Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COMPARISON OF THE BIOCOMPATIBILITY OF DIFFERENT ROOT CANAL IRRIGANTS

The purpose of this study was to compare the reaction of rat subcutaneous connective tissue to 0.9% sterile saline, 2.5% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), 5.25% NaOCl and 2% chlorhexidine gluconate solution or gel. Six circles were demarcated on the dorsal skin of 24 male Wistar rats, leaving 2 cm between each circle. Using a syringe, 0.1 mL of each root canal irrigant was injected subcutaneously into 5 circles. In the 6th circle, the needle of an empty syringe was introduced into the skin, but no irrigant was injected (control group). Evaluations were undertaken at 2 h, 48 h, 14 days and 30 days post-procedure. Tissue samples were excised, embedded in paraffin blocks and 3-μm-thick sections were obtained and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The areas of inflammatory reaction were evaluated and analyzed statistically by ANOVA and Tukey's test. The control group showed few or no inflammatory reaction areas in the subcutaneous tissue. 0.9% saline solution, 2.0% chlorhexidine solution and 2.5% NaOCl showed a good biocompatibility, as very mild inflammatory reaction was detected at 14 days and tissue repair occurred at 30 days. 5.25% NaOCl was the most toxic irrigant, as the number of inflammatory cells remained elevated at 14 and 30 days. The group treated with 2.0% chlorhexidine gluconate gel presented a moderate inflammatory response at 14 days, which decreased at 30 days, being considered similar to that of the control group, 0.9% saline solution, 2.0% chlorhexidine solution and 2.5% NaOCl at this experimental period.
Gβγ Interferes with Ca2+-Dependent Binding of Synaptotagmin to the Soluble N-Ethylmaleimide-Sensitive Factor Attachment Protein Receptor (SNARE) Complex

Presynaptic inhibitory G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) can decrease neurotransmission by inducing interaction of Gβγ with the soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (SNARE) complex. We have shown that this action of Gβγ requires the carboxyl terminus of the 25-kDa synaptosome-associated protein (SNAP25) and is downstream of the well known inhibition of Ca2+ entry through voltage-gated calcium channels. We propose a mechanism in which Gβγ and synaptotagmin compete for binding to the SNARE complex. Here, we characterized the Gβγ interaction sites on syntaxin1A and SNAP25 and demonstrated an overlap of the Gβγ- and synaptotagmin I -binding regions on each member of the SNARE complex. Synaptotagmin competes in a Ca2+-sensitive manner with binding of Gβγ to SNAP25, syntaxin1A, and the assembled SNARE complex. We predict, based on these findings, that at high intracellular Ca2+ concentrations, Ca2+-synaptotagmin I can displace Gβγ binding and the Gβγ-dependent inhibition of exocytosis can be blocked. We tested this hypothesis in giant synapses of the lamprey spinal cord, where 5-HT works via Gβγ to inhibit neurotransmission (Blackmer et al., 2001). We showed that increased presynaptic Ca2+ suppresses the 5-HT- and Gβγ-dependent inhibition of exocytosis. We suggest that this effect may be due to Ca2+-dependent competition between Gβγ and synaptotagmin I for SNARE binding. This type of dynamic regulation may represent a novel mechanism for modifying transmitter release in a graded manner based on the history of action potentials that increase intracellular Ca2+ concentrations and of inhibitory signals through Gi-coupled GPCRs.
Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences Effective Pair Programming Practice-an Experimental Study

Pair programming is a practice, where two programmers work on a single task. Long research has been carried out in industries, and efficient results were achieved. Research is also being done in implementing the pair programming techniques in academics and good results are seen. In this paper, we suggested a new approach of pairing students from different engineering levels an experiment was conducted on a sample of students. In this research, both qualitative and mixed approaches are used.
OFDM synchronization using PN sequence and performance

In this paper, we propose a novel method for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) time and frequency synchronization by using PN sequence and barker code, time synchronization performance is improved by barker code, and we also propose a simple but effective method by setting the threshold during time synchronization. Improved frequency synchronization algorithm is presented in this paper too. The idea of multipath utilizing is the core of the frequency synchronization algorithm. The performance of the synchronization proposed here is better than that of conventional methods. Estimation precision is boosted from 10/sup -3/ to 10/sup -4/ for moderate SNR. The requirements of time and frequency synchronization for beyond 3G system based on OFDM can be well satisfied while using the proposed method.
I Did It: Unconscious Expectation of Sensory Consequences Modulates the Experience of Self-agency and Its Functional Signature

