Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of dialysis and freezing on structural conformation, thermal properties and morphology of silk fibroin hydrogels

Silk fibroin has been widely explored for many biomedical applications, due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability. The aim of this work was to study the role of dialysis and freezing on structural conformation, thermal properties and morphology of silk fibroin hydrogels. Hydrogels were prepared after 3 and 7 days of dialysis and the effect of freezing was analyzed. For that purpose, a part of the fibroin hydrogels underwent freezing at -20 °C for 24 h, followed by lyophilization and the rest of the hydrogels were kept at 8 °C for 24 h, with further lyophilization. The fibroin hydrogels were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Measurements by XRD and FTIR indicated that silk I and silk II structures were present in the fibroin hydrogels and that the secondary structure of fibroin is transformed mostly to β-sheet during the gelation process. Thermal analysis indicated that fibroin hydrogels are thermally stable with the degradation peak at around 330–340 °C. SEM micrographs showed porous structures and the fibroin hydrogels subjected to freezing presented a much larger pore size. Results indicate that the dialysis time and freezing did not alter the material crystallinity, conformation or thermal behavior; however, hydrogel microstructure was strongly affected by dialysis time and freezing, showing controlled pores size. This study provides fundamental knowledge on silk fibroin hydrogels preparation and properties and the studied hydrogels are promising to be used in the biomaterial field.
Structural semantic interconnection: a knowledge-based approach to Word Sense Disambiguation

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is traditionally considered an AI-hard problem. A break-through in this field would have a significant impact on many relevant Web-based applications, such as Web information retrieval, improved access to Web services, information extraction, etc. Early approaches to WSD, based on knowledge representation techniques, have been replaced in the past few years by more robust machine learning and statistical techniques. The results of recent comparative evaluations of WSD systems, however, show that these methods have inherent limitations. On the other hand, the increasing availability of large-scale, rich lexical knowledge resources seems to provide new challenges to knowledge-based approaches. In this paper, we present a method, called structural semantic interconnections (SSI), which creates structural specifications of the possible senses for each word in a context and selects the best hypothesis according to a grammar G, describing relations between sense specifications. Sense specifications are created from several available lexical resources that we integrated in part manually, in part with the help of automatic procedures. The SSI algorithm has been applied to different semantic disambiguation problems, like automatic ontology population, disambiguation of sentences in generic texts, disambiguation of words in glossary definitions. Evaluation experiments have been performed on specific knowledge domains (e.g., tourism, computer networks, enterprise interoperability), as well as on standard disambiguation test sets.
Anti-cariogenic Properties of a Water-soluble Extract from Cacao

The addition of a water-soluble extract from cacao-extracted powder (CEPWS) to a cariogenic model food, a white chocolate-like diet that contains 35% sucrose, significantly reduced caries scores in SPF rats infected with Streptococcus sobrinus 6715, compared to control rats fed a white chocolate-like diet. CEPWS markedly inhibited water-insoluble glucan (WIG) synthesis through crude glucosyltransferases (GTFs) from Streptococcus sobrinus B13N in vitro. GTF-inhibitor(s) in CEPWS was prepared through three-step fractionation, and was termed CEPWS-BT, which is a high molecular weight (>10 kDa) heat-stable matrix of sugar, protein, and polyphenol. When the inhibitory effect of CEPWS-BT on glucan synthesis was examined using the purified GTF-I, GTF-T, and GTF-U enzymes from S. sobrinus B13N, significant reduction in GTF-I and GTF-T activity as a result of adding CEPWS-BT at low concentrations was observed. These results suggest that the addition of CEPWS to cariogenic food could be useful in controlling dental caries.
Class-based Visibility from an MDA Perspective: From Access Graphs to Eiffel Code

