Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multifunctional chitosan–magnetic graphene quantum dot nanocomposites for the release of therapeutics from detachable and non-detachable biodegradable microneedle arrays

Biodegradable chitosan–magnetic graphene quantum dot (MGQD) nanocomposites were prepared and investigated for the release of small and large molecular weight (MWt) therapeutics from detachable and non-detachable biodegradable microneedle arrays. The presence of MGQDs in chitosan increased the electrical conductivity and biodegradation rate of chitosan while maintaining its mechanical properties. The detachable microneedle arrays were created by including a water-soluble ring of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) at the base of the microneedle, which enabled the rapid detachment of the microneedle shaft from the base. The PEG ring did not impede the microneedle array performance, with mechanical properties and a drug release profile of low MWt lidocaine hydrochloride similar to microneedle arrays without the ring. Without the PEG ring, the chitosan–MGQD microneedles were electrically conductive and allowed for electrically stimulated release of large MWt therapeutics which was challenging without the stimulation. These results demonstrate that chitosan nanocomposites containing MGQDs with intrinsic photoluminescent and supermagnetic properties are promising materials for developing multifunctional microneedles for targeted and tracked transdermal drug delivery.
Comparing the Contribution of Syntactic and Semantic Features in Closed versus Open Domain Question Answering

In this paper we analyze the contribution of semantic, syntactic and word similarity of document features in closed and open domain question answering. Semantic similarity is computed as the similarity of the action in the candidate sentence to the action asked in the question, measured using WordNet::Similarity on main verbs. The syntactic similarity feature measures the unifiability of a candidate's parse tree with the question's parse tree. It uses syntactic restrictions as well as lexical measures to compute the unifiability of critical syntactic participants in the parse trees. Finally, the word similarity of the document containing a candidate sentence is computed as the cosine of the angle between the question keywords vector and the document vector. Since the semantic feature is more reliable on content verbs and syntactic similarity is suitable for questions with a subject- verb-object syntactic structure, we only consider questions with a main content verb in our analysis (non-copulative questions). This type comprise 70% of our closed domain and 33% of our open domain test questions. The combination of these three features achieves an MRR of 28% in our closed domain and 23% in open domain. Our analysis shows that the syntactic feature has a significant contribution in both open and closed domains. However, the path-based lch semantic similarity measure we used, only contributes in our closed domain probably because of less variation in the vocabulary and topic. Document IR score on the other hand, has more contribution in open domain, because query keywords are more discriminating in a large document set with a vast vocabulary range.
Faculty development camp for project based learning

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching and learning method in which students actively solve real-world problems and gain knowledge and skills. The teaching experiences, materials, and methods for PBL have diversity and are not shared with universities. We present the Faculty Development (FD) camp for PBL, in order to share them. The FD camp provides the place of discussing the PBL to the participants, in order to solve subjects of PBL. We hold three FD camps with Open Space Technology (OST), which is a simple way to run productive meetings. Evaluations in questionnaires show that most of the participants have good impressions in the FD camp with OST. We mainly learn that the contribution of the FD camp is to build the faculty community.
Hsp70 and Its Molecular Role in Nervous System Diseases

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are induced in response to many injuries including stroke, neurodegenerative disease, epilepsy, and trauma. The overexpression of one HSP in particular, Hsp70, serves a protective role in several different models of nervous system injury, but has also been linked to a deleterious role in some diseases. Hsp70 functions as a chaperone and protects neurons from protein aggregation and toxicity (Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, polyglutamine diseases, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), protects cells from apoptosis (Parkinson disease), is a stress marker (temporal lobe epilepsy), protects cells from inflammation (cerebral ischemic injury), has an adjuvant role in antigen presentation and is involved in the immune response in autoimmune disease (multiple sclerosis). The worldwide incidence of neurodegenerative diseases is high. As neurodegenerative diseases disproportionately affect older individuals, disease-related morbidity has increased along with the general increase in longevity. An understanding of the underlying mechanisms that lead to neurodegeneration is key to identifying methods of prevention and treatment. Investigators have observed protective effects of HSPs induced by preconditioning, overexpression, or drugs in a variety of models of brain disease. Experimental data suggest that manipulation of the cellular stress response may offer strategies to protect the brain during progression of neurodegenerative disease.
Total hip arthroplasty following arthrodesis: a single-center experience of 17 patients

