Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasmin Inhibitors Prevent Leukocyte Accumulation and Remodeling Events in the Postischemic Microvasculature

Clinical trials revealed beneficial effects of the broad-spectrum serine protease inhibitor aprotinin on the prevention of ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. The underlying mechanisms remained largely unclear. Using in vivo microscopy on the cremaster muscle of male C57BL/6 mice, aprotinin as well as inhibitors of the serine protease plasmin including tranexamic acid and ε-aminocaproic acid were found to significantly diminish I/R-elicited intravascular firm adherence and (subsequent) transmigration of neutrophils. Remodeling of collagen IV within the postischemic perivenular basement membrane was almost completely abrogated in animals treated with plasmin inhibitors or aprotinin. In separate experiments, incubation with plasmin did not directly activate neutrophils. Extravascular, but not intravascular administration of plasmin caused a dose-dependent increase in numbers of firmly adherent and transmigrated neutrophils. Blockade of mast cell activation as well as inhibition of leukotriene synthesis or antagonism of the platelet-activating-factor receptor significantly reduced plasmin-dependent neutrophil responses. In conclusion, our data suggest that extravasated plasmin(ogen) mediates neutrophil recruitment in vivo via activation of perivascular mast cells and secondary generation of lipid mediators. Aprotinin as well as the plasmin inhibitors tranexamic acid and ε-aminocaproic acid interfere with this inflammatory cascade and effectively prevent postischemic neutrophil responses as well as remodeling events within the vessel wall.
Interrogation of a Dual-Fiber-Bragg-Grating Sensor Using an Arrayed Waveguide Grating

In this paper, we consider the possibility of improving the accuracy of a solid-state fiber Bragg grating (FBG) interrogation system by using two, instead of one, FBGs inscribed on the same location of the fiber, with a small difference in the peak wavelength that each reflects. Signal processing can be applied to the outputs of the photodetectors that are connected to an arrayed waveguide grating to provide a linear response from the sensor. We demonstrate here that this method reduces errors when compared to the setup employing a single FBG with the same bandwidth as the dual sensor.
A Conserved Epitope Mapped with a Monoclonal Antibody against the VP3 Protein of Goose Parvovirus by Using Peptide Screening and Phage Display Approaches

Background Waterfowl parvovirus (WPV) infection causes high mortality and morbidity in both geese (Anser anser) and Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata), resulting in significant losses to the waterfowl industries. The VP3 protein of WPV is a major structural protein that induces neutralizing antibodies in the waterfowl. However, B-cell epitopes on the VP3 protein of WPV have not been characterized. Methods and Results To understand the antigenic determinants of the VP3 protein, we used the monoclonal antibody (mAb) 4A6 to screen a set of eight partially expressed overlapping peptides spanning VP3. Using western blotting and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), we localized the VP3 epitope between amino acids (aa) 57 and 112. To identify the essential epitope residues, a phage library displaying 12-mer random peptides was screened with mAb 4A6. Phage clone peptides displayed a consensus sequence of YxRFHxH that mimicked the sequence 82Y/FNRFHCH88, which corresponded to amino acid residues 82 to 88 of VP3 protein of WPVs. mAb 4A6 binding to biotinylated fragments corresponding to amino acid residues 82 to 88 of the VP3 protein verified that the 82FxRFHxH88 was the VP3 epitope and that amino acids 82F is necessary to retain maximal binding to mAb 4A6. Parvovirus-positive goose and duck sera reacted with the epitope peptide by dot blotting assay, revealing the importance of these amino acids of the epitope in antibody-epitope binding reactivity. Conclusions and Significance We identified the motif FxRFHxH as a VP3-specific B-cell epitope that is recognized by the neutralizing mAb 4A6. This finding might be valuable in understanding of the antigenic topology of VP3 of WPV.
E-Learning in Developing Countries: Challenges and Opportunities Bangladesh Perspective

