Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oxide ceramics under extreme pressure and radiation conditions

This experimental study tackles the question how oxide ceramics (ZrO$_2$ and HfO$_2$) respond to the simultaneous exposure to two extreme conditions, pressures up to several ten GPa and irradiation with highly energetic (MeV-GeV) heavy ion projectiles. The combination of these two extreme conditions influences the materials in ways none of those two conditions alone could. \\ In both materials, the exposure to high-fluence irradiations at ambient pressure result in a crystalline-to-crystalline phase transformation from the monoclinic into the first high temperature tetragonal phase. For heavy ions such as Xe, Au, Pb, and U this structural change requires a double impact process. For light ions such as Ni and Cr, the transferred energy does not suffice to induce any transformation indicating an energy loss threshold in ZrO$_2$ as well as in HfO$_2$. If the irradiation is performed under high pressure, the monoclinic-to-tetragonal transformation occurs already at a fluence that is more than one order of magnitude lower, suggesting a single-hit process. Although the ZrO$_2$ and HfO$_2$ behave much alike as no two other compound materials, their response to the combination of pressure and ion irradiation differs. X-ray diffraction analysis of the irradiated, pressurized samples and Raman and TEM measurements at ambient conditions revealed that the monoclinic-to-tetragonal transformation in ZrO$_2$ around 10 GPa is not direct but includes a detour into the cubic high-temperature phase, before the tetragonal structure becomes stable under decompression. For HfO$_2$, high fluence irradiation at 10 GPa results in the intensification of the first high pressure phase which is afterwards stabilized to ambient conditions. At higher pressures, additional ion irradiation forces both ceramics to perform a transition into their second high pressure phase (orthorhombic-II) far away from its stability field. This study demonstrates that the combination of ion irradiation and high pressure can serve as a trigger for transitions into different phases and as stabilization mechanism of usually unstable structures.
Sprague-Dawley Rats Obtained from Different Vendors Exhibit Distinct Adrenocorticotropin Responses to Inflammatory Stimuli

The purpose of this work was to compare the plasma adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), corticosterone and interleukin-6 (IL-6) responses that rats of the outbred Sprague-Dawley strain obtained from two different vendors: Charles River (CR) and Harlan (HSD). Basal plasma ACTH and IL-6 concentrations were similar in rats from either vendor (HSD or CR), while CR animals exhibited slightly elevated corticosterone levels in late afternoon. Inflammatory stimuli such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (1 µg/kg, i.v.) or turpentine (50 µl/100 g, i.m.) which induce the production of endogenous cytokines, produced a significantly larger ACTH response in CR, compared to HSD rats, while the overall corticosterone responses were comparable in both rat groups. This could probably not be accounted for by a greater ACTH responsiveness in CR rats per se because CR and HSD rats showed similar peak ACTH responses to electrofootshock. Furthermore, in contrast to when the stimulus was one that induced endogenous cytokine production, the administration of exogenous interleukin-1β (IL-1β, 200 ng/kg, i.v.) produced a 2-fold greater rise in plasma ACTH concentrations in HSD rats compared to CR rats. The plasma IL-6 responses to the inflammatory stimuli showed a similar pattern to ACTH, with LPS and turpentine tending to pruduce greater IL-6 responses in CR rats, though these differences were not statistically significant. In contrast HSD rats had a significantly greater IL-6 response to IL-1β than did CR rats. Collectively, these results show that Sprague-Dawley rats obtained from different commercial sources can differ in immune-neuroendocrine responses to inflammatory stimuli.
Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles, Types, Properties and Applications

