Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spectrophotometric determination of some calcium channel blockers using Sulfochlorophenol-S, Bromopyrogallol red, Eriochromecyanine-R and Pyrocatechoil violet

Four simple, sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric methods have been developed for the determination of some calcium channel blockers: Amlodipine besylate (ADB), Diltiazem hydrochloride (DTZ) and Verapamil hydrochloride (VPM) in pharmaceutical formulations. These methods based on formation ion pair complexes with Sulfochlorophenol-S (SCPS), Bromopyrogallol red (BPR), Eriochromecyanine- R (ECC) and Pyrocatechol violet (PCV) in acidic medium. The colored products are extracted with chloroform and measured spectrophoto- metrically at 462, 600, 440 and 442 for ECC, SCPS, BPR and PCV, respectively. Beer’s low was obeyed in the concentration range, for ECC: 25 - 175 μg·ml-1, 50 - 150 μg·ml-1 or 100 - 250 μg·ml-1, for SCPS: 300 - 800 μg·ml-1, 200 - 700 μg·ml-1 or 100 - 550 μg·ml-1, for BPR: 50 - 400 μg·ml-1, 200 - 700 μg·ml-1 or 200 - 700 μg·ml-1 for VPM, DTZ or ADB, respectively and for PCV: 50 - 250 μg·ml-1 for VPM or 200 - 500 μg·ml-1 for DTZ with molar absorptivity, for ECC: 2.2 × 104, 2.1 × 104, 1.6 × 104 L·mol-1·cm-1, for SCPS: 3.8 × 103, 5.6 × 103, 8.1 × 103 L·mol-1·cm-1, for BPR: 11 × 103, 4.8 × 103, 6.9 × 103 L·mol-1·cm-1 for VPM, DTZ or ADB, respectively and for PCV: 19.5 × 103 L·mol-1·cm-1 for VPM and 6.6 × 103 L·mol-1·cm-1 for DTZ and relative standard deviation, for ECC: 0.76%, 0.86%, 0.46%, for SCPS: 0.94%, 0.96%, 0.86%, for BPR: 0.96%, 0.95%, 0.55% for VPM, DTZ or ADB, respectively and for PCV: 0.81% for VPM and 0.65% for DTZ. These methods have been successfully applied for the assay of drug in pharmaceutical formulations. No interference was observed from common pharmaceutical adjuvants. Statistical comparison of the results with the reference method shows excellent agreement and indicates no significant difference in accuracy and precision.
Implications of the Frequent Hemodialysis Network‐Daily Trial

Despite many years of experience with hemodialysis, the outcomes of maintenance dialysis patients remain poor. The Frequent Hemodialysis Network‐Daily (FHN‐Daily) Trial found that six times per week in‐center short hemodialysis decreased left ventricular mass and improved self‐reported physical functioning over a 1‐year intervention period compared with conventional thrice‐weekly dialysis. Despite the promising results, caution is needed in the projection of these intermediate outcomes to hard clinical endpoints, such as cardiovascular events and death.
Analytical time-harmonic approach to calculate rotor eddy-current losses due to stator harmonics

This paper describes an analytical approach to determine the losses in the rotors of synchronous machines due to stator space and time harmonics. Based on the formulation of electro-magnetic waves in the cylindrical coordinate system, different geometrical layouts and winding arrangements have been investigated. The analytically calculated results of eddy-current losses in different parts of the rotor, such as damper wedges, massive iron parts, screens and permanent magnets, are compared with numerical calculations, showing good coincidence. Analytical approaches help to understand the physics and allow optimal solutions to be found in a fast but still accurate way.
Some Notes on Parametric Significance Tests for Geographically Weighted Regression

The technique of geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to model spatial 'drift' in linear model coefficients. In this paper we extend the ideas of GWR in a number of ways. First, we introduce a set of analytically derived significance tests allowing a null hypothesis of no spatial parameter drift to be investigated. Second, we discuss 'mixed' GWR models where some parameters are fixed globally but others vary geographically. Again, models of this type may be assessed using significance tests. Finally, we consider a means of deciding the degree of parameter smoothing used in GWR based on the Mallows Cp statistic. To complete the paper, we analyze an example data set based on house prices in Kent in the U.K. using the techniques introduced.
The total structure and organization of chromosomal fibers in eutherian sperm nuclei.