ICT has become an important enabler to facilitate open education and distance learning at broader communities. eLearning ensures access to information about education, training and lifelong learning through the use of multimedia technologies. The recent growing trend of eLearning is mostly benefiting the developed countries due to some predominant facilities like infrastructure, technology, relevant content and responsive learner community. The beauty of eLearning is anyone can avail himself of the service i.e. learning/teaching aid from anywhere, as there is no geographic barrier among the learners. So, a global participation can be ensured through the system. Internet has made the process much easier and comfortable. The eLearning scenario in developing countries is still a new era for the learner communities. Due to reverse economic and social conditions of developed countries, countries like Bangladesh could not yet establish a reliable eLearning system or institution. The acceptance of such learning facilities is not yet accredited or even accepted by the local authorities in most of the times. Few initiatives like Open University and National University, in addition to the international organizations like COL, is trying to create the eLearning program as a widely accepted tool for learning for wide varieties of community. Simultaneously, the local communities of developing countries can obtain the eLearning facilities from their existing locations. But the majority of the local communities are out of the facility. There are few major issues like national strategy, connectivity, accreditation, acceptability, quality of the learning materials, and relevant contents that have to be considered for any eLearning program for Bangladesh. Simultaneously, setting priority of the learning systems, developing countries like Bangladesh are based on traditional learning mechanism and the market for eLearning has not yet become an important agenda for the governmen. to address. Another critical concern raised on the eLearning activities is the cost perspective. Learners of the developing countries have financial constraints to participate in the program which is costly for them and they have limited scopes to get the learning facilities as it relates with high tech equipment, in many cases. So, for the developing countries we need to reframe the eLearning mechanism to reach the communities.
A DIFFERENTIAL AND DIAGNOSTIC PLATING METHOD FOR POPULATION STUDIES OF RESPIRATION DEFICIENCY IN YEAST

Small colony size ("petite") on glucose limiting agar has been associated with respiration deficient yeast by Ephrussi, Hottinguer, and Chimenes (1949), and Slonimski (1949), and has proved extremely useful in their tentative recognition and isolation. It has been apparent, however, that colony size is a reflection principally of growth rate. It might be anticipated that slow growth and small colony size would not serve as a universally reliable index of respiration deficiency. This anticipation is borne out in yeasts bearing a number of nutritional deficiencies or following ultraviolet irradiation. In these instances small colonies have been found in this laboratory, some of which are still respiration sufficient. (See Raut, 1954, for comparison). Marcovich (1953) also found small colony size inadequate in population studies of respiration deficiency induced by acridines. Most laboratories have devised some additional criteria for the confirmation of the phenotype. In Ephrussi's laboratory the Nadi test or spectroscopic examination have been employed (Slonimski and Ephrussi, 1949). In our laboratory 2 test procedures have been based upon the inability of respiration deficient (aer) yeasts to utilize certain organic acids as principle carbon and energy sources for growth. The first of these is based upon an acetate utilization-indicator color change test (PAC test) and the second upon a lactate nutrient agar which enables respiration sufficient (AER) cells to form colonies whereas aer cells do not (Ogur, Lindegren, and Lindegren, 1954). Raut (1954) has also observed that aer yeast failed to form colonies on a no-sugar nutrient agar whereas AER celLs did and attributed the difference to the ability of the AER cells to use as a carbohydrate source "some carbohydrate derivative present in the yeast extract
The Development of Municipal General Hospitals in English County Boroughs in the 1930s

When thinking of spurs to hospital development in the first half of the last century, it would be easy to assume that the greatest watershed was provided by the 1946 National Health Service Act. In this article, however, we focus on an earlier and often overlooked piece of legislation, which had a perhaps equally significant impact on the development of hospitals in England and Wales. This was the 1929 Local Government Act, which changed both the ownership and the focus of many of the largest hospitals in the country. As Robert Pinker has observed, the act “radically altered the percentage distribution of hospital beds in the public sector”. Such observations notwithstanding, municipal medicine in the 1930s has not received the historical attention it deserves, an omission which this article seeks in part to remedy. The terms of the act in respect of hospital development were permissive, and the extent to which local authorities acted had a great effect on the way in which their municipal hospital services developed, and hence the beds and facilities available at the time of the nationalization of the health services. The reaction of local authorities to the act, however, depended partly on their own choices, and partly on constraints over which they had less control.
SFTopk: Secure Functional Top- $k$  Query via Untrusted Data Storage

