Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dispersion and alignment quantification of carbon nanotubes in a polyvinyl alcohol matrix

In recent years, due to their high specific mechanical properties, polymer matrix composites have been widely used. In particular, carbon nanotubes have been used as reinforcement because of their exceptional properties. In this work, the degree of dispersion and alignment of multiwalled carbon nanotubes into polyvinyl alcohol was quantified, which is a key information to optimize the mechanical properties of composites. For the dispersion of the multiwalled carbon nanotubes into the solution, a magnetic stirring and ultrasonic agitation were used. Finally, the mixture was dried to obtain a multiwalled carbon nanotubes reinforced polymer. The composites were mechanically stretched to obtain sheets with multiwalled carbon nanotubes aligned in the stretching direction. The layers obtained were prepared for transmission electron microscopy analysis. A dispersion quantification method based on the statistical distribution of horizontal and vertical separation distance between carbon nanotubes was used; a lognormal distribution was obtained. The angle of carbon nanotubes with respect to the stretching direction was used to quantify the alignment degree of carbon nanotubes. The bulk mechanical properties of the composites were measured by nanoindentation test; tensile test allowed to measure the mechanical properties of the composites in both the stretching and perpendicular directions to the stretching direction. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes showed a good dispersion and alignment degree and this, in conjunction with stretching, produced a high increase of both the stiffness and strength in the stretching direction, which allowed an increment of the mechanical properties measured by nanoindentation test; the best properties of the composites were reached with 0.5 wt% of MWCNTs.
Large‐scale culture of a megakaryocytic progenitor cell line with a single‐use bioreactor system

The increasing application of regenerative medicine has generated a growing demand for stem cells and their derivatives. Single‐use bioreactors offer an attractive platform for stem cell expansion owing to their scalability for large‐scale production and feasibility of meeting clinical‐grade standards. The current work evaluated the capacity of a single‐use bioreactor system (1 L working volume) for expanding Meg01 cells, a megakaryocytic (MK) progenitor cell line. Oxygen supply was provided by surface aeration to minimize foaming and orbital shaking was used to promote oxygen transfer. Oxygen transfer rates (kLa) of shaking speeds 50, 100, and 125 rpm were estimated to be 0.39, 1.12, and 10.45 h−1, respectively. Shaking speed was a critical factor for optimizing cell growth. At 50 rpm, Meg01 cells exhibited restricted growth due to insufficient mixing. A negative effect occurred when the shaking speed was increased to 125 rpm, likely caused by high hydrodynamic shear stress. The bioreactor culture achieved the highest growth profile when shaken at 100 rpm, achieving a total expansion rate up to 5.7‐fold with a total cell number of 1.2 ± 0.2 × 109 cells L−1. In addition, cells expanded using the bioreactor system could maintain their potency to differentiate following the MK lineage, as analyzed from specific surface protein and morphological similarity with the cells grown in the conventional culturing system. Our study reports the impact of operational variables such as shaking speed for growth profile and MK differentiation potential of a progenitor cell line in a single‐use bioreactor. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 34:362–369, 2018
Prevalence and Course of Symptom-Defined PTSD in Individuals Directly or Indirectly Exposed to Terror: A Longitudinal Study

Objective: It is well established that direct exposure to terrorism can result in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, individuals indirectly exposed to terrorism may also develop symptoms of PTSD. This study examined the prevalence and course of symptom-defined PTSD in employees who were present and not present at the site of a workplace terror attack. Methods: Survey data from ministerial employees were collected 10, 22, and 34 months after the 2011 bombing in the government district of Oslo. A total of 3,520 employees were initially invited to the study. Response rates of eligible participants were 56% (N = 1,974) at T1, 55% (N = 1,780) at T2, and 54% (N = 1,578) at T3. PTSD was measured using the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist—Specific (PCL-S). Symptom-defined PTSD was specified as meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), B, C, and D criteria. Results: Our findings showed a low and declining prevalence of symptom-defined PTSD in employees indirectly exposed to a workplace terror attack (4%, 3%, and 2% at the three respective times). In employees present at the site of the explosion, PTSD was six- to eightfold more prevalent (24%, 17%, and 17%). Conclusions: Individuals indirectly exposed to terrorism may develop long-lasting posttraumatic stress reactions fulfilling PTSD symptom criteria. Due to the large number of individuals that may be indirectly exposed to terrorism, even a low risk of PTSD may result in high numbers of individuals with substantial posttraumatic stress. Our findings have implications for the planning and implementation of health care services beyond those directly exposed after large-scale terror events.
Modulation of Chemokine Receptor Function by Cholesterol: New Prospects for Pharmacological Intervention

