Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pattern Recognition for Temperature-Dependent State-of-Charge/Capacity Estimation of a Li-ion Cell

This paper investigates the application of the dual extended Kalman filter (DEKF) algorithm combined with the pattern recognition based on the Hamming network (HN) to the identification of suitable cell model parameters for improved state-of-charge (SOC)/capacity estimation at different temperatures. The averaged nine discharging/charging voltage-temperature (DCVT) patterns for 10 fresh Li-ion cells were measured at different temperatures, together with the cell parameters, as representative patterns. Through statistical analysis of the characteristic parameters for learning by the HN, the identification of the representative DCVT pattern that most closely matches that of the arbitrary cell to be measured at any temperature. Specifically, a detailed temperature is obtained by the temperature-checking process and is added or reduced according to representative DCVT pattern discriminated. Finally, appropriate model parameters from the proposed approach are determined and used for SOC/capacity estimation in DEKF.
Understanding the learning process in SMEs

A major obstacle to the diffusion of management development learning technologies from Higher Education Institutions to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is a lack of understanding about how SME learners learn. This article examines the nature of learning in SMEs and considers the incidence of informal support for informal learning. Consideration is given to the potential for the use of learning technology to support SME learning, considering potential benefits, development of appropriate content, formal vs. informal learning technology support and the socialisation of learning content. Finally, the application of this study at both a macro and micro level is reflected upon.
Topographic Visualization of the Internet

In the Internet thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) exchange traffic according to their commercial agreements. ISPs are usually thought as organized in a hierarchy with the most important at the top. The peculiar business model of the Internet make paths that traverse higher levels of the hierarchy more expensive than paths that traverse only lower levels. To visually represent routing paths traversed by traffic flows we propose a topographic metaphor which highlights the levels of the hierarchy they traverse. We propose an algorithm to compute such Internet topographic maps and show preliminary results. Our implementation is based on the BGPlay routing visualization system which is a web based monitoring tool widely used by ISPs.
Cache Cookies : searching for hidden browser storage

Various ways are known to persistently store information in a browser to achieve cookie-like behaviour. These methods are collectively known as 'su-per cookies'. This research looks into various super cookie methods. Attention is given to the means a user has to regulate data storage and what is allowed by the cookiewet. The main goal of this research is to determine whether a browser's cache can be used to store and retrieve a user's unique identification. The results show that this is the case, and these 'cache cookies' use a method so fundamentally entangled with the cache that there is no easy way to prevent them. Because of cache cookies and other methods, the only way to prevent all tracking methods is to disable cache, history, cookies and plug-in storage.
Isolation and characterization of recombinant DNA clones of avian retroviruses: size heterogeneity and instability of the direct repeat

Unintegrated proviral DNA of Schmidt-Ruppin B Rous sarcoma virus was cloned in the bacteriophage lambda vector Charon 21A. A total of 12 independent recombinant lambda SRBtd clones which were derived from the transformation-defective component in the viral preparation were analyzed with restriction endonucleases and molecular hybridization techniques. Three classes of clones were observed. Type I clones contained a 5.0-megadalton insert of viral DNA, type II clones contained phage with two size classes of inserts (5.0 and 5.2 megadaltons), and one type III clone contained only a 5.2-megadalton insert. The smaller insert present in type II clones appeared to be derived by deletion of one copy of a directly repeated sequence which was present in the larger insert. Mapping data indicated that the deletion includes all or part of the terminal repeat found in linear double-stranded proviral DNA. Similar results were obtained from lambda RAV2 recombinant clones derived from Rous-associated virus type 2. Analysis of DNA from type II and type III clones of lambda SRBtd and lambda RAV2 revealed limited heterogeneity in the size of the direct repeat.
Death Anxiety and the Relational

