Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
University of Birmingham Nanoparticles modulate surfactant protein A and D mediated protection against influenza A infection in vitro

Numerous epidemiological and toxicological studies have indicated that respiratory infections are exacerbated following enhanced exposure to airborne particulates. Surfactant protein A (SP-A) and SP-D form an important part of the innate immune response in the lung and can interact with nanoparticles to modulate the cellular uptake of these particles. We hypothesize that this interaction will also affect the ability of these proteins to combat infections. TT1, A549 and differentiated THP-1 cells, representing the predominant cell types found in the alveolus namely alveolar type I (ATI) epithelial cells, ATII cells and macrophages, were used to examine the effect of two model nanoparticles, 100 nm amine modified (A-PS) and unmodified polystyrene (U-PS), on the ability of SP-A and SP-D to neutralize influenza A infections in vitro . Pre-incubation of low concentrations of U-PS with SP-A resulted in a reduction of SP-A anti-influenza activity in A549 cells, whereas at highercon-centrations there was an increase in SP-A antiviral activity. This differential pattern of U-PS concentration on surfactant protein mediated protection against IAV was also shown with SP-D in TT1 cells. On the other hand, low concentrations of A-PS particles resulted in a reduction of SP-A activity in TT1 cells and a reduction in SP-D activity in A549 cells. These results indicate that nanoparticles can modulate the ability of SP-A and SP-D to combat viral challenges. Furthermore, the nanoparticle concentration, surface chemistry and cell type under investigation are important factors in determining the extent of these modulations.
Scientific literature addressing detection of monosialoganglioside

OBJECTIVE: The study was undertaken to explore a bibliometric approach to quantitatively assess the research on detection of monosialoganglioside from 2002 to 2011. DATA RETRIEVAL: A bibliometric analysis based on the publications on Web of Science was performed using key words such as “monosialoganglioside”, “colloidal gold”, “high performance liquid chromatography” and “detection”. SELECTION CRITERIA: (1) Research articles on the detection of monosialoganglioside; (2) researches on human and animal fundamentals, clinical trials and case reports; (3) article types: article, review, proceedings paper, note, letter, editorial material, discussion, book chapter; (4) Publication year: 2002–2011. Exclusion criteria: (1) unrelated articles; (2) type of articles: correction; (3) articles from following databases: all databases related to social science and arts & humanities in Web of Science were excluded. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) distribution of subject areas; (2) number of publications annually; (3) document type and language of publications; (4) distribution of institutions; (5) distribution of output in journals; (6) the number of countries in which the article is published; (7) top cited paper. RESULTS: Overall population stands at 1 880 research articles addressing detection of monosialoganglioside in Web of Science during the study period. Articles (1 599) were the most frequently used document type comprising 85.05%, followed by meeting abstracts, reviews and proceedings papers. The distribution of subject categories showed that monosialoganglioside research covered both clinical and basic science research. The USA, Japan, and Italy were the three most productive countries, and the publication numbers in the USA were highest with 559 papers. The University of Milan, Nagoya University, and Kinki University are the most productive institutions regarding detection of monosialoganglioside. In 559 articles published by Americans, Medical College of Georgia ranked the first with 30 articles, followed by University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (28 articles), Cornell University (24 articles) and Johns Hopkins University (24 articles). In 442 articles published by Japanese, Nagoya University ranked the first with 40 articles, followed by Kinki University (36 articles), and Dokkyo University (31 articles). Though the total number of publications by Japanese is smaller than Americans, the top three institutions published more publications than American institutions. There is a markedly increase in the number of publications on the subject detection of monosialoganglioside in 2004, which the peak in the past 10 years. The valley bottom of the subject appeared in 2005. In total, the research is increased with time prolonged. Journal of Neurochemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Journal of Neuroimmunology were core subject journals in monosialoganglioside studies. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the topics in detection of monosialoganglioside research that are being published around the world.
A Comparison of Techniques for Fault Detection in Inverter-Fed Induction Motors in Transient Regime

Fault detection in induction motors operating in non-stationary regimes has become a need in today’s industry. Most of the works published deal with line-fed motors. Nevertheless, the number of inverter-fed induction motors has significantly increased in recent years. Therefore, several fault detection techniques have been proposed lately for this type of motors, based mainly on an adequate input signal processing to obtain fault signatures in the time-frequency domain. In this paper, a comparison of time-frequency techniques applied to fault detection in inverter-fed induction motors in a transient state is presented. For that purpose, the techniques are applied to two current signals acquired from two induction motors with two types of faults: bar breakage and mixed eccentricity. The paper shows the particularities and special difficulties of diagnosing under this type of feeding, reviewing the works related to each technique. The strengths and weaknesses of these techniques are discussed with the goal of providing a criterion for its application in an industrial environment and guidance for future developments in this field.
Can personality characteristics predict the crash involvement of young drivers

