Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intermolecular Forces and Enthalpies in the Adhesion of Streptococcus mutans and an Antigen I/II-Deficient Mutant to Laminin Films

ABSTRACT The antigen I/II family of surface proteins is expressed by most oral streptococci, including Streptococcus mutans, and mediates specific adhesion to, among other things, salivary films and extracellular matrix proteins. In this study we showed that antigen I/II-deficient S. mutans isogenic mutant IB03987 was nearly unable to adhere to laminin films under flow conditions due to a lack of specific interactions (0.8 × 106 and 1.1 × 106 cells cm−2 at pH 5.8 and 6.8, respectively) compared with parent strain LT11 (21.8 × 106 and 26.1 × 106 cells cm−2). The adhesion of both the parent and mutant strains was slightly greater at pH 6.8 than at pH 5.8. In addition, atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments demonstrated that the parent strain experienced less repulsion when it approached a laminin film than the mutant experienced. Upon retraction, combined specific and nonspecific adhesion forces were stronger for the parent strain (up to −5.0 and −4.9 nN at pH 5.8 and 6.8, respectively) than for the mutant (up to −1.5 and −2.1 nN), which was able to interact only through nonspecific interactions. Enthalpy was released upon adsorption of laminin to the surface of the parent strain but not upon adsorption of laminin to the surface of IB03987. A comparison of the adhesion forces in AFM with the adhesion forces reported for specific ligand-receptor complexes resulted in the conclusion that the number of antigen I/II binding sites for laminin on S. mutans LT11 is on the order of 6 × 104 sites per organism and that the sites are probably arranged along exterior surface structures, as visualized here by immunoelectron microscopy.
Assessment of Left Ventricular Pre-Ejection Period in the Fetus Using Simultaneous Magnetocardiography and Echocardiography

Introduction: Fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) is a promising new technique for assessing fetal rhythm; however, no prior studies have utilized fMCG to evaluate human fetal electromechanical physiology. Pre-ejection period (PEP) is an important measure of the electromechanical activation of the heart, and is altered by disease states and arrhythmias. Materials and Methods: A novel technique was used to assess fetal PEP and its relationship to other fetal systolic time intervals, RR interval, and gestational age (GA). 25 normal human fetuses between 19 and 38 weeks’ gestation were studied using simultaneous pulsed Doppler ultrasound and fMCG. Correlations among PEP, ejection time, QRS width and RR interval were assessed using linear regression. Results: Across all subjects, PEP was found to correlate with GA (R = 0.57, p < 0.0001), QRS width (R = 0.35, p = 0.026), and RR interval (R = 0.37, p = 0.018). In individual sessions, PEP negatively correlated beat-to-beat with the preceding RR interval. Conclusion: PEP exhibits developmental trends that provide a better understanding of the normal development of the human fetal heart.
Scalable estimation of precision maps in a MapReduce framework

This paper presents a large-scale strip adjustment method for LiDAR mobile mapping data, yielding highly precise maps. It uses several concepts to achieve scalability. First, an efficient graph-based pre-segmentation is used, which directly operates on LiDAR scan strip data, rather than on point clouds. Second, observation equations are obtained from a dense matching, which is formulated in terms of an estimation of a latent map. As a result of this formulation, the number of observation equations is not quadratic, but rather linear in the number of scan strips. Third, the dynamic Bayes network, which results from all observation and condition equations, is partitioned into two sub-networks. Consequently, the estimation matrices for all position and orientation corrections are linear instead of quadratic in the number of unknowns and can be solved very efficiently using an alternating least squares approach. It is shown how this approach can be mapped to a standard key/value MapReduce implementation, where each of the processing nodes operates independently on small chunks of data, leading to essentially linear scalability. Results are demonstrated for a dataset of one billion measured LiDAR points and 278,000 unknowns, leading to maps with a precision of a few millimeters.
Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Anterior Chamber-Associated Immune Deviation (ACAID): What We Have Learned from Knockout Mice

