Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The estrogen‐responsive element as an inducible enhancer: DNA sequence requirements and conversion to a glucocorticoid‐responsive element.

The estrogen‐responsive element (ERE) present in the 5′‐flanking region of the Xenopus laevis vitellogenin (vit) gene B1 has been characterized by transient expression analysis of chimeric vit‐tk‐CAT (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase) gene constructs transfected into the human estrogen‐responsive MCF‐7 cell line. The vit B1 ERE behaves like an inducible enhancer, since it is able to confer estrogen inducibility to the heterologous HSV thymidine kinase (tk) promoter in a relative position‐ and orientation‐independent manner. In this assay, the minimal B1 ERE is 33 bp long and consists of two 13 bp imperfect palindromic elements both of which are required for the enhancer activity. A third imperfect palindromic element is present further upstream within the 5′‐flanking region of the gene but is unable to confer hormone responsiveness by itself. Similarly, neither element forming the B1 ERE can alone confer estrogen inducibility to the tk promoter. However, in combinations of two, all three imperfect palindromes can act cooperatively to form a functional ERE. In contrast a single 13 bp perfect palindromic element, GGTCACTGTGACC, such as the one found upstream of the vit gene A2, is itself sufficient to act as a fully active ERE. Single point mutations within this element abolish estrogen inducibility, while a defined combination of two mutations converts this ERE into a glucocorticoid‐responsive element.
Characteristics of the Frenchay Activities Index one year after a stroke: A population-based study

Purpose. To further describe the properties of Frenchay Activities Index (FAI) with special emphasis on relationships with stroke severity and cognition. Methods. Survivors from a population-based first-ever stroke cohort (n = 246) were assessed with FAI one year post-stroke. At the same time patients were asked about their status pre-stroke. Stroke severity was assessed at baseline with the NIH stroke scale (NIHSS). Cognition was assessed at one year with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Results. Pre-stroke and post-stroke FAI averaged at 40.1 and 32.4, respectively. There was a floor effect post-stroke, where 17% had the lowest possible score. The sum score was related to age, but not to gender. Individual items, however, were gender-related. NIHSS was clearly related to the difference FAI pre-stroke – post-stroke, but individual variations were large. Individual NIHSS items differed regarding their impact on post-stroke FAI. MMSE post-stroke also has a clear relationship with FAI, but there are large individual variations. Conclusions. This study establishes a population-based standard for FAI scores one year after a stroke. The effects of stroke severity and cognition have been demonstrated. FAI gives useful information that is not obtained from basic ADL scales, such as the Barthel Index.
Deterioration of Teak Wood in Accelerated Decay Test

The present study aimed to evaluate the biological resistance of teak (Tectona grandis) heartwood and sapwood to the action of Trametes versicolor and Gloeophyllum trabeum fungi in laboratory accelerated decay assays. The mass loss evaluation of the samples was performed periodically. The heartwood presented a higher percentage of extractives and the sapwood of holocelluloses. The sapwood and heartwood subjected to the fungus Gloephyllum trabeum remained stable. For the Trametes versicolor fungus, there was an increasing loss of mass over time for both regions, presenting a mass loss of 40% for the sapwood and of 20% for the heartwood at the conclusion of the assay. Teak wood was classified as highly resistant to the fungus Gloeophyllum trabeum, and moderately resistant to Trametes versicolor.
Enhancement of In Vitro Skin Transport and In Vivo Hypoglycemic Efficacy of Glimepiride Transdermal Patches

