Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adhesion and Degranulation Promoting Adapter Protein (ADAP) Is a Central Hub for Phosphotyrosine-Mediated Interactions in T Cells

TCR stimulation leads to an increase in cellular adhesion among other outcomes. The adhesion and degranulation promoting adapter protein (ADAP) is known to be rapidly phosphorylated after T cell stimulation and relays the TCR signal to adhesion molecules of the integrin family. While three tyrosine phosphorylation sites have been characterized biochemically, the binding capabilities and associated functions of several other potential phosphotyrosine motifs remain unclear. Here, we utilize in vitro phosphorylation and mass spectrometry to map novel phosphotyrosine sites in the C-terminal part of human ADAP (486–783). Individual tyrosines were then mutated to phenylalanine and their relevance for cellular adhesion and migration was tested experimentally. Functionally important tyrosine residues include two sites within the folded hSH3 domains of ADAP and two at the C-terminus. Furthermore, using a peptide pulldown approach in combination with stable isotope labeling in cell culture (SILAC) we identified SLP-76, PLCγ, PIK3R1, Nck, CRK, Gads, and RasGAP as phospho-dependent binding partners of a central YDDV motif of ADAP. The phosphorylation-dependent interaction between ADAP and Nck was confirmed by yeast two-hybrid analysis, immunoprecipitation and binary pulldown experiments, indicating that ADAP directly links integrins to modulators of the cytoskeleton independent of SLP-76.
A simple fuzzy controller for robot manipulators with bounded inputs

This paper revisits the problem of global asymptotic regulation for robot manipulators with bounded inputs. A simple model-free sectorial fuzzy controller plus saturated integral action is proposed. Global asymptotic stability is proven following Lyapunov's direct method. Advantages of the proposed control are that it is fairly easy to construct with simple intuitive structure and absence of modeling parameter, and thus it is ready to implement. An additive appealing feature is that the proposed control has the abilities to protect the actuator from control effort saturation and ensure global asymptotic stability. Simulations on a two-DOF robot demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Scalable multicast routing for ad hoc networks

Routing in a mobile ad hoc network is challenging because nodes can move at any time, invalidating a previously-discovered route. Multicast routing is even more challenging, because a source needs to maintain a route to potentially many group members simultaneously. Providing scalable solutions to this problem typically requires building a hierarchy or an overlay network to reduce the cost of route discovery and maintenance. In this paper, we show that a much simpler alternative is possible, by using source specific semantics and relying on the unicast routing protocol to find all routes. This separation of concerns enables the multicast routing protocol to focus on minimizing join latency, repair latency, and control overhead. We design a routing protocol based on these principles and demonstrate its effectiveness through simulations.
Secure Network Attribution and Prioritization: A Coordinated Architecture for Critical Infrastructure

We describe Secure Network Attribution and Prioritization (SNAP), a system architecture, protocol specification, and prototype implementation for augmenting Internet Protocol with services for fine-grained attribution, attribution-based prioritization with controlled sharing, and autoconfiguration. We define attribution as a security service that identifies the source of traffic on a network. SNAP has per-packet attribution using a header analogous to IPsec Authentication Header (AH) inserted by the first router. Succeeding routers validate the header. SNAP contains a novel prioritization scheme, Priority-Dropped Queuing, which assigns micro-priorities from a range (band) to each flow at the first-hop router. The range is determined by a combination of user identity and traffic class, allowing the network operator rather than the user to set the priorities. SNAP's third component is an autoconfiguration system. Rather than generating configuration files for each router, a network operator writes a network-wide configuration plan. Once configured, plan updates can be rapidly distributed to change the prioritization plan or security policies. Together, these three key attributes allow us to identify traffic and prioritize it, all with reduced configuration effort. BBN has constructed two prototypes of SNAP at 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s. One is based on a COTS 1U PC, running a version of NetBSD with kernel-level attribution and prioritization processing. The second, jointly developed with ViaSat, is a 1U board with FPGAs that implement the per-packet processing, running the same version of NetBSD on the control processor.
Estimation of Camera Parameters from a Single Moving Camera using Quaternion-based Interpolation of 3D Trajectory

This paper presents a new quaternion-based method to estimate the camera parameters in a single video stream to interpolate 3D trajectory of the moving camera with camera parameters. We assume that the camera looks at three fixed points while translating and rotating in 3D space. To estimate the camera parameters, we get a set of nonlinear equations derived from a geometric perspective camera model. We have a large number of image frames to find each camera parameters while the number of unknown camera model parameters cannot be determined from a single frame. In order to solve this problem, we used interpolation to approximate camera movement in both translation and rotation. This was done using the concept of control node set at the specific frame in the video stream. The camera movement is based on acceleration level control while satisfying physical constraints. The control node is the set of variables used to determine acceleration-based interpolated equation used for data fitting. In this process, we used quaternion to interpolate orientation of the camera. The acceleration-based data fitting problem is solved using nonlinear parameter optimization solver, GRG2. Our experimental results show that this approach to estimate camera parameters and 3D trajectory of the camera moment is robust enough to handle image sequences of a common scene without sudden change in camera moment.
Inhibition of Placenta Growth Factor Reduces Subretinal Mononuclear Phagocyte Accumulation in Choroidal Neovascularization.

