Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NEW PHTHALOCYANINES FOR PHOTODYNAMIC VIRUS INACTIVATION IN RED BLOOD CELL CONCENTRATES

Abstract Cationic phthalocyanines with either aluminum or silicon as the central metal were evaluated for their ability to inactivate viruses in red blood cell concentrates (RBCC) photodynamically. In addition, the virucidal potential of a substituted anionic phthalocyanine, aluminum dibenzodisulfophthalocyanine hydroxide (AlN2SB2POH) was evaluated and compared with that of the much studied anionic aluminum tetrasulfophthalocyanine hydroxide (AIPcS4OH). Based on the rate of inactivation of the lipid‐enveloped vesicular stomatitisvirus (VSV), the viruci dal potential of these phthalocyanines was: HOSiPCOSi(CH3)2(CH2)3N+(CH3)3I‐ (Pc 5) = SiPC[OSi(CH3)2‐(CH2)3N+(CH3)3I‐]2 (Pc 6) > AIPCOSi(CH,)2(CH2)˜N+(CH3)2(CH˜)11CH3I‐ (Pc 21) = A1N2SB2POH = AlPcS4 > HOSiPc[OSi(CH3)2(CH2)3N+(CH3)2(CH2)11CH31–]2(Pc 14) > AIPcOSi(CH3)2(CH2)3N+(CHS)3I‐ (Pc 2). Phthalocy anine ligand 14 and Pc 21 are new phthalocyanines, made by quaternizing known amino analogues. Compared to VSV, the rate of inactivation of Sindbis virus (another model lipid‐enveloped virus) was identical when treated in red blood cells (RBC) with Pc 5 and slightly higher when treated with Pc 6 and AlPcS4OH. Treatment of RBCC containing cell‐free human immunodeficiency virus (HIV‐1) with Pc 5 or AlPcS4OH required 15 min of irradiation to inactivate (>5 log10 reduction) the virus. The extent of HIV‐1 inactivation with AlN2SB2POH was 3.7 log10 after 60 min of red light exposure. The RBC integrity after photosensitization was measured by the ability of the cells to bind to plates coated with poly‐L‐lysine, (which reflects the retention of the RBC surface negative charges) and hemolysis of the cells over a 7 day storage period. The RBC damage using these criteria was most pronounced with Pc 5 and Pc 6 but could be reduced when treatment was in plasma instead of buffer. These data indicate that lipid‐enveloped viruses differ in their sensitivity to phthalocyanine photosensitization. Therefore, for virus sterilization of RBCC for transfusion the ability to inactivate human pathogenic viruses completely will have to be evaluated for each virus. The cationic Pc 5 appears to be a potentially useful virucidal agent.
Playing the game of Congklak with reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning is a branch of machine learning that allows an agent to learn to take an action based on its observations and rewards it obtains. In this paper, reinforcement learning agents are trained to play the game of Congklak, a traditional game from Indonesia and Malaysia. Congklak is a deterministic board game played by 2 players which play in turns. However, it was found that the common rules of Congklak make it possible for the first player to win the game without giving a turn to the second player. A change in rule is suggested to make the game more fair and more challenging to train artificial intelligent agents to play the game. The agents were trained based on the suggested rules using model-free reinforcement learning method combined with artificial neural network. After being trained in 3000 games against a random-moves opponent, the agents successfully beat the opponent with a winning chance of up to 90% without any prior knowledge of the game, not even the rules of the game.
Elastic Thickness Estimates for Venus from Line of Sight Accelerations