There is an increasing body of research investigating relationships between personality factors and crash involvement. Most studies are cross-sectional or retrospective in design, are based on self-reported crashes or other self-reported driver behaviour and do not adequately consider driving exposure. The aim of this paper was to identify personality-related characteristics associated with crashes among young drivers using a prospective and retrospective design and official driver records. A total of 396 young drivers, aged 16 to 24 years, were administered a questionnaire measuring a wide variety of personality characteristics and driving-related factors to determine whether these variables could predict crash involvement. The results indicated that no personality factors consistently predicted crashes before and after questionnaire administration (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E217612.
Multi-Terabyte and multi-Gbps information centric routers

One of the main research directions along which the future Internet is evolving can be identified in the paradigmatic shift from a network of hosts toward a network of caches. Yet, several questions remain concerning the scalability of individual algorithms (e.g., name based lookup and routing) and components (e.g., caches) of these novel Information Centric Networking (ICN) architectures. Exploiting a peculiar characteristics of ICN (i.e., the fact that contents are split in chunks), and the nature of video streaming (which dominates Internet traffic), this paper proposes a novel two-layers caching scheme that allows multi-Terabyte caches to sustain content streaming at multi-Gbps speed. We model the system as an extension, to the case of chunked contents, of the well known Che approximation, that has the advantage of being very simple and accurate at the same time. Simulations under synthetic and realistic trace-driven traffic confirm the accuracy of the analysis and the feasibility of the proposed architecture.
CheatSheet: a contextual interactive memory aid for web applications

We present CheatSheet, a novel contextual interactive memory aid that helps users track their learning progress and refind information when working with complex web applications. Unlike most refinding systems that rely on background monitoring of search sessions or browsing histories to automatically suggest content to users, our approach actively engages users in assessing and curating helpful content for later use. Users create application-specific notes using CheatSheet that contain the visual state of the application overlaid with any text or diagram annotations. Users can also extract snippets of relevant help and tips from other web resources (or other users) and link them to their application-specific CheatSheet. Instead of having to remember or scour through previous notes, bookmarks, or folders, CheatSheet automatically retrieves the recently added notes within the application's user interface. We discuss findings from formative interviews that we used to derive a set of design goals for designing an interactive memory aid, present the design and implementation of CheatSheet, and report on an observational user study that sheds light on the range of users' note-taking and refinding strategies that CheatSheet was able to successfully support.
A Smart Phone-Base Pocket Fall Accident Detection, Positioning, and Rescue System.

Architecture for the fall accident detection and matching wide area rescue system based on a smart phone and the third generation(3G) networks. To recognize the fall detection algorithm, the angles acquired by the electronic compass and the waveform series of the triaxial accelerometer on the smart phone are used as the system inputs. The acquired signals are then used to produce an ordered feature sequence and then examined in a sequentialmanner by the proposed cascade classifier for acknowledgment purpose. With the proposed cascaded classification architecture, the computational load and power expenditure issue on the smart phone system can be alleviated.
Expanding the Repertoire of Gene Tools for Precise Manipulation of the Clostridium difficile Genome: Allelic Exchange Using pyrE Alleles

Sophisticated genetic tools to modify essential biological processes at the molecular level are pivotal in elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of Clostridium difficile, a major cause of healthcare associated disease. Here we have developed an efficient procedure for making precise alterations to the C. difficile genome by pyrE-based allelic exchange. The robustness and reliability of the method was demonstrated through the creation of in-frame deletions in three genes (spo0A, cwp84, and mtlD) in the non-epidemic strain 630Δerm and two genes (spo0A and cwp84) in the epidemic PCR Ribotype 027 strain, R20291. The system is reliant on the initial creation of a pyrE deletion mutant, using Allele Coupled Exchange (ACE), that is auxotrophic for uracil and resistant to fluoroorotic acid (FOA). This enables the subsequent modification of target genes by allelic exchange using a heterologous pyrE allele from Clostridium sporogenes as a counter-/negative-selection marker in the presence of FOA. Following modification of the target gene, the strain created is rapidly returned to uracil prototrophy using ACE, allowing mutant phenotypes to be characterised in a PyrE proficient background. Crucially, wild-type copies of the inactivated gene may be introduced into the genome using ACE concomitant with correction of the pyrE allele. This allows complementation studies to be undertaken at an appropriate gene dosage, as opposed to the use of multicopy autonomous plasmids. The rapidity of the ‘correction’ method (5–7 days) makes pyrE − strains attractive hosts for mutagenesis studies.
Empirical Arithmetic Averaging Over the Compact Stiefel Manifold