Despite Ernest Becker’s claim, nearly 40 years ago, that the denial of death has relevance to the depth of the individual psyche as well as to human bonding behaviors, death anxiety continues to be heavily denied in its clinical application. This denial largely persists in the field of psychology and the practice of psychotherapy as death anxiety is reserved for comprehensive, philosophical, and ontological concerns but rarely informs the organization of the therapeutic dyad or the treatment of patients. The purpose of this article is to illustrate that death anxiety acts as a bonding agent to the close psychotherapeutic relationship and that mortality salient dyadic encounters can be assessed and used by the psychotherapy practitioner. This article introduces death anxiety experiments and theories (mostly contributions of Terror Management Theory) that have more recently demonstrated the buffering and mitigating potential of close relationships on an individual’s death fears. Additionally, this article illuminates the significance of the close relationship, which is a commonly accepted psychotherapeutic agent of change and also, paradoxically, produces death fears. The article concludes by suggesting that death anxiety plays a dominant role in the socially constructed mind and should therefore play a prevalent role in clinical depth work.
Cardiomyotic induction and proliferation of dental stem cells on electrospun scaffolds

Stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) are a unique source of stem cells because they are relatively easy to obtain and harvest from discarded teeth. While they could differentiate into neurons, adipocytes, osteoblasts, and myocytes, little is known whether they can differentiate into cardiomyocytes. The potential use of a biomaterial scaffold to deliver cardiomyocytes to the site of damaged heart tissue for cellular therapy is an attractive concept. Gelatin-B and poly-(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) were selected for the present study. The gelatin-B and PLGA scaffolds were constructed using an electro-spinning technique. SHED cells proliferate in both PLGA scaffolds and gelatin-B scaffolds and maintain adequate viability as determined with calcein-AM staining and DNA quantification. SHED cells were treated with a predetermined optimized cardio-treatment protocol. qPCR analysis of the cardiomyotic genes, MEF2.C, Cx-43, TNNT2.C, Nkx2.5, and GATA-4, showed that SHED cells differentiated on PLGA significantly up-regulated these cardiogenic markers compared to SHED cells cultured in control media . In summary, we demonstrate the growth and cardiomyogenesis of SHED cells on electrospun gelatin and PLGA scaffolds. Further development of our research concepts for cardiovascular regeneration using in vivo research and clinical trials, could allow the development of therapies involving the delivery of cardiomyocytes differentiated from SHED using electrospun scaffolds to the site of damaged heart tissue.
Molecular Properties and CYP2D6 Substrates: Central Nervous System Therapeutics Case Study and Pattern Analysis of a Substrate Database

CYP2D6 substrate status is a critical Go/No Go decision criteria in central nervous system (CNS) drug discovery efforts because the polymorphic nature of CYP2D6 can lead to variable patient safety and drug efficacy. In addition, CYP2D6 is disproportionately involved in the metabolism of CNS drugs compared with other drug classes. Therefore, identifying trends in small molecule properties of CNS-penetrant compounds that can help discriminate potential CYP2D6 substrates from nonsubstrates would allow additional prioritization in the synthesis and biological evaluation of new therapeutic candidates. We report here the conversion of the CNS drug minaprine from substrate to nonsubstrate, as well as the conversion of the related CNS drug minozac from nonsubstrate to substrate, through the use of analog synthesis and CYP2D6 enzyme kinetic analyses. No single molecular property strongly correlated with substrate status for this 3-amino-4-methyl-6-phenylpyridazine scaffold, although molecular volume and charge appeared to be indirectly related. A parsed database of CYP2D6 substrates across diverse chemical structures was assembled and analyzed for physical property trends correlating with substrate status. We found that a complex interplay of properties influenced CYP2D6 substrate status and that the particular chemical scaffold affects which properties are most prominent. The results also identified an unexpected issue in CNS drug discovery, in that some property trends correlative with CYP2D6 substrates overlap previously reported properties that correlate with CNS penetrance. These results suggest the need for a careful balance in the design and synthesis of new CNS therapeutic candidates to avoid CYP2D6 substrate status while maintaining CNS penetrance.
Multiplierless filter-bank based multicarrier system by using canonical signed digit representation