Anterior chamber-associated immune deviation (ACAID) is a well-known phenomenon that can occur after an antigen is introduced without any danger signal into the anterior chamber of a murine eye. It is reported to lead to an antigen-specific immune deviation throughout the body. Despite the relatively little evidence of this phenomenon in humans, it has been suggested as a potential prophylactic strategy in allograft rejections and in several autoimmune diseases. Cellular and molecular mechanisms of ACAID have been explored in different murine models mainly as proofs of concept, first by direct analyses of immune components in normal immunocompetent settings and by cell transfer experiments. Later, use of knockout (KO) mice has helped considerably to decipher ACAID mechanisms. However, several factors raise questions about the reliability and validity of studies using KO murine models. This mini-review summarizes results obtained with KO mice and discusses their advantages, their potential weaknesses, and their potential methods for further progress.
Adhesion of human lung mast cells to bronchial epithelium: evidence for a novel carbohydrate‐mediated mechanism

Mast cells contribute to the pathophysiology of asthma through their immunomediator‐secretory activity in response to both immunological and nonimmunological stimuli, and infiltrate the bronchial epithelium in this disease. We hypothesized that human lung mast cells (HLMC) localize to the bronchial epithelium via a specific cell‐cell adhesion mechanism. We investigated the adhesion of HLMC to primary bronchial epithelial cells and the bronchial epithelial cell line BEAS‐2B. HLMC adhered avidly to both primary cultures of bronchial epithelial cells and BEAS‐2B cells (mean adhesion 68.4 and 60.1%, respectively) compared with eosinophil adhesion to BEAS‐2B (mean adhesion 10.3%). HLMC adhesion did not alter after epithelial activation with cytokines, did not require Ca2+, and was not integrin‐mediated. IgE‐dependent activation of HLMC produced an approximately 40% inhibition of adhesion. There was significant attenuation of adhesion after incubation of HLMC with pronase, β‐galactosidase, and endo‐α‐N‐acetylgalactosaminidase, indicating that HLMC adhere to bronchial epithelial cells via galactose‐bearing carbohydrates expressed on a cell‐surface peptide(s).
Automatic Generation of Metadata for Learning Objects

Proper reuse of learning objects depends both on the amount and quality of attached semantic metadata such as "learning objective'", "related concept", etc. Manually expressing such metadata is a time consuming and expensive task. Here we present an approach based on a probabilistic model, which through the automatic classification of learning resources on a given taxonomic organization of the knowledge, allows to associate ontological metadata to the learning resources
Immunoaffinity clean-up and direct fluorescence measurement of aflatoxins B1 and M1 in pig liver: Comparison with high-performance liquid chromatography determination

An improved analytical method for aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) determination in pig liver is described, using an aqueous methanol extraction, an immunoaffinity column clean-up step and a direct fluorometric measurement for toxin detection and quantification. A detection limit of 1.0 µg kg−1 was achieved for AFB1 and AFM1. Mean recoveries of 80.7 ± 9.0% for AFB1 spiked at 1.0–9.7 µg kg−1 levels and of 76.7 ± 6.6% for AFM1 spiked at 1.0–5.5 µg kg−1 levels were obtained. Recovery data for spiked samples were statistically compared with those obtained by the same extract using classical reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) with fluorescence detection, showing a significant correlation (p ≤ 0.05) for both aflatoxins. Both procedures were applied to the analysis of 50 pig livers, collected from 10 farms in the north of Italy. All the samples showed a contamination level lower than 1.0 µg kg−1 for AFB1 and one liver sample has shown an AFM1 contamination greater than 1.0 µg kg−1. The direct fluorometric procedure is particularly suitable for food manufacturers and control laboratories where quick procedures are mainly required for food quality control as well as for diagnostic and research purposes.
A thermal-aware task mapping flow for coarse-grain dynamic reconfigurable processor

this paper presents a task level mapping flow for coarse-grained dynamic reconfigurable array processor based on static thermal-aware mapping techniques. The flow is composed of front-end SUIF tool, temporal partitioning algorithm, thermal aware sub-graph mapping algorithms and back-end RAM compiler to compile HLL task into binary code for the processor automatically. Using compact thermal model, the temperature distribution of each task sub-graph on reconfigurable RC array is pre-estimated statically. The runtime sequence of all task sub-graphs is generated ultimately with the random searching algorithm to balance the reconfigurable array's temperature. Experimental results show that the average maximum temperature and temperature distribution range can be reduced about 6.3°C and 12°C, respectively.
UL31 and UL34 Proteins of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Form a Complex That Accumulates at the Nuclear Rim and Is Required for Envelopment of Nucleocapsids

