Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intravitreal infliximab clearance in a rabbit model: different sampling methods and assay techniques.

PURPOSE To investigate the clearance of intravitreal infliximab with the use of different sampling techniques and immunoassay methods in rabbits. METHODS Infliximab (1.6 mg) was intravitreally injected into both eyes of 47 rabbits. Two approaches were used to collect the vitreous: the classic method and a microsampling technique. Whereas the classic method consists of collection of the whole vitreous after enucleation, the microsampling technique consisted of the aspiration of small (10-15 microL) samples with a 200-microL syringe. Samples were taken from 30 minutes to 40 days using both methods and were then compared. Infliximab concentration was estimated with competitive ELISA, dot blot analysis, and Western blot analysis. RESULTS The vitreous half-life of infliximab was estimated to be 6.5 +/- 0.6 days. The data indicated monoexponential decay reaching its conclusion after approximately 40 days. This decay was preceded by 4-day-long diffusion in the vitreous. Microsampling proved to be effective in the vitreous collection, giving statistically comparable signals (+/- 4%, P = 0.68) with respect to the classic procedure. ELISA proved to be the best analytical technique--especially if coupled with microsamplings--because of its lower detection limit, precision, and reduced amount of sample needed. No differences were observed between half-life values obtained by ELISA and dot blot analysis (P = 0.081) and Western blot analysis (P = 0.614). CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study added to the knowledge of infliximab clearance in the vitreous and confirmed the validity of a microsampling technique that was compared with the classic one. ELISA was found to be the best analytical technique when using microsampling.
Ultraviolet optical model of volcanic clouds for remote sensing of ash and sulfur dioxide

The total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) instruments have detected every significant volcanic eruption from November 1978 to December 1994 on the Nimbus 7 and Meteor 3 satellites and since July 1996 on the new satellites, TOMS-Earth Probe and ADEOS. We apply a radiative transfer model to simulate the albedos of these fresh eruption clouds to study the limitations of the present algorithm which assumes an absorbing cloud above a scattering atmosphere. The conditions are found to be approximated when the total absorption optical depth is less than 2 (i.e., 100 Dobson units (DU) SO 2 at 312 nm or 300 DU SO 2 at 317 nm). The spectral dependence of the albedo of a nonabsorbing Rayleigh atmosphere can be specified by only two parameters which are uniquely different when ash or sulfate aerosols are present in the stratosphere. However, the interaction between ash scattering and SO 2 absorption within a volcanic cloud produces a nonlinear effect at strongly absorbing wavelengths that accounts for overestimation of sulfur dioxide in ash-laden volcanic clouds by the Krueger et al. [1995] algorithm. Correction of this error requires knowledge of the ash properties. A method for determining two of the ash parameters from the longer TOMS wavelengths is described. Given the altitude of the cloud, surface reflectivity, and an estimate of effective variance of the ash size distribution, the optical thickness and either the effective radius or the index of refraction can be deduced. The ash retrievals are also needed to evaluate the tephra/gas ratio of eruptions and to compare the ash properties of different volcanoes.
Neuroadaptation in Nicotine Addiction: Update on the Sensitization-Homeostasis Model

The role of neuronal plasticity in supporting the addictive state has generated much research and some conceptual theories. One such theory, the sensitization-homeostasis (SH) model, postulates that nicotine suppresses craving circuits, and this triggers the development of homeostatic adaptations that autonomously support craving. Based on clinical studies, the SH model predicts the existence of three distinct forms of neuroplasticity that are responsible for withdrawal, tolerance and the resolution of withdrawal. Over the past decade, many controversial aspects of the SH model have become well established by the literature, while some details have been disproven. Here we update the model based on new studies showing that nicotine dependence develops through a set sequence of symptoms in all smokers, and that the latency to withdrawal, the time it takes for withdrawal symptoms to appear during abstinence, is initially very long but shortens by several orders of magnitude over time. We conclude by outlining directions for future research based on the updated model, and commenting on how new experimental studies can gain from the framework put forth in the SH model.
Accepté à : Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 1 Multilayer Perceptron for Simulation Models Reduction : Application to a Sawmill Workshop

Simulation is often used to evaluate supply chain o r w rkshop management. This simulation task needs models, which are difficult t o construct. The aim of this work is to reduce the complexity of a simulation model design. The proposed approach combines discrete and continuous approaches in order to cons truct speeder and simpler reduced model. The simulation model focuses on bottlenecks with a discrete approach according to the theory of constraints. The remaining of the wor kshop must be taken into account in order to describe how the bottlenecks are fed. It i s modeled through a continuous approach thanks to a neural network. In particular, we use a multilayer perceptron. The structure of the network is determined by using a pruning proced ur . For validation, this approach is applied to the modelisation of a sawmill workshop.
Ventilation inhibits sympathetic action potential recruitment even during severe chemoreflex stress