Handbook Of Industrial Refractories Technology Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology COVID-19 Update: We are currently shipping orders daily. However, due to transit disruptions in some geographies, deliveries may be delayed. To provide all customers with timely access to content, we are offering 50% off Science and Technology Print & eBook bundle options. Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology 1st Edition Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles, Types, Properties and Applications [Caniglia, Stephen, Barna, Gordon L. ] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles, Types, Properties and Applications Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles . Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles, Types, Properties and Applications available in Hardcover, NOOK Book. Read an excerpt of this book! Add to Wishlist. ISBN-10: 0815513046 ISBN-13: 9780815513049 Pub. Date: 12/01/1992 Publisher: Elsevier Science. Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles, Types . Handbook of Industrial Refractories Technology: Principles . Handbook of industrial refractories technology : principles, types, properties and applications Stephen C Carniglia , Gordon L Barna This book covers the range of industrial refractory materials and forms: properties and their measurement, applications, manufacturing, installation and maintenance techniques, quality assurance and statistical process control. Handbook of industrial refractories technology . William Andrew, 1992. — 650 p.Encompasses the entire range of industrial refractory materials and forms: properties and their measurement, applications, manufacturing, installation and maintenance techniques, quality assurance, and statistical process control.
Confounding effect of large vessels on MR perfusion images analyzed with independent component analysis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE First pass contrast-enhanced MR imaging using gradient-echo acquisitions is commonly used to assess cerebral blood flow, despite the confounding signal from large blood vessels. We hypothesized that removal of this unwanted intravascular signal using independent component analysis would result in a more accurate depiction of cerebral blood flow. METHODS Images of 11 patients, acquired with our acute stroke imaging protocol, were post processed to produce images of relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF). The same images were processed with independent component analysis to identify and remove the signal from large blood vessels, with a second set of rCBF images produced. Both sets of rCBF maps were pooled, randomized in order, and read in a blinded fashion by two neuroradiologists to assess the level of large artery artifact and overall image quality. Significance was determined using a Wilcoxon signed rank test. RESULTS Results from both readers indicated that the level of large artery artifact was significantly reduced in the images processed using independent component analysis component removal (P <.05). In addition, both readers indicated significantly (P <.05) improved image quality of the images processed using independent component analysis. CONCLUSION The removal of the signal resulting from large blood vessels before calculation of rCBF resulted in images with significantly less artifact and higher image quality.
Human Neural Stem Cells Differentiate and Promote Locomotor Recovery in an Early Chronic Spinal coRd Injury NOD-scid Mouse Model

Background Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) results in partial or complete paralysis and is characterized by a loss of neurons and oligodendrocytes, axonal injury, and demyelination/dysmyelination of spared axons. Approximately 1,250,000 individuals have chronic SCI in the U.S.; therefore treatment in the chronic stages is highly clinically relevant. Human neural stem cells (hCNS-SCns) were prospectively isolated based on fluorescence-activated cell sorting for a CD133+ and CD24−/lo population from fetal brain, grown as neurospheres, and lineage restricted to generate neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. hCNS-SCns have recently been transplanted sub-acutely following spinal cord injury and found to promote improved locomotor recovery. We tested the ability of hCNS-SCns transplanted 30 days post SCI to survive, differentiate, migrate, and promote improved locomotor recovery. Methods and Findings hCNS-SCns were transplanted into immunodeficient NOD-scid mice 30 days post spinal cord contusion injury. hCNS-SCns transplanted mice demonstrated significantly improved locomotor recovery compared to vehicle controls using open field locomotor testing and CatWalk gait analysis. Transplanted hCNS-SCns exhibited long-term engraftment, migration, limited proliferation, and differentiation predominantly to oligodendrocytes and neurons. Astrocytic differentiation was rare and mice did not exhibit mechanical allodynia. Furthermore, differentiated hCNS-SCns integrated with the host as demonstrated by co-localization of human cytoplasm with discrete staining for the paranodal marker contactin-associated protein. Conclusions The results suggest that hCNS-SCns are capable of surviving, differentiating, and promoting improved locomotor recovery when transplanted into an early chronic injury microenvironment. These data suggest that hCNS-SCns transplantation has efficacy in an early chronic SCI setting and thus expands the “window of opportunity” for intervention.
Johnny and Jane: Analyzing Secure Email Using Two Novice Users

This paper presents the results of a novel approach for conducting a laboratory user study of secure email. All prior laboratory studies involve a single novice user that communicates with an expert study coordinator to complete study tasks. In our study, we recruit a pair of novice users to come in together and attempt to exchange secure email messages. The users are instructed to send information securely, pointed at a tool to use, and given no special training or instructions other than what the tool provides. This approach more accurately simulates the grassroots adoption that is necessary for secure email to spread. We present both quantitative and qualitative results of these pairs of novice users as they experience three kinds of secure email systems: integrated (Pwm), depot (Tutanota), and an integrated-depot hybrid (Virtru).
DBI with primordial magnetic field in the sky

In this paper, we study the generation of a large scale magnetic field with amplitude of order μG in an inflationary model which has been introduced in [1]. This inflationary model based on existence of a speed limit for inflaton field. Generating a mass for inflaton at scale above the IR, breaks the conformal triviality of the Maxwell equation and causes to originate a magnetic field during the inflation. The amplitude strongly depends on the details of reheating stage and also depends on the e-foldings parameter N. We find the amplitude of the primordial magnetic field at decoupling time in this inflationary background using late time behavior of the theory.
Attributed Graph Mining and Matching: An Attempt to Define and Extract Soft Attributed Patterns