ABSTRACT The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) UL34 protein is likely a type II membrane protein that localizes within the nuclear membrane and is required for efficient envelopment of progeny virions at the nuclear envelope, whereas the UL31 gene product of HSV-1 is a nuclear matrix-associated phosphoprotein previously shown to interact with UL34 protein in HSV-1-infected cell lysates. For these studies, polyclonal antisera directed against purified fusion proteins containing UL31 protein fused to glutathione-S-transferase (UL31-GST) and UL34 protein fused to GST (UL34-GST) were demonstrated to specifically recognize the UL31 and UL34 proteins of approximately 34,000 and 30,000 Da, respectively. The UL31 and UL34 gene products colocalized in a smooth pattern throughout the nuclear rim of infected cells by 10 h postinfection. UL34 protein also accumulated in pleiomorphic cytoplasmic structures at early times and associated with an altered nuclear envelope late in infection. Localization of UL31 protein at the nuclear rim required the presence of UL34 protein, inasmuch as cells infected with a UL34 null mutant virus contained UL31 protein primarily in central intranuclear domains separate from the nuclear rim, and to a lesser extent in the cytoplasm. Conversely, localization of UL34 protein exclusively at the nuclear rim required the presence of the UL31 gene product, inasmuch as UL34 protein was detectable at the nuclear rim, in replication compartments, and in the cytoplasm of cells infected with a UL31 null virus. When transiently expressed in the absence of other viral factors, UL31 protein localized diffusely in the nucleoplasm, whereas UL34 protein localized primarily in the cytoplasm and at the nuclear rim. In contrast, coexpression of the UL31 and UL34 proteins was sufficient to target both proteins exclusively to the nuclear rim. The proteins were also shown to directly interact in vitro in the absence of other viral proteins. In cells infected with a virus lacking the US3-encoded protein kinase, previously shown to phosphorylate the UL34 gene product, UL31 and UL34 proteins colocalized in small punctate areas that accumulated on the nuclear rim. Thus, US3 kinase is required for even distribution of UL31 and UL34 proteins throughout the nuclear rim. Taken together with the similar phenotypes of the UL31 and UL34 deletion mutants, these data strongly suggest that the UL31 and UL34 proteins form a complex that accumulates at the nuclear membrane and plays an important role in nucleocapsid envelopment at the inner nuclear membrane.
Relationship between Myocardial Fiber Direction and Segment Shortening in the Midwall of the Canine Left Ventricle

Myocardial fiber orientation undergoes an orderly transition from the epicardium to the endocardium in the left ventricle, with circumferential fibers predominating in the middle one-third of the heart wall. How fibers lying at different depths in the myocardium, running in different directions, interact to produce local deformation is not known. To define the relationship between the orientation of uniaxial myocardial fibers and local wall motion, we placed three sets of ultrasonic dimension gauges in the middle one-third of the apex-to-base distance of the left ventricle of nine dogs. One pair was placed in line and two intentionally out of line with the presumed local fiber direction. The relative angle between the gauge and the local myofibers was determined by the use of postmortem radiography and histological techniques. Our results show that in the midwall of the left ventricle, myocardial segment shortening is maximal in the direction of local fibers; the shortening measured by gauges placed out of line with the local fiber axis by more than 30° was significantly less than the actual in-line fiber shortening which occurred. This suggests that functional tethering between midwall fibers and endocardial or epicardial fibers does not play a major role in the pattern of midwall deformation. We also documented that an external reference line can be used to predict midwall myofiber direction. Using this line as a guide, ultrasonic dimension gauges could be placed within an average of 12° (range: 0.5 to 18.5°) from the local fiber axis.
Two-stage flow shop with a batch processor and limited buffer