Purpose We aimed to present our experience with total hip arthroplasty in patients with previous hip arthrodesis. Patients and methods This was a retrospective study, in which clinical and radiological outcomes of total hip arthroplasty performed in 17 patients (mean age 54.2±8.5 years; age range 33–68 years; female to male ratio 10/7) with previous arthrodesis in our clinic between 2001 and 2014 were reviewed. Patients were followed up for 6.7±2.8 years (range 3–12 years) after the operation and evaluated for ipsilateral knee pain, range of motion, walking capacity, and leg-length discrepancy. The clinical outcome was assessed by the Harris Hip Score. Results The outcome of arthroplasty was good or excellent in 14 of 17 patients (82.3%), fair in two patients (11.8%), and failure in one patient (5.9%). The Harris Hip Score increased to 79.8±9.8 postoperatively from a preoperative score of 40.9±10.1 (p<0.01). Pain-free hip was obtained in 15 patients (88.2%), and range of motion was 88°. Fourteen patients (82.4%) reported a significant decrease in back pain, and 11 patients (64.7%) in ipsilateral knee pain. Ten patients (58.8%) were able to walk normally, five patients (29.4%) walked with slight Trendelenburg gait without support, and two patients (11.8%) with severe Trendelenburg gait using arm rests. The mean leg-length discrepancy was 1.1 cm (range 0–3 cm). The complications were peroneal nerve palsy (n=3), superficial wound infection (n=3), hip dislocation (n=2), and heterotopic ossification (n=3). Conclusion If it is well planned, conversion of hip arthrodesis to total hip arthroplasty is a successful and safe procedure, which increases patients’ functionality.
Peeling the 802.11 onion: separating congestion from physical per

An ability to accurately classify observed packet errors according to their root cause: physical layer or MAC layer contention, in 802.11 networks, opens up many opportunities for performance improvement at the both the MAC and IP layers. We investigate two orthogonal ways to achieve this, and present a methodology, the 'map', for clearly visualizing the results free of packet size and rate 'bias'.
Information Extraction by Convergent Boundary Classification

We investigate the application of classification techniques to the problem of information extraction (IE). In particular we use support vector machines and several different feature-sets to build a set of classifiers for information extraction. We show that this approach is competitive with current state-ofthe-art information extraction algorithms based on specialized learning algorithms. We also introduce a new technique for improving the recall of IE systems called convergent boundary classification. We show that this can give significant improvement in the performance of our IE system and gives a system with both high precision and high recall.
Fast and exact discrete geodesic computation based on triangle-oriented wavefront propagation

Computing discrete geodesic distance over triangle meshes is one of the fundamental problems in computational geometry and computer graphics. In this problem, an effective window pruning strategy can significantly affect the actual running time. Due to its importance, we conduct an in-depth study of window pruning operations in this paper, and produce an exhaustive list of scenarios where one window can make another window partially or completely redundant. To identify a maximal number of redundant windows using such pairwise cross checking, we propose a set of procedures to synchronize local window propagation within the same triangle by simultaneously propagating a collection of windows from one triangle edge to its two opposite edges. On the basis of such synchronized window propagation, we design a new geodesic computation algorithm based on a triangle-oriented region growing scheme. Our geodesic algorithm can remove most of the redundant windows at the earliest possible stage, thus significantly reducing computational cost and memory usage at later stages. In addition, by adopting triangles instead of windows as the primitive in propagation management, our algorithm significantly cuts down the data management overhead. As a result, it runs 4--15 times faster than MMP and ICH algorithms, 2-4 times faster than FWP-MMP and FWP-CH algorithms, and also incurs the least memory usage.
Impact of contention on performance of flows in multi-hop MAC protocol for sensor networks

The MAC protocol in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) plays an important role in conserving energy and it generally adopts a duty cycling mechanism to eliminate idle listing energy at the cost of high delivery latency. The most effective method of bypassing the latency disadvantage is forwarding a packet over multiple hops in an operational cycle. The combination of duty cycling and multi-hop forwarding creates a new class of MAC protocol called multi-hop MAC, which has been proven to outperform other single-hop duty cycling protocols both in term of energy efficiency and latency. A packet in such a protocol is always relayed via multiple hops toward a sink in a cycle. The flow from a source node to the sink is affected by contention because of the sharing characteristic of wireless channels. We investigated what effect contention had on the flow capacity of Demand Wakeup MAC (DW-MAC), which is a state-of-the-art multi-hop MAC protocol. We also found that instead of using the original large contention window (CW), a DW-MAC's flow using a smaller CW could avoid unnecessary contention and use channels more efficiently. The analysis and resulting ns-2 simulation revealed that DW-MAC with the new values for CW achieves higher throughput, lower end-to-end latency, and greater energy efficiency.
A Multi-Timescale Quasi-Dynamic Model for Simulation of Cascading Outages

