Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Simple Technique for the Permanent Marking of Newborn Albino Rats

Routine methods of marking rats cannot be used for identifying litter members at, or shortly after, birth, nor can they be effectively applied until a few weeks later. Injection of India ink under or into the palm of the forefoot or the sole of the rear foot of the newborn rat, however, provides a clearly discernible, permanent mark which permits litter members to be differentiated with ease. This method, the details of which are described, has been used successfully on some 3,000 newborn albino rats, many of which have been studied for 20 to 30 mo. or longer.
Hyperspectral Images Classification With Gabor Filtering and Convolutional Neural Network

Recently, the capability of deep learning-based approaches, especially deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), has been investigated for hyperspectral remote sensing feature extraction (FE) and classification. Due to the large number of learnable parameters in convolutional filters, lots of training samples are needed in deep CNNs to avoid the overfitting problem. On the other hand, Gabor filtering can effectively extract spatial information including edges and textures, which may reduce the FE burden of the CNNs. In this letter, in order to make the most of deep CNN and Gabor filtering, a new strategy, which combines Gabor filters with convolutional filters, is proposed for hyperspectral image classification to mitigate the problem of overfitting. The obtained results reveal that the proposed model provides competitive results in terms of classification accuracy, especially when only a limited number of training samples are available.
Post‐translational control of vegetative cell separation enzymes through a direct interaction with specific inhibitor IseA in Bacillus subtilis

Three d,l‐endopeptidases, LytE, LytF and CwlS, are involved in the vegetative cell separation in Bacillus subtilis. A novel cell surface protein, IseA, inhibits the cell wall lytic activities of these d,l‐endopeptidases in vitro, and IseA negatively regulates the cell separation enzymes at the post‐translational level. Immunofluorescence microscopy indicated that the IseA−3xFLAG fusion protein was specifically localized at cell separation sites and poles on the vegetative cell surface in a similar manner of the d,l‐endopeptidases. Furthermore, pull‐down assay showed that IseA binds to the catalytic domain of LytF, indicating that IseA is localized on the cell surface through the catalytic domain of LytF. Overexpression of IseA caused a long‐chained cell morphology in the exponential growth phase, indicating that IseA inhibits the cell separation d,l‐endopeptidases in vivo. Besides, overexpression of IseA in a cwlO disruptant affected cell growth, implying that IseA is also involved in the cell elongation event. However, although IseA inhibits the activities of LytE, LytF, CwlS and CwlO in vitro, it is unlikely to inhibit CwlS and CwlO in vivo. This is the first demonstration that the cell separation event is post‐translationally controlled through a direct interaction between cell separation enzymes and a specific novel inhibitor in bacteria.
The natural anticancer compound rocaglamide selectively inhibits the G1‐S‐phase transition in cancer cells through the ATM/ATR‐mediated Chk1/2 cell cycle checkpoints

Targeting the cancer cell cycle machinery is an important strategy for cancer treatment. Cdc25A is an essential regulator of cycle progression and checkpoint response. Over‐expression of Cdc25A occurs often in human cancers. In this study, we show that Rocaglamide‐A (Roc‐A), a natural anticancer compound isolated from the medicinal plant Aglaia, induces a rapid phosphorylation of Cdc25A and its subsequent degradation and, thereby, blocks cell cycle progression of tumor cells at the G1‐S phase. Roc‐A has previously been shown to inhibit tumor proliferation by blocking protein synthesis. In this study, we demonstrate that besides the translation inhibition Roc‐A can induce a rapid degradation of Cdc25A by activation of the ATM/ATR‐Chk1/Chk2 checkpoint pathway. However, Roc‐A has no influence on cell cycle progression in proliferating normal T lymphocytes. Investigation of the molecular basis of tumor selectivity of Roc‐A by a time‐resolved microarray analysis of leukemic vs. proliferating normal T lymphocytes revealed that Roc‐A activates different sets of genes in tumor cells compared with normal cells. In particular, Roc‐A selectively stimulates a set of genes responsive to DNA replication stress in leukemic but not in normal T lymphocytes. These findings further support the development of Rocaglamide for antitumor therapy.
Involvement of the MADS-Box Gene ZMM4 in Floral Induction and Inflorescence Development in Maize1[W][OA]