This paper addresses a two-stage flow shop scheduling problem with a batch processor followed by a discrete processor. Jobs are grouped in incompatible job families, and the buffer between the two machines is limited. The batch processor will be blocked until there is a free unit in the buffer. The objective is to determine a schedule such that the total completion time is minimized. We propose a mixed integer linear programming model and two lower bounds for this problem. A hybrid algorithm together with the worst-case analyses is also developed. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a competitive performance on the large-scale problems.
Avoiding Crosstalk Influence on Interconnect Delay Fault Testing

A method for reliable measurement of interconnect delays is presented in the paper. The mode of test vectors generation never induces crosstalks. That is why the delay measurement is reliable. Also, minimization of ground bounce noises and reduction of power consumption during the test is an additional advantage. The presented method allows also localizing and identifying static faults of both stuck-at (SaX) and short types. The paper deals with the hardware that is necessary for implementing the method.
Examining Cooperation in Visual Dialog Models

In this work we propose a blackbox intervention method for visual dialog models, with the aim of assessing the contribution of individual linguistic or visual components. Concretely, we conduct structured or randomized interventions that aim to impair an individual component of the model, and observe changes in task performance. We reproduce a state-of-the-art visual dialog model and demonstrate that our methodology yields surprising insights, namely that both dialog and image information have minimal contributions to task performance. The intervention method presented here can be applied as a sanity check for the strength and robustness of each component in visual dialog systems.
Satellite remote sensing image super resolution based on markov random fields

This paper studies satellite remote sensing image super resolution that employs image processing techniques to reconstruct the high-resolution image from a set of low-resolution observations of the same scene. A heuristic approach for maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of desired high-resolution image based on markov random fields (MRF) is presented. Under the posteriori distribution deduced by Bayesian criterion, the reconstruction image is derived by finding the global optimized estimation with the simulated annealing (SA) optimization mechanism. In the experiments, the proposed method is evaluated in a simulated framework that the estimate images are compared with the reference one using Normalized Mean Square Error (NMSE) criterion. The results quantitatively indicate the super performance of super resolution reconstruction and noise robustness obtained by our approach in comparison with the Cubic interpolation.
A Cost Effective Built-in-Self Test for Second Order Sigma Delta Modulator

Testing of high resolution second order sigma delta (ΣΔ) modulator is a very expensive process. With the advanced technology, where the complexity over a small area is increasing, then testing at low cost with good accuracy is becoming a tedious issue for the manufacturing process. The cost effectiveness can be calculated on the basis of different parameters of the ΣΔ modulator such as SNDR, ENOB, Gain, Offset, THD, SNR etc. Testing time also play an important role in the cost effectiveness of the modulator. The Built-in-self-test (BIST) allows the machine or circuit to test itself. BIST is desirable for the VLSI system in order to reduce the cost per chip of production –time testing by the manufacture, it can also provide the means to perform in-the field diagnostic. Therefore, this paper will demonstrate a possibility to simplify modeling and simulation of testing strategy of high-resolution ΣΔ modulator using MATLAB SIMULINK environment. Here, we are finding the cost effectiveness on the basis of Signal to Noise Distortion Ratio (SNDR) for the ΣΔ modulator BIST. A ΣΔ modulation based signal generator is considered which can produce analog sinusoidal test stimuli and digital reference signal on chip. By comparing the ADC output with that of the generator reference signal, the parameter can be determined on chip based on the standard equations in the proposed simulation environment.
Power Preserving 2:1 Bandwidth Reduction Mappings

In this work we consider dimension reducing mappings that can be used for joint source-channel coding (JSCC) systems. In such systems, the source coding and the channel coding is performed as a single operation. Although it is known by Shannon's separation theorem that asymptotically JSCC is not required for attaining the optimal performance, utilizing such schemes is beneficial for practical reasons such as delay and implementation simplicity. We specifically focus on the bandwidth reduction case, where the bandwidth of the data is greater than the bandwidth of the channel. More specifically, we focus on bandwidth reduction mappings, where the JSCC operation is performed using a single nonlinear operation. A modification of the spiral mapping is presented, so the power at the output is proportional to that of the input
Finding physiological responses in vestibular evoked potentials