The ability to recognize oneself in voluntary action is called the sense of agency and refers to the experience of causing one's own actions and their sensory consequences. This form of self-awareness is important not only for motor control but also for social interactions and the ascription of causal responsibility. Here, we examined the sense of agency at early and prereflective stages of action perception using ERPs. Subjects performed a visual forced-choice response task in which action effects were either caused by the subject or by the computer. In addition, to modulate the conscious experience of agency, action effects were subliminally primed by the presentation of congruent, incongruent, or neutral effect stimuli before the action. First, we observed sensorimotor attenuation in the visual ERP selectively for self-generated action effects. That is, the N1 component, a negative deflection around 100 msec after a visual stimulus, was smaller in amplitude for visual effects caused by the subject as compared with effects caused by the computer. Second, congruent effect priming enhanced the explicit judgment of agency and further reduced the N1 amplitude for self-generated effects, although effect primes were not consciously processed. Taken together, these results provide evidence of a top–down modulation of sensory processing of action effects by prior effect information and support the neurophysiological mechanism of sensorimotor attenuation as underlying self-registration in action. Our findings suggest that both efferent information and prior thoughts about the action consequence provide important cues for a prereflective form of the experience of being an agent.
A fuzzy adaptive variable structure controller with applications to robot manipulators

A new adaptive fuzzy control algorithm is developed in this paper, which has a regular fuzzy controller and a supervisory control term. This control algorithm does not require the system model, but has stability assurance for the closed-loop controlled system. The design is simple, in the sense that both the membership functions and the rule base are simple, yet generic. It can be applied to a large class of robotic and other mechanical systems.
Combining Multiple Network Features for Mild Cognitive Impairment Classification

Connectivity-network-based techniques have been recently developed for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as well as its prodromal stage, i.e., mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, most existing methods focus on using only a single property of connectivity networks (e.g., The correlation between paired brain regions), which can not fully reflect the topological information among multiple brain regions. To address that problem, in this paper we propose a novel connectivity-network-based framework to fuse multiple properties of network features for MCI classification. Specifically, two different types of network features (i.e., Brain region and sub graph) are respectively used to quantify two different properties of networks, where two kinds of feature selection methods are further performed to remove the irrelevant and redundant features. Then, multi-kernel learning technique is adopted on those corresponding selected features to obtain the final classification results. We evaluate our proposed method on a real MCI dataset containing 12 MCI patients and 25 healthy controls. The experimental results show that by using multiple properties of network features our method achieves better performance than traditional methods using only single property of network features.
PAMELA Measurements of Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra

Satellite measurements challenge the current understanding of cosmic-ray acceleration and propagation in our Galaxy. Protons and helium nuclei are the most abundant components of the cosmic radiation. Precise measurements of their fluxes are needed to understand the acceleration and subsequent propagation of cosmic rays in our Galaxy. We report precision measurements of the proton and helium spectra in the rigidity range 1 gigavolt to 1.2 teravolts performed by the satellite-borne experiment PAMELA (payload for antimatter matter exploration and light-nuclei astrophysics). We find that the spectral shapes of these two species are different and cannot be described well by a single power law. These data challenge the current paradigm of cosmic-ray acceleration in supernova remnants followed by diffusive propagation in the Galaxy. More complex processes of acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays are required to explain the spectral structures observed in our data.
Use of Ozone to Improve the Safety of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Traditional technology utilizes water with or without a sanitizing agent to wash fresh fruits and vegetables. Chlorine is the most widely used sanitizing agent available for fresh produce, but it has a limited effect in killing bacteria on fruit and vegetable surfaces. The most that can be expected at permitted concentrations is a 1to 2-log population reduction (Sapers, 1998). Furthermore, the environmental and health communities have expressed concerns about the residual by-products of chlorine. An alternative treatment is being sought to improve food safety. Research and commercial applications have verified that ozone can replace traditional sanitizing agents and provide other benefits (Bott, 1991; Cena, 1998; Graham, 1997). Many research and industrial trials are underway to validate the use of ozone in the produce industry. Several meetings on this topic have been sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), including a “Conference on Ozone for Processing Fresh-Cut Fruit and Vegetables” in April 1998 and an “Ozone Workshop” in May 1998. The produce industry is very interested in this technology. However, many questions still have not been resolved, since experience in commercial application in the United States is lacking (Graham, 1997). Use of Ozone to Improve the Safety of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Beyond Locality-Sensitive Hashing