Purpose The cellular immune response driven by mononuclear phagocytes (MPs) is crucial for choroidal neovascularization (CNV) progression. Case reports show that a switch from pure anti-vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) intravitreal treatment to aflibercept, a drug with combined anti-VEGF-A and anti-placenta growth factor (PlGF) activity, can be beneficial for patients who do not respond to anti-VEGF-A alone. Since MPs harbor VEGFR1, we hypothesize that the interplay of P1GF/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGFR1) in immune cells plays a pivotal role for CNV. Methods CNV was induced with laser, and immune cells and neovascularization were analyzed in vivo and ex vivo. Immunohistochemistry was employed for protein detection. Differential expression of angiogenic factors and macrophage polarization markers were assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR). One day after laser, intravitreal injection of aflibercept or anti-PlGF was performed. Results In the early inflammatory phase after laser, Plgf but not Vegfa was significantly upregulated. VEGF-A upregulation is limited to the scar, whereas PlGF shows a wider distribution. M1 (proinflammatory) macrophage markers were upregulated in the early phase of CNV. However, M2 (proangiogenic) markers showed more inconsistent dynamics. We demonstrated that both aflibercept and anti-PlGF treatments decrease the overall amount of activated subretinal MPs, and especially of those expressing PlGF. These data correlated with a reduction in leakage associated to CNV. Aflibercept showed a stronger reduction in both parameters. Conclusions The results hint at an interplay between PlGF/VEGFR1 and MPs that is important in the early phase of CNV. A combined inhibition of VEGF-A and PlGF is superior to a specific anti-PlGF treatment in terms of subretinal MP recruitment.
Hemolysate-Induced Contraction in Smooth Muscle Cells of the Guinea Pig Basilar Artery

The hemolysate (10˜5-10˜2 times dilution; original hemoglobin concentration was 0.83 ± 0.10 x 10˜3M) evoked the contraction in a dose dependent manner, and this contraction was composed of low and high sensitive responses as estimated from the Eadie-Hofstee's plot. Indomethacin (10˜7-10˜5M) inhibited the latter component in the hemolysate-induced contraction. The membrane potential of smooth muscle cells was -50 mV and the cell was electrically quiescent. The hemolysate (>10˜2 times dilution) depolarized the membrane and increased the ionic conductance of membrane. In rare occasions, the spike potential was triggered on the hemolysate-lnduced depolarization. The hemolysate (10˜s-3 x 10˜3 times dilution) produced the contraction with no change in the membrane property. Carbocyclic thromboxane A, (cTXA2; 2.8 x 10˜l0M) produced the contraction without depolarization of the membrane, yet the TXA2synthesis inhibitor, OKY-1581 (10-5M), had no effect on the hemolysate-induced contraction. PGE, PGE2and PGFja (2.8 x lOαM) produced the contraction with no change in the membrane property. The contraction evoked by 2.8 x 10"*M PGFα corresponded well with that evoked by 3 x 10˜3 times dilution of the hemolysate. Removal of the endothelium by mechanical rubbing modified the hemolysate-induced contraction. Under the assumption that OKY-1581 is a selective inhibitor for TXA2 synthesis, the major part of the contraction (the indomethacin sensitive component) of the basilar artery is postulated to be due to synthesis of the primary PG rather than TXA2 by the hemolysate, yet the hemolysate itself, has to some extent a direct action in evoking the small contraction. Stroke Vol 15, No 3, 1984
Stresses and decohesion of oxide scales

AbstractStresses in oxide scale–metal systems can lead to decohesion of the scales when critical values are exceeded, which manifests itself in stable growth of interfacial cracks and separation along the scale/metal interface or in sudden spalling of the scale or of parts of it as a result of unstable cracking processes. The discussions in this paper are focused on decohesion of scales resulting from stable interfacial crack growth. It is attempted to summarise the critical conditions for separation at the scale/metal interface, the effect of stresses on the scale/metal interface behaviour, and the effect of decohesion on the protective effect. With the help of experimental results, the location of the plane of decohesion in multilayer scales and the decohesion of oxide scales on heat exchanger tubes as components used in practice are discussed. Finally, some considerations on the measurement of adhesion strength of scales are carried out leading to the recommendation of a fracture mechanics approach to .
On the achievable information rates of finite state ISI channels