The current study demonstrates that the sympathetic neural recruitment patterns observed during chemoreflex activation induced by rebreathing or apnea are restrained and/or inhibited by the act of ventilation per se, despite similar, or even greater, levels of severe chemoreflex stress. Therefore, ventilation modulates not only the timing of sympathetic bursts but also the within-burst axonal recruitment normally observed during progressive chemoreflex stress.
Collision Detection for Interactive Graphics Applications

Collision detection and response are important for interactive graphics applications such as vehicle simulators and virtual reality. Unfortunately, previous collision detection algorithms are too slow for interactive use. The paper presents a new algorithm for rigid or articulated objects that meets performance goals through a form of time critical computing. The algorithm supports progressive refinement, detecting collisions between successively tighter approximations to object surfaces as the application allows it more processing time. The algorithm uses simple four dimensional geometry to approximate motion, and hierarchies of spheres to approximate three dimensional surfaces at multiple resolutions. In a sample application, the algorithm allows interactive performance that is not possible with a good previous algorithm. In particular, the new algorithm provides acceptable accuracy while maintaining a steady and high frame rate, which in some cases improves on the previous algorithm's rate by more than two orders of magnitude. >
Chapter 2 Technology and Chemical Features of Frozen Vegetables

The aim of this study has been the description of the current state of the art of frozen vegetables. One of the most promising food and beverage categories in the current market is represented by frozen products, although the modern food industry is officially born in 1928 in the United States of America. Before this date, previous freezing systems were based on the production of ice, with the use of refrigerating machines and the development of storage rooms. At present, the evolution of this sector can be briefly identified with the improvement of freezing techniques, the notable demand of food supplies worldwide, and the increasing number of frozen food typologies, including fruits and vegetables. Basically, frozen foods are very similar to original products when speaking of sensorial features. On the other side, some defects have been observed and correlated with freezing techniques and blanching treatments. The most used systems—air blast, plate and immersion freezers—are discussed with the description of correlated advantages and risks, including economic evaluations.
Starburst Cells Nondirectionally Facilitate the Responses of Direction-Selective Retinal Ganglion Cells

The mechanism of direction selectivity in retinal ganglion cells remains controversial. An important issue is how the starburst amacrine cells, which are known to provide a major synaptic input to the direction-selective ganglion cells, participate in the directional discrimination. Here, we present evidence that the cholinergic outputs of the starburst cells affect the responses of the ganglion cells symmetrically; they provide a feedforward excitation that facilitates the response of the ganglion cells to movement in both the preferred and null directions. This seems to place a constraint on models of the directional discrimination in which the starburst cells participate, namely, that their cholinergic synapses be nondirectional in their effects on the ganglion cells.
Conscious Expectation and Unconscious Conditioning in Analgesic, Motor, and Hormonal Placebo/Nocebo Responses

The placebo and nocebo effect is believed to be mediated by both cognitive and conditioning mechanisms, although little is known about their role in different circumstances. In this study, we first analyzed the effects of opposing verbal suggestions on experimental ischemic arm pain in healthy volunteers and on motor performance in Parkinsonian patients and found that verbally induced expectations of analgesia/hyperalgesia and motor improvement/worsening antagonized completely the effects of a conditioning procedure. We also measured the effects of opposing verbal suggestions on hormonal secretion and found that verbally induced expectations of increase/decrease of growth hormone (GH) and cortisol did not have any effect on the secretion of these hormones. However, if a preconditioning was performed with sumatriptan, a 5-HT1B/1D agonist that stimulates GH and inhibits cortisol secretion, a significant increase of GH and decrease of cortisol plasma concentrations were found after placebo administration, although opposite verbal suggestions were given. These findings indicate that verbally induced expectations have no effect on hormonal secretion, whereas they affect pain and motor performance. This suggests that placebo responses are mediated by conditioning when unconscious physiological functions such as hormonal secretion are involved, whereas they are mediated by expectation when conscious physiological processes such as pain and motor performance come into play, even though a conditioning procedure is performed.
Networks on Chips: A New SoC Paradigm