The filter-bank based multicarrier FBMC system is a candidate for designing the physical layer of a cognitive radio because of its spectral efficiency and the spectral containment. The main drawback of such a system compared with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems is its high computation complexity, because each subcarrier is shaped by a non-rectangular prototype filter. Although poly-phase decomposition is suggested to decrease the sampling rate of filtering, the number of filtering operations multiplications is dramatically increased by the growing number of subcarriers and the amount of the desired spectral containment. Hence, hardware implementation of the FBMC system faces challenges such as high electrical power consumption and large silicon area occupation. In order to reduce computational complexity, a multiplierless filter design based on the canonical signed digit CSD representation is proposed. In this technique, at first, a prototype filter is designed. Then a pre-optimization step is employed to adapt the prototype filter coefficients to system objectives and produce an enriched initial seed for genetic algorithm GA optimization. Finally, a customized GA is employed to jointly optimize and synthesize filter coefficients into the finite precision CSD representation so that the system objectives such as intersymbol-interference, interchannel-interference, and stop-band attenuation remain unchanged against the full-precision representation of coefficients. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Pericyte actomyosin-mediated contraction at the cell–material interface can modulate the microvascular niche

Pericytes physically surround the capillary endothelium, contacting and communicating with associated vascular endothelial cells via cell–cell and cell–matrix contacts. Pericyte–endothelial cell interactions thus have the potential to modulate growth and function of the microvasculature. Here we employ the experimental finding that pericytes can buckle a freestanding, underlying membrane via actin-mediated contraction. Pericytes were cultured on deformable silicone substrata, and pericyte-generated wrinkles were imaged via both optical and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The local stiffness of subcellular domains both near and far from these wrinkles was investigated by using AFM-enabled nanoindentation to quantify effective elastic moduli. Substratum buckling contraction was quantified by the normalized change in length of initially flat regions of the substrata (corresponding to wrinkle contour lengths), and a model was used to relate local strain energies to pericyte contractile forces. The nature of pericyte-generated wrinkling and contractile protein-generated force transduction was further explored by the addition of pharmacological cytoskeletal inhibitors that affected contractile forces and the effective elastic moduli of pericyte domains. Actin-mediated forces are sufficient for pericytes to exert an average buckling contraction of 38% on the elastomeric substrata employed in these in vitro studies. Actomyosin-mediated contractile forces also act in vivo on the compliant environment of the microvasculature, including the basement membrane and other cells. Pericyte-generated substratum deformation can thus serve as a direct mechanical stimulus to adjacent vascular endothelial cells, and potentially alter the effective mechanical stiffness of nonlinear elastic extracellular matrices, to modulate pericyte–endothelial cell interactions that directly influence both physiologic and pathologic angiogenesis.
Cloning, purification and characterization of the ribosomal protein L11 from E. coli

A high-expression system of L11 was constructed and investigated its interaction with other elements of the ribosome using physicochemical methods. The gene rplK, coding for the protein L11 from the E. coli 50S ribosomal subunit was amplifyied, cloned and over-expressed. The protein L11 was purified under native and denaturing conditions, refolded and the structure of both proteins was compared. The protein L11 properly refolded from 6M urea after dialysis. Experiments on binding of proteins L11, RRF and EF-G from Escherichia coli were performed by ana-lytical centrifugation and Biacore. Specific binding between protein L11 and RRF by analytical cen-trifugation was not detected probably due to struc-tural reasons. These findings may be helpful in the design of new antibiotics that specifically disrupt the interactions in the “GTP-associated site” of the bac-terial ribosome, as many of them are not effective anymore. A common intrinsically disordered region of protein L11 was found to be the amino acid se-quence 86-97, while the residues 67-74, containing the linker region, are predicted to be disordered by DisEMBL.
Positioning of Chromosomes in Human Spermatozoa Is Determined by Ordered Centromere Arrangement

