Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Doxorubicin-Induced Vascular Toxicity – Targeting Potential Pathways May Reduce Procoagulant Activity

Introduction Previous study in mice using real-time intravital imaging revealed an acute deleterious effect of doxorubicin (DXR) on the gonadal vasculature, as a prototype of an end-organ, manifested by a reduction in blood flow and disintegration of the vessel wall. We hypothesized that this pattern may represent the formation of microthrombi. We aimed to further characterize the effect of DXR on platelets’ activity and interaction with endothelial cells (EC) and to examine potential protectants to reduce DXR acute effect on the blood flow. Methods The effect of DXR on platelet adhesion and aggregation were studied in vitro. For in vivo studies, mice were injected with either low molecular weight heparin (LMWH; Enoxaparin) or with eptifibatide (Integrilin©) prior to DXR treatment. Testicular arterial blood flow was examined in real-time by pulse wave Doppler ultrasound. Results Platelet treatment with DXR did not affect platelet adhesion to a thrombogenic surface but significantly decreased ADP-induced platelet aggregation by up to 40% (p<0.001). However, there was a significant increase in GPIIbIIIa-mediated platelet adhesion to DXR-exposed endothelial cells (EC; 5.7-fold; p<0.001) reflecting the toxic effect of DXR on EC. The testicular arterial blood flow was preserved in mice pre-treated with LMWH or eptifibatide prior to DXR (P<0.01). Conclusions DXR-induced acute vascular toxicity may involve increased platelet–EC adhesion leading to EC-bound microthrombi formation resulting in compromised blood flow. Anti-platelet/anti-coagulant agents are effective in reducing the detrimental effect of DXR on the vasculature and thus may serve as potential protectants to lessen this critical toxicity.
Pathways of Lateral Spreading

In the case of topically applied substances, usually both lateral spreading and competitive penetration into the skin occur in parallel. In the present study, the pathways of lateral spreading were studied quantitatively and visually. The local distribution and lateral spreading of the UV filter substance butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane applied in an o/w emulsion was studied on the forearm and the back. The tape stripping procedure was used to determine the recovery rates inside and outside the area of application. The skin characteristics of transepidermal water loss, pH value, hydration of the stratum corneum and sebum rate were determined at both anatomic sites. Photography and laser scanning microscopy were used to visually investigate the lateral spreading of topically applied dyes. On the back, a preferred direction of lateral spreading parallel to the body axis was observed. This result was caused by differences in the network of furrows. The furrows functioned as a pathway for lateral spreading, whereas the follicles formed a reservoir for the topically applied substance.
Using the modification of diet in renal disease (MDRD) and Cockcroft and Gault equations to estimate glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in older people.

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Border Gateway Multicast Protocol (BGMP): Protocol Specification

This document describes the Border Gateway Multicast Protocol (BGMP), a protocol for inter-domain multicast routing. BGMP builds shared trees for active multicast groups, and optionally allows receiver domains to build source-specific, inter-domain, distribution branches where needed. BGMP natively supports "source-specific multicast" (SSM). To also support "any-source multicast" (ASM), BGMP requires that each multicast group be associated with a single root (in BGMP it is referred to as the root domain). It requires that different ranges of the multicast address space are associated (e.g., with Unicast- Prefix-Based Multicast addressing) with different domains. Each of these domains then becomes the root of the shared domain-trees for all groups in its range. Multicast participants will generally receive better multicast service if the session initiator's address allocator selects addresses from its own domain's part of the space, thereby causing the root domain to be local to at least one of the session participants. This memo provides information for the Internet community.
Polymer Modeling at The Dow Chemical Company

Abstract Polymer modeling plays a vital role in industrial product and process development. Polymer modeling is an integral component of the research and development paradigm at The Dow Chemical Company. The integrated multidisciplinary and multiscale modeling paradigm implemented at Dow is reviewed first in this article. Overviews are then provided of polymer modeling performed in the context of seven different Dow projects, namely: mechanical properties of thermoplastic polymers; polymer/clay nanocomposites; polyol templating; flow induced crystallization and polymer process modeling; polymer design via high‐throughput modeling; linear, branched, and/or network chain architectures; and water vapor transport in a polymer matrix composite.
Privacy Disclosure Checking Method Applied on Collaboration Interactions Among SaaS Services