Abstract A new method of obtaining the transfer function, or admittance, Z f , between the Fourier transforms of topography and gravity of a planet is proposed that uses the line of sight (LOS) Doppler velocities directly. The expected LOS accelerations are first calculated from the spherical harmonic coefficients of the topography, the latitude, longitude, and height of the spacecraft, and the direction of Earth viewed from the planet. The admittance can then be obtained using standard signal processing methods, by comparing the LOS acceleration calculated from the topography with the time derivative of the observed LOS Doppler velocities. This method is applied to the Magellan data from cycle 4 for Atla and shows that the short wavelength behavior of the admittance is that expected from an elastic layer whose thickness T e is 30 ± 5 km. The main contribution to the short wavelength gravity field comes from the large volcanoes Ozza, Maat, and Sapas Montes. Comparison with admittance estimates from spherical harmonic gravity fields and from local inversions shows that these methods produce estimates of Z f ( k ) that do not fit those expected from a simple flexural model. The T e values from Beta and Ulfrun of 27.5 and 33 km are similar to that of Atla, whereas Dali (12 km) gives a smaller value. No reliable value can yet be estimated from Aphrodite, probably because the topography is poorly determined. These estimates of T e cover the same range as those from flexural modeling of topography associated with coronae.
Content-specific coordination of listeners' to speakers' EEG during communication

Cognitive neuroscience has recently begun to extend its focus from the isolated individual mind to two or more individuals coordinating with each other. In this study we uncover a coordination of neural activity between the ongoing electroencephalogram (EEG) of two people—a person speaking and a person listening. The EEG of one set of twelve participants (“speakers”) was recorded while they were narrating short stories. The EEG of another set of twelve participants (“listeners”) was recorded while watching audiovisual recordings of these stories. Specifically, listeners watched the superimposed videos of two speakers simultaneously and were instructed to attend either to one or the other speaker. This allowed us to isolate neural coordination due to processing the communicated content from the effects of sensory input. We find several neural signatures of communication: First, the EEG is more similar among listeners attending to the same speaker than among listeners attending to different speakers, indicating that listeners' EEG reflects content-specific information. Secondly, listeners' EEG activity correlates with the attended speakers' EEG, peaking at a time delay of about 12.5 s. This correlation takes place not only between homologous, but also between non-homologous brain areas in speakers and listeners. A semantic analysis of the stories suggests that listeners coordinate with speakers at the level of complex semantic representations, so-called “situation models”. With this study we link a coordination of neural activity between individuals directly to verbally communicated information.
A Probabilistic Approach to Classifying Supernovae Using Photometric Information

This paper presents a novel method for determining the probability that a supernova candidate belongs to a known supernova type (such as Ia, Ibc, IIL, etc.) using its photometric information alone. It is validated with Monte Carlo simulations, and both space- and ground-based data. We examine the application of the method to well-sampled as well as poorly sampled supernova light curves and investigate to what extent the best currently available supernova models can be used for typing supernova candidates. Central to the method is the assumption that a supernova candidate belongs to a group of objects that can be modeled; we therefore discuss possible ways of removing anomalous or less well understood events from the sample. This method is particularly advantageous for analyses where the purity of the supernova sample is important, or for those where it is important to know the number of the supernova candidates of a certain type (e.g., in supernova rate studies).
Photodynamic Therapy of the Murine LM3 Tumor Using Meso-Tetra (4-N,N,N-Trimethylanilinium) Porphine

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) of cancer is based on the cytotoxicity induced by a photosensitizer in the presence of oxygen and visible light, resulting in cell death and tumor regression. This work describes the response of the murine LM3 tumor to PDT using meso-tetra (4-N,N,N-trimethylanilinium) porphine (TMAP). BALB/c mice with intradermal LM3 tumors were subjected to intravenous injection of TMAP (4 mg/kg) followed 24 h later by blue-red light irradiation (λmax: 419, 457, 650 nm) for 60 min (total dose: 290 J/cm2) on depilated and glycerol-covered skin over the tumor of anesthetized animals. Control (drug alone, light alone) and PDT treatments (drug + light) were performed once and repeated 48 h later. No significant differences were found between untreated tumors and tumors only treated with TMAP or light. PDT-treated tumors showed almost total but transitory tumor regression (from 3 mm to less than 1 mm) in 8/9 animals, whereas no regression was found in 1/9. PDT response was heterogeneous and each tumor showed different regression and growth delay. The survival of PDT-treated animals was significantly higher than that of TMAP and light controls, showing a lower number of lung metastasis but increased tumor-draining lymph node metastasis. Repeated treatment and reduction of tissue light scattering by glycerol could be useful approaches in studies on PDT of cancer.
Distribution and kinetics of superantigen-induced cytokine gene expression in mouse spleen