The aim of the present research work is to investigate algorithms to compute empirical averages of finite sets of sample-points over the Stiefel manifold by extending the notion of Pythagoras' arithmetic averaging over the real line to a curved manifold. The idea underlying the developed algorithms is that sample-points on the Stiefel manifold get mapped onto a tangent space, where the average is taken, and then the average point on the tangent space is brought back to the Stiefel manifold, via appropriate maps. Numerical experimental results are shown and commented on in order to illustrate the numerical behaviour of the proposed procedure. The obtained numerical results confirm that the developed algorithms converge steadily and in a few iterations and that they are able to cope with relatively large-size problems.
Improved distributed steiner forest construction

We present new distributed algorithms for constructing a Steiner Forest in the CONGEST model. Our deterministic algorithm finds, for any given constant ε>0, a (2+ε)-approximation in ~O(sk+√{min(st,n)}) rounds, where s is the shortest path diameter, t is the number of terminals, k is the number of terminal components in the input, and n is the number of nodes. Our randomized algorithm finds, with high probability, an O(log n)-approximation in time ~O(k+min(s,√ n)+D), where D is the unweighted diameter of the network. We also prove a matching lower bound of ~Ω(k+min(s,√n)+D) on the running time of any distributed approximation algorithm for the Steiner Forest problem. Previous algorithms were randomized, and obtained either an O(log n)-approximation in ~O(sk) time, or an O(1/ε)-approximation in O((√n+t)1+ε+D) time.
Study on Dynamic Development of Three-dimensional Weld Pool Surface in Stationary GTAW

Abstract The weld pool contains abundant information about the welding process. In particular, the type of the weld pool surface shape, i. e. , convex or concave, is determined by the weld penetration. To detect it, an innovative laser-vision-based sensing method is employed to observe the weld pool surface of the gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). A low-power laser dots pattern is projected onto the entire weld pool surface. Its reflection is intercepted by a screen and captured by a camera. Then the dynamic development process of the weld pool surface can be detected. By observing and analyzing, the change of the reflected laser dots reflection pattern, for shape of the weld pool surface shape, was found to closely correlate to the penetration of weld pool in the welding process. A mathematical model was proposed to correlate the incident ray, reflected ray, screen and surface of weld pool based on structured laser specular reflection. The dynamic variation of the weld pool surface and its corresponding dots laser pattern were simulated and analyzed. By combining the experimental data and the mathematical analysis, the results show that the pattern of the reflected laser dots pattern is closely correlated to the development of weld pool, such as the weld penetration. The concavity of the pool surface was found to increase rapidly after the surface shape was changed from convex to concave during the stationary GTAW process.
Permulin: mixed-focus collaboration on multi-view tabletops

We contribute Permulin, an integrated set of interaction and visualization techniques for multi-view tabletops to support co-located collaboration across a wide variety of collaborative coupling styles. These techniques (1) provide support both for group work and for individual work, as well as for the transitions in-between, (2) contribute sharing and peeking techniques to support mutual awareness and group coordination during phases of individual work, (3) reduce interference during group work on a group view, and (4) directly integrate with conventional multi-touch input. We illustrate our techniques in a proof-of-concept implementation with the two example applications of map navigation and photo collages. Results from two user studies demonstrate that Permulin supports fluent transitions between individual and group work and exhibits unique awareness properties that allow participants to be highly aware of each other during tightly coupled collaboration, while being able to unobtrusively perform individual work during loosely coupled collaboration.
A low-power content-addressable memory (CAM) using pipelined hierarchical search scheme

This paper presents two techniques to reduce power consumption in content-addressable memories (CAMs). The first technique is to pipeline the search operation by breaking the match-lines into several segments. Since most stored words fail to match in their first segments, the search operation is discontinued for subsequent segments, hence reducing power. The second technique is to broadcast small-swing search data on less capacitive global search-lines, and only amplify this signal to full swing on a shorter local search-line. As few match-line segments are active, few local search-lines will be enabled, again saving power. We have employed the proposed schemes in a 1024/spl times/144-bit ternary CAM in 1.8-V 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS, illustrating an overall power reduction of 60% compared to a nonpipelined, nonhierarchical architecture. The ternary CAM achieves a 7-ns search cycle time at 2.89fJ/bit/search.
Semi-supervised Multimodal Hashing