Purpose : To utilize hydroxybutyl-β-cyclodextrin (HB-β-CD) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) for the enhancement of the transdermal delivery of glimepiride (GMD). Methods : Matrix-type transdermal patches containing GMD, drug coprecipitate or its inclusion complex were prepared using different gelling agents, viz, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), carbopol and chitosan. In vitro skin permeation evaluation of the formulations was conducted using automated diffusion system. Selected patch formulations were assessed for hypoglycemic activity as well as for GMD plasma concentration in rats. Results : GMD- hydroxybutyl-β-cyclodextrin (HB-β-CD) binary systems (1:2 molar ratio) enhanced GMD aqueous solubility by > 10-fold. Diffusion test showed improved release of GMD-HB-β-CD inclusion complex compared with GMD alone. Maximum cumulative amounts of GMD- HB-β-CD that permeated through rat skin was 26.97 and 14.28 µg/cm2 for patches prepared with fchitosan and HPMC, respectively. Thus, GMD-chitosan patches showed significantly higher (p < 0.05) drug permeation than GMD-HPMC after 6 h. Both chitosan and HPMC patches of GMD-HB-β-CD demonstrated substantial reduction (p < 0.05) in blood glucose level (192.67 ± 21.18 and 201 ± 15.11 mg/ dl, respectively), compared with the baseline value of 240 mg/ dl. Conclusion : Application of chitosan and HPMC transdermal patches of GMD-HB-β-CD can serve as a potential alternative to peroral GMD with improved bioavailability and patient compliance. Keywords : Glimepiride, Transdermal patch, Coprecipitate, Inclusion complex, Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, Polyvinyl pyrrolidone, Chitosan, Skin permeation
Fluid flow in porous media using image-based modelling to parametrize Richards' equation

The parameters in Richards' equation are usually calculated from experimentally measured values of the soil–water characteristic curve and saturated hydraulic conductivity. The complex pore structures that often occur in porous media complicate such parametrization due to hysteresis between wetting and drying and the effects of tortuosity. Rather than estimate the parameters in Richards' equation from these indirect measurements, image-based modelling is used to investigate the relationship between the pore structure and the parameters. A three-dimensional, X-ray computed tomography image stack of a soil sample with voxel resolution of 6 μm has been used to create a computational mesh. The Cahn–Hilliard–Stokes equations for two-fluid flow, in this case water and air, were applied to this mesh and solved using the finite-element method in COMSOL Multiphysics. The upscaled parameters in Richards' equation are then obtained via homogenization. The effect on the soil–water retention curve due to three different contact angles, 0°, 20° and 60°, was also investigated. The results show that the pore structure affects the properties of the flow on the large scale, and different contact angles can change the parameters for Richards' equation.
Real-time dense simultaneous localization and mapping using monocular cameras

Cameras are powerful sensors for robotic navigation as they provide high-resolution environment information (color, shape, texture, etc.), while being lightweight, low-power, and inexpensive. Exploiting such sensor data for navigation tasks typically falls into the realm of monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), where both the robot's pose and a map of the environment are estimated concurrently from the imagery produced by a single camera mounted on the robot. This thesis presents a monocular SLAM solution capable of reconstructing dense 3D geometry online without the aid of a graphics processing unit (GPU). The key contribution is a multi-resolution depth estimation and spatial smoothing process that exploits the correlation between low-texture image regions and simple planar structure to adaptively scale the complexity of the generated keyframe depthmaps to the quality of the input imagery. High-texture image regions are represented at higher resolutions to capture fine detail, while low-texture regions are represented at coarser resolutions for smooth surfaces. This approach allows for significant computational savings while simultaneously increasing reconstruction density and quality when compared to the state-of-the-art. Preliminary qualitative results are also presented for an adaptive meshing technique that generates dense reconstructions using only the pixels necessary to represent the scene geometry, which further reduces the computational requirements for fully dense reconstructions.
Buffer library selection

Buffer insertion has become a critical optimization technique in high performance design. Perhaps the most prevalent buffer insertion technique is Van Ginneken's dynamic programming algorithm. Although very effective, the algorithm has time complexity that is quadratic in terms of the input buffer library size. Consequently, to achieve an efficient algorithm, it is critical that the buffer library used by the tool be relatively small, containing a subset of the most effective buffers. We propose a new algorithm for selecting a buffer library from all the buffers available in the technology, thereby permitting efficient buffer insertion. We show that the smaller buffer libraries constructed by our algorithm result in little loss in solution quality while speeding up the buffer insertion algorithm by orders of magnitude.
Extending The Domain Of Transparent Checkpoint-restart For Large-scale Hpc