The polyclonal stimulation of T cells by bacterial superantigens is involved in the pathogenesis of the toxic shock syndrome in certain staphylococcal and streptococcal infections. Here we describe the onset and kinetics of superantigen-induced cytokine production in situ in spleens of normal BALB/c mice monitored at the level of cytokine mRNA expression by in situ hybridization. Messenger RNAs for interleukin 2 (IL-2), interferon gamma, and tumor necrosis factors (TNF) alpha and beta were not expressed at detectable levels in spleens of unstimulated animals but became visible already 30 min after intraperitoneal application of 50 micrograms staphylococcal enterotoxin B. All mRNA levels showed peak expression approximately 3 h after injection and a slow decrease up to 24 h after injection. Expression of the mRNAs was restricted to the T cell-dependent area of the periarteriolar lymphatic sheets of the spleen. Interestingly, TNF-alpha mRNA showed a biphasic response, the early appearing mRNA had the same localization as the other mRNAs, whereas after 3 h TNF-alpha mRNA showed a broader distribution indicating a second cell population producing TNF-alpha. The expression of IL-2 and TNF proteins in the serum increased in parallel to the observed mRNA changes with a slight delay. The presence of macrophages was not required for the expression of the cytokine mRNAs in the spleen as the expression was unchanged in macrophage- depleted mice. Only the second phase of TNF-alpha mRNA expression was abrogated in such animals. The expression of all mRNAs was completely suppressed by prior administration of cyclosporin A. These data show that nonphagocytic cells are the essential superantigen-presenting cells in vivo and indicate that at least part of the pathogenetic TNF- alpha is T cell derived.
Human Capital, Social Capital and Compensation: The Relative Contribution of Social Contacts to Managers' Incomes

In this study the additional effect of social capital over and above the contribution of human capital on the income attainment of managers is explored A regression analysis of a 1985 sample of III executive team members in Swedish public firms shows that social capital is an important influencing factor of managers incomes The results also show that firm size increases managers income levels Furthermore. it is not as argued in earlier network research. weak ties that generate these instrumental effects hut strong ties
Rapid Prototyping of ASIP-based Flexible MMSE-IC Linear Equalizer

Rapid emergence of diverse wireless communication standards implies two crucial requirements on hardware mplementation: (1) Hardware platform flexibility for multistandard support, and (2) Rapid prototyping methodology for system validation under different use case scenarios.ASIP based platform, designed through Architecture Description Language (ADL) fulfills both of these requirements in an elegant way.This paper presents the design summary and prototypingflow of an ASIP-based flexible MMSE-IC Linear Equalizerfor MIMO Turbo-Equalization Applications. The rapid development and prototyping flow has been described startingfrom LISA ADL description till the FPGA implementation.Using a logic emulation board integrating Virtex 5 FPGA,the prototype of 2×2 spatially multiplexed MIMO systemachieves a throughput of 65 MSymbol/Sec at a clock frequencyof 130MHz.
RNase Y in Bacillus subtilis: a Natively Disordered Protein That Is the Functional Equivalent of RNase E from Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT The control of mRNA stability is an important component of regulation in bacteria. Processing and degradation of mRNAs are initiated by an endonucleolytic attack, and the cleavage products are processively degraded by exoribonucleases. In many bacteria, these RNases, as well as RNA helicases and other proteins, are organized in a protein complex called the RNA degradosome. In Escherichia coli, the RNA degradosome is assembled around the essential endoribonuclease E. In Bacillus subtilis, the recently discovered essential endoribonuclease RNase Y is involved in the initiation of RNA degradation. Moreover, RNase Y interacts with other RNases, the RNA helicase CshA, and the glycolytic enzymes enolase and phosphofructokinase in a degradosome-like complex. In this work, we have studied the domain organization of RNase Y and the contribution of the domains to protein-protein interactions. We provide evidence for the physical interaction between RNase Y and the degradosome partners in vivo. We present experimental and bioinformatic data which indicate that the RNase Y contains significant regions of intrinsic disorder and discuss the possible functional implications of this finding. The localization of RNase Y in the membrane is essential both for the viability of B. subtilis and for all interactions that involve RNase Y. The results presented in this study provide novel evidence for the idea that RNase Y is the functional equivalent of RNase E, even though the two enzymes do not share any sequence similarity.
Boosting interval based literals