Vestibular prostheses are regarded as a promising tool to restore lost sensation in patients with vestibular disorders. These prostheses often electrically stimulate the vestibular nerve and stimulation efficacy is evaluated by measuring the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). However, eye movement recording as intuitive metric of vestibular functionality is difficult to obtain outside the laboratory environment, and hence not available as an error signal in a closed-loop prosthesis. Recently we investigated vestibular evoked potentials (VEPs) by stimulating and recording in the same semicircular canal of a guinea pig. Here we studied the correlation between VOR and one region of VEP. We further analyzed a second portion of VEP, where vestibular nerve activity should occur using rectified bin integration (RBI). To this end, stimulation artifact was significantly reduced by hardware and software approaches. We found a high VEP-VOR correlation (R-squared=0.86), suggesting that VEP could substitute VOR as metric of vestibular function. Differences between below and above vestibular threshold stimulation were seen for the second portion of VEP. Further investigations are required to determine the specific parts of VEP that accurately represents vestibular function(s).
Early Telomere Shortening and Genomic Instability in Tubo-Ovarian Preneoplastic Lesions—Response

Telomere length shortening appears to be one of the earliest in the initiation of epithelial carcinogenesis. It may lead to further activation of the DNA damage cellular response pathways. For instance, telomere instability occurs in most cases of early and preinvasive stage of bladder, prostate, cervix, colon, esophageal, or breast cancer (1, 2). In our study (1), preneoplastic lesions (especially serous tubal intraepithelial carcinomaor STIC)have showed the shortest telomeres, in agreement with the results of Kuhn and colleagues (3). To investigate whether age interacted with telomere length evaluation in our study, we compared the average age in different groups. The average agewas strictly the same (50.8 years) in control and dysplasia groups (P1⁄4 0.95, NS), whereas themean telomere lengthwas significantly lower in dysplasia patients than in controls, 0.63 versus 1.76 respectively (P<10 ). In the sameway, the average ageof patients was not different in STIC and cancer groups (59.5 vs. 61 years; P 1⁄4 0.62, NS), but the telomere length was much shorter in STIC group than in cancer group, 0.24 versus 1.02 (P < 10 ). Thus, it seems unlikely that age had any impact on differences in telomere length found in our study. Unfortunately, we do not have the BRCA status of cancer group. Of note, telomere length in our study was measured in ovarian or tubal tissue and not in a surrogate tissue as in the study by Martinez-Delgado and colleagues (4) who found shorter telomeres in blood leukocytes of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers among the patients with ovarian cancer. In our study, the relative increase in telomere length in cancer cases compared with dysplasia cases can be most likely explained by the reactivation of telomerase in cancer cells, which leads to an increase in telomere length by regenerating telomeric DNA. This effect cannot be seen in nontumor tissues like normal peripheral blood cells. The effect of telomerase is direct and probably stronger than the impact of BRCA1/2 status on telomere length.
Effect of Compressive Strain on Electrical Resistivity of Carbon Nanotube Cement-Based Composites

Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) fiber reinforced cement-based composites (MWFRC) with 0.1 wt. % and 0.5 wt. % weight concentration of MWCNT (wcM)were prepared, associated with the reference. The electrical resistances and compressive strains of these cured nanocomposites under cyclic uploading/unloading were real-time collected, to explore their stress/strain-sensitive properties. Results reveal as follows, there is no self-sensing trait for the reference, but exists good piezoresisitivity and high strain sensitivity (above 110) for MWFRC; the fractional change in resistivity (Δρ) regularly descends or ascends following the compressive stress, or the longitudinal strain of MWFRC; the resistance caused by pore electrolyte polarization has obvious impact on the time-stability of the Δρ trendline of MWFRC with 0.1 wt. % wcM, similar to the reference, but negligible effect on that of MWFRC with 0.5 wt. % wcM.