exporting mechanism. These mechanisms are often static and class-based, sometimes method-based, giving classes the status of both the client and service provider. They help in hiding implementation as well as capturing part of the domain rules on access rights. We explore solutions for introducing design and implementation of class-based access control from a Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) perspective. As UML proposes only language-dependent solutions for access control representation, we consider extending UML with access graphs, a formalism previously introduced for comparing and reasoning about static access rights. In this paper, we describe the integration of AGATE, a suite of access graph based tools dedicated to access control, in the MDA process. We focus on two access control design tools operating at the Platform-Independent Model (PIM) level: the Rule Adapter makes access graphs compliant with specific design rules while the Client Discovery Module adds new relevant classes expressing client organization. Mapping to a Platform-Specific Model (PSM) is illustrated with the Eiel Access Graph Adapter and rules for generating code from this PSM are presented.
How to use concept mapping to identify barriers and facilitators of an electronic quality improvement intervention

Systematic quality improvement (QI) interventions are increasingly used to change complex health care systems. Results of randomized clinical trials can provide quantitative evidence whether QI interventions were effective but they do not teach us why and how QI was (not) achieved. Qualitative research methods can answer these questions but typically involve only a small group of respondents against high resources. Concept mapping methodology overcomes these drawbacks by integrating results from qualitative group sessions with multivariate statistical analysis to represent ideas of diverse stakeholders visually on maps in an efficient way. This paper aims to describe how to use concept mapping to qualitatively gain insight into barriers and facilitators of an electronic QI intervention and presents experiences with the method from an ongoing case study to evaluate a QI system in the field of cardiac rehabilitation in the Netherlands.
Descriptor systems toolbox : a Mathematica-based package for descriptor systems

It is well known that descriptor systems or generalized state-space systems are the natural framework for the study of physical, electrical mechanical, interconnected, economical and social systems. Although a number of software packages has been developed for state-space systems, which is can be seen as special case of descriptor systems, there are only few for descriptor systems. In this paper we present an efficient and reliable Mathematica software package for descriptor systems that can be used both for teaching and research in the field of control theory. The proposed package is fully compatible with the Control Systems Professional Suite of Wolfram Research Inc. and is intended to be an add-on for the Control Systems Professional Suite in the near future. This package has been created in collaboration with Wolfram Research Inc. and Zenon S.A. under a grant from the General Secreteriat for Research and Technology of Greece.
Calibration of industrial robots with pneumatic gravity compensators

The paper is devoted to the stiffness modeling of heavy industrial robots with pneumatic gravity compensators. The main attention is paid to the identification of elastostatic parameters and calibration accuracy. To identify the desired set of parameters two-step identification procedure is developed. To reduce impact of the measurement errors, the set of manipulator configurations for calibration experiments is optimized with respect to the proposed performance measure related to the end-effector position accuracy. Advantages of the developed technique are illustrated by dedicated experimental study.
Reduced Hepatic Uptake and Intestinal Excretion of Organic Cations in Mice with a Targeted Disruption of the Organic Cation Transporter 1 (Oct1 [Slc22a1]) Gene

ABSTRACT The polyspecific organic cation transporter 1 (OCT1 [SLC22A1]) mediates facilitated transport of small (hydrophilic) organic cations. OCT1 is localized at the basolateral membrane of epithelial cells in the liver, kidney, and intestine and could therefore be involved in the elimination of endogenous amines and xenobiotics via these organs. To investigate the pharmacologic and physiologic role of this transport protein, we generated Oct1 knockout (Oct1−/−) mice.Oct1 −/− mice appeared to be viable, healthy, and fertile and displayed no obvious phenotypic abnormalities. The role of Oct1 in the pharmacology of substrate drugs was studied by comparing the distribution and excretion of the model substrate tetraethylammonium (TEA) after intravenous administration to wild-type and Oct1 −/− mice. InOct1 −/− mice, accumulation of TEA in liver was four to sixfold lower than in wild-type mice, whereas direct intestinal excretion of TEA was reduced about twofold. Excretion of TEA into urine over 1 h was 53% of the dose in wild-type mice, compared to 80% in knockout mice, probably because inOct1 −/− mice less TEA accumulates in the liver and thus more is available for rapid excretion by the kidney. In addition, we found that absence of Oct1 leads to decreased liver accumulation of the anticancer drug metaiodobenzylguanidine and the neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridium. In conclusion, our data show that Oct1 plays an important role in the uptake of organic cations into the liver and in their direct excretion into the lumen of the small intestine.
PROGRESSIVE: a topology discovery and scheduling protocol for wireless sensor networks