We present a new data structure for the c-approximate near neighbor problem (ANN) in the Euclidean space. For n points in Rd, our algorithm achieves Oc(nρ + dlogn) query time and Oc(n1+ρ + dlogn) space, where ρ ≤ 7/(8c2) + O(1/c3) + oc(1). This is the first improvement over the result by Andoni and Indyk (FOCS 2006) and the first data structure that bypasses a locality-sensitive hashing lower bound proved by O'Donnell, Wu and Zhou (ICS 2011). By a standard reduction we obtain a data structure for the Hamming space and e1 norm with ρ ≤ 7/(8c)+ O(1/c3/2)+ oc(1), which is the first improvement over the result of Indyk and Motwani (STOC 1998).
Determination of Optical Constants of Polystyrene Films from IR Reflection-Absorption Spectra

Determination of The transmittance values measured in IR reflectionabsorption (RA) spectra were used to determine the optical constants of dielectric films laid on solid substrates. In order to obtain the optical constants of polystyrene films laid on steel we used dispersion analysis. In this case, the optical constants are obtained from IR spectrum recorded at a single incidence angle. The use of dispersion analysis offers the advantage of processing a large volume of data.
Tuning of a PI-PD Controller used with a Highly Oscillating Second-Order Process

High oscillation in industrial processes is something undesired and controller tuning has to solve this problems. PI-PD is a controller type of the PID-family which is suggested to overcome this problem with improved performance regarding the spike characteristics associated with certain types of controllers. This research work has proven that using the PI-PD is capable of solving the dynamic problems of highly oscillating processes. A second order process of 85.45 % maximum overshoot and 6 seconds settling time is controlled using a PI-PD controller (through simulation). The controller is tuned by minimizing the sum of square of error (ISE) of the control system using MATLAB. The MATLAB optimization toolbox is used assuming that the tuning problem is an unconstrained one. The result was cancelling completely the 85.45 % overshoot and producing a step time response without any overshoot and undershoot. The settling time is reduced to only 0.35 seconds. The performance of the control system using an PI-PD controller using the present tuning technique is compared with that using the standard forms tuning technique.
Receding Horizon Networked Control

This paper deals with the design of control systems over lossy networks. A network is assumed to exist between the sensor and the controller and between the latter and the actuator. Packets are dropped according to a Bernoulli independent process, with ∞ and " being the probabilities of losing an observation packet and a control packet respectively, at time any instant t. A receding horizon control scheme is proposed for the Linear Quadratic Control (LQG) problem. At each instant N future control inputs are sent in addition to the current one. Under this scheme the separation of estimation and control is shown and stability conditions, dependent on loss probabilities, are provided. Simulations show how the overall performance, in terms of lower cost, increases with the length of the horizon. I. INTRODUCTION The last two decades have witnessed the widespread adoption of new communicating technologies. Over the years there has been a surge of new applications. Recently wireless sensor actuator networks have enabled a series of new applications ranging from monitoring systems, such as environments, structures, traffic, to security systems. The application of networking technology to time and safety critical applications, such as estimation and control of dy- namical systems, has yet to show its full potential. This is due mainly to the degree of reliability these systems require. Engineers are not so keen to design and implement control systems unless they can guarantee to meet the required re- liability specifications. Guaranteeing deterministic behavior was traditionally implemented by imposing a deterministic system at the physical layer. In order to clarify this concept, let us consider the example of embedded systems in the automotive. Until recently, every subsystem in a car was a stand-alone, with its own sensors, actuators, computational units and communication infrastructure. While guaranteeing an acceptable level of reliability, this resulted into cars having several miles of wiring and tens of embedded processors, increasing the vehicle's manufacturing cost and final weight. The introduction of the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus, a standard communication shared by several subsystems, represents a step in right direction. With the massive intro- duction of electronics not only in cars, but more generally in the physical world, this trend is only likely to continue. Sharing computational and communication resources is the only viable solution. Certainly the use of networking technology for time-
Adaptive Filtering Methods for Identifying Cross-Frequency Couplings in Human EEG

Oscillations have been increasingly recognized as a core property of neural responses that contribute to spontaneous, induced, and evoked activities within and between individual neurons and neural ensembles. They are considered as a prominent mechanism for information processing within and communication between brain areas. More recently, it has been proposed that interactions between periodic components at different frequencies, known as cross-frequency couplings, may support the integration of neuronal oscillations at different temporal and spatial scales. The present study details methods based on an adaptive frequency tracking approach that improve the quantification and statistical analysis of oscillatory components and cross-frequency couplings. This approach allows for time-varying instantaneous frequency, which is particularly important when measuring phase interactions between components. We compared this adaptive approach to traditional band-pass filters in their measurement of phase-amplitude and phase-phase cross-frequency couplings. Evaluations were performed with synthetic signals and EEG data recorded from healthy humans performing an illusory contour discrimination task. First, the synthetic signals in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulations highlighted two desirable features of the proposed algorithm vs. classical filter-bank approaches: resilience to broad-band noise and oscillatory interference. Second, the analyses with real EEG signals revealed statistically more robust effects (i.e. improved sensitivity) when using an adaptive frequency tracking framework, particularly when identifying phase-amplitude couplings. This was further confirmed after generating surrogate signals from the real EEG data. Adaptive frequency tracking appears to improve the measurements of cross-frequency couplings through precise extraction of neuronal oscillations.
14-3-3 proteins sequester a pool of soluble TRIM32 ubiquitin ligase to repress autoubiquitylation and cytoplasmic body formation