Chemokine receptors are seven transmembrane-domain receptors belonging to class A of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The receptors together with their chemokine ligands constitute the chemokine system, which is essential for directing cell migration and plays a crucial role in a variety of physiologic and pathologic processes. Given the importance of orchestrating cell migration, it is vital that chemokine receptor signaling is tightly regulated to ensure appropriate responses. Recent studies highlight a key role for cholesterol in modulating chemokine receptor activities. The steroid influences the spatial organization of GPCRs within the membrane bilayer, and consequently can tune chemokine receptor signaling. The effects of cholesterol on the organization and function of chemokine receptors and GPCRs in general include direct and indirect effects (Fig. 1). Here, we review how cholesterol and some key metabolites modulate functions of the chemokine system in multiple ways. We emphasize the role of cholesterol in chemokine receptor oligomerization, thereby promoting the formation of a signaling hub enabling integration of distinct signaling pathways at the receptor-membrane interface. Moreover, we discuss the role of cholesterol in stabilizing particular receptor conformations and its consequence for chemokine binding. Finally, we highlight how cholesterol accumulation, its deprivation, or cholesterol metabolites contribute to modulating cell orchestration during inflammation, induction of an adaptive immune response, as well as to dampening an anti-tumor immune response.
A structural organization for the Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1 protein, identified by high-throughput screening, reveals distinctly folded regions, which are bisected by mental illness-related mutations

Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) is a scaffolding protein of significant importance for neurodevelopment and a prominent candidate protein in the pathology of major mental illness. DISC1 modulates a number of critical neuronal signaling pathways through protein-protein interactions; however, the mechanism by which this occurs and how DISC1 causes mental illness is unclear, partly because knowledge of the structure of DISC1 is lacking. A lack of homology with known proteins has hindered attempts to define its domain composition. Here, we employed the high-throughput Expression of Soluble Proteins by Random Incremental Truncation (ESPRIT) technique to identify discretely folded regions of human DISC1 via solubility assessment of tens of thousands of fragments of recombinant DISC1. We identified four novel structured regions, named D, I, S, and C, at amino acids 257–383, 539–655, 635–738, and 691–836, respectively. One region (D) is located in a DISC1 section previously predicted to be unstructured. All regions encompass coiled-coil or α-helical structures, and three are involved in DISC1 oligomerization. Crucially, three of these domains would be lost or disrupted by a chromosomal translocation event after amino acid 597, which has been strongly linked to major mental illness. Furthermore, we observed that a known illness-related frameshift mutation after amino acid 807 causes the C region to form aberrantly multimeric and aggregated complexes with an unstable secondary structure. This newly revealed domain architecture of DISC1, therefore, provides a powerful framework for understanding the critical role of this protein in a variety of devastating mental illnesses.
A factorial design to identify process parameters affecting whole mechanically disrupted rat pancreata in a perfusion bioreactor