This paper presents PROGRESSIVE, a topology discovery and multihop scheduling protocol that progressively collect network connectivity information and schedules nodes which have an identified routing path(s) to the sink. PROGRESSIVE saves energy by limiting the time during which CSMA is used for control message transmissions. In addition, it achieves full network scheduling in a short period of time hence, PROGRESSIVE is an efficient protocol for mission critical applications that require real time scheduling setup phase. The performance of PROGRESSIVE is compared to DRAND based on simulations in ns-2.
Information creation on online drug forums: How drug use becomes moral on the margins of science

Potential users of grey-market substances seek out internet drug websites to gather legal high information. However, where previous researchers have investigated drug wikis as sources of drug information, few have looked into the drug forums where an abundance of legal-high information is created. Knowledge is produced on internet drug forums through social processes of drug information sharing and relating personal experiences. These knowledge production efforts are a response to internet drug forum members’ perceived need to objectively understand a drug’s behavior. This community perspective, therefore, shapes online drug forum information sharing into a marginal form of citizen science – one that does not incorporate scientist oversight or directly engage with institutional science. The article argues that drug use becomes a social ritual whereby the sharing of drug information is an ethical practice. Additionally, because first-hand experience is needed to create drug information on new substances, a moral undertone is imposed onto drug experimentation.
Decaying Mouse Volatiles Perceived by Calliphora vicina Rob.‐Desv.

Volatiles emitted by decaying human remains are in the focus of recent research. The identification of core volatiles in this field is of high importance, because cadaveric volatiles generally show high variation. In this study, the volatile profiles of five mice (Myodes glareolus) were sampled with charcoal filter tubes from their time of death until advanced decay. Eleven compounds were quantitated by means of gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Electroantennographic experiments with female Calliphora vicina antennae led to the identification of dimethyl trisulfide, dimethyl disulfide, nonanal, hexan‐1‐ol, 1‐octen‐3‐ol, 3‐methylbutan‐1‐ol, and heptanal as electrophysiologically active compounds. When these were compared, dimethyl trisulfide (17 ng/μL) and dimethyl disulfide (11 ng/μL) were found to be emitted in higher concentrations. The roles of these compounds and nonanal as core volatiles for cadaver detection or postmortem time determination and their correlation to the stages of decay and the accumulated degree days are discussed.
Oligomerization and Trafficking of the Human Dopamine Transporter

The dopamine transporter (DAT) is a presynaptic plasma membrane protein responsible for the termination of dopaminergic neurotransmission in the central nervous system. While most studies have focused on structure/function analysis, much less information is available regarding the assembly and the trafficking of this protein. To address this problem, we performed a mutational analysis of the DAT protein, combined with biochemical, immunological, and functional approaches. In mammalian cells co-expressing differentially tagged DAT molecules, HA-tagged DAT co-purified with 6His-tagged DAT demonstrating a physical interaction between transporter proteins. Evidence for the functional oligomerization of DAT was obtained using dominant-negative mutants of DAT. Two loss-of-function mutant transporters (Y335A and D79G) that were targeted to the cell surface inhibited wild-type DAT uptake activity without affecting the membrane targeting of the wild-type transporter. Moreover, non-functional amino and carboxyl termini-truncated mutants of DAT inhibited wild-type DAT function by interfering with the normal processing of the wild-type transporter to the cell membrane. Mutations in the leucine repeat of the second transmembrane domain of the transporter could eliminate the dominant-negative effect of all these mutants. In addition, a small fragment comprising the first two transmembrane domains of DAT inhibited wild-type transporter function but not when the leucine repeat motif was mutated. Taken together, our results suggest that the assembly of DAT monomers plays a critical role in the expression and function of the transporter.
Dual-band compact MIMO antenna for 3G, Wi-MAX and WLAN applications