In this paper, we present two simple Monte Carlo methods for estimating the achievable information rates of general finite state channels. Both methods require only the ability to simulate the channel with an a posteriori probability (APP) detector matched to the channel. The first method estimates the mutual information rate between the input random process and the output random process, provided that both processes are stationary and ergodic. When the inputs are iid equiprobable, this rate is known as the Symmetric Information Rate (SIR). The second method estimates the achievable information rate of an explicit coding system which interleaves m independent codes onto the channel and employs multistage decoding. For practical values of m, numerical results show that this system nearly achieves the SIR. Both methods are applied to the class of partial response channels commonly used in magnetic recording.
HITS' Graph-based System at the NTCIR-9 Cross-lingual Link Discovery Task

This paper presents HITS’ system for the NTCIR-9 crosslingual link discovery task. We solve the task in three stages: (1) anchor identification and ambiguity reduction, (2) graphbased disambiguation combining different relatedness measures as edge weights for a maximum edge weighted clique algorithm, and (3) supervised relevance ranking. In the fileto-file evaluation with Wikipedia ground-truth the HITS system is the top-performer across all measures and subtasks (English-2-Chinese, English-2-Japanese and English-2Korean). In the file-2-file and anchor-2-file evaluation with manual assessment, the system outperforms all other systems on the English-2-Japanese subtask and is one of the top-three performing systems for the two other subtasks.
Creative and open software engineering practices and tools in maker community projects

Processing, Arduino, and the growth of the associated communities of practice, also called maker communities, has motivated a broader participation of non-technical users in the engineering of interactive systems. Besides online sharing, maker communities meet regularly and share knowledge for various purposes (e.g., creative hacking, social networking, lifelong learning). In the context of maker communities, the understanding of engineering interactive systems (e.g., motivations, objectives, collaboration, process, reports) and the design of the respective tools (e.g., end-user programming for artists, or children) are not well documented. As a remedy, we present a coherent overview of related work, as well as our own experiences in the organization and running of maker workshops. The tutorial format (lecture and hands-on workshop) benefits both practitioners and researchers with an understanding of creative software tools and practices. Moreover, participants become familiar with the organization of maker workshops as 1) a research method for understanding users, 2) an engineering process for interactive computer systems, and 3) a practice for teaching and learning.
Automated evaluation of her-2/neu status in breast tissue from fluorescent in situ hybridization images

The evaluation of fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) images is one of the most widely used methods to determine Her-2/neu status of breast samples, a valuable prognostic indicator. Conventional evaluation is a difficult task since it involves manual counting of dots in multiple images. In this paper, we present a multistage algorithm for the automated classification of FISH images from breast carcinomas. The algorithm focuses not only on the detection of FISH dots per image, but also on combining results from multiple images taken from a slice for overall case classification. The algorithm includes mainly two stages for nuclei and dot detection respectively. The dot segmentation consists of a top-hat filtering stage followed by template matching to separate real signals from noise. Nuclei segmentation includes a nonlinearity correction step, global thresholding to identify candidate regions, and a geometric rule to distinguish between holes within a nucleus and holes between nuclei. Finally, the marked watershed transform is used to segment cell nuclei with markers detected as regional maxima of the distance transform. Combining the two stages allows the measurement of FISH signals ratio per cell nucleus and the collective classification of cases as positive or negative. The system was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic analysis and the results were encouraging for the further development of this method.
Novel Results on Slow Coherency in Power Networks

iv v Summary The thesis was conducted during a period of six months at the University of Cali-In this thesis we revisit the classic slow coherency and area aggregation approach to model reduction in power networks. The slow coherency approach is based on identifying sparsely and densely connected areas of a network, within which all generators swing coherently. A timescale separation and singular perturbation analysis then results in a reduced low-order system, where coherent areas are collapsed into aggregate variables. Here, we study the application of slow coherency and area aggregation to first-order consensus systems and second-order power system swing dynamics. We unify different theoretic approaches and ideas found throughout the literature, we relax some technical assumptions, and we extend existing results. In particular, we provide a complete analysis of the second-order swing dynamics – without restrictive assumptions on the system damping.
MeV Mott Polarimetry at Jefferson Lab

In the recent past, Mott polarimetry has been employed only at low electron beam energies (≈100 keV). Shortly after J. Sromicki demonstrated the first Mott scattering experiment on lead foils at 14 MeV (MAMI, 1994), a high energy Mott scattering polarimeter was developed at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (5 MeV, 1995). An instrumental precision of 0.5% was achieved due to dramatic improvement in eliminating the background signal by means of collimation, shielding, time of flight and coincidence methods. Measurements for gold targets between 0.05 μm and 5 μm for electron energies between 2 and 8 MeV are presented. A model was developed to explain the depolarization effects in the target foils due to double scattering. The instrumental helicity correlated asymmetries were measured to smaller than 0.1%.
Differential Microvasculature Dysfunction in Living Kidney Donor Transplant Recipients: Nondialyzed versus Dialyzed Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