The structural basis of the large anomalous circular dichroism spectrum observed for highly native chromosomal fibers released from the heads of equine sperm has been investigated through physico-chemical and theoretical means. Linear dichroism measurements on the chromosomal fibers indicate an orientation of the DNA hdix axis perpendicular to the fiber length. The fibers respond as cholesteric liquid crystals to reflectance spectroscopy with a characteristic wavelength of maximum reflectivity (310 nm). The circular dichroism spectrum calculated for a liquid crystal model of the ordering of DNA molecules is in excellent agreement with the spectrum observed for the chromosomal fibers. Dissolution of the fibers gives the same circular dichroism as that of the chromatin of eukaryote somatic cells. Collectively these facts allow formulation of a model for the total structure of equine sperm chromosomal fibers. DNA molecules maintained in the B-form secondary structure are compacted by coiling into a superhelical tertiary structure. These ordered molecules are aligned parallel to each other in planes, each plane slightly rotated as they stack upon each other, forming a quaternary cholesteric liquid crystal arrangement with a right-hand screw direction and a pitch of 1760 A. A scheme for the cellular process of the structuring of eutherian sperm nuclei is discussed.
Metal-enhanced radiotherapy: Gold nanoparticles and beyond

In order to improve locoregional tumor control obtainable with radiation therapy (RT) alone, many approaches have been used. In the past decade, focus of interests was on metal-enhanced RT as metal nanoparticles (NP) held promise in simulation studies as well as both in vitro and in vivo radiosensitizing investigations. Gold NPs have predominantly been studied showing unequivocally great potential for radiosensitization. In clinical scenarios, however, it is presently limited due to less sensitization when megavoltage beams (mostly used in clinic) are compared to kilovoltage beams. A number of other metal NPs are also under investigation as well as combination of RT-NP with either classical chemotherapy or targeted agents and other cancer treatments (hyperthermia, photodynamic therapy). Ultimately, more clinical studies are needed to verify these promising results in clinical setting.
UAM's Participation at CLEF eRisk 2017 task: Towards Modelling Depressed Blogers

In this paper we describe the participation of the Language and Reasoning Research Group of UAM Cuajimalpa at eRisk 2017 pilot task: Early Risk Prediction on the Internet. The goal of the eRisk task consists in detecting with enough anticipation cases of depression on texts. For evaluating this task, organizers provided a dataset containing comments from a set of Social Media users. All comments are chronologically ordered and represent writings from depressed and non-depressed users. Our proposed approach addressed this problem by means of graph models. This type of representation allows to capture some inherent characteristics from documents that can be determined though traditional graph measurements, and then, employed as features in a supervised classification system. Obtained results indicate that more experiments, as well as a more thorough analysis is required to conclude regarding the pertinence (or not) of our proposed strategy.
Phylogenetic Relationships of Butyrate-Producing Bacteria from the Human Gut

ABSTRACT Butyrate is a preferred energy source for colonic epithelial cells and is thought to play an important role in maintaining colonic health in humans. In order to investigate the diversity and stability of butyrate-producing organisms of the colonic flora, anaerobic butyrate-producing bacteria were isolated from freshly voided human fecal samples from three healthy individuals: an infant, an adult omnivore, and an adult vegetarian. A second isolation was performed on the same three individuals 1 year later. Of a total of 313 bacterial isolates, 74 produced more than 2 mM butyrate in vitro. Butyrate-producing isolates were grouped by 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The results indicate very little overlap between the predominant ribotypes of the three subjects; furthermore, the flora of each individual changed significantly between the two isolations. Complete sequences of 16S rDNAs were determined for 24 representative strains and subjected to phylogenetic analysis. Eighty percent of the butyrate-producing isolates fell within the XIVa cluster of gram-positive bacteria as defined by M. D. Collins et al. (Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 44:812–826, 1994) and A. Willems et al. (Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 46:195–199, 1996), with the most abundant group (10 of 24 or 42%) clustering with Eubacterium rectale, Eubacterium ramulus, and Roseburia cecicola. Fifty percent of the butyrate-producing isolates were net acetate consumers during growth, suggesting that they employ the butyryl coenzyme A-acetyl coenzyme A transferase pathway for butyrate production. In contrast, only 1% of the 239 non-butyrate-producing isolates consumed acetate.
Representation of Chemical Kinetics by Artificial Neural Networks for Large Eddy Simulations