This paper presents a compact MIMO antenna with dual band operation. S<sup>11</sup> < −9.5 dB is achieved over lower band of 2.576–3.728 GHz and upper band of 5.14–5.88 GHz which covers 2.572–2.62 GHz (3GPP), 2.6–2.69 and 3.3–3.7 GHz (4G Wi-Max) and 5.15–5.35, 5.725–5.875 GHz (WLAN) applications. Isolation techniques like ground slots and ground extension are used to achieve a S<inf>12</inf> < −20 dB in both the operating bands. The measured results of fabricated antenna structure match with the simulation results. MIMO performance parameter ECC in the lower band is < 0.02 and in higher band is < 0.04 with stable radiation pattern. The proposed antenna has dimension of 28×35×28×1.6 mm<sup>3</sup> which makes it feasible to be used within portable devices.
Trans‐Ethnic Meta‐Analysis Identifies Common and Rare Variants Associated with Hepatocyte Growth Factor Levels in the Multi‐Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a mesenchyme‐derived pleiotropic factor that regulates cell growth, motility, mitogenesis, and morphogenesis in a variety of cells, and increased serum levels of HGF have been linked to a number of clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease phenotypes. However, little is currently known regarding which genetic factors influence HGF levels, despite evidence of substantial genetic contributions to HGF variation. Based upon ethnicity‐stratified single‐variant association analysis and trans‐ethnic meta‐analysis of 6201 participants of the Multi‐Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), we discovered five statistically significant common and low‐frequency variants: HGF missense polymorphism rs5745687 (p.E299K) as well as four variants (rs16844364, rs4690098, rs114303452, rs3748034) within or in proximity to HGFAC. We also identified two significant ethnicity‐specific gene‐level associations (A1BG in African Americans; FASN in Chinese Americans) based upon low‐frequency/rare variants, while meta‐analysis of gene‐level results identified a significant association for HGFAC. However, identified single‐variant associations explained modest proportions of the total trait variation and were not significantly associated with coronary artery calcium or coronary heart disease. Our findings indicate that genetic factors influencing circulating HGF levels may be complex and ethnically diverse.
Complete Genome Sequences of Weissella cibaria Strains CMU, CMS1, CMS2, and CMS3 Isolated from Infant Saliva in South Korea

ABSTRACT Weissella cibaria strain CMU is used as a commercial oral care probiotic in South Korea. Here, we present the complete genome sequences of four W. cibaria strains (CMU, CMS1, CMS2, and CMS3) isolated from the saliva of an infant living in Gwangju, South Korea.
Real-time cache management framework for multi-core architectures

Multi-core architectures are shaking the fundamental assumption that in real-time systems the WCET, used to analyze the schedulability of the complete system, is calculated on individual tasks. This is not even true in an approximate sense in a modern multi-core chip, due to interference caused by hardware resource sharing. In this work we propose (1) a complete framework to analyze and profile task memory access patterns and (2) a novel kernel-level cache management technique to enforce an efficient and deterministic cache allocation of the most frequently accessed memory areas. In this way, we provide a powerful tool to address one of the main sources of interference in a system where the last level of cache is shared among two or more CPUs. The technique has been implemented on commercial hardware and our evaluations show that it can be used to significantly improve the predictability of a given set of critical tasks.
Caspase-2 Is Localized at the Golgi Complex and Cleaves Golgin-160 during Apoptosis