Graph matching and graph mining are two typical areas in artificial intelligence. In this paper, we define the soft attributed pattern (SAP) to describe the common subgraph pattern among a set of attributed relational graphs (ARGs), considering both the graphical structure and graph attributes. We propose a direct solution to extract the SAP with the maximal graph size without node enumeration. Given an initial graph template and a number of ARGs, we modify the graph template into the maximal SAP among the ARGs in an unsupervised fashion. The maximal SAP extraction is equivalent to learning a graphical model (i.e. an object model) from large ARGs (i.e. cluttered RGB/RGB-D images) for graph matching, which extends the concept of "unsupervised learning for graph matching. " Furthermore, this study can be also regarded as the first known approach to formulating "maximal graph mining" in the graph domain of ARGs. Our method exhibits superior performance on RGB and RGB-D images.
Toxic effects of Hoechst staining and UV irradiation on preimplantation development of parthenogenetically activated mouse oocytes

Summary Parthenogenetic activation of oocytes is a helpful tool to obtain blastocysts, of which the inner cell mass may be used for derivation of embryonic stem cells. In order to improve activation and embryonic development after parthenogenesis, we tried to use sperm injection and subsequent removal of the sperm head to mimic the natural Ca2+ increases by release of the oocyte activating factor. Visualization of the sperm could be accomplished by Hoechst staining and ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. To exclude negative effects of this treatment, we examined toxicity on activated mouse oocytes. After activation, oocytes were incubated in Hoechst 33342 or 33258 stain and exposed to UV irradiation. The effects on embryonic development were evaluated. Our results showed that both types of Hoechst combined with UV irradiation have toxic effects on parthenogenetically activated mouse oocytes. Although activation and cleavage rate were not affected, blastocyst formation was significantly reduced. Secondly, we used MitoTracker staining for removal of the sperm. Sperm heads were stained before injection and removed again after 1 h. However, staining was not visible anymore in all oocytes after intracytoplasmic sperm injection. In case the sperm could be removed, most oocytes died after 1 day. As MitoTracker was also not successful, alternative methods for sperm identification should be investigated.
Fluorescence and bright-field 3D image fusion based on sinogram unification for optical projection tomography

In order to preserve sufficient fluorescence intensity and improve the quality of fluorescence images in optical projection tomography (OPT) imaging, a feasible acquisition solution is to temporally formalize the fluorescence and bright-field imaging procedure as two consecutive phases. To be specific, fluorescence images are acquired first, in a full axial-view revolution, followed by the bright-field images. Due to the mechanical drift, this approach, however, may suffer from a deviation of center of rotation (COR) for the two imaging phases, resulting in irregular 3D image fusion, with which gene or protein activity may be located inaccurately. In this paper, we address this problem and consider it into a framework based on sinogram unification so as to precisely fuse 3D images from different channels for CORs between channels that are not coincident or if COR is not in the center of sinogram. The former case corresponds to the COR deviation above; while the latter one correlates with COR alignment, without which artefacts will be introduced in the reconstructed results. After sinogram unification, inverse radon transform can be implemented on each channel to reconstruct the 3D image. The fusion results are acquired by mapping the 3D images from different channels into a common space. Experimental results indicate that the proposed framework gains excellent performance in 3D image fusion from different channels. For the COR alignment, a new automated method based on interest point detection and included in sinogram unification, is presented. It outperforms traditional COR alignment approaches in combination of effectiveness and computational complexity.
acitation of mouse spermatozoa rrelation between the capacitation sta

Unlike sperm of many lower species, mammalian sperm do not possess the ability to fertilize an egg immediately upon ejaculation, although they are motile and appear to be morphologically mature. In vivo, ejaculated sperm require a finite period of residence in the female reproductive tract to become fertilization-competent. This time-dependent acquisition of fertilization competence has been defined as ‘capacitation’ by both Chang (1951, 1955) and Austin (1951, 1952). Capacitation in vitro has also been accomplished in a number of different species using cauda epididymal and/or ejaculated sperm under a variety of different incubation conditions. Historically, capacitation was originally defined as the time interval of sperm incubation (either in vivo or in vitro) that is required to bring about this final functional maturation of the sperm (Chang, 1984). This loose definition takes into account all of the heretofore poorly understood biochemical processes that ultimately regulate this event (reviewed by Yanagimachi, 1994). The definition of capacitation has also been modified over the years to include the acquisition of the ability of the acrosome-intact sperm to undergo the acrosome reaction in response to its interaction with the zona pellucida (ZP), the egg’s extracellular matrix (Ward and Storey, 1984; Florman and Babcock, 1991; Kopf and Gerton, 1991). Capacitation has been shown to be correlated with changes in sperm intracellular ion concentrations, plasma membrane fluidity, metabolism, and motility (Yanagimachi, 1994 and references therein). Although these changes have been known for many years to accompany the process of capacitation, the molecular basis underlying these events is poorly understood. Moreover, it is unclear which, if any, of these events is obligate for capacitation. It is clear that capacitation can be achieved in vitro in balanced salt solutions containing appropriate concentrations of electrolytes, metabolic energy 129 Developm Printed in
Design and Analysis of Classifier Learning Experiments in Bioinformatics: Survey and Case Studies