A supervised classification method for time series, even multivariate, is presented. It is based on boosting very simple classifiers: clauses with one literal in the body. The background predicates are based on temporal intervals. Two types of predicates are used: i) relative predicates, such as "increases" and "stays", and ii) region predicates, such as "always" and "sometime", which operate over regions in the domain of the variable. Experiments on different data sets, several of them obtained from the UCI ML and KDD repositories, show that the proposed method is highly competitive with previous approaches.
Regulatory and molecular aspects of mammalian amino acid transport.

The transport of amino acids across the plasma membranes of mammalian cells is a process of fundamental physiological importance and has been the object of extensive study. The characteristics, kinetics and regulation of various transport systems have been understood in general terms for many years, but until recently little was known about the structure and molecular properties of amino acid transport proteins. The great advances made in the cloning ofgenes for some of these transport proteins since 1991 have provided the impetus for the present review. The review will concentrate on the recent advances made in this area and also on a major outstanding problem in mammalian amino acid transport, i.e. the regulation of the major inducible amino acid transport system, known as System A. These topics to a large extent reflect the interests of the authors. Various aspects of amino acid transport are comprehensively covered in recent reviews [1,2] and in articles in a recently published book [3]. Initial work on the systematic characterization of amino acid transport systems was performed on Ehrlich ascites cells by Christensen and collaborators in the 1950s and 1960s (e.g. [4,5]) and similar investigations were subsequently performed by these and by other investigators to characterize amino acid transport in many other cell types, notably erythrocytes, hepatocytes and fibroblasts. The following general properties were established: first, amino acid transport systems in general are highly stereospecific, transporting L-amino acids much faster than D-amino acids. Secondly, these transport systems have a rather low substrate specificity when compared with most enzymes; thus a number of different amino acids may be transported on one transport system and in general a number of different transport systems with overlapping specificities may occur in the same cell membrane. Thirdly, transport systems can be divided into two categories, i.e. those that catalyse amino acid uniport and those that catalyse electrogenic Na+-amino acid symport. In the second case the electrochemical potential gradient of Na+ drives amino acid accumulation across the plasma membrane. Kinetic and specificity studies on amino acid transport systems have been widely performed on intact cells and on membrane vesicles. Methods used in these studies have been reviewed elsewhere, as have the criteria for discriminating between different transport systems in the same membrane [6-8]. If two amino acids are transported on a common carrier, and this is the only major route of transport, then the transport of each amino acid should be competitively inhibited by the other and the Ki for inhibition of transport of one amino acid by another should equal the K, value for the transport of the inhibitory amino acid [9]. The importance of establishing these criteria has not always been fully recognized, and in some early reports multiple transport systems were postulated where it is now apparent that fewer systems of broader specificity exist.
Discrete-time optimal fuzzy controller design: global concept approach