As a new software paradigm, cloud computing provides services dynamically according to user requirements. However, it tends to disclose personal information due to collaborative computing and transparent interactions among software as a service (SaaS) services. We propose a private data disclosure checking method that can be applied to the collaboration interaction process. First, we describe the privacy requirement with ontology and description logic. Second, with dynamic description logic, we validate whether SaaS services are authorized to obtain a user’s privacy attributes, to prevent unauthorized services from obtaining their private data. Third, we monitor authorized SaaS services to guarantee privacy requirements. Therefore, we can prevent users’ private data from being used and propagated illegally. Finally, we propose privacy disclosure checking algorithms, and demonstrate their correctness and feasibility by experiments.
Advances in High Temperature Materials for Additive Manufacturing

In today’s technology, additive manufacturing has evolved over the year that commonly known as 3D printing. Currently, additive manufacturing have been applied for many industries such as for automotive, aerospace, medical and other commercial product. The technologies are supported by materials for the manufacturing process to produce high quality product. Plus, additive manufacturing technologies has been growth from the lowest to moderate and high technology to fulfil manufacturing industries obligation. Initially from simple 3D printing such as fused deposition modelling (FDM), poly-jet, inkjet printing, to selective laser sintering (SLS), and electron beam melting (EBM). However, the high technology of additive manufacturing nowadays really needs high investment to carry out the process for fine products. There are three foremost type of material which is polymer, metal and ceramic used for additive manufacturing application, and mostly they were in the form of wire feedstock or powder. In circumstance, it is crucial to recognize the characteristics of each type of materials used in order to understand the behaviours of the materials on high temperature application via additive manufacturing. Therefore, this review aims to provide excessive inquiry and gather the necessary information for further research on additive material materials for high temperature application. This paper also proposed a new material based on powder glass, which comes from recycled tempered glass from automotive industry, having a huge potential to be applied for high temperature application. The technique proposed for additive manufacturing will minimize some cost of modelling with same quality of products compare to the others advanced technology used for high temperature application.
Towards Interpretable Defect-Prone Component Analysis Using Genetic Fuzzy Systems

The problem of Software Reliability Prediction is attracting the attention of several researchers during the last few years. Various classification techniques are proposed in current literature which involve the use of metrics drawn from version control systems in order to classify software components as defect-prone or defect-free. In this paper, we create a novel genetic fuzzy rule-based system to efficiently model the defect-proneness of each component. The system uses a Mamdani-Assilian inference engine and models the problem as a one-class classification task. System rules are constructed using a genetic algorithm, where each chromosome represents a rule base (Pittsburgh approach). The parameters of our fuzzy system and the operators of the genetic algorithm are designed with regard to producing interpretable output. Thus, the output offers not only effective classification, but also a comprehensive set of rules that can be easily visualized to extract useful conclusions about the metrics of the software.
Encryption and the Loss of Patient Data

Fast-paced IT advances have made it increasingly possible and useful for firms to collect data on their customers on an unprecedented scale. One downside of this is that firms can experience negative publicity and financial damage if their data are breached. This is particularly the case in the medical sector, where we find empirical evidence that increased digitization of patient data is associated with more data breaches. The encryption of customer data is often presented as a potential solution, because encryption acts as a disincentive for potential malicious hackers, and can minimize the risk of breached data being put to malicious use. However, encryption both requires careful data management policies to be successful and does not ward off the insider threat. Indeed, we find no empirical evidence of a decrease in publicized instances of data loss associated with the use of encryption. Instead, there are actually increases in the cases of publicized data loss due to internal fraud or loss of computer equipment.
Application-aware admission control and scheduling in Web servers

This paper presents an architecture and algorithms for optimizing the performance of Web services. For a given service, session-based admission control is combined with stage-wise request queuing, where the stages represent sub-tasks within sessions. The scheduling of requests is governed by generalized processor sharing. We present a performance model, relying on online estimation of parameters describing client-server interaction. A reward function corresponding to the service provider's objective is maximized using techniques for nonlinear optimization. In a case study, we model and optimize the resource sharing at a Web server hosting an electronic store. The performance advantages of our approach are quantified numerically, and the robustness to parameter estimation errors is assessed by sensitivity analysis.
A Genetic Based Fuzzy Q-Learning Flow Controller for High-Speed Networks