On-chip micronetworks, designed with a layered methodology, will meet the distinctive challenges of providing functionally correct, reliable operation of interacting system-on-chip components. A system on chip (SoC) can provide an integrated solution to challenging design problems in the telecommunications, multimedia, and consumer electronics domains. Much of the progress in these fields hinges on the designers' ability to conceive complex electronic engines under strong time-to-market pressure. Success will require using appropriate design and process technologies, as well as interconnecting existing components reliably in a plug-and-play fashion. Focusing on using probabilistic metrics such as average values or variance to quantify design objectives such as performance and power will lead to a major change in SoC design methodologies. Overall, these designs will be based on both deterministic and stochastic models. Creating complex SoCs requires a modular, component-based approach to both hardware and software design. Despite numerous challenges, the authors believe that developers will solve the problems of designing SoC networks. At the same time, they believe that a layered micronetwork design methodology will likely be the only path to mastering the complexity of future SoC designs.
Decision makers views of factors affecting cloud computing adoption in saudi healthcare organisations

This paper presents a qualitative study which provides an in-depth understanding of the Cloud Computing adoption decision-making process in healthcare organisations in Saudi Arabia. The paper discusses the factors which will affect Cloud Computing decision making process in Saudi Arabia. The findings of the study showed that the factors affecting Cloud Computing adoption can be divided into five main categories, Technological, Business, Environmental, Organisational and Human. This paper also identifies some of the key drivers and challenges of Cloud Computing adoption in Saudi healthcare organisations. This study will help both Saudi healthcare organisations and Cloud Computing vendors in understanding healthcare organisations' attitude towards the adoption of Cloud Computing.
Methods to Characterize Ricin for the Development of Reference Materials

Ricin is an abundant protein from the castor bean plant Ricinus communis. Because of its high toxicity and the simplicity of producing mass quantities, ricin is considered a biological terrorism agent. We have characterized ricin extensively with a view to develop Reference Materials that could be used to test and calibrate detection devices. The characterization of ricin includes: 1) purity test of a commercial batch of ricin using electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gels, 2) biological activity assay by measuring its ability to inhibit protein synthesis, 3) quantitation of protein concentration by amino acid analysis, 4) detection of ricin by an immunoassay using a flow cytometer, and 5) detection of ricin genomic DNA by polymerase chain reaction using nine different primer sets. By implementing these five methods of characterization, we are in a position to develop a reference material for ricin.
An evaluation of methods for the estimation of tributary mass loads

Tributary loading estimation methods were evaluated by conducting retrospective studies with comprehensive sets of field data for flow rates, nutrients, heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls. Three broad classes of loading estimation methods were investigated: simple averaging methods, ratio estimation methods, and regression methods. Estimators were evaluated using Monte Carlo sampling studies in which random subsamples of complete loading records were used to estimate annual loadings. These estimates were then compared to “true” loadings determined by calculations using the entire record. No group of estimators were found to be superior for all test cases considered. However, individual estimation approaches within each group often provided low error estimates. Results were inconsistent among test cases and these inconsistencies appeared to be related to specific test case characteristics such as the strength and form of the flow-concentration relationship and the nature of the annual hydrograph. Ratio estimators appeared to be more robust to sources of bias than other estimation approaches.
Assessment of the on-ground risk during re-entries

Thepresentpaperoutlinesmethodswhichallow to quantify and monitor the on-groundpopulationrisk in the courseof a hazardousre-entryevent. The risk potential will bederivedfrom anobjectrelatedcasualtycrosssection,theendangeredgroundswath,andtheunderlying populationdensity. Meanswill bedescribedto performa long-termrisk assessment for agivenlatitudeband,anda short-termrisk assessment for a givennodallongitudeof the final re-entryorbit. In caseof residualmanoeuvring capabilitiesstrategieswill beoutlinedto manageandreducetherisk potentialby controllingthenodallongitude of thefinal orbit,andtheimpactfootprint. Theusefulness of theseconceptswill bedemonstratedfor thehistoricreentriesof SkylabandSalyut-7,andfor therecentre-entry of theMir spacestation.
Activity Recognition from Silhouettes using Linear Systems and Model (In)validation Techniques

In this work we propose a model (invalidation approach to gait recognition, using a system that tries to discriminate specific activities of people. The recognition process departs from an abstraction obtained from video image sequences for different activities performed by different people, by first using a suitable representation for each frame and for each frame sequence. For each frame two commonly used models for describing silhouettes are employed: Fourier descriptors and vectors of widths. Then each sequence is modeled as a linear time invariant (LTI) system that captures the dynamics of the evolution of the frame description vectors in time. Finally a standard classification tool, SVM, is used to recognize activities using similarity measures obtained through model (in)validation. The main contribution of this work is the provision of an activity recognition model and the performance evaluation of this model using two different feature spaces
Tone reproduction for realistic images