Proposes a systematic and theoretically sound way to design a global optimal discrete-time fuzzy controller to control and stabilize a nonlinear discrete-time fuzzy system with finite or infinite horizon (time). A linear-like global system representation of a discrete-time fuzzy system is first proposed by viewing such a system in a global concept and unifying the individual matrices into synthetic matrices. Then, based on this kind of system representation, a discrete-time optimal fuzzy control law which can achieve a global minimum effect is developed theoretically. A nonlinear two-point boundary-value-problem (TPBVP) is derived as a necessary and sufficient condition for the nonlinear quadratic optimal control problem. To simplify the computation, a multi-stage decomposition of the optimization scheme is proposed, and then a segmental recursive Riccati-like equation is derived. Moreover, in the case of time-invariant fuzzy systems, we show that the optimal controller can be obtained by just solving discrete-time algebraic Riccati-like equations. Based on this, several fascinating characteristics of the resultant closed-loop fuzzy system can easily be elicited. The stability of the closed-loop fuzzy system can be ensured by the designed optimal fuzzy controller. The optimal closed-loop fuzzy system can not only be guaranteed to be exponentially stable, but also stabilized to any desired degree. Also, the total energy of system output is absolutely finite. Moreover, the resultant closed-loop fuzzy system possesses an infinite gain margin, i.e. its stability is guaranteed no matter how large the feedback gain becomes. An example is given to illustrate the proposed optimal fuzzy controller design approach and to demonstrate the proven stability properties.
CBFR: Bloom filter routing with gradual forgetting for tree-structured wireless sensor networks with mobile nodes

In tree-structured data collection sensor networks, packets are routed towards a sink node by iteratively choosing a node's immediate parent node as the next hop. It is however beyond the scope of these routing protocols to transfer messages along the reverse path, i.e., from the sink to individual nodes in the network. In this paper, we present CBFR, a novel routing scheme that builds upon collection protocols to enable efficient point-to-point communication. We propose the use of space-efficient data structures known as Bloom filters to efficiently store routing tables on the networked devices. In particular, each node in the collection tree stores the addresses of its direct and indirect child nodes in its local Bloom filter. A packet is forwarded down-tree only if the node's local filter indicates the presence of the packet's destination address among the node's descendants. In order to cater for the presence of mobile nodes, we apply the concept of counting Bloom filters to allow for the removal of elements from the filter by means of gradual forgetting. The effectiveness of our approach in achieving both high delivery rates and low overhead is demonstrated by means of simulations and experiments.
The Berber house or the world reversed

rooms. Upon the dividing wall are kept, at one end, the small clay jars or esparto-grass baskets in which provisions awaiting immediate consumption, such as figs, flour and leguminous plants, are conserved, at the other end, near the door, the water-jars. Above the stable there is a loft where, next to all kinds of tools and implements, quantities of straw and hay to be used as animal-fodder are piled up; it is here that the women and children usually sleep, particularly in winter 1. Against the gable wall, known as the wall (or, more exactly, the &dquo;side&dquo;) of the upper part or of the kanun, there is set a brick-work construction in the recesses and holes of which are kept the kitchen utensils (ladle, cooking-pot, dish used to cook the bannock, and other earthenware objects blackened by the fire) and at each end of which
Keyphrase Extraction for Summarization Purposes : The LAKE System at DUC-2004

We report on ITC-irst participation at Task 1 (very short document summaries) at DUC2004. We propose to exploit a keyphrase extraction methodology in order to identify relevant terms in the document. The LAKE algorithm first considers a number of linguistic features to extract a list of well motivated candidate keyphrases, then uses a machine learning framework to select significant keyphrases for a document. With respect to other approaches to keyphrase extraction, LAKE makes use of linguistic processors such as multiword and named entities recognition, which are not usually exploited.
Extracting 3D Mesh Skeletons Using Antipodal Points Locations

Finding the skeleton of a 3D mesh is an essential task for many applications such as mesh animation, tracking, and 3D registeration. In recent years, new technologies in computer vision such as Microsoft Kinect have proven that a mesh skeleton can be useful such as in the case of human machine interactions. To calculate the 3D mesh skeleton, the mesh properties such as topology and its components relations are utilized. In this paper, we propose the usage of a novel algorithm that can efficiently calculate a vertex antipodal point. A vertex antipodal point is the diametrically opposite point that belongs to the same mesh. The set of centers of the connecting lines between each vertex and its antipodal point represents the 3D mesh desired skeleton. Post processing is completed for smoothing and fitting centers into optimized skeleton parts. The algorithm is tested on different classes of 3D objects and produced efficient results that are comparable with the literature. The algorithm has the advantages of producing high quality skeletons as it preserves details. This is suitable for applications where the mesh skeleton mapping is required to be kept as much as possible.