For the congestion problems in high-speed networks, a genetic based fuzzy Q-learning flow controller is proposed. Because of the uncertainties and highly time-varying, it is not easy to accurately obtain the complete information for high-speed networks. In this case, the Q-learning, which is independent of mathematic model, and prior-knowledge, has good performance. The fuzzy inference is introduced in order to facilitate generalization in large state space, and the genetic operators are used to obtain the consequent parts of fuzzy rules. Simulation results show that the proposed controller can learn to take the best action to regulate source flow with the features of high throughput and low packet loss ratio, and can avoid the occurrence of congestion effectively.
DNA Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes for Nonbiological Applications

Functionalization of an inorganic nanomaterial like carbon nanotube (CNT) with biological macromolecules like deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) leads to the formation of hybrid materials with fascinating properties. This article describes the structures of CNT and DNA, portrays the van der Waals force-dominant non-covalent π–π stacking interactions formed due to their self-assembly, and reviews the electronic, electrochemical, optical, and chemical properties of DNA-functionalized CNTs (DFCs). Current computational developments in simulating and predicting CNT-DNA interactions, alternate functionalization techniques, conformational changes of DNA bases, etc. are discussed. Various characterization techniques using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV-visible, Photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopy, etc. that help explain DFC properties are detailed. Potential applications for this hybrid material in nanoelectronics and chemical sensors as well as in chirality-based separation of metallic nanotubes from semiconducting ones are considered. The article concludes with current challenges, future directions of research, and prospective applications in this field.
Characterization of the Motion and Mixing of Droplets in Electrowetting on Dielectric Devices

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iv CONTENTS . v LIST OF FIGURES . vii LIST OF TABLES . xi LIST OF APPENDICES . xi NOMENCLATURE . xii 1.0 INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Microfluidic Devices for Biological Applications.1 1.2 Droplet Based Microfluidics . 2 1.2.1 SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE (SAW) STREAMING . 3 1.2.2 Electrowetting on Dielectric (EWOD) . 6 1.2.3 Selecting a Droplet Based Microfluidic Platform . 12 1.3 Sensing and Controlling Droplets in EWOD Devices . 12 1.4 Objectives of this Thesis . 14 1.5 Thesis Outline . 16 1.6 List of Contributions. 18 2.0 EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY. 20 2.1 Confined Droplet Devices . 20 2.2 EWOD Control System (Capacitance Measurements). 24 2.3 Optical Measurements . 26 3.0 PRESSURE AND CAPILLARY FORCES AT EQUILIBRIUM . 31 3.1 Model of Pressure and Capillary Forces at Equilibrium. 32 3.2 Validation of Model Assumptions . 41 3.3 Empirical Validation of Proposed Model . 44 3.4 Summary. 49
Xmc Mediates Xctr1-Independent Morphogenesis in Xenopus laevis

In the frog, Xenopus laevis, fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling is required for both mesoderm formation and the morphogenetic movements that drive the elongation of the notochord, a dorsal mesodermal derivative; the coordination of these distinct roles is mediated by the Xenopus Ctr1 (Xctr1) protein: maternal Xctr1 is required for mesodermal differentiation, while the subsequent loss of Xctr1 promotes morphogenesis. The signaling cascade activated by FGF in the presence of Ctr1 has been well characterized; however, the Xctr1‐independent, FGF‐responsive network remains poorly defined. We have identified Xenopus Marginal Coil (Xmc) as a gene whose expression is highly enriched following Xctr1 knockdown. Zygotic initiation of Xmc expression in vivo coincides with a decrease in maternal Xctr1 transcripts; moreover, Xmc loss‐of‐function inhibits Xctr1 knockdown‐mediated elongation of FGF‐treated animal cap explants, implicating Xmc as a key effector of Xctr1‐independent gastrular morphogenesis. Developmental Dynamics 238:2382–2400, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Analysis and comparison of axial-flux permanent-magnet brushless-DC machines with fractional-slot concentrated-windings

This paper presents study of axial-flux permanent-magnet machines (AFPMMs) with fractional-slot concentrated-windings for brushless-DC (BLDC) operation. Four different AFPMMs are designed for in-wheel direct-driven electric vehicle, and are compared to study the effect of layer numbers, pole/slot combinations, and tooth widths on cogging torque, fault tolerance, and BLDC operation. As AFPMMs are inherently three-dimensional machines and modeling of them is so time-consuming, an accurate analytical model is used to predict the no load air-gap flux density distribution, flux-linkage, back-EMF, and cogging torque. The results are verified by three-dimensional finite-element (3-D FE) simulation.
Set-membership filtering of uncertain discrete-time rational systems through Recursive Algebraic Representations and LMIs