Providing top-k query services is relevant for storage servers which collect valuable files/data and process queries for data owners and mobile users. However, this kind of service could incur severe security concerns, because hackers or even the managers/administrators of the servers may steal important data sets and deceive users into responding to forged or incomplete query results. Therefore, these data sets need to be preserved in privacy, and moreover, the users should have the capability to verify the authenticity and integrity of the query results. As users will demand distinct information with various preferences and time domains in the pragmatic world, the traditional top-k queries are insufficient to satisfy their demands. To solve the problem, we provide the functional top-k queries in multi-dimensional space, such that the users can launch queries on the conjunction and sum of the dimensions/attributes. Some recent works have studied how to preserve data privacy and/or integrity for top-k queries on data storage applications. However, these prior works are limited to traditional top-k queries in preserving data privacy and/or integrity without permitting to systematically process top-k queries over encrypted domain in multi-dimensional space and without providing an efficiently verifiable mechanism for the corresponding query results. In this paper, we propose an efficient and effective method, called SFTopk, which addresses more challenging security problems in data privacy and verifiable functional top-k queries in multi-dimensional space. From performance evaluation experiments, it is shown that our proposed method is much more efficient than the prior works in terms of communication overhead and computation cost.
Architectures for Distributed Controller With Sub-Controller Communication Uncertainty

Recent technology has led to systems with architectures that distribute the controller effort over sub-controllers to respect information flow and/or resource constraints. The associated communication uncertainty between sub-controllers partly governs the performance of the controller. The related controller synthesis methodology has to address internal stability concerns and has to incorporate the effect of communication uncertainty into the performance metric. In this article, it is demonstrated that different canonical distributed architectures derived from a centralized design can result in appreciably different performance. Architectures of information flow that result in convex optimization problems are developed and synthesis methods to incorporate robustness with respect to model uncertainty of communication channels are obtained. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated on application problems.
Microscopic lesions in the brain following head injury.

In cases of head injury with more than a few hours' survival, microscopic examination of the brain may reveal lesions which are not apparent on naked-eye inspection. In the first place, anoxic cell changes are frequently seen in cases where the injury has been complicated by respiratory troubles. Secondly, there are diffuse microscopic lesions attributable to accelerations within the brain substance at the time of injury. These may be in the form of multiple capillary haemorrhages-which to the naked eye are often indistinguishable from the normal vascular markings of a congested brain-or in the form of microscopic disruptions of nervous tissue, without haemorrhage. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the use of a simple silver impregnation enables one to pick out these tiny lesions with the scanning power of the microscope. It is suggested that a study of the sites, numbers and distribution of these lesions might throw useful light on the mechanisms of acceleration injuries to the brain.
Formation of a New Mg-Cu-Ni-Gd Bulk Metallic Glass: Effects of Rare Earth on Glass-Forming Ability of Mg-Tm-Re Bulk Metallic Glasses

A new Mg65Cu18Ni6Gd11 bulk metallic glass (BMG) with high level of Ni content, exhibiting glass-forming ability (GFA) of 6 mm, was fabricated by copper mold casting. The compressive strength and plasticity of the Mg65Cu18Ni6Gd11 BMG were 938 MPa and 0.14%, respectively. The composition design of the Mg65Cu18Ni6Gd11 BMG with enhanced GFA had succeeded simply using Gd substituting Y in the Mg65Cu18Ni6Y11 BMG, which was a result of a comparison on the GFA between the Mg-TM-Gd and Mg-TM-Y BMGs (TM: transition metals). Compared to the Mg-TM-Y BMGs, the Mg-TM-Gd BMGs exhibited improved GFA, which was demonstrated to be mainly attributed to the more negative amorphous formation enthalpy resulting from Gd substituting Y. The effects of rare earth (RE) elements on the GFA of Mg-TM-RE were discussed. This work may suggest an easy way for developing new Mg-based BMGs with improved GFA by rare earth (RE) design.
The Influence of Visual Cues on Passive Tactile Sensations in a Multimodal Immersive Virtual Environment