We hypothesized that there was differential vasomotor dysfunction in the microcirculation between nondialyzed and dialyzed chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. During live donor kidney transplantation procedures, skin arterioles (SkA; internal diameter = 120 ± 5 µm) from donors (n = 27) and recipients (nondialysis = 15; dialysis = 20) were dissected from the abdominal wall at the incision site. In vivo aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) was also measured. In the in vitro isometric force measurement, nondialyzed SkA exhibited comparable contraction to donor SkA, whereas dialyzed SkA had 60 and 40–50% increase in contraction in response to depolarization and agonist (that is, phenylephrine, serotonin and endothelin-1) stimulation, respectively. The acetylcholine-induced relaxation in the nondialyzed SkA was decreased by 50% compared with dialyzed SkA. However, pre-incubation with superoxide dismutase greatly enhanced the relaxation response in the nondialyzed, but not in the dialyzed SkA and donor SkA. Pre-incubation with NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) elevated the resting tension and left-shifted the concentration response curve of phenylephrine-stimulated contraction in the donor-SkA. L-NAME only increased the resting tension in the nondialyzed vessel. In vitro stiffness positively correlated with PWV (R2 = 0.302, p = 0.001), and dialyzed SkA was 60% stiffer than nondialyzed and donor SkA. The acetylcholine relaxation was negatively correlated with PWV in donors and recipients (R2 = 0.282, p = 0.01). In conclusion, we have uniquely demonstrated differential microvasculature dysfunction between nondialyzed and dialyzed CKD patients.
Soy Isoflavones and Breast Cancer Cell Lines: Molecular Mechanisms and Future Perspectives

The potential benefit of soy isoflavones in breast cancer chemoprevention, as suggested by epidemiological studies, has aroused the interest of numerous scientists for over twenty years. Although intensive work has been done in this field, the preclinical results continue to be controversial and the molecular mechanisms are far from being fully understood. The antiproliferative effect of soy isoflavones has been commonly linked to the estrogen receptor interaction, but there is growing evidence that other pathways are influenced as well. Among these, the regulation of apoptosis, cell proliferation and survival, inhibition of angiogenesis and metastasis or antioxidant properties have been recently explored using various isoflavone doses and various breast cancer cells. In this review, we offer a comprehensive perspective on the molecular mechanisms of isoflavones observed in in vitro studies, emphasizing each time the dose-effect relationship and estrogen receptor status of the cells. Furthermore, we present future research directions in this field which could provide a better understanding of the inner molecular mechanisms of soy isoflavones in breast cancer.
Airborne differential SAR interferometry: first results at L-band

In recent years, differential interferometry using spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors has become an established technique for detecting and monitoring centimetre-scale deformations of the Earth's surface, as well as glacier flows and landslides. Although often very efficient, the use of spaceborne SAR data has several drawbacks, namely phase artifacts caused by atmospheric effects and very low coherence due to long data acquisition intervals and the short radar wavelength of the sensor. Most important, current spaceborne sensors are not able to ensure flexible monitoring of critical regions. Airborne sensors may overcome most of the problems mentioned above, but up to now, the operational use of airborne differential SAR interferometry has been prevented by insufficiently accurate motion compensation of the platform. In this letter, first results of airborne differential interferometry using the German Aerospace Center (DLR) experimental SAR system (E-SAR) in the interferometric repeat-pass mode are addressed. This includes an analysis of long-term decorrelation behavior in L-band and, particularly, the correction of residual motion errors in heavily decorrelated interferograms. A first differential interferogram of agricultural and forested areas is presented and analyzed.
Use of mRNA- and protein-destabilizing elements to develop a highly responsive reporter system

Reporter assays are widely used in applications that require measurement of changes in gene expression over time (e.g. drug screening). With standard reporter vectors, the measurable effect of a treatment or compound (altered reporter activity) is substantially diluted and delayed, compared with its true effect (altered transcriptional activity). This problem is caused by the relatively long half-lives of both the reporter protein and its mRNA. As a result, the activities of compounds, ligands or treatments that have a relatively minor effect, or a substantial but transient effect, often remain undetected. To circumvent this problem, we introduced modular protein- and mRNA-destabilizing elements into a range of commonly used reporters. Our data show that both elements are required for maximal responses to both increases and decreases in transcriptional activity. The double-destabilized reporter vectors showed markedly improved performance in drug screening, kinetic assays and dose–response titrations.