While large-scale HPC systems are critical for expediting progress in many scientific fields, exascale computing will face severe resilience challenges. Checkpointrestart is an important technology that large-scale applications continue to rely on to make forward progress in the presence of failures. Previous work in this domain has failed to address two key challenges: (a) support for transparent checkpointing of modern hardware accelerator-based HPC systems, such as those using GPUs and newer RDMA networks; and (b) reducing the large I/O overhead that leads to reduced productivity and contention. To address the first challenge, this dissertation presents a new transparent checkpointing framework, based on split processes. The framework uses the hardware virtual memory subsystem of the host CPU to decouple computation state from the external subsystem context. This isolation between the application process and the external subsystem context enables transparent checkpointing for two diverse, wellknown problems: checkpointing of modern CUDA-based programs; and transparent checkpointing of MPI applications, running over a variety of RDMA networks and using different MPI implementations with a single code base. To address the second challenge, this dissertation demonstrates that system reliability and application resilience characteristics can be used to improve system (and individual application) throughput and reduce the checkpointing I/O overhead.
Silkworm disease diagnosis through molecular approach and their management.

Silkworm has a greater biotic potential and the resistance is continuously offered by the environment which includes biotic and abiotic factors thus influencing the cocoon production qualitatively and quantitatively. The abiotic environmental resistance component largely includes the weather factors such as temperature, relative humidity, photoperiod etc., in respect of silkworm and unfavourable weather conditions that lead to poor harvest of mulberry. The abiotic factors usually affect the growth and development of silkworm and predispose the silkworm to the biotic causes i.e., infectious diseases. The biotic factors responsible for low cocoon crop production are the silkworm diseases caused by protozoa,fungi,bacteria and viruses. Extent of crop loss due to fungal disease caused by white muscardine and green muscardine was 5-20 per cent,virus disease caused by grasserie (NPV) was 15-20 per cent, bacterial disease reduces the crop loss upto 10-15 per cent and pebrine gives 5-10 per cent damage, respectively. The history of sericulture reveals devastating impact of microsporidiosis in several sericultural countries resulting in severe damage to sericulture industry. Though, the disease is known from very remote times, it attracted the attention of sericulturists only during the 17th century. The first scientific record of the occurrence of the disease came from European countries in 1809 and the disease wiped off sericulture there. This was followed by another report from France in 1845 where the annual production of cocoons came down from 26,000 tones in 1853 to 4000 tones in 1865 due to epizootics of microsporidiosis and subsequently collapsed the French and Italian silk Silkworm disease diagnosis through molecular approach and their management
A write-reducing and error-correcting code generation method for non-volatile memories

Data stored in non-volatile memories may be destructed due to crosstalk and radiation but we can restore their data by using error-correcting codes. However, non-volatile memories consume a large amount of energy in writing. How to reduce writing bits even using error-correcting codes is one of the challenges in non-volatile memory design. In this paper, we propose a new write-reducing and error-correcting code, called Doughnut code. Doughnut code is based on state encoding limiting maximum and minimum Hamming distances. After that, we propose a code expansion method, which improves minimum and maximum Hamming distances by expanding a write-reducing code. When we apply our code expansion method to Doughnut code, we can obtain a write-reducing code whose error-correcting ability is equal to Hamming code. Experimental results show that the proposed write-reducing code reduces the number of writing bits by up to 36% compared to Hamming code.
Hemoglobin Screening Independently Predicts All-Cause Mortality.