Summary Deregulated expression of tripartite motif-containing protein 32 (TRIM32, an E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase) contributes to various diseases. Here we report, using quantitative proteomics and biochemistry, that 14-3-3 proteins bind to phosphorylated TRIM32 and prevent TRIM32 autoubiquitylation and the formation of TRIM32-containing cytoplasmic bodies, which are potential autoregulatory mechanisms that can reduce the concentration of soluble free TRIM32. The 14-3-3–TRIM32 interaction is dependent on protein-kinase-A-catalyzed phosphorylation of TRIM32 at Ser651. We found that the inhibitory effect of 14-3-3 is, in part, a consequence of disrupting the propensity of TRIM32 to undergo higher-order self-association without affecting its dimerization. Consequently, dimerized TRIM32 bound to 14-3-3 was sequestered in a distinct cytoplasmic pool away from the microtubule network, whereas a TRIM32 mutant that cannot bind 14-3-3 underwent multimerization and was unavailable to facilitate cell growth. Our results reveal a novel connection between ubiquitylation and phosphorylation pathways, which could modulate a variety of cell events by stimulating the formation of the 14-3-3–TRIM32 signaling complex.
Detection of the membrane-calcium distribution during mitosis in Haemanthus endosperm with chlorotetracycline

The distribution of membrane-associated calcium has been determined at various stages of mitosis in Haemanthus endosperm cells with the fluorescent chelate probe chlorotetracycline (CTC). CTC fluorescence in Haemanthus has two components: punctate, because of mitochondrial and plastid membrane-Ca++; and diffuse, primarily because of Ca++ associated with endoplasmic reticulum membranes. Punctate fluorescence assumes a polar distribution throughout mitosis. Cones of diffuse fluorescence in the chromosomse-to-pole regions of the metaphase spindle appear to coincide with the kinetochore fibers; during anaphase, the cones of fluorescence coalesce and this region of the spindle exhibits uniform diffuse fluorescence. Perturbation of the cellular Ca++ distribution by treatment with lanthanum, procaine, or EGTA results in a loss of diffuse fluorescence with no accompanying change in the intensity of punctate fluorescence. Detergent extraction of cellular membranes causes a total elimination of CTC fluorescence. CTC fluorescence of freshly teased crayfish claw muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum coincides with the A bands and is reduced by perfusion with lanthanum, procaine, and EGTA in a manner similar to that for diffuse fluorescence in the endosperm cells. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a membrane system in the chromosome-to-pole region of the mitotic apparatus functions in the localized release of sequestered Ca++, thereby regulating the mechanochemical events of mitosis.
Screening for mutations in the uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase gene using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. Identification and characterization of six novel mutations associated with familial PCT

The two porphyrias, familial porphyria cutanea tarda (fPCT) and hepatoerythropoietic porphyria (HEP), are associated with mutations in the gene encoding the enzyme uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (UROD). Several mutations, most of which are private, have been identified in HEP and fPCT patients, confirming the heterogeneity of the underlying genetic defects of these diseases. We have established a denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) assay for mutation detection in the UROD gene, enabling the simultaneous screening for known and unknown mutations. The established assay has proved able to detect the underlying UROD mutation in 10 previously characterized DNA samples as well as a new mutation in each of six previously unexamined PCT patients. The six novel UROD mutations comprise three missense mutations (M01T, F229L, and M324T), two splice mutations (IVS3‐2A→T and IVS5‐2A→G) leading to exon skipping, and a 2‐bp deletion (415‐416delTA) resulting in a frameshift and the introduction of a premature stop codon. Heterologous expression and enzymatic studies of the mutant proteins demonstrate that the three mutations leading to shortening or truncation of the UROD protein have no residual catalytic activity, whereas the two missense mutants retained some residual activity. Furthermore, the missense mutants exhibited a considerable increase in thermolability. The six new mutations bring to a total of 29 the number of disease‐related mutations in the UROD gene. The DGGE assay presented greatly improves the genetic diagnosis of fPCT and HEP, thereby facilitating the detection of familial UROD deficient patients as well as the discrimination between familial and sporadic PCT cases. Hum Mutat 14:222–232, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.