Retrieving nearest neighbors across correlated data in multiple modalities, such as image-text pairs on Facebook and video-tag pairs on YouTube, has become a challenging task due to the huge amount of data. Multimodal hashing methods that embed data into binary codes can boost the retrieving speed and reduce storage requirement. As unsupervised multimodal hashing methods are usually inferior to supervised ones, while the supervised ones requires too much manually labeled data, the proposed method in this paper utilizes a part of labels to design a semi-supervised multimodal hashing method. It first computes the transformation matrices for data matrices and label matrix. Then, with these transformation matrices, fuzzy logic is introduced to estimate a label matrix for unlabeled data. Finally, it uses the estimated label matrix to learn hashing functions for data in each modality to generate a unified binary code matrix. Experiments show that the proposed semi-supervised method with 50% labels can get a medium performance among the compared supervised ones and achieve an approximate performance to the best supervised method with 90% labels. With only 10% labels, the proposed method can still compete with the worst compared supervised one.
Activation loop phosphorylation of the atypical MAP kinases ERK3 and ERK4 is required for binding, activation and cytoplasmic relocalization of MK5

Mitogen‐activated protein (MAP) kinases are typical examples of protein kinases whose enzymatic activity is mainly controlled by activation loop phosphorylation. The classical MAP kinases ERK1/ERK2, JNK, p38 and ERK5 all contain the conserved Thr‐Xxx‐Tyr motif in their activation loop that is dually phosphorylated by members of the MAP kinase kinases family. Much less is known about the regulation of the atypical MAP kinases ERK3 and ERK4. These kinases display structural features that distinguish them from other MAP kinases, notably the presence of a single phospho‐acceptor site (Ser‐Glu‐Gly) in the activation loop. Here, we show that ERK3 and ERK4 are phosphorylated in their activation loop in vivo. This phosphorylation is exerted, at least in part, in trans by an upstream cellular kinase. Contrary to classical MAP kinases, activation loop phosphorylation of ERK3 and ERK4 is detected in resting cells and is not further stimulated by strong mitogenic or stress stimuli. However, phosphorylation can be modulated indirectly by interaction with the substrate MAP kinase‐activated protein kinase 5 (MK5). Importantly, we found that activation loop phosphorylation of ERK3 and ERK4 stimulates their intrinsic catalytic activity and is required for the formation of stable active complexes with MK5 and, consequently, for efficient cytoplasmic redistribution of ERK3/ERK4‐MK5 complexes. Our results demonstrate the importance of activation loop phosphorylation in the regulation of ERK3/ERK4 function and highlight differences in the regulation of atypical MAP kinases as compared to classical family members. J. Cell. Physiol. 217: 778–788, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Focal adhesion kinase controls morphogenesis of the Drosophila optic stalk

Photoreceptor cell axons (R axons) innervate optic ganglia in the Drosophila brain through the tubular optic stalk. This structure consists of surface glia (SG) and forms independently of R axon projection. In a screen for genes involved in optic stalk formation, we identified Fak56D encoding a Drosophila homolog of mammalian focal adhesion kinase (FAK). FAK is a main component of the focal adhesion signaling that regulates various cellular events, including cell migration and morphology. We show that Fak56D mutation causes severe disruption of the optic stalk structure. These phenotypes were completely rescued by Fak56D transgene expression in the SG cells but not in photoreceptor cells. Moreover, Fak56D genetically interacts with myospheroid, which encodes an integrin β subunit. In addition, we found that CdGAPr is also required for optic stalk formation and genetically interacts with Fak56D. CdGAPr encodes a GTPase-activating domain that is homologous to that of mammalian CdGAP, which functions in focal adhesion signaling. Hence the optic stalk is a simple monolayered structure that can serve as an ideal system for studying glial cell morphogenesis and the developmental role(s) of focal adhesion signaling.
AVERAGE ANNUAL FIRM BIRTHS ( 1994 – 1996 ) PER 1 , 000 LABOR FORCE , BY LABOR FORCE MARKET AREA

Rural areas are not blessed with—indeed they are largely defined by the absence of—the advantages of urban areas: dense environments of customers and suppliers, knowledge spill overs, urban agglomeration advantages, such as rich labor markets, transportation accessibility, capital (particularly venture capital), information, and the “buzz” of face-to-face contact (Storper and Venables, 2002; Acs and Armington, 2003). Thus, we do not expect the formation of local systems of innovation (Acs, de la Mothe, and Paquet, 1996). Nor do we expect, in the United States, any active federal policy that would help entrepreneurs or small businesses. The contrast between the United States, where “no policy as policy” prevails, and Europe, where smalland medium-sized enterprises (SME) policy is well-established and widespread, on this score is striking (Dennis, 2000; De, 2000). However, this does not mean that networks are not operating, that innovations are not brought forth, or that competitive firms do not exist. Indeed, rural America has thousands of thriving firms, all of which began as entrepreneurial ventures. In addition, policies at the local level, often in the form of public-private partnerships, have attempted to create and sustain networks among entrepreneurs in rural areas and small communities (Malecki and Tootle, 1996; Sommers, 1998).