Few studies report whole pancreatic tissue culture, as it is a difficult task using traditional culture methods. Here, a factorial design was used to investigate the singular and combinational effects of flow, dissolved oxygen concentration (D.O.) and pulsation on whole mechanically disrupted rat pancreata in a perfusion bioreactor. Whole rat pancreata were cultured for 72 h under defined bioreactor process conditions. Secreted insulin was measured and histological (haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)) as well as immunofluorescent insulin staining were performed and quantified. The combination of flow and D.O. had the most significant effect on secreted insulin at 5 h and 24 h. The D.O. had the biggest effect on tissue histological quality, and pulsation had the biggest effect on the number of insulin‐positive structures. Based on the factorial design analysis, bioreactor conditions using high flow, low D.O. , and pulsation were selected to further study glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion. Here, mechanically disrupted rat pancreata were cultured for 24 h under these bioreactor conditions and were then challenged with high glucose concentration for 6 h and high glucose + IBMX (an insulin secretagogue) for a further 6 h. These cultures secreted insulin in response to high glucose concentration in the first 6 h, however stimulated‐insulin secretion was markedly weaker in response to high glucose concentration + IBMX thereafter. After this bioreactor culture period, higher tissue metabolic activity was found compared to that of non‐bioreacted static controls. More insulin‐ and glucagon‐positive structures, and extensive intact endothelial structures were observed compared to non‐bioreacted static cultures. H&E staining revealed more intact tissue compared to static cultures. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 34:432–444, 2018
Effects of Chlorhexidine-Encapsulated Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles on the Anti-Biofilm and Mechanical Properties of Glass Ionomer Cement

One of the primary causes for the failure of glass ionomer cement (GIC) is secondary caries. To enhance the anti-microbial performance of GIC without affecting its mechanical properties, chlorhexidine (CHX) was encapsulated in expanded-pore mesoporous silica nanoparticles (pMSN) to synthesize CHX@pMSN. CHX@pMSN was added at three mass fractions (1%, 5%, and 10% (w/w)) to GIC powder as the experimental groups. Pure GIC was set as the control group. The mechanical and anti-biofilm properties of GIC from each group were tested. The results demonstrated that CHX was successfully encapsulated on/into pMSN, and the encapsulating efficiency of CHX was 44.62% in CHX@pMSN. The anti-biofilm ability was significantly enhanced in all experimental groups (p < 0.001) compared with that in the control group. CHX was continuously released, and anti-biofilm ability was maintained up to 30 days. In addition, the mechanical properties (compressive strength, surface hardness, elastic modulus, water sorption, and solubility) of 1% (w/w) group were maintained compared with those in the control group (p > 0.05). In conclusion, adding 1% (w/w) CHX@pMSN to GIC led to conspicuous anti-biofilm ability and had no adverse effect on the mechanical properties of this restorative material. This study proposes a new strategy for preventing secondary caries by using CHX@pMSN-modified GIC.
Variational Image Decomposition in Shearlet Smoothness Spaces

Shearlet representation has gained more prominence in recent year as a flexible mathematical framework which enables the efficient analysis of anisotropic phenomena by combining multiscale analysis with the ability to handle directional information. Based on this, we present a new variational model for image decomposition in shearlet smoothness spaces. The new model can be seen as generalizations of Daubechies -Teschke's model. By replacing the Besov regularization term by a shearlet-based regularization term, and writing the problem in a shearlet framework, we obtain elegant shearlet shrinkage schemes. The experiments on decomposition of images show that our algorithm is very efficient.
Detecting bogus BGP route information: Going beyond prefix hijacking

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the de facto inter-domain routing protocol of the Internet. However, the BGP system has been built based on the implicit trust among individual administrative domains and no countermeasure prevents bogus routes from being injected and propagated through the system. Attackers might exploit bogus routes to gain control of arbitrary address spaces (i.e. prefixes), to either hijack the relevant traffic or launch stealthy attacks. Attackers can directly originate the bogus routes of the prefixes, or even stealthier, further spoof the AS paths of the routes to make them appear to be originated by others. We propose a real-time detection system for ISPs to provide protection against bogus routes. The system learns from the historical BGP routing data the basic routing information objects that assemble BGP routes, and detect the suspicious routes comprised of unseen objects. In particular, we leverage a directed AS-link topology model to detect path spoofing routes that violate import/export routing policies. Moreover, we explore various heuristics to infer the potentially legitimate routing information objects to reduce false alarms. The experiments based on several documented incidents show that our system can yield a nearly 100% detection rate while bounding the false positive rate to as low as 0.02%.
Sparse and Low-Rank Coupling Image Segmentation Model Via Nonconvex Regularization