Many blackouts in electric power grids throughout the world are caused by cascading outages, which often involve complex processes in various timescales. The multi-timescale nature of cascading outages makes conventional quasi-static simulation methods inaccurate in characterizing actual evolution of outages. This paper proposes a multi-timescale cascading outage model using a quasi-dynamic simulation method. The model establishes a framework for simulating interactions among dynamics in quite different timescales. It realizes simulation of cascading outages with representation of time evolution, so it overcomes ambiguity of time in conventional cascading outage models and hence has better practicality. Moreover, the model considers dynamics, e.g., load variation and generator excitation protection which affect voltage and reactive power profiles. Also, an improved re-dispatch model based on sensitivity is proposed. These improvements facilitate better simulation for a realistic power system. Also, dynamic simulation can be flexibly incorporated into the simulation of short-term processes in this model as needed. Case studies with the proposed multi-timescale model on the IEEE 30-bus system discuss the role of generator protection in cascading outage evolution, and analyze stage characteristics in outages. The multi-timescale model is also demonstrated on a reduced 410-bus US-Canada northeast power grid. Moreover, impacts from dispatchers' involvements are analyzed.
Scalable Proactive Event-Driven Decision Making

This paper proposes a methodology for proactive event-driven decision making. Proper decisions are made by forecasting events prior to their occurrence. Motivation for proactive decision making stems from social and economic factors, and is based on the fact that prevention is often more effective than the cure. The decisions are made in real time and require swift and immediate processing of Big Data, that is, extremely large amounts of noisy data flooding in from various locations, as well as historical data. The methodology will recognize and forecast opportunities and threats, making the decision to capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate the threats. This will be explained through user-interaction and the decisions of human operators, in order to ultimately facilitate proactive decision making.
Akt1 Is Required for Physiological Cardiac Growth

Background— Postnatal growth of the heart chiefly involves nonproliferative cardiomyocyte enlargement. Cardiac hypertrophy exists in a “physiological” form that is an adaptive response to long-term exercise training and as a “pathological” form that often is a maladaptive response to provocative stimuli such as hypertension and aortic valvular stenosis. A signaling cascade that includes the protein kinase Akt regulates the growth and survival of many cell types, but the precise role of Akt1 in either form of cardiac hypertrophy is unknown. Methods and Results— To evaluate the role of Akt1 in physiological cardiac growth, akt1−/− adult murine cardiac myocytes (AMCMs) were treated with IGF-1, and akt1−/− mice were subjected to exercise training. akt1−/− AMCMs were resistant to insulin-like growth factor-1–stimulated protein synthesis. The akt1−/− mice were found to be resistant to swimming training–induced cardiac hypertrophy. To evaluate the role of Akt in pathological cardiac growth, akt1−/− AMCMs were treated with endothelin-1, and akt1−/− mice were subjected to pressure overload by transverse aortic constriction. Surprisingly, akt1−/− AMCMs were sensitized to endothelin-1–induced protein synthesis, and akt1−/− mice developed an exacerbated form of cardiac hypertrophy in response to transverse aortic constriction. Conclusions— These results establish Akt1 as a pivotal regulatory switch that promotes physiological cardiac hypertrophy while antagonizing pathological hypertrophy.
SapTrap, a Toolkit for High-Throughput CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Modification in Caenorhabditis elegans

In principle, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 allows genetic tags to be inserted at any locus. However, throughput is limited by the laborious construction of repair templates and guide RNA constructs and by the identification of modified strains. We have developed a reagent toolkit and plasmid assembly pipeline, called “SapTrap,” that streamlines the production of targeting vectors for tag insertion, as well as the selection of modified Caenorhabditis elegans strains. SapTrap is a high-efficiency modular plasmid assembly pipeline that produces single plasmid targeting vectors, each of which encodes both a guide RNA transcript and a repair template for a particular tagging event. The plasmid is generated in a single tube by cutting modular components with the restriction enzyme SapI, which are then “trapped” in a fixed order by ligation to generate the targeting vector. A library of donor plasmids supplies a variety of protein tags, a selectable marker, and regulatory sequences that allow cell-specific tagging at either the N or the C termini. All site-specific sequences, such as guide RNA targeting sequences and homology arms, are supplied as annealed synthetic oligonucleotides, eliminating the need for PCR or molecular cloning during plasmid assembly. Each tag includes an embedded Cbr-unc-119 selectable marker that is positioned to allow concurrent expression of both the tag and the marker. We demonstrate that SapTrap targeting vectors direct insertion of 3- to 4-kb tags at six different loci in 10–37% of injected animals. Thus SapTrap vectors introduce the possibility for high-throughput generation of CRISPR/Cas9 genome modifications.
Comparison of Functional Protein Transduction Domains Using the NEMO Binding Domain Peptide