This paper discusses an approach to incorporate Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based kinetics modeling into Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) of reactive flows. The emphasis has been spent for replacing stiff ordinary differential equation (ODE) solvers with ANN for chemical kinetics calculations. A back-propagation type of an ANN code has been developed and its performance has been tested in laminar and turbulent methane/air and syngas/air premixed combustion processes. The ANN is trained using an independent premixed flame calculation and then used as is in the LES. Results indicate that the accuracy of ANN predictions for turbulent flow computations highly depend on the initial training data-set. If well trained, ANN can succesfully predict the chemical state-space using less memory than a conventional look-up table approach and in a computationally efficient manner than the stiff ODE solvers.
Model-Based Fault Detection for a Hydraulic Servo Axis

at – Automatisierungstechnik 55 (2007) 1 / DOI 10.1524/auto.2007. 55.1. 45 © Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag Die Doktorarbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem systematischen Entwurf eines umfassenden modellbasierten Fehlererkennungsund Diagnosesystems zur Überwachung einer linearen hydraulischen Servo-Achse (bestehend aus einem Proportionalwegeventil und einem Differenzialzylinder). Durch die Einführung einer neuen Modellarchitektur, eines nichtlinearen Ventildurchflussmodells und der Berücksichtigung von Temperaturabhängigkeiten ist es möglich, die Modellgüte enorm zu verbessern. Die hohe Qualität des resultierenden Modells erlaubt den Einsatz von Paritätsgleichungen und Parameterschätzmethoden zur Fehlererkennung und -diagnose (bzw. dem Model-Based Fault Detection for a Hydraulic Servo Axis
An Improved Pre-processing Approach for Photoplethysmographic Signal

Heart rate variability and motion artifact are two major obstacles to the photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal analysis, which is a very promising tool to derive useful information about the hemodynamics as well as autonomic nerve system. This paper suggests employing a truncation/extrapolation method on the PPG signal or its first order derivative to overcome the heart rate variability problem while extract a refined mean PPG pulse waveform. Meanwhile, the cross-correlation detection method is employed to remove the motion artifacts. Test results indicate that the proposed approach can effectively enhance the signal to noise ratio of PPG waveform and therefore verify the effectiveness of the proposed preprocessing scheme
Nontransformed, GM-CSF–dependent macrophage lines are a unique model to study tissue macrophage functions

Significance Macrophages—cells crucially involved in defense against infections—exhibit, depending on their anatomical location, distinct biological properties. Studies of the underlying mechanisms are of scientific and clinical interest, but are hampered by the difficulty of obtaining primary tissue macrophages in sufficient numbers and purity. Here, we report the generation of nontransformed murine macrophages, which are similar to alveolar macrophages and can be grown continuously without change of phenotype and in unlimited amounts. Such macrophages helped us to recognize several innate immune properties of alveolar macrophages that are involved in the pathogenesis of infectious lung inflammation. Macrophages are diverse cell types in the first line of antimicrobial defense. Only a limited number of primary mouse models exist to study their function. Bone marrow-derived, macrophage-CSF–induced cells with a limited life span are the most common source. We report here a simple method yielding self-renewing, nontransformed, GM-CSF/signal transducer and activator of transcription 5-dependent macrophages (Max Planck Institute cells) from mouse fetal liver, which reflect the innate immune characteristics of alveolar macrophages. Max Planck Institute cells are exquisitely sensitive to selected microbial agents, including bacterial LPS, lipopeptide, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, cord factor, and adenovirus and mount highly proinflammatory but no anti-inflammatory IL-10 responses. They show a unique pattern of innate responses not yet observed in other mononuclear phagocytes. This includes differential LPS sensing and an unprecedented regulation of IL-1α production upon LPS exposure, which likely plays a key role in lung inflammation in vivo. In conclusion, Max Planck Institute cells offer an useful tool to study macrophage biology and for biomedical science.
Misalignment challenges when integrating security requirements into mobile banking application development