The intranuclear positioning of chromosomes (CHRs) is a well-documented fact; however, mechanisms directing such ordering remain unclear. Unlike somatic cells, human spermatozoa contain distinct spatial markers and have asymmetric nuclei which make them a unique model for localizing CHR territories and matching peri-centromere domains. In this study, we established statistically preferential longitudinal and lateral positioning for eight CHRs. Both parameters demonstrated a correlation with the CHR gene densities but not with their sizes. Intranuclear non-random positioning of the CHRs was found to be driven by a specific linear order of centromeres physically interconnected in continuous arrays. In diploid spermatozoa, linear order of peri-centromeres was identical in two genome sets and essentially matched the arrangement established for haploid cells. We propose that the non-random longitudinal order of CHRs in human spermatozoa is generated during meiotic stages of spermatogenesis. The specific arrangement of sperm CHRs may serve as an epigenetic basis for differential transcription/replication and direct spatial CHR organization during early embryogenesis.
Family Variables Associated with Peer Victimization: Does Family Violence Enhance the Probability of Being Victimized by Peers?

This study was designed to examine the effects of family experiences (family violence, family conflict, parental affection and support) on peer victimization and to explore whether linkages between family variables and peer victimization are mediated by the development of internalizing problems and inappropriate reactions to peer aggression. Self-report data were collected from 446 boys and 287 girls attending the 5th to 10th grade (mean age = 13.3 years). Results show that non-victimized aggressors, aggressive and non-aggressive victims report more negative family experiences and more internalizing problem behavior than matched controls. Results of structural equation modeling show that the effects of the family variables differ from each other and only family violence seems to increase the probability of being victimized by peers.
HUMAN ACTIVITY MEDIATES A TROPHIC CASCADE CAUSED BY WOLVES

Experimental evidence of trophic cascades initiated by large vertebrate predators is rare in terrestrial ecosystems. A serendipitous natural experiment provided an opportunity to test the trophic cascade hypothesis for wolves (Canis lupus) in Banff National Park, Canada. The first wolf pack recolonized the Bow Valley of Banff National Park in 1986. High human activity partially excluded wolves from one area of the Bow Valley (low-wolf area), whereas wolves made full use of an adjacent area (high-wolf area). We investigated the effects of differential wolf predation between these two areas on elk (Cervus elaphus) population density, adult female survival, and calf recruitment; aspen (Populus tremuloides) recruitment and browse intensity; willow (Salix spp.) production, browsing intensity, and net growth; beaver (Castor canadensis) density; and riparian songbird diversity, evenness, and abundance. We compared effects of recolonizing wolves on these response variables using the log response ratio between the low-wolf and high-wolf treatments. Elk population density diverged over time in the two treatments, such that elk were an order of magnitude more numerous in the low-wolf area compared to the high-wolf area at the end of the study. Annual survival of adult female elk was 62% in the high-wolf area vs. 89% in the low-wolf area. Annual recruitment of calves was 15% in the high-wolf area vs. 27% without wolves. Wolf exclusion decreased aspen recruitment, willow production, and increased willow and aspen browsing intensity. Beaver lodge density was negatively correlated to elk density, and elk herbivory had an indirect negative effect on riparian songbird diversity and abundance. These alternating patterns across trophic levels support the wolf-caused trophic cascade hypothesis. Human activity strongly mediated these cascade effects, through a depressing effect on habitat use by wolves. Thus, conservation strategies based on the trophic importance of large carnivores have increased support in terrestrial ecosystems.
Modified adaptive basis pursuits for recovery of correlated sparse signals

In Distributed Compressive Sensing (DCS), correlated sparse signals stand for an ensemble of signals characterized by presenting a sparse correlation. If one signal is known apriori, the remaining signals in the ensemble can be reconstructed using l1-minimization with far fewer measurements compared to separate CS reconstruction. Reconstruction of such correlated signals is possible via Modified-CS and Regularized-Modified-BP. However, these methods are greatly influenced by the support set of the known signal that includes locations irrelevant to the target signal. While recovering each signal, prior to Modified-CS or Regularized-Modified-BP, we propose an adaptation step to retain only the sparse locations significant to that signal. We call our proposed methods as Modified-Adaptive-BP and Regularized-Modified-Adaptive-BP. Theoretical guarantees and experimental results show that our proposed methods provide efficient recovery compared to that of the Modified-CS and its regularized version.
(1SR,3RS,3aSR,6aRS)-Methyl 5-methyl-4,6-dioxo-3-[2-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]octahydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1-carboxylate