In many bioinformatics applications, it is important to assess and compare the performances of algorithms trained from data, to be able to draw conclusions unaffected by chance and are therefore significant. Both the design of such experiments and the analysis of the resulting data using statistical tests should be done carefully for the results to carry significance. In this paper, we first review the performance measures used in classification, the basics of experiment design and statistical tests. We then give the results of our survey over 1,500 papers published in the last two years in three bioinformatics journals (including this one). Although the basics of experiment design are well understood, such as resampling instead of using a single training set and the use of different performance metrics instead of error, only 21 percent of the papers use any statistical test for comparison. In the third part, we analyze four different scenarios which we encounter frequently in the bioinformatics literature, discussing the proper statistical methodology as well as showing an example case study for each. With the supplementary software, we hope that the guidelines we discuss will play an important role in future studies.
Partial Reconstruction of the Ergot Alkaloid Pathway by Heterologous Gene Expression in Aspergillus nidulans

Ergot alkaloids are pharmaceutically and agriculturally important secondary metabolites produced by several species of fungi. Ergot alkaloid pathways vary among different fungal lineages, but the pathway intermediate chanoclavine-I is evolutionarily conserved among ergot alkaloid producers. At least four genes, dmaW, easF, easE, and easC, are necessary for pathway steps prior to chanoclavine-I; however, the sufficiency of these genes for chanoclavine-I synthesis has not been established. A fragment of genomic DNA containing dmaW, easF, easE, and easC was amplified from the human-pathogenic, ergot alkaloid-producing fungus Aspergillus fumigatus and transformed into Aspergillus nidulans, a model fungus that does not contain any of the ergot alkaloid synthesis genes. HPLC and LC-MS analyses demonstrated that transformed A. nidulans strains produced chanoclavine-I and an earlier pathway intermediate. Aspergillus nidulans transformants containing dmaW, easF, and either easE or easC did not produce chanoclavine-I but did produce an early pathway intermediate and, in the case of the easC transformant, an additional ergot alkaloid-like compound. We conclude that dmaW, easF, easE, and easC are sufficient for the synthesis of chanoclavine-I in A. nidulans and expressing ergot alkaloid pathway genes in A. nidulans provides a novel approach to understanding the early steps in ergot alkaloid synthesis.
Development and Calibration of SMOS Reference Radiometer

Three flight models (FMs) of the reference radiometer of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission have been developed and tested. SMOS is a joint mission of the European Space Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales of France, and Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology of Spain. The reference radiometer is a noise injection radiometer (NIR); the NIR subsystem FM has been developed by Elektrobit Microwave, Ltd., in collaboration with the Laboratory of Space Technology of Helsinki University of Technology, which has acted as a subcontractor. The NIR subsystem will be integrated into the microwave imaging radiometer using aperture synthesis (MIRAS) payload in 2006. MIRAS will be the sole instrument onboard the SMOS satellite. MIRAS has 66 total power receiver units (light and cost-effective front end) and three NIR units. The purpose of the NIR subsystem is 1) to provide precise measurement of the average brightness temperature scene for absolute calibration of the MIRAS image map, 2) to measure the noise temperature level of the internal active calibration sources of MIRAS [referred to as the calibration subsystem (CAS)], and 3) to form interferometer baselines, so-called mixed baselines, with the regular receiver units. The performance of the NIR is a decisive factor of overall MIRAS performance. In this paper, we present the design solutions for the NIR FMs, which enable the achievement of the mission goals set for the NIR subsystem. The results of the NIR test campaign, proving that the performance and environmental requirements are fulfilled, are also presented, and the outcome of the ground calibration campaign is analyzed. Furthermore, the orbital calibration scheme is depicted; the calibration scheme enables the NIR to measure its targets with precision.