Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Empirical Model-based MOE for Friction Reduction by Slot-Ejected Polymer Solutions in an Aqueous Environment

Abstract : Since the discovery of the Toms Effect in 1948, many investigators have explored the nature and causes of polymer-induced friction reduction, using both experimental and theoretical methods. External friction reduction for use on submarines and other marine vehicles is an area of great practical importance. In such applications, the polymer must be ejected at one or more locations along the vehicle's exterior surface, so the effects of non-uniform polymer concentration are paramount. The goal of this work was to develop a model that accurately captures the drag-reduction behavior of slot-ejected polymer in external flow and that can be used as a measure of effectiveness (MOE) for engineering purposes. An empirical model has been developed by combining partial models from the work of earlier researchers. These model components were combined, using simple subsidiary calculations, to create a complete model of friction reduction as a function of the dimensionless parameter K. The complete model contains several empirical parameters from earlier published works and several operating parameters that define an experimental configuration. Each of the parameters was tested for its impact on the model. It was found that the model was very sensitive to three parameters in particular: the power law exponent that governs the approach to saturation as a function of polymer concentration, the ejection angle of the slot that extrudes the polymer into the flow, and the roll-off concentration at which performance decreases for high polymer concentrations. The model provides a useful MOE tool for evaluation of field experiments and for design of slot ejector systems.
Childhood adversities and psychosis: evidence, challenges, implications

There is a substantial body of research reporting evidence of associations between various forms of childhood adversity and psychosis, across the spectrum from experiences to disorder. This has been extended, more recently, to include studies of cumulative effects, of interactions with other factors, of specific effects, and of putative biological and psychological mechanisms. In this paper we evaluate this research and highlight the remaining methodological issues and gaps that temper, but do not dismiss, conclusions about the causal role of childhood adversity. We also consider the emerging work on cumulative, synergistic, and specific effects and on mechanisms; and discuss the broader implications of this line of research for our understanding of psychosis. We conclude that the current balance of evidence is that childhood adversities – particularly exposure to multiple adversities involving hostility and threat – do, in some people, contribute to the onset of psychotic experiences and psychotic disorders.
An Improved Traveling-Wave Protection Scheme for LCC-HVDC Transmission Lines

Line-commutated converter-based-high-voltage direct-current (LCC-HVDC) transmission technology has been developing very rapidly. However, the sensitivity and reliability of HVDC line protection require further improvement. An analysis of different line fault types is conducted to show that the normalized voltage change rate without the influence of wave propagation can more effectively distinguish between internal and external faults with high fault resistances. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining an accurate solution for a traveling wave, a novel traveling-wave propagation calculation method is developed by making use of the step response of a transmission line with consideration for its frequency-dependent characteristics. A novel traveling-wave protection (TWP) scheme for two-terminal LCC-HVDC transmission lines is then proposed based on the developed traveling-wave propagation calculation method and fault analysis results. The proposed protection scheme is tested based on fault simulation data using an EMTDC/PSCAD simulation platform and the fault-recorded data from an actual undesired tripping event of conventional TWP. The results demonstrate that the proposed TWP scheme, compared with conventional TWP, can more reliably and correctly detect faults with high transition resistances under different operation modes.
Analysis of antibody responses to phenotypically distinct lentiviruses

To define the immune responses against phenotypically and pathogenically distinct lentiviruses, we used an immunoblotting assay to study antibodies to viral proteins of ovine lentivirus (OvLV) in 16 experimentally and 12 naturally infected sheep. Two distinct phenotypes of OvLV were used to experimentally infect lambs: strain 85/34, a "rapid/high" isolate which rapidly induced lysis in infected primary macrophage cultures and replicated to relatively high titers, and strains 84/28 and 85/14, "slow/low" isolates which induced slowly progressive syncytia with minimal lysis in vitro and replicated only to low titers in the same cell type. Serum antibodies against four major viral structural proteins, gp105, p25, p16, and p14, were detected. In a longitudinal study of experimentally infected lambs, the antibody to p25 (major gag protein) usually appeared first (average, about 3 weeks postinoculation [p.i.]) and was followed in about 2 weeks by p16, p14, and gp105 almost simultaneously. Six of 16 animals did not develop anti-p14 antibody by the time of necropsy at 9 to 29 weeks p.i. Two of 10 lambs which developed antibody to p14 had the antibody only transiently from 3 to 8 or 13 weeks p.i. and lost it by the time of necropsy at 21 or 22 weeks p.i. In contrast, antibodies to the other three structural proteins remained fairly constant until the time of necropsy. There were differences in the antibody responses of the experimentally infected lambs to the two phenotypes of OvLV. Seven of 10 (70%) lambs which were inoculated with the rapid/high strain developed antibody to p14, whereas only 17% of the lambs inoculated with the slow/low strains had antibody to this protein. In the longitudinal study, no decline was observed in the activity of any specific antibody such as that which occurs with anti-p24 antibody in human immunodeficiency virus infection, except in the case of anti-p14 antibody in two lambs. There were no significant differences in antibody titers against p25, p16, and p14 in final blood samples between rapid/high virus- and slow/low virus-infected groups. However, the rapid/high virus-infected group developed a fivefold-higher geometric mean titer of anti-env product (gp 105) antibody than did the slow/low virus-infected group (P </= 0.1). Antibody titers to all major structural proteins, except p14, in the naturally infected sheep were markedly lower than those in experimentally induced OvLV infections (P </= 0.01). The failure of the slow/low virus-infected group to develop anti-p14 antibody may suggest diminished viral replication in vivo or a failure of the host to recognize p14 in the slow/low virus-infected group. Since the geometric mean antibody titer to gp105 was threefold higher in lambs with lymphoid interstitial pneumonia than in those without lesions and since no differences were observed in the titers of other antiviral antibodies between these groups, we found no evidence to suggest that levels of such antibodies correlated with protection from OvLV-induced disease.
Effect of Ursodeoxycholic Acid Use on the Risk of Colorectal Neoplasia in Patients with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) may modify the risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)–associated colorectal cancer. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies evaluating the effect of UDCA on the risk of IBD-associated colorectal neoplasia (CRN) (defined as colorectal cancer and/or dysplasia) in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis with concomitant IBD (PSC-IBD). Methods: We conducted a systematic search of Medline, Embase, and Web of Science and manually reviewed the literature. Studies were included if they: (1) evaluated exposure to UDCA in patients with PSC-IBD, (2) reported IBD-associated CRN as outcome, and (3) reported relative risks or odds ratios (ORs) or provided data for their calculation. Summary OR estimates with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using the random-effects model. Results: Eight studies (5 observational, 3 randomized controlled trials) reporting 177 cases of CRN in 763 patients with PSC-IBD were included in the analysis. Overall, meta-analysis showed no significant protective association between UDCA use and CRN (OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.41–1.61). However, there was a significant chemopreventive effect on the risk of advanced CRN (colorectal cancer and/or high-grade dysplasia) (OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.17–0.73). In a subgroup analysis, low-dose UDCA use (8–15 mg/kg/d) was associated with significant risk reduction of CRN (OR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.08–0.49). Conclusions: UDCA, particularly at low doses, may reduce the risk of advanced CRN in patients with PSC-IBD. However, results should be interpreted with caution, given limited reporting of cancer-related outcomes, primarily from tertiary care centers.
Social Impact of MOOC's in Oman Higher Education

The word E transformed everything is this world, as well as the whole globe itself. To a great extend this helps for eco friendly green world. In educational field, electronic medium has played a major role. It influenced and changed almost every component of it to electronic medium like e-book, online courses, etc. Throughout the world, leading universities are offering online courses voluntarily. Generally we refer to it as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs). There are many debates going on related to success and consequences of MOOCs. Many are highlighting that these courses are self-paced, economical, and provide quality training to all irrespective of geographical constraints. But many other academic people go against these points and keep listing many other disadvantages of MOOCs. This paper explores the basics of MOOCs at the initial section. Following section will deal with advantages and disadvantages of MOOCs in general. We the researchers collected the details about the awareness of MOOCs among teachers and students in a higher education institution in Oman. We have also collected the details about MOOCs implementation and usage within Oman educational society. Based on the collected information, we have evaluated and presented the findings about MOOCs impact in Oman higher education. We have felt that doing appropriate improvements in MOOCs may become an imperative medium in Oman educational institutions. The suggestions are listed in the discussion and recommendation section.
Bayesian CP factorization of incomplete tensor for EEG signal application

CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) tensor factorization of incomplete data is a powerful and useful data analysis technique. This method can achieve the purpose of tensor completion through explicitly capturing the multilinear latent factors. Recently, a CP factorization based on a hierarchical probabilistic model has been proposed which is used fully Bayesian theory by incorporating a sparsity-inducing prior over multiple latent factors and the appropriate hyper-priors over all hyper-parameters. In this way, the rank of tensor can be determined automatically instead of traditional manual assignment. This method has been applied into image inpainting and facial image synthesis effectively. However, there is no research on the application in EEG signal processing of this method. Moreover, the EEG data loss often occurs during experiment recording period. In this paper, we used this newer data analysis method for processing EEG data set from P300 experiment including data completion under different levels of data missing and classification analysis on the recovered data. The experiment result shows that this method has a good processing performance on incomplete EEG signal.
BitTorrent-Like Protocols for Interactive Access to VoD Systems

This article presents two novel protocols for interactive access to video-on-demand systems. They are both based on the well-known BitTorrent paradigm. As main innovative aspects, the video chunks are categorized in different priority sets and there is the deployment of a user-behavior predicting model. The analysis and the validation are carried out through simulations using workloads from a real server. Furthermore, the novel protocols are compared with others of the literature. The final results outline optimizations of up to one order of magnitude over the various competitive metrics considered herein.
Achievement of Target Cyclosporine Concentrations as a Predictor of Severe Acute Graft Versus Host Disease in Children Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Receiving Cyclosporine and Methotrexate Prophylaxis

This study evaluates our institution's target trough cyclosporine (CSA) concentrations as predictors of severe acute graft versus host disease (aGvHD) in children receiving either matched related or unrelated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The outcomes of 87 consecutive children who underwent allogeneic HSCT and received CSA and methotrexate as prophylaxis against aGvHD between October 1, 1999 and September 30, 2002 were retrospectively evaluated. The proportion of time that each patient maintained a whole blood CSA concentration within or above the initial target range (105-155 ng/mL or 155-210 ng/mL) was calculated for each of the following time periods: in each week after HSCT from day 0 to +28; in the week preceding engraftment; and in the week preceding the onset of aGvHD. Patients were prospectively evaluated twice weekly for the presence and severity of aGvHD by senior attending physicians. The relationship between potential predictors and the development of severe aGvHD was examined using univariate logistic regression. The main variables of interest were the proportion of time that therapeutic or supratherapeutic CSA concentrations were maintained; median CSA concentrations; the number of methotrexate doses received; and the use of folinic acid rescue. Mean follow-up time was 3.0 ± 1.9 years among children who survived beyond day +100. Three variables were significantly associated with the development of severe aGvHD on univariate analysis: initial CSA target concentration [odds ratio (OR), 0.24; P = 0.03], proportion of time the target CSA concentration was achieved during the second week after transplant (OR, 0.16; P = 0.02), and proportion of time the target CSA concentration was achieved during the week before engraftment (OR, 0.22; P = 0.0489). Multivariable analysis demonstrated an inverse relationship between the median CSA concentration during the week before engraftment and the development of severe aGvHD (OR, 0.99; P = 0.045). These results suggest that achievement of our CSA target concentrations is important to aGvHD outcomes.
Binding of the TorR regulator to cis‐acting direct repeats activates tor operon expression

The expression of the Escherichia coli torCAD operon, which encodes the anaerobically expressed trimethylamine N‐oxide (TMAO) reductase respiratory system, requires the presence of TMAO in the medium. The response regulator, TorR, has recently been identified as the regulatory protein that controls the expression of the torCAD operon in response to TMAO. The torC regulatory region contains four direct repeats of a decameric consensus motif designated the tor boxes. Alteration by base substitutions of any of the four tor boxes in a plasmid containing a torC′‐lacZ fusion dramatically reduces TorR‐dependent torC expression. In addition, deletion of the distal tor box (box1) abolishes torC induction whereas the presence of a DNA fragment starting three bases upstream from box1 suffices for normal torC expression. Footprinting and gel‐retardation experiments unambiguously demonstrated that TorR binds to the torC regulatory region. Three distinct regions are protected by TorR binding. One of approximately 24 nucleotides covers the first two tor boxes (box1 and box2); the second is located upstream from the −35 promoter sequence and includes the third tor box (box3); the last is found downstream from the −35 sequence and corresponds to the fourth tor box (box4). Binding to the upstream tor boxes (box1 and box2) appears to be stronger than binding to the downstream tor boxes (box3 and box4) since only the upstream region is protected at the lower concentration of TorR used in the footprinting experiments.
Combined targeting of interleukin‐6 and vascular endothelial growth factor potently inhibits glioma growth and invasiveness

Interleukin‐6 (IL6) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGFA) are abundantly produced by glioma cells and contribute to malignancy by promoting angiogenesis, cell proliferation and resistance to apoptosis. We compared the effect of inhibiting IL6 and VEGF on U87‐derived experimental glioma grown on the chick chorio‐allantoic membrane (CAM) or in the brain of xenografted mice. Tumor growth was monitored by biomicroscopy and immunohistology. In vitro, IL6 knockdown had no effect on proliferation but substantially enhanced invasion. In the CAM experimental glioma, IL6 or VEGF knockdown reduced growth and vascularization of the tumors with a comparable efficiency, but increased invasion of residual tumor cells. In contrast, combined IL6/VEGF knockdown not only showed enhanced reduction of tumor growth and angiogenesis but also significantly prevented invasion of residual tumor cells. In mice, combining IL6 knockdown and Avastin™ treatment completely abrogated tumor development and infiltration. Molecular response of tumor cells to single or combined treatment was studied by transcriptomic profiling. Many cell cycle promoting genes and chromatin components were silenced in the double knockdown. In addition, specific migratory signatures detected in tumors under single IL6 or VEGF knockdown were partially erased in combined IL6/VEGF knockdown tumors. Our results show that treatment with a combination of IL6 and VEGF inhibitors brings synergistic antitumoral benefit and reduces global activity of major pathways of cell survival, proliferation and invasiveness in remaining tumor cells that may be induced by using VEGF or IL6 inhibitors alone. © 2009 UICC
Real time implementation of SECS with active shunt filter capabilities

In this paper, a variable step size filtered X-least mean fourth (FX-LMF) algorithm is proposed for a single-stage three-phase grid tied solar energy conversion system with active shunt filter capabilities. It consists of a SPV (Solar Photovoltaic) array, a voltage source converter, a three-phase grid and connected linear and nonlinear loads. The proposed algorithm helps in faster convergence and it also has less mean square error as compared to fixed step LMF. A prototype of the system is developed and experimental results are obtained while feeding SPV active power to the loads and the grid