Radiosity and other global illumination methods for image synthesis calculate the real world radiance values of a scene instead of the display radiance values that will represent them. Though radiosity and ray tracing methods can compute extremely accurate and wide-ranging scene radiances, modern display devices emit light only in a tiny fixed range. The radiances must be converted, but ad-hoc conversions cause serious errors and give little assurance that the evoked visual sensations are truly equivalent. Sensation-preserving conversions for display, already known in photography, printing, and television as tone reproduction methods, are discussed. Computer graphics workers can apply the existing photographic methods, but may also extend them to include more complex and subtle effects of human vision using the published findings of vision researchers. Ways of constructing a sensation-preserving display converter, or tone reproduction operator, for monochrome images are demonstrated. <<ETX>>
Specificity and Affinity of Sialic Acid Binding by the Rhesus Rotavirus VP8* Core

ABSTRACT Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy demonstrates that the rhesus rotavirus hemagglutinin specifically binds α-anomeric N-acetylneuraminic acid with a Kd of 1.2 mM. The hemagglutinin requires no additional carbohydrate moieties for binding, does not distinguish 3′ from 6′ sialyllactose, and has approximately tenfold lower affinity for N-glycolylneuraminic than for N-acetylneuraminic acid. The broad specificity and low affinity of sialic acid binding by the rotavirus hemagglutinin are consistent with this interaction mediating initial cell attachment prior to the interactions that determine host range and cell type specificity.
PLACE: a database of plant cis-acting regulatory DNA elements

PLACE (http://www.dna.affrc.go.jp/htdocs/PLACE/) is a database of motifs found in plant cis -acting regulatory DNA elements, all from previously published reports. It covers vascular plants only. In addition to the motifs originally reported, their variations in other genes or in other plant species reported later are also compiled. The PLACE database also contains a brief description of each motif and relevant literature with PubMed ID numbers. This report summarizes the present status of this database and available tools.
Bone Regeneration from PLGA Micro-Nanoparticles

Poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) is one of the most widely used synthetic polymers for development of delivery systems for drugs and therapeutic biomolecules and as component of tissue engineering applications. Its properties and versatility allow it to be a reference polymer in manufacturing of nano- and microparticles to encapsulate and deliver a wide variety of hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules. It additionally facilitates and extends its use to encapsulate biomolecules such as proteins or nucleic acids that can be released in a controlled way. This review focuses on the use of nano/microparticles of PLGA as a delivery system of one of the most commonly used growth factors in bone tissue engineering, the bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2). Thus, all the needed requirements to reach a controlled delivery of BMP2 using PLGA particles as a main component have been examined. The problems and solutions for the adequate development of this system with a great potential in cell differentiation and proliferation processes under a bone regenerative point of view are discussed.
A Tone-Based Time-Slotted Protocol for Multi-Hop Emergency Message Dissemination in VANETs

To notify all vehicles within a geographical area of an urgent situation, multi-hop communication is employed in a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) to propagate the emergency warning messages. While being interfered by the existing periodic single-hop safety messages, the transmission of warning messages can also be strongly affected by the broadcast storm problem and the collisions due to hidden nodes. This paper develops an efficient tone-based time-slotted multi-hop protocol that significantly improves the performance of the emergency warning message transmissions. Specifically, we assign the responsibility of message forwarding to only a subset of vehicles on the road, known as ``segment leader," as part of our broadcast storm suppression strategy. To avoid the potential interference caused by the safety messages, we employ separate multi-hop time slots for the warning messages, which are reserved by a newly-proposed out-of-band long range CLEAR tone. Such a tone-based reservation mechanism allows the continuous transmission of the safety messages in the absence of a CLEAR tone, giving rise to a much higher network utilization. Our extensive simulation results confirm the timely and reliable delivery of the emergency warning messages while the required number of multi-hop transmissions is significantly reduced. At the same time, a high packet reception rate and a low end-to-end delay are maintained for the existing single-hop safety messages.
Semantic Inference at the Lexical-Syntactic Level

Semantic inference is an important component in many natural language understanding applications. Classical approaches to semantic inference rely on complex logical representations. However, practical applications usually adopt shallower lexical or lexical-syntactic representations, but lack a principled inference framework. We propose a generic semantic inference framework that operates directly on syntactic trees. New trees are infened by applying entailment rules, which provide a unified representation for varying types of inferences. Rules were generated by manual and automatic methods, Covering generic linguistic structures as well as specific lexical-based inferences. Initial empirical evaluation in a Relation Extraction setting supports the validity of our approach.