The switch from vegetative to reproductive growth is marked by the termination of vegetative development and the adoption of floral identity by the shoot apical meristem (SAM). This process is called the floral transition. To elucidate the molecular determinants involved in this process, we performed genome-wide RNA expression profiling on maize (Zea mays) shoot apices at vegetative and early reproductive stages using massively parallel signature sequencing technology. Profiling revealed significant up-regulation of two maize MADS-box (ZMM) genes, ZMM4 and ZMM15, after the floral transition. ZMM4 and ZMM15 map to duplicated regions on chromosomes 1 and 5 and are linked to neighboring MADS-box genes ZMM24 and ZMM31, respectively. This gene order is syntenic with the vernalization1 locus responsible for floral induction in winter wheat (Triticum monococcum) and similar loci in other cereals. Analyses of temporal and spatial expression patterns indicated that the duplicated pairs ZMM4-ZMM24 and ZMM15-ZMM31 are coordinately activated after the floral transition in early developing inflorescences. More detailed analyses revealed ZMM4 expression initiates in leaf primordia of vegetative shoot apices and later increases within elongating meristems acquiring inflorescence identity. Expression analysis in late flowering mutants positioned all four genes downstream of the floral activators indeterminate1 (id1) and delayed flowering1 (dlf1). Overexpression of ZMM4 leads to early flowering in transgenic maize and suppresses the late flowering phenotype of both the id1 and dlf1 mutations. Our results suggest ZMM4 may play roles in both floral induction and inflorescence development.
The effect of elevated temperature on digital single event transient pulse widths in a bulk CMOS technology

Combinational logic soft errors are expected to be the dominant reliability issue for advanced technologies. One of the major factors affecting the soft-error rates is single-event transient (SET) pulse widths. The SET pulse widths, which are controlled by drift, diffusion, and parasitic bipolar transistor parameters, are a strong function of operating temperature. In this work, heavy-ion induced SET pulse widths are reported at temperatures ranging from 25° to 100° C with an autonomous SET capture circuit. Experimental and simulation results in a 90nm bulk CMOS technology indicate an increase as high as 37% in average SET pulse width with increasing operating temperature, with some pulses almost 2 ns long at higher temperatures. The increase in the SET pulse width can be explained by the dependence of bipolar amplification on temperature.
Improved Performance of F-Ions-Implanted Poly-Si Thin-Film Transistors Using Solid Phase Crystallization and Excimer Laser Crystallization

Polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (Poly-Si TFTs) with F-ions-implantation were investigated in this study. The electrical characteristics and reliability of the F-ions-implanted poly-Si TFTs were reported for solid phase crystallization (SPC) and excimer laser crystallization (ELC) methods respectively. The thermal annealing causes F-ions to pile up at the poly-Si interface, without the initial pad oxide deposition. With the introduction of fluorine in poly-Si film, the trap state density was effectively reduced. Also, the presence of strong Si-F bonds enhances electrical endurance against hot carrier impact by using F-ions-implantation. These improvements in electrical characteristics are even obvious for the ELC poly-Si TFTs compared to the SPC ones
A QoS-guaranteed MAC protocol using variable frame granularity for wireless access networks

In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol, called QMAC+, which adopts variable frame granularity, aiming to provide bandwidth-on-demand and QoS guarantees while retaining maximal network throughput. QMAC+ supports three traffic types-BR, VBR, and reservation request (RVR) for making CBR/VBR connection reservation. Essentially, QMAC+ governs weight-based reservation access (for VBR/CBR) and premier contention access (for RVR) over dynamically allocated reservation and premier contention bandwidths, respectively. In particular, the premier contention access performs incremental contention resolution by means of feedback control using an envelope-pdf-based estimator for the estimation of the number of concurrently transmitting users. As a result, the frame granularity is dynamically changed adapting to traffic fluctuations. Simulation results demonstrate that QMAC+ achieves superior performance with respect to throughput, delay, and blocking probability.
Power system state estimator with inclusion of time-synchronized phasor measurements

State estimation provides the platform for advanced security monitoring applications in control centers. It determines a best estimate of the current actual power system based on available SCADA measurements and power system model data. Traditional power system state estimation has been undergoing an essential change because of the extensive application of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU). PMU data provides the direct measurement of state which can significantly simplify the traditional state estimator and does not require any major changes of the existing state estimator. It is anticipated a gradual migration towards full PMU implementation for utility power systems. The logical direction is towards full observability with PMUs. Due to cost considerations, it is expected that utilities will execute a phased installation of PMUs, that is, batches of PMUs being installed through time. A MATLAB application was developed and simulations were done on IEEE 14 bus system and on IEEE 30 bus system.
Proceedings of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Workshop—the development of functional imaging in the diagnosis, management and understanding of childhood brain tumours

Imaging plays a fundamental role in the management of children with brain tumours. A series of new techniques, commonly grouped under the heading functional imaging, promise to give information on the properties and biological characteristics of tissues thereby adding to the structural information available from current imaging. The EPSRC funded a workshop to bring together clinicians from the UK Children's Cancer Study Group and scientific experts in the field to identify clinical problems in childhood brain tumours that may be addressed by functional imaging and to develop a clinical test bed for applying, evaluating and developing this new technology. The presentations and discussion sessions from the workshop are summarised and a review of the current ‘state of the art’ for this rapidly developing area provided. A key output of the workshop was agreement on a series of hypotheses which can be tested in carefully designed clinical studies. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Electronic and thermal transport study of sinusoidally corrugated nanowires aiming to improve thermoelectric efficiency