Protein transduction domains (PTDs), both naturally occurring and synthetic, have been extensively utilized for intracellular delivery of biologically active molecules both in vitro and in vivo. However, most comparisons of transduction efficiency have been performed using fluorescent markers. To compare efficiency of functional protein transduction, a peptide derived from IκB kinase ß (IKKß) that prevents formation of an active IKK complex was used as a biologically active cargo. This peptide, termed NEMO Binding Domain (NBD), is able to block activation of the transcriptional factor NF-κB by IKK, but not basal NF-κB activity. Our results demonstrate that Antp and Tat PTDs were most effective for delivery of NBD for inhibition of NF-κB activation compared to other PTD-NBD in both Hela and 293 cells, however, at higher concentrations (100 µM), the Antp-NBD as well as the FGF-NBD peptide caused significant cellular toxicity. In contrast to the cell culture results, delivery of NBD using 8K (octalysine) and 6R (six arginine) were the most effect in blocking inflammation following local, footpad delivery in a KLH-induced DTH murine model of inflammatory arthritis. These results demonstrate differences between PTDs for delivery of a functional cargo between cell types.
Harnessing Semantics for Answer Sentence Retrieval

Finding answer passages from the Web is a challenging task. One major difficulty is to retrieve sentences that may not have many terms in common with the question. In this paper, we experiment with two semantic approaches for finding non-factoid answers using a learning-to-rank retrieval setting. We show that using semantic representations learned from external resources such as Wikipedia or Google News may substantially improve the quality of top-ranked retrieved answers.
Small-Time Asymptotics of Option Prices and First Absolute Moments

We study the leading term in the small-time asymptotics of at-the-money call option prices when the stock price process S follows a general martingale. This is equivalent to studying the first centered absolute moment of S. We show that if S has a continuous part, the leading term is of order √T in time T and depends only on the initial value of the volatility. Furthermore, the term is linear in T if and only if S is of finite variation. The leading terms for pure-jump processes with infinite variation are between these two cases; we obtain their exact form for stable-like small jumps. To derive these results, we use a natural approximation of S so that calculations are necessary only for the class of Lévy processes.
Pretraining Prevents Spatial Learning Impairment after Saturation of Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation

Spatial learning is impaired by NMDA receptor antagonists at doses that block hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). The deficit is not observed in animals that have received spatial or nonspatial pretraining in a different water maze. To determine whether this conditional impairment reflects debilitating sensorimotor effects of NMDA receptor antagonists in na¿ve animals, we compared spatial learning in na¿ve and pretrained animals in which induction of LTP was blocked by a saturation procedure with no obvious effects on sensorimotor functions. Rats with unilateral hippocampal lesions were implanted with multiple bipolar stimulation electrodes in the angular bundle and a recording electrode in the dentate gyrus of the intact hemisphere. Half of the rats were pretrained to find a hidden platform in a water maze. A week later, pretrained and na¿ve rats received either high-frequency (HF) or low-frequency (LF) stimulation at 2 hr intervals, until no further LTP could be induced. The stimulation did not interefere with performance on a balance task or a visual platform task. After stimulation, all rats were trained in a second water maze. Whereas na¿ve HF animals were impaired, pretrained HF animals acquired the new task rapidly and searched as extensively around the platform as LF control animals. These results suggest that pretraining prevents disruption of spatial learning after saturation of LTP in the absence of sensorimotor impairment, that hippocampal LTP might not be crucial for spatial representation per se, and that LTP may be involved only when spatial and contextual or procedural learning take place simultaneously.
The Protein Dendrite Arborization and Synapse Maturation 1 (Dasm-1) Is Dispensable for Dendrite Arborization

ABSTRACT The development of a highly branched dendritic tree is essential for the establishment of functional neuronal connections. The evolutionarily conserved immunoglobulin superfamily member, the protein dendrite arborization and synapse maturation 1 (Dasm-1) is thought to play a critical role in dendrite formation of dissociated hippocampal neurons. RNA interference-mediated Dasm-1 knockdown was previously shown to impair dendrite, but not axonal, outgrowth and branching (S. H. Shi, D. N. Cox, D. Wang, L. Y. Jan, and Y. N. Jan, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101:13341-13345, 2004). Here, we report the generation and analysis of Dasm-1 null mice. We find that genetic ablation of Dasm-1 does not interfere with hippocampal dendrite growth and branching in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, the absence of Dasm-1 does not affect the modulation of dendritic outgrowth induced by brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Importantly, the previously observed impairment in dendrite growth after Dasm-1 knockdown is also observed when the Dasm-1 knockdown is performed in cultured hippocampal neurons from Dasm-1 null mice. These findings indicate that the dendrite arborization phenotype was caused by off-target effects and that Dasm-1 is dispensable for hippocampal dendrite arborization.