Haptic feedback, such as the sensation of 'being touched', is an essential part of how we experience our environment. Yet, it is often disregarded in current virtual reality (VR) systems. In addition to the technical challenge of creating such tactile experiences there are also human aspects that are not fully understood, especially with respect to how humans integrate multimodal stimuli. In this research, we proved that the visual stimuli in a VR setting can influence how vibrotactile stimuli are perceived. In particular, we identified how visual cues that are associated with the characteristic of weight influence tactile perception, whereas a similar effect could not be achieved for a temperature-related visual cue. Our results have technical implications - for example, suggesting that a rather simple vibration motor may be sufficient to create a complex tactile experience such as perceiving weight - and relevance for practical implementations - for example, indicating that vibration intensities need to be 'exaggerated' to achieve certain effects.
Improved Cluster Heads Selection Method in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have become one of the most tempting networking technologies since it can be deployed without the need of a communication infrastructure. In general, there are some major concerns with this technology. That is, sensor node should have a long lasting system lifetime. And the system should keep the livability of nodes in a received level during the using process. In such systems node's energy, which is the main factor, is used to select cluster-heads. In this paper, we gave a new method called LEACH-improve, discussed the relation between the energy, the cluster and coverage together. And we compared the simulation result with the LEACH and HYENAS methods. This mode could serve a better solution scheme for solving cluster-heads selection problem in sensor network.
Neural network‐based analysis of MR time series

Clustering has been introduced to analyze fMRI data by means of partitioning data into time series of similar temporal behavior. It is hoped that one of these clusters represents a dynamic effect of interest, like functional activation. Using self‐organizing maps for clustering, additional information can be obtained by ordering cluster centers on a two‐dimensional projection plane. The map's capability of data visualization is used to summarize all dynamic effects of an experiment by means of data partitioning. The map does allow differently sized and populated clusters in the data by forming “superclusters” on the map. The method is introduced as a conceptual extension to clustering. Applications to fMRI and to MR mammography are discussed. Magn Reson Med 41:124‐131, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An infrared method to assess organoclay delamination and orientation in organoclay polymer nanocomposites

Assessing the degree of organoclay delamination and layer alignment is crucial to deliver consistent properties of nanocomposite materials. A simple infrared technique is discussed that permits quantitative determination of these organoclay dispersion parameters in a nanocomposite. This technique complements other existing methods to optimize process conditions to fully achieve the advantages that high purity hectorite nanoclays can bring to plastic nanocomposites.
A Counter Architecture for Online DVFS Profitability Estimation

Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) is a well known and effective technique for reducing power consumption in modern microprocessors. An important concern though is to estimate its profitability in terms of performance and energy. Current DVFS profitability estimation approaches, however, lack accuracy or incur runtime performance and/or energy overhead. This paper proposes a counter architecture for online DVFS profitability estimation on superscalar out-of-order processors. The counter architecture teases apart the fraction of the execution time that is susceptible to clock frequency versus the fraction that is insusceptible to clock frequency. By doing so, the counter architecture can accurately estimate the performance and energy consumption at different V/f operating points from a single program execution. The DVFS counter architecture estimates performance, energy consumption, and energy-delaysquared-product (ED2P) within 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 percent on average, respectively, over a 4x frequency range. Further, the counter architecture incurs a small hardware cost and is an enabler for online DVFS scheduling both at the intracore as well as at the intercore level in a multicore processor.
A Novel Method of Triple-Wire Gas Indirect Arc Welding