Improvement of thermoelectric efficiency has been very challenging in the solid-state industry due to the interplay among transport coefficients which measure the efficiency. In this work, we modulate the geometry of nanowires to interrupt thermal transport with causing only a minimal impact on electronic transport properties, thereby maximizing the thermoelectric power generation. As it is essential to scrutinize comprehensively both electronic and thermal transport behaviors for nano-scale thermoelectric devices, we investigate the Seebeck coefficient, the electrical conductance, and the thermal conductivity of sinusoidally corrugated silicon nanowires and eventually look into an enhancement of the thermoelectric figure-of-merit Z T ? > from the modulated nanowires over typical straight nanowires. A loss in the electronic transport coefficient is calculated with the recursive Green function along with the Landauer formalism, and the thermal transport is simulated with the molecular dynamics. In contrast to a small influence on the thermopower and the electrical conductance of the geometry-modulated nanowires, a large reduction of the thermal conductivity yields an enhancement of the efficiency by 10% to 35% from the typical nanowires. We find that this approach can be easily extended to various structures and materials as we consider the geometrical modulation as a sole source of perturbation to the system.
Diagnosis of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder using fluorescence endoscopy

Bladder cancer is a frequent disease and represents the second most common genitourinary neoplasm. Although many aspects of the management of superficial bladder cancer are now well established, significant challenges remain, which influences patient outcome. Early detection and treatment of recurrent disease is required to optimize bladder preservation, reduce patient morbidity, and increase quality of life and survival. Fluorescence endoscopy, often referred to as ‘photodynamic diagnosis’ (PDD), with intravesical application of photosensitizing agents, has been developed to enhance the early detection of bladder cancer. There is growing evidence that PDD using 5‐aminolaevulinic acid (ALA), hexyl‐ALA ester or hypericin enhances the detection of bladder cancer, particularly of high‐grade flat lesions. Furthermore, transurethral resection of bladder tumour under fluorescence guidance reduces the risk of recurrent tumours. However, the impact on the progression of disease remains unclear and must be investigated in prospective randomized trials.
Hepatitis C virus quasispecies in plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells of treatment naïve chronically infected patients

Summary. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 45 treatment naïve, HIV‐negative, chronically hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐infected patients were analyzed for the presence of HCV RNA. Viral RNA was detected in 73% of the studied patients. Single‐strand conformation polymorphism assays and sequence analysis of the HCV 5′untranslated regions amplified from RNA recovered from both Plasma and PBMCs suggested virus compartmentalization in 57.6% of patients studied. In summary, our study presents evidence that HCV RNA can be found in PBMCs of treatment naïve chronically infected patients that are not immunocompromised or co‐infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease in a Rodent Model Alters Osteocyte Protein Levels Controlling Bone Turnover

Bone loss is a common comorbidity of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), leading to elevated fracture risk in these patients. Inflammatory factors associated with IBD cause increased bone resorption and decreased bone formation with multiple factors implicated as instigators of these alterations. In this project, we examined the influence of IBD on osteocyte proteins in male rats (2 months old) divided into two groups: induced gut inflammation via 2,4,6‐trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) enema, and vehicle control. We examined the prevalence of two pro‐inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) and interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), an anti‐inflammatory cytokine, interleukin‐10 (IL‐10), the anabolic factor insulin‐like growth factor‐I (IGF‐I), osteoclastogenesis regulators RANKL and OPG, and the bone formation inhibitor sclerostin in osteocytes in three bone compartments 4 weeks after initiation of gut inflammation. Histomorphometry of the proximal tibia and fourth lumbar vertebra revealed lower bone volume, lower bone formation rate (BFR), lower osteoid surface (OS), and higher osteoclast surface (Oc.S) with TNBS. Tibial mid‐shaft periosteal BFR was also lower with TNBS. Immunohistochemical staining of the distal femur demonstrated that %TNF‐α+, %IL‐6+, %RANKL+, and %OPG+ osteocytes were elevated in cancellous bone in TNBS animals compared to vehicle. These changes were coincident with increased bone resorption. With regression analysis, %RANKL+ osteocytes statistically predicted the increase in cancellous Oc.S (R2 = 0.565). Increased %sclerostin+ osteocytes observed in the TNBS treatment predicted declines in cancellous OS (R2 = 0.581) as well as BFR in cancellous and cortical bone (R2 = 0.674, R2 = 0.908, respectively). Contrary to our hypothesis, %IGF‐I+ osteocytes increased in TNBS animals. In conclusion, the IBD model produced a systemic inflammation that altered the regulatory protein profile in osteocytes that control bone resorption and bone formation, likely contributing to IBD‐induced bone loss. These data highlight a potential mechanistic role of osteocytes in inflammatory bone loss associated with IBD and systemic inflammation. © 2017 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Direct secant updates of matrix factorizations