Objective . - Determine if the addition of hemoglobin testing improves risk prediction for life insurance applicants. Method . - Hemoglobin results for insurance applicants tested from 1993 to 2007, with vital status determined by Social Security Death Master File follow-up in 2011, were analyzed by age and sex with and without accounting for the contribution of other test results. Results . - Hemoglobin values ≤12.0 g/dL (and possibly ≤13.0 g/dL) in females age 50+ (but not age <50) and hemoglobin values ≤13.0 g/dL in all males are associated with progressively increasing mortality risk independent of the contribution of other test values. Increased risk is also noted for hemoglobin values >15.0 g/dL (and possibly >14.0 g/dL) for all females and for hemoglobin values >16.0 g/dL for males. Conclusion . - Hemoglobin testing can add additional independent risk assessment to that obtained from other laboratory testing, BP and build in this relatively healthy insurance applicant population. Multiple studies support this finding at older ages, but data (and the prevalence of diseases impacting hemoglobin levels) are limited at younger ages.
Word Embeddings for Multi-label Document Classification

In this paper, we analyze and evaluate word embeddings for representation of longer texts in the multi-label classification scenario. The embeddings are used in three convolutional neural network topologies. The experiments are realized on the Czech ČTK and English Reuters-21578 standard corpora. We compare the results of word2vec static and trainable embeddings with randomly initialized word vectors. We conclude that initialization does not play an important role for classification. However, learning of word vectors is crucial to obtain good results.
Description of NTU System at TREC-10 QA Track

In the past years, we attended the 250-bytes group. Our main strategy was to measure the similarity score (or the informative score) of each candidate sentence to the question sentence. The similarity score was computed by sums of weights of cooccurred question keywords. To meet the requirement of shorter answering texts proposed in this year, we adapt our system, and experiment on a new strategy that is focused on named entities only. The similarity score is now measured in terms of the distances to the question keywords in the same document. The MRR score is 0.145. Section 2 will deal with our work in the main task. We also attended the list task and the context task this year. In the list task, the algorithm is almost the same as the one in the main task except that we have to avoid duplicate answers and find the new answers at the same time. Positions of the candidates in the answering texts should be considered. We will talk about this in Section 3. In the context task, how to keep the context, and what the answers of the previous questions can help are the main issues. In our strategy, the answers of the first question are kept when answering the subsequent questions, but the answers of the other ones (denoted by question i) are kept only if question i has a co-referential relationship to its previous one. Section 4 will describe this strategy in more detail .
A High-Speed Baugh-Wooley Multiplier Design Using Skew-Tolerant Domino Techniques

In this paper, a high-speed Baugh-Wooley multiplier using skew-tolerant domino techniques is presented. Compared with the conventional architecture, it is demonstrated that the performance is improved from the simulation results since the conventional multipliers suffer significant timing overhead due to system clock skew and logic path unbalance, which in turn decreases the performance of a circuit
Unrelated CD3/CD19-Depleted Peripheral Stem Cell Transplantation for Hurler Syndrome

For patients with mucopolysaccharidosis type IH (MPS1-H; Hurler syndrome), early allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is the treatment of choice. One boy and one girl aged 20.5 and 22 months, respectively, with MPS1-H received a conditioning regimen consisting of thiotepa, fludarabine, treosulfan, and ATG. Grafts were peripheral blood stem cells from unrelated donors (10/12 and 11/11 matched), that were manipulated by CD3/CD19 depletion and contained 20.3 and 28.2 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg body weight, respectively. Both patients achieved stable hematopoietic engraftment and stable donor chimerism. Neither acute or chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) nor other severe transplant-related complications occurred. At a follow-up of 48 and 37 months, both patients are alive and well with normal levels of α-L-iduronidase and have made major neurodevelopmental progress. Treosulfan-based conditioning offers the advantage of reduced toxicity; the use of unrelated CD3/CD19-depleted peripheral stem cell grafts allows transfusion of high CD34+ cell numbers together with a “tailored” number of CD3+ cells as well as engraftment facilitating cells in order to achieve rapid hematopoietic engraftment while reducing the risk of graft rejection and GVHD. This regimen might be an additional option when unrelated donor HSCT is considered for a patient with MPS1-H.
Narasimhacharya mammalian lungs study on in vitro Antioxidant and ACE enhancing potential of Pankajakasthuri in fluoride toxicity : An