This paper investigates how to boost region-based image segmentation by inheriting the advantages of sparse representation and low-rank representation. A novel image segmentation model, called nonconvex regularization based sparse and low-rank coupling model, is presented for such a purpose. We aim at finding the optimal solution which is provided with sparse and low-rank simultaneously. This is achieved by relaxing sparse representation problem as L1/2 norm minimization other than the L1 norm minimization, while relaxing low-rank representation problem as the S1/2 norm minimization other than the nuclear norm minimization. This coupled model can be solved efficiently through the Augmented Lagrange Multiplier (ALM) method and half-threshold operator. Compared to the other state-of-the-art methods, the new method is better at capturing the global structure of the whole data, the robustness is better and the segmentation accuracy is also competitive. Experiments on two public image segmentation databases well validate the superiority of our method.
Occurrence, Survival, and Persistence of Human Adenoviruses and F-Specific RNA Phages in Raw Groundwater

ABSTRACT Detection of specific genetic markers can rapidly identify the presence of enteric viruses in groundwater. However, comparison of stability characteristics between genetic and infectivity markers is necessary to better interpret molecular data. Human adenovirus serotype 2 (HAdV2), in conjunction with MS2 phages or GA phages, was spiked into raw groundwater microcosms. Viral stability was periodically assessed by both infectivity and real-time PCR methods. The results of this yearlong study suggest that adenoviruses have the most stable persistence profile and an ability to survive for a long time in groundwater. According to a linear regression model, infectivity reductions of HAdV2 ranged from 0.0076 log10/day (4°C) to 0.0279 log10/day (20°C) and were significantly lower than those observed for phages. No adenoviral genome degradation was observed at 4°C, and the reduction was estimated at 0.0036 log10/day at 20°C. Occurrence study showed that DNA of human adenoviruses could be observed in groundwater from a confined aquifer (7 of the 60 samples were positive by real-time PCR), while no fecal indicators were detected. In agreement with the persistence of genetic markers, the presence of adenoviral DNA in groundwater may be misleading in term of health risk, especially in the absence of information on the infective status.
Vagal Tone and Children’s Delay of Gratification

Children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have differing abilities to delay gratification, and impoverished children have the greatest difficulties in doing so. In the present study, we examined the role of vagal tone in predicting the ability to delay gratification in both resource-rich and resource-poor environments. We derived hypotheses from evolutionary models of children’s conditional adaptation to proximal rearing contexts. In Study 1, we tested whether elevated vagal tone was associated with shorter delay of gratification in impoverished children. In Study 2, we compared the relative role of vagal tone across two groups of children, one that had experienced greater impoverishment and one that was relatively middle-class. Results indicated that in resource-rich environments, higher vagal tone was associated with longer delay of gratification. In contrast, high vagal tone in children living in resource-poor environments was associated with reduced delay of gratification. We interpret the results with an eye to evolutionary-developmental models of the function of children’s stress-response system and adaptive behavior across varying contexts of economic risk.
In situ and in silico kinetic analyses of programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) receptor, programmed cell death ligands, and B7-1 protein interaction network

Programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) is an inhibitory receptor with an essential role in maintaining peripheral tolerance and is among the most promising immunotherapeutic targets for treating cancer, autoimmunity, and infectious diseases. A complete understanding of the consequences of PD-1 engagement by its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, and of PD-L1 binding to B7-1 requires quantitative analysis of their interactions at the cell surface. We present here the first complete in situ kinetic analysis of the PD-1/PD-ligands/B7-1 system. Consistent with previous solution measurements, we observed higher in situ affinities for human (h) than murine (m) PD-1 interactions, stronger binding of hPD-1 to hPD-L2 than hPD-L1, and comparable binding of mPD-1 to both ligands. However, in contrast to the relatively weak solution affinities, the in situ affinities of PD-1 are as high as those of the T cell receptor for agonist pMHC and of LFA-1 (lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1) for ICAM-1 (intercellular adhesion molecule 1) but significantly lower than that of the B7-1/CTLA-4 interaction, suggesting a distinct basis for PD-1- versus CTLA-4-mediated inhibition. Notably, the in situ interactions of PD-1 are much stronger than that of B7-1 with PD-L1. Overall, the in situ affinity ranking greatly depends on the on-rate instead of the off-rate. In silico simulations predict that PD-1/PD-L1 interactions dominate at interfaces between activated T cells and mature dendritic cells and that these interactions will be highly sensitive to the dynamics of PD-L1 and PD-L2 expression. Our results provide a kinetic framework for better understanding inhibitory PD-1 activity in health and disease.
Testis‐specific RNA‐Seq of Calligrapha (Chrysomelidae) as a transcriptomic resource for male‐biased gene inquiry in Coleoptera

We report the architecture of testis transcriptomes of four closely related species of Calligrapha (Chrysomelidae) beetles, which diverged during the last 3 million years. Five cDNA libraries were sequenced using Illumina HiSeq technology, retrieving 102 884–176 514 assembled contigs, of which ~33–45% of these longer than 499 nt were functionally annotated. Annotation and sequence similarity comparisons of these libraries revealed high homogeneity in gene composition and the presence of several functional candidates related to reproduction or reproductive processes (0.72–1.08% of annotated sequences). Stringent sequence similarity analyses of these transcriptomes against empirically demonstrated male‐biased genes in Drosophila melanogaster and Tribolium castaneum allowed the identification of 77 homologues in Calligrapha, possible candidates of male‐biased expression. Some of these genes – including CG9313, Tektin‐A or tomboy40 – were confirmed as orthologs of these male‐biased genes using phylogenetic inference and available model insect data, increasing our confidence that they represent functional homologues too. Our transcriptomes are a valuable transcriptomic resource for the analysis of male‐biased genes in Calligrapha, which has the added interest of including several female‐only species. But it simultaneously represents a landmark for similar studies in Coleoptera, broadening the taxonomic diversity currently represented by the model species T. castaneum, and incipient genomic data in other herbivorous lineages, including weevils, longhorn beetles and leaf beetles.
Influence of Sodium Chloride on the Formation and Dissociation Behavior of CO2 Gas Hydrates

We present an experimental study on the formation and dissociation characteristics of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas hydrates using Raman spectroscopy. The CO2 hydrates were formed from sodium chloride/water solutions with salinities of 0–10 wt %, which were pressurized with liquid CO2 in a stirred vessel at 6 MPa and a subcooling of 9.5 K. The formation of the CO2 hydrate resulted in a hydrate gel where the solid hydrate can be considered as the continuous phase that includes small amounts of a dispersed liquid water-rich phase that has not been converted to hydrate. During the hydrate formation process we quantified the fraction of solid hydrate, xH, and the fraction of the dispersed liquid water-rich phase, xL, from the signature of the hydroxyl (OH)-stretching vibration of the hydrate gel. We found that the fraction of hydrate xH contained in the hydrate gel linearly depends on the salinity of the initial liquid water-rich phase. In addition, the ratio of CO2 and water was analyzed in the liquid water-rich phase before hydrate formation, in the hydrate gel during growth and dissociation, and after its complete dissociation again in the liquid water-rich phase. We observed a supersaturation of CO2 in the water-rich phase after complete dissociation of the hydrate gel and were able to show that the excess CO2 exists as dispersed micro- or nanoscale liquid droplets in the liquid water-rich phase. These residual nano- and microdroplets could be a possible explanation for the so-called memory effect.