This study identifies and explores the core challenge faced when integrating security requirements into the mobile application software development life cycle. Studies on key issues in Information Systems (IS) have been on-going in the past decades, with security moving up the ranks of top issues in IS. Security requirements can be added into mobile application development processes by practising secure coding or by adding a third party security tool. This study gathered data from a single case study and employs grounded theory methodology to reveal misalignment as the core challenge to integrating security requirements into mobile banking application development. Identified forms of misalignment include that between security requirements and (1) external entities, (2) roles, (3) skills and (4) system requirements. Some of the findings indicate the need for further research. Research indicates that mobile application development follows agile methods for development. Agile methods have been compared with Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). For this reason, research in IS could benefit from studies that focus on CAS as a theory to provide a better explanation on the misalignment issues in mobile application development. From the current study, the research also identified the need to address misalignment issues before embarking on a project involving integrating of security requirements.
Negative modulation of the epigenetic regulator, UHRF1, by thyroid hormone receptors suppresses liver cancer cell growth

The thyroid hormone, 3,3′,5‐triiodo‐l‐thyronine (T3), mediates several physiological processes, including embryonic development, cellular differentiation, metabolism and regulation of cell proliferation. Thyroid hormone (T3) and its receptor (TR) are involved in metabolism and growth. In addition to their developmental and metabolic functions, TRs play a tumor suppressor role, and therefore, their aberrant expression can lead to tumor transformation. Aberrant epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes promotes cancer progression. The epigenetic regulator, Ubiquitin‐like with PHD and ring finger domains 1 (UHRF1), is overexpressed in various cancers. In our study, we demonstrated that T3 negatively regulates UHRF1 expression, both in vitro and in vivo. Our results further indicate that UHRF1 regulation by T3 is indirect and mediated by Sp1. Sp1‐binding elements of UHRF1 were identified at positions −664/−505 of the promoter region using the luciferase and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Notably, UHRF1 and Sp1 levels were elevated in subgroups of hepatocellular carcinoma patients and inversely correlated with TRα1 expression. Knockdown of UHRF1 expression should therefore provide a means to inhibit hepatoma cell proliferation. Expression of UHRF1 was downregulated by TRs, in turn, relieving silencing of the UHRF1 target gene, p21. Based on the collective findings, we propose that T3/TR signaling induces hepatoma cell growth inhibition via UHRF1 repression.
Complete globozoospermia associated with DPY19L2 mutation treated with calcium ionophore ionomycin and ICSI results in live birth

The successful outcome of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) with round-headed spermatozoa (globozoospermia) and ionomycin assisted activation oocytes is reported. A 30-year-old man with 100% globozoospermia underwent ICSI treatment. Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) detection indicates that the patient was DPY19L2 homozygous deletion. Nine metaphase II oocytes were injected with round-headed sperms. After ICSI, the oocytes were activated with ionomycin. Two out of 9 metaphase II oocytes were fertilized after ICSI and ionomycin activation. One embryo was transferred and a singleton pregnancy was obtained that ended in the delivery of a healthy child. Our case reports demonstrate that artificial oocyte activation using calcium ionophore ionomycin is beneficial in patients with globozoospermia associated with DPY19L2 mutation, and the method of oocyte activation does not affect the normal growth of preimplantation embryos. Further studies are needed to confirm the safety of oocyte activation in born babies. Correspondence to: Shuai Liu, Key Laboratory of Family Planning and Health Birth, National Health and Family Planning Commission, Hebei Research Institute for Family Planning, 480 Heping Road, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, 050071 China, Tel/Fax: +86 31187041556, E-mail: liushuai601@126.com
Variation in laboratory stocks of influenza viruses: biological characters of variants.