Fluoride toxicity occurs due to high concentrations of fluoride in water sources or anthropogenic causes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of an Ayurvedic drug—Pankajakasthuri (PK)—in relation to fluoride-induced toxicity in mammalian lungs. The results indicated that sodium fluoride increased lipid peroxidation and decreased enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants in a concentration-dependent manner in lungs. The antioxidant potential of the lungs was suppressed maximally at 10 ppm fluoride concentration and PK at all three dose levels (i.e., 100, 200 and 300 ml) decreased fluoride induced lipid peroxidation (p < 0.05) and increased the levels of total ascorbic acid, superoxide dismutase, catalase, reduced glutathione, glutathione peroxidase and FRAP values significantly (p < 0.05) in a dose-dependent manner. When PK was examined for its effects on angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity, in fluoride-induced toxicity, the ACE activity was found to increase (p < 0.0001) in lung homogenates with all three doses. This study indicates that PK, an Ayurvedic drug, improves mammalian lung function by increasing antioxidant potential and ACE activity under the conditions of fluoride toxicity.
Small-signal averaged model and carrier-based linear control of a new Sheppard-Taylor-based PFC

In this paper, the small-signal averaged model of a new Sheppard-Taylor-based DC-DC converter, used in single-phase power factor correction (PFC) applications, is derived. Compared to the conventional Sheppard-Taylor converter, this topology allows lower voltage stresses across the capacitors and larger output voltage range for the same operating area. Based on the proposed model, a carrier-based Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) linear control system is developed in order to ensure a unity power factor at the rectifier AC-side and a regulated voltage at the rectifier DC-side. Both current and voltage regulators are PI-type. The performance of the proposed control scheme is tested through simulations. The system performance is evaluated in terms of source current total harmonic distortion (THD), input power factor and DC-voltage regulation.
Modeling the self-organized phosphatidylinositol lipid signaling system in chemotactic cells using quantitative image analysis

Summary A key signaling event that is responsible for gradient sensing in eukaryotic cell chemotaxis is a phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) lipid reaction system. The self-organization activity of this PtdIns lipid system induces an inherent polarity, even in the absence of an external chemoattractant gradient, by producing a localized PtdIns (3,4,5)-trisphosphate [PtdIns(3,4,5)P3]-enriched domain on the membrane. Experimentally, we found that such a domain could exhibit two types of behavior: (1) it could be persistent and travel on the membrane, or (2) be stochastic and transient. Taking advantage of the simultaneous visualization of PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 and the enzyme phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), for which PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 is a substrate, we statistically demonstrated the inter-dependence of their spatiotemporal dynamics. On the basis of this statistical analysis, we developed a theoretical model for the self-organization of PtdIns lipid signaling that can accurately reproduce both persistent and transient domain formation; these types of formations can be explained by the oscillatory and excitability properties of the system, respectively.
Fisher's Discriminant with Natural Image Priors

Linear discriminant analysis that takes spatial smoothness into account has been developed and widely used in image processing society. However, two questions remain unanswered. First, which is the best way to incorporate the smoothness property of images with linear discriminant analysis? Second, which is the best representation for the smoothness property of images? To answer the first question, we propose a Bayesian framework of Gaussian process in order to extend Fisher's discriminant for image data. The probability structure for our extended Fisher's discriminant is explicitly formulated, and the smoothness properties of images are utilized as prior probabilities. For the second question, we suggest a family of prior probabilities derived from natural image statistics. The unknown parameters in our model are estimated via the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) estimation. We will show that existing methods imposing smoothness assumption of images are rough approximations to the proposed MAP estimates in this framework. Experimental results on the Yale face database and the ETH-80 object categorization dataset show that the proposed method significantly outperforms the other Fisher's discriminant methods for various image data.