In the title compound, C16H15F3N2O4, the relative stereochemistry of the four stereogenic C atoms has been determined. The carboxymethyl and 2-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl substituents of the pyrrolidine cycle have a cis mutual arrangement. The five-membered saturated azacycle adopts an envelope conformation with the N atom occupying the flap position. In the crystal, adjacent molecules are combined in centrosymmetric dimers by two weak N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds.
Effects of Policosanol and Ticlopidine in Patients with Intermittent Claudication: A Double-Blinded Pilot Comparative Study

Policosanol is a cholesterol-lowering drug with concomitant antiplatelet effects. The present study was undertaken to compare the effects of policosanol and ticlopidine in patients with moderately severe intermittent claudication (IC). The study had a 4-week baseline step, followed by a 20-week double-blinded, randomized treatment period. Twenty-eight eligible patients were randomized to policosanol 10 mg or ticlopidine 250 mg tablets twice daily (bid). Walking distances in a treadmill (constant speed 3.2 km/hr, slope 10°, temperature 25°C) were assessed before and after 20 weeks of treatment. Both groups were similar at baseline. Compared with baseline, policosanol significantly increased (p<0.01) mean values of initial (ICD) and absolute (ACD) claudication distances from 162.1 to 273.2 m and from 255.8 to 401.0 m, respectively. Ticlopidine also raised significantly (p<0.01) ICD (166.2 to 266.3 m) and ACD (252.9 to 386.4 m). Comparisons between groups did not show significant differences. Policosanol, but not ticlopidine, significantly (p<0.05), but modestly, increased the ankle/arm pressure ratio. After 10 weeks, policosanol significantly (p<0.001) lowered low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), total cholesterol (TC) (p<0.01), and TC/HDL-C and raised (p<0.05) high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C). At study completion, policosanol lowered (p<0.001) LDL-C (30.2%), TC (16.9%), and TC/HDL-C (33.9%), increased (p<0.01) HDL-C (+31.7%), and left triglycerides unchanged. Ticlopidine did not affect the lipid profile variable. Policosanol induced modest, but significant, reductions (p<0.01) of fibrinogen levels compared with baseline and ticlopidine. Treatments were well tolerated and did not impair safety indicators. Three ticlopidine patients (21.4%) withdrew from the trial, only 1 owing to a serious adverse experience (AE) (unstable angina). Three other ticlopidine patients experienced mild AE (headache, diarrhea, and acidity). It is concluded that policosanol (10 mg bid) can be as effective as ticlopidine (250 mg bid) for improving walking distances of claudicant patients, and it could be advantageous for the global risk of these individuals owing to its cholesterol-lowering effects. This study is, however, just a pilot comparison, so that further studies in larger sample sizes are needed for definitive conclusions of the comparative effects of both drugs on patients with IC.
How to Measure Export via Bacterial Multidrug Resistance Efflux Pumps

ABSTRACT Bacterial multidrug resistance (MDR) efflux pumps are an important mechanism of antibiotic resistance and are required for many pathogens to cause infection. They are also being harnessed to improve microbial biotechnological processes, including biofuel production. Therefore, scientists of many specialties must be able to accurately measure efflux activity. However, myriad methodologies have been described and the most appropriate method is not always clear. Within the scientific literature, many methods are misused or data arising are misinterpreted. The methods for measuring efflux activity can be split into two groups, (i) those that directly measure efflux and (ii) those that measure the intracellular accumulation of a substrate, which is then used to infer efflux activity. Here, we review the methods for measuring efflux and explore the most recent advances in this field, including single-cell or cell-free technologies and mass spectrometry, that are being used to provide more detailed information about efflux pump activity.