperatures. The results indicate that the electrical parameters increase with the increase in temperature and vary nonlinearly with the bulk composition. Activation energies and mean jump frequencies were also determined.
Multiple Copies of the 16S rRNA Gene in Nocardia nova Isolates and Implications for Sequence-Based Identification Procedures

ABSTRACT Molecular investigation of two Nocardia patient isolates showed unusual restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns with restriction endonuclease assays (REA) using an amplified portion of the 16S rRNA gene. Patterns typical of Nocardia nova were obtained with REA of an amplified portion of the 65-kDa heat shock protein gene. Subsequent sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA gene regions of these isolates showed the presence of ambiguous bases within an expected restriction endonuclease recognition site which were not able to be resolved on repeat testing. Cloning of amplified regions of the 16S rRNA genes and subsequent sequencing of the resulting clones from the two patient isolates showed three different 16S rRNA gene sequences which corresponded to sequences found in N. nova, a molecular variant of N. nova, and a previously undescribed sequence. Hybridization studies using a DNA probe corresponding to an 89-bp conserved region of the 16S rRNA gene confirmed the presence of at least two copies of the 16S rRNA gene in the N. nova type strain, in a patient isolate identical to the molecular variant of N. nova, and in the two other patient isolates. All isolates were found to belong to the species N. nova as determined by DNA-DNA hybridization. Because minimal variation has been found in the 16S rRNA gene sequences of different species of Nocardia, those laboratories employing molecular methods for identification of these species must be aware of the potential identification complications that may be caused by the presence of differing 16S rRNA genes in the same isolate.
Efficient Delivery of Antennapedia Homeodomain Fused to CTL Epitope with Liposomes into Dendritic Cells Results in the Activation of CD8+ T Cells

The in vivo induction of a CTL response using Antennapedia homeodomain (AntpHD) fused to a poorly immunogenic CTL epitope requires that the Ag is given in presence of SDS, an unacceptable adjuvant for human use. In the present report, we developed a hybrid CTL epitope delivery system consisting of AntpHD peptide vector formulated in liposomes as an alternative approach to bypass the need for SDS. It is proposed that liposomes will prevent degradation of the Ag in vivo and will deliver AntpHD recombinant peptide to the cytosol of APCs. We show in this work that dendritic cells incubated with AntpHD-fused peptide in liposomes can present MHC class I-restricted peptide and induce CTL response with a minimal amount of Ag. Intracellular processing studies have shown that encapsulated AntpHD recombinant peptide is endocytized before entering the cytosol, where it is processed by the proteasome complex. The processed liposomal peptides are then transported to the endoplasmic reticulum. The increase of the CTL response induced by AntpHD-fused peptide in liposomes correlates with this active transport to the class I-processing pathway. In vivo studies demonstrated that positively charged liposomes increase the immunogenicity of AntpHD-Cw3 when injected s.c. in mice in comparison to SDS. Moreover, addition of CpG oligodeoxynucleotide immunostimulatory sequences further increase the CD8+ T cell response. This strategy combining lipid-based carriers with AntpHD peptide to target poorly immunogenic Ags into the MHC class I processing pathway represents a novel approach for CTL vaccines that may have important applications for development of cancer vaccines.
The gastric isthmus from D+ and D− broiler lines divergently selected for digestion efficiency shows histological and morphological differences1

Previous results suggested that the gastric function plays a paramount role in digestive efficiency differences between D+ and D− broiler lines divergently selected for AMEn (more feed efficient and less feed efficient, respectively). In this paper we show an histological analysis of the gastric isthmus located between the proventriculus and the gizzard in the D+ and D− lines. Cross-sections were performed using a cryostat (Leica CM30505) and stained with a routine procedure using Mayer’s Hematoxylin and Eosin Stain. The surface and shape of the constitutive gastric isthmus tissues were quantified using the image analysis software Image J. The lumen occupied 11% of the whole D− isthmus cross-sectional area against 24% for D+ (P < 0.01). The mucosa relative area (cm2/total cross-sectional area) was higher in D− than in D+ [47% (D−) and 39% (D+), P < 0.01]. It was significantly more oval and more folded on the lumen side in D− than in D+ chickens; the muscle layer (muscularis mucosae) of the mucosa was relatively more developed in D− than in D+ (16 and 11% of the section, respectively; P < 0.01). A relationship between these observations and increased gastric motility reported in D− compared with D+ is discussed.
Predicate abstraction with adjustable-block encoding

Several successful software model checkers are based on a technique called single-block encoding (SBE), which computes costly predicate abstractions after every single program operation. Large-block encoding (LBE) computes abstractions only after a large number of operations, and it was shown that this significantly improves the verification performance. In this work, we present adjustable-block encoding (ABE), a unifying framework that allows to express both previous approaches. In addition, it provides the flexibility to specify any block size between SBE and LBE, and also beyond LBE, through the adjustment of one single parameter. Such a unification of different concepts makes it easier to understand the fundamental properties of the analysis, and makes the differences of the variants more explicit. We evaluate different configurations on example C programs, and identify one that is currently the best.
Regulation of hippocampal NMDA receptors by magnesium and glycine during development.

N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors play an important role in the development of neuronal connections in the retina and visual cortex, and in synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. The objective of this study was to determine whether the sensitivity of hippocampal NMDA receptors to magnesium, glycine or NMDA changes during development. Xenopus oocytes were injected with mRNA prepared from hippocampi from rats of different ages, and NMDA receptor properties studied under voltage clamp. Voltage-dependent block of the NMDA receptor by magnesium was studied with voltage steps of -90 mV to -30 mV, in increments of 10 mV, during application of 100 microM NMDA, 3 microM glycine and 0-1000 microM Mg2+. The IC50 of Mg2+ for blocking NMDA receptor-mediated currents varied e-fold (2.72-fold) for approximately every 15 mV of membrane potential in the middle range of membrane potential (-70 to -50 mV), but the relationship between log[IC50] for Mg2+ and membrane potential was not linear, as would be expected for simple channel block. The slopes of the curves did not change with development, indicating no change in the voltage-dependence of Mg2+ block with age. However, the IC50 of Mg2+ block did change with age at every membrane potential tested. NMDA receptors expressed from mRNA isolated from 14-15 day old rats were nearly 2-fold less sensitive to block by Mg2+ (IC50 = 33 microM at -60 mV) than those from 1-2 day old rats (IC50 = 18 microM). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)