THE occurrence of variation in viruses has long been recognized. It has been suggested, for example, that vaccinia virus originally arose as a variant of variola virus, that the 17D strain of yellow fever virus is an avirulent variant, and that the influenza pandemic of 1918-19 was caused by a highly virulent influenza virus variant. Variation in viruses has been extensively reviewed by Findlay (1939), and Burnet (in press) has recently given a detailed account of variation in influenza viruses. Laboratory study of virus mutants has been largely concerned with bacteriophages. These have been described by Sertic (1929), Burnet and Lush (1936), Gratia (1936), Luria (1945), Hershey (1946), Delbruck (1948), and Hershey and Rotman (1948). Detailed study of mutations in influenzaviruses has been restricted to the O-D mutation described by Burnet and Bull (1943) and Burnet and Stone (1945). It was shown that influenza A viruses exist in two forms: the 0 or original form agglutinates human or guinea-pig cells, but not fowl cells; the D or derived form agglutinates fowl cells to approximately the same titre as human cells. As isolated from human beings with influenza, the virus is in the 0 form. However, on cultivation of the virus in the chick embryo, a proportion of D mutants arises whose survival is selectively favoured. It was found that passage of 0 virus by the amniotic route at low dilution soon brought about an alteration in the character of the fluids to the D form. The virus could be maintained in the O form indefinitely by passage at high dilution, i.e. by using an inoculum which did not include any D virus. In the course of studies on the properties of influenza virus produced in the first " burst " following initiation of infection (Henle, Henle and Rosenberg, 1947), we observed cultures of Melbourne virus which differed from normal Melbourne virus in their position in the fowl cell receptor gradient (Burnet, McCrea and Stone, 1946). It soon became clear that this difference was not due to any unusual properties of virus produced in the first burst, but to the presence of a variant in our laboratory culture. The variant was not observed when the stock MEL was passaged at low dilution, but only at limiting dilution, that is under conditions when infection might be induced by a single infective virus unit. It was soon recognized that the occurrence of variants was not confined to this strain, but was found in other Institute laboratory strains. Two aspects
Oligoclonality of serum immunoglobulin G antibody responses to Streptococcus pneumoniae capsular polysaccharide serotypes 6B, 14, and 23F

Serum antibodies (Abs) specific for the capsular polysaccharides of Streptococcus pneumoniae provide protection against invasive pneumococcal disease. Previous studies indicate that Abs to pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS) serotypes 1 and 6B have limited clonal diversity. To determine if restricted diversity was a feature common to other PPS specificities, we examined the light (L)-chain expression and isoelectric heterogeneity of type 6B, 14, and 23F Abs elicited in 15 adults following PPS vaccination. At the population level, both PPS-6B and PPS-14 Abs expressed kappa and lambda chains, although 6B Abs more frequently expressed lambda chains lambda and 14 Abs more frequently expressed kappa chains. In individual sera, Abs were generally skewed towards either kappa or lambda expression. 23F-specific Abs had predominantly kappa chains. Isoelectric focusing analyses showed that sera contained one or at most a few immunoglobulin G Ab spectrotypes to all three respective capsular serotypes, a result indicative of oligoclonality. A sequence analysis of a purified PPS-14-specific Ab having a single spectrotype gave uniform amino-terminal sequences for both the heavy chain (V(H)III subgroup) and the L chain (kappaIII-A27 V region). From these results we conclude that within individual adults, serum Ab responses to PPS serotypes 6B, 14, and 23F derive from a small number of dominant B-cell clones, and consequently variable-region expression is probably individually limited as well. Oligoclonality appears to be a general characteristic of human PPS-specific Ab repertoires, and we suggest that this property could lead to individual differences in Ab fine specificity and/or functional activity against encapsulated pneumococci.
Grail: A C++ Library for Automata and Expressions

Abstract Grail is a package for symbolic manipulation of finite-state automata and regular expressions. It provides most standard operations on automata and expressions, including minimization, subset construction, conversion between automata and regular expressions, and language enumeration and testing. Grail 's objects are parameterizable; users can provide their own classes to define the input alphabet of automata and expressions. Grail 's operations are accessible either as individual programs or directly through a C++ class library.