This paper is about robust filtering/prediction of nonlinear discrete-time systems with rational dependence on the state or uncertainty vectors. The problem is dealt with in a set-membership context, in that the system initial condition, the uncertainties, as well as the noises affecting the dynamics and the measurements are unknown but bounded. A new recursive approach to the prediction of confidence ellipsoids enclosing the state vector at each sampling time is proposed, based on the reformulation of the system model as a recursive algebraic representation. The solution is expressed as a convex optimization problem under linear matrix inequality (LMI) constraints. The method is assessed on some examples.
Immunostimulatory sequence DNA linked to the Amb a 1 allergen promotes T(H)1 cytokine expression while downregulating T(H)2 cytokine expression in PBMCs from human patients with ragweed allergy.

BACKGROUND Recent studies have demonstrated that bacterially derived immunostimulatory sequences (ISSs) of DNA can activate the mammalian innate immune system and promote the development of T(H)1 cells. Promotion of T(H)1 immunity by means of immunotherapy in allergic patients has led to the alleviation of symptoms that result from allergen-specific T(H)2 responses. OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to investigate whether the T(H)1-enhancing properties of ISSs could be used to alter the T(H)2-dominated immune response of allergic PBMCs in vitro. METHODS Ragweed protein-linked ISS (PLI) was generated from a specific, highly active 22-base ISS and Amb a 1, the immunodominant allergen in ragweed pollen, to combine the T(H)1-enhancing properties of ISSs with allergen selectivity, and its activity was investigated in PBMC cultures from subjects with ragweed allergy. RESULTS PLI was markedly successful at reversing the dominant allergen-induced T(H)2 profile while greatly enhancing IFN-gamma production. Delivering ISSs in a linked form proved to be much more effective at modulating the resulting cytokine profile than delivering free ISSs in a mixture with unlinked Amb a 1. PLI also demonstrated cytokine-modulating properties, even when used to stimulate cells that had already been primed for 6 days with Amb a 1. The antigen specificity of the action of PLI was confirmed by the observations that PLI enhances Amb a 1--specific T-cell proliferation. CONCLUSION These data indicate that delivery of ISSs within an antigen-specific context exhibits potent cytokine-modulating activity and, combined with its reduced allergenicity, makes this molecule a strong candidate for use in improved immunotherapy applications.
The Binaural LCMV Beamformer and its Performance Analysis

The recently proposed binaural linearly constrained minimum variance (BLCMV) beamformer is an extension of the well-known binaural minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer, imposing constraints for both the desired and the interfering sources. Besides its capabilities to reduce interference and noise, it also enables to preserve the binaural cues of both the desired and interfering sources, hence making it particularly suitable for binaural hearing aid applications. In this paper, a theoretical analysis of the BLCMV beamformer is presented. In order to gain insights into the performance of the BLCMV beamformer, several decompositions are introduced that reveal its capabilities in terms of interference and noise reduction, while controlling the binaural cues of the desired and the interfering sources. When setting the parameters of the BLCMV beamformer, various considerations need to be taken into account, e.g. based on the amount of interference and noise reduction and the presence of estimation errors of the required relative transfer functions (RTFs). Analytical expressions for the performance of the BLCMV beamformer in terms of noise reduction, interference reduction, and cue preservation are derived. Comprehensive simulation experiments, using measured acoustic transfer functions as well as real recordings on binaural hearing aids, demonstrate the capabilities of the BLCMV beamformer in various noise environments.
Anonymous Assessment Information System for Higher Education Using Mobile Devices

The lack of anonymity when being examined is a problem for students and teachers alike. So far, student identification in examination processes consists in a physical mark that unmistakably represents the student. New technologies provide us with methods that can handle digital data in an efficient and secured way. Android Operating System for mobile devices has had a steady increase in the number of users during the last six years. On the other hand, due to its popularity the trend for Smartphone devices is to increase their functionalities by adding new technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC). With the joint use of these technologies, personal data such as name or student identification number can be replaced by a small tag fixed on the examination papers, physically identical to those of the other students in that examination process. This paper describes a framework that allows the student to keep its anonymity throughout the entire process of the examination including correction and exam review.