Caspases are an extended family of cysteine proteases that play critical roles in apoptosis. Animals deficient in caspases-2 or -3, which share very similar tetrapeptide cleavage specificities, exhibit very different phenotypes, suggesting that the unique features of individual caspases may account for distinct regulation and specialized functions. Recent studies demonstrate that unique apoptotic stimuli are transduced by distinct proteolytic pathways, with multiple components of the proteolytic machinery clustering at distinct subcellular sites. We demonstrate here that, in addition to its nuclear distribution, caspase-2 is localized to the Golgi complex, where it cleaves golgin-160 at a unique site not susceptible to cleavage by other caspases with very similar tetrapeptide specificities. Early cleavage at this site precedes cleavage at distal sites by other caspases. Prevention of cleavage at the unique caspase-2 site delays disintegration of the Golgi complex after delivery of a pro-apoptotic signal. We propose that the Golgi complex, like mitochondria, senses and integrates unique local conditions, and transduces pro-apoptotic signals through local caspases, which regulate local effectors.
SEVERE HOOF DISEASE IN FREE-RANGING ROOSEVELT ELK (CERVUS ELAPHUS ROOSEVELTI) IN SOUTHWESTERN WASHINGTON, USA

Abstract Reports of free-ranging Roosevelt elk (Cervus elaphus roosevelti) with abnormal hooves and lameness increased significantly in southwestern Washington, USA, during winter 2008. In March 2009 we examined five severely affected elk with clinical lameness from this region to characterize hoof lesions, examine the general health of affected elk, and potentially identify etiologies causing hoof disease. Three clinically normal elk from an adjacent but unaffected region were also collected as normal controls. Grossly, affected elk had deformed hooves that were asymmetrical, markedly elongated, and curved or broken, as well as hooves with sloughed horn. Most affected elk had severe sole ulcers with extensive laminar necrosis and pedal osteomyelitis. Histopathology of normal and abnormal hooves identified acute and chronic laminitis in all affected elk and one control elk. Hepatic copper and selenium levels in all affected and control elk were also deficient, and hoof keratin copper levels were low. No significant underlying systemic or musculoskeletal disease was detected in the affected elk, and attempts to isolate bacterial and viral pathogens were unsuccessful. A primary cause of hoof deformity was not definitively identified in this chronically affected group. Studies to identify infectious hoof disease and to characterize acute and subacute lesions are underway.
A SWRL Bridge to XACML for Clouds Privacy Compliant Policies

The management of privacy and personal information within multi-cultural domain such as clouds and other universal collaborative systems requires intrinsic compliance-checking and assurance modules in order to increase social trust and acceptance. Focusing mainly on medical domains, this issue is particularly important due to the sensitivity of health related data in international data protection law. The use of ontologies and semantic technologies can provide relatively easy interpretation of legislation at run time, and can allow the logging of data access events to serve for future audits. However, the enforcement of semantic web rules (SWRL rules) on complex and heterogeneous architectures is expensive and might present runtime overheads. We believe a mapping of our semantic web privacy policies to a standard access control language such as XACML would be a useful alternative. A translation to XACML, would allow the integration of these policies with existing security and privacy policies being adopted on clouds environments. This paper describes a mathematical formalism for mapping SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) privacy rules to XACML policies and also explains the underline implementation requirements of this formalism.
Prevention of Th2-mediated murine allergic airways disease by soluble antigen administration in the neonate.

It has been demonstrated recently that neonatal antigen administration in the mouse can lead to priming for Th2-mediated immune responses. This observation has important implications for the development of vaccination strategies in humans, particularly for individuals who may be predisposed to atopy or asthma. In this paper it is shown that although i.p. administration of antigen (100 microg) in adjuvant to the neonate does indeed prime for Th2-mediated disease in mice [allergic airways disease (AAD)], when the same relatively low dose of antigen is given in soluble form no priming occurs. Further, administration of a larger dose of soluble antigen (1 mg) actually prevents the ability to prime for a Th2 response subsequently and so prevents the induction of AAD. Protection from disease was associated with evidence of functional inactivation of both Th1 and Th2 ovalbumin-specific T cells. In contrast, administration of a very low dose of antigen (10 microg) primed for a Th2 response in a similar fashion to antigen in adjuvant. We suggest that the adjuvant lowers the "effective" dose of antigen administered in the neonate and thereby primes for Th2-type immune responses. These findings demonstrate that neonatal antigen administration can inhibit Th2-mediated diseases, such as AAD, but the dose of antigen may be critical to avoid predisposition to disease.