This paper proposes a novel triple-wire gas indirect arc welding process. The welding system consists of two power sources and three wires. The effects of the power source mode and the wire configuration on arc stability and behavior are studied. The metal transfer is analyzed and bead-on-plate welding is employed. Results show that two direct current power sources cannot produce a stable process, but the combination of a direct current with a pulsed direct current can produce a stable process. The reason is that the pulsed direct current can boost and stabilize the metal transfer. For the wire configuration, a smaller contact angle between the main wire and the side wire is more desirable. Compared with the traditional gas metal arc welding, this novel process has the advantages of high wire melting rate, low penetration depth, and low dilution rate. Compared with twin-wire gas indirect arc welding, it provides a broader range of applicable currents with sufficient heat input.
Predicting Outcomes Using the Heart Failure Survival Score in Adults with Moderate or Complex Congenital Heart Disease.

BACKGROUND Adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) face increased risk for morbidity and mortality with age, but few prognostic models exist. OBJECTIVE This study aims to assess whether the Heart Failure Survival Score (HFSS), which risk stratifies patients for heart transplantation, predicts outcomes in adults with moderate or complex CHD. METHODS This was a multicenter, retrospective study which identified 441 patients with moderate or complex CHD between 2005 and 2013, of whom 169 had all the HFSS parameters required to calculate the risk score. Because all study patients were deemed low risk by the HFSS, the score was dichotomized at the median (10.4). Outcomes included death, transplant or ventricular assist device (VAD), arrhythmia requiring treatment, nonelective cardiovascular (CV) hospitalizations, and the composite. Associations of mean HFSS and HFSS <10.4 with each outcome were assessed. RESULTS The cohort had mean ± standard deviation age of 33.6 ± 12.6 years, peak VO2 21.8 ± 7.5 mL/kg/min, HFSS of 10.45 ± 0.88, and median years follow-up of 2.7 (1.1, 5.2). There were five deaths (2.8%), no transplants or VADs, 25 arrhythmias (14.8%), 22 CV hospitalizations (13%), and 39 composites (23.1%). Lower mean HFSS was observed for patients who died (9.6 ± 0.83 vs. 10.5 ± 0.87, P = .02), arrhythmia requiring treatment (10.0 ± 0.70 vs. 10.5 ± 0.89, P = .005), CV hospitalizations (9.9 ± 0.73 vs. 10.5 ± 0.88, P = .002), and the composite (10.0 ± 0.70 vs. 10.6 ± 0.89, P < .001). The positive and negative predictive values of HFSS <10.4 for the composite were 34% and 88% respectively, with sensitivity and specificity 74% and 56%. CONCLUSIONS Although a low HFSS was significantly associated with outcomes, it did not adequately risk stratify adults with CHD, whose heterogeneous pathophysiology differs from that of the acquired heart failure population. Further studies are warranted to provide a more accurate prognosis.
A STUDY OF HEXAGONAL AND CUBIC ICE AT LOW TEMPERATURES

Abstract : The formation of hexagonal and cubic forms of ice was studied by the use of a cold stage in an electron microscope within the temperature range of - 190 to 170 degrees C. Ice crystal specimens were made on cold substrates, i.e., a collodion film, gold foil, or copper grid on the specimen holder of the cold stage. The structural forms of the ice were detected with the electron microscope using the selected area electron diffraction method. The hexagonal form of ice formed on the cold substrates at temperatures from -90 to -100 deg C. At -100 to -130 deg C, both hexagonal and cubic forms of ice were detected. From - 130 to -160 deg C only cubic ice was found. At temperatures below -170 deg C, minute crystals of cubic ice were detected. No transformation of the structural form of ice from hexagonal to cubic or from cubic to hexagonal occurred when the temperature of the specimens was varied in the range of -90 to -160 deg C. The minute crystals of cubic ice formed below -160 deg C were transformed into larger cubic ice crystals by heating them to a temperature between -130 and -150 deg C. The lattice constants of hexagonal and cubic ice, and the coefficient of thermal expansion of ice were calculated from the experimental results.