This paper presents a new context for using the sparse Broyden update method to solve systems of nonlinear equations. The setting for this work is that a Newton-like algorithm is assumed to be available which incorporates a workable strategy for improving poor initial guesses and providing a satisfactory Jacobian matrix approximation whenever required. The total cost of obtaining each Jacobian matrix, or the cost of factoring it to solve for the Newton step, is assumed to be sufficiently high to make it attractive to keep the same Jacobian approximation for several steps. This paper suggests the extremely convenient and apparently effective technique of applying the sparse Broyden update directly to the matrix factors in the iterations between reevaluations in the hope that fewer fresh factorizations will be required. The strategy is shown to be locally and q-superlinearly convergent, and some encouraging numerical results are presented.
Green Shipping Practices of Shipping Firms

The primary objective of this study is to provide an empirical research using structural equation modeling to identify the factors that motivate shipping firms to adopt green shipping practices (GSP). Furthermore, it also examines if adopting GSP can enhance the shipping firms’ environmental and productivity performance. The findings show that shipping firms are motivated to adopt GSP mostly by industrial norms set by institutionalized associations. They are also motivated by customers’ demand for environmental friendliness and their own strategy to make good image. Unlike our expectation, government regulations and international environmental laws are not significant in influencing shipping firms to adopt GSP. Moreover, adoption of green shipping practices can improve the environmental and productivity performance of the shipping firms.
wksl3, a New Biocontrol Agent for Salmonella enterica Serovars Enteritidis and Typhimurium in Foods: Characterization, Application, Sequence Analysis, and Oral Acute Toxicity Study

ABSTRACT Of the Salmonella enterica serovars, S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium are responsible for most of the Salmonella outbreaks implicated in the consumption of contaminated foods in the Republic of Korea. Because of the widespread occurrence of antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella in foods and food processing environments, bacteriophages have recently surfaced as an alternative biocontrol tool. In this study, we isolated a virulent bacteriophage (wksl3) that could specifically infect S. Enteritidis, S. Typhimurium, and several additional serovars. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that phage wksl3 belongs to the family Siphoviridae. Complete genome sequence analysis and bioinformatic analysis revealed that the DNA of phage wksl3 is composed of 42,766 bp with 64 open reading frames. Since it does not encode any phage lysogeny factors, toxins, pathogen-related genes, or food-borne allergens, phage wksl3 may be considered a virulent phage with no side effects. Analysis of genetic similarities between phage wksl3 and four of its relatives (SS3e, vB_SenS-Ent1, SE2, and SETP3) allowed wksl3 to be categorized as a SETP3-like phage. A single-dose test of oral toxicity with BALB/c mice resulted in no abnormal clinical observations. Moreover, phage application to chicken skin at 8ï¿½C resulted in an about 2.5-log reduction in the number of Salmonella bacteria during the test period. The strong, stable lytic activity, the significant reduction of the number of S. Enteritidis bacteria after application to food, and the lack of clinical symptoms of this phage suggest that wksl3 may be a useful agent for the protection of foods against S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium contamination.
Leistungsbewertung intelligenter Handover-Verfahren für zellulare Mobilfunksysteme

The digital, pan-European standard Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is the currently dominating world-wide cellular communication system. Due to the upcoming mass market and the ever increasing number of subscribers, it is of utmost importance to increase the efficiency of the networks. The resources of the radio interface (frequencies and bandwidth) are the limiting factor, especially for the GSM 900 networks. A key role falls to the function handover , maintaining a call in progress across cell boundaries. This thesis is committed to optimize the handover process. “Intelligent software technologies” (fuzzy logic, neural networks, pattern recognition techniques) and their application to the GSM handover process are investigated. Three suitable methods are developed and analyzed: fuzzy handover, area recognition, and trace pattern recognition. These methods are based on an improved processing of the GSM measurement reports. Fuzzy handover uses a fuzzy controller to perform handover decisions. Area recognition and trace pattern recognition are pattern recognition techniques, which exploit the characteristic features of the radio propagation. Radio propagation and in particular shadowing caused by obstacles is deterministic and location dependent. Using suitable methods, mobile stations can be located within the network. Area recognition determines the location of a mobile station to an area of a few hundred meters size. Trace pattern recognition classifies a receive level trace and associates it with a location or an event such as a handover required message. Finally, the conception of an integrated system with an intelligent handover decision process is presented. All methods have been scrutinized by means of detailed modelling and computer simulation. For this purpose the simulation program GSM ObjectOriented Simulation Environment (GOOSE) has been developed. GOOSE implements the relevant parts of the GSM standard and features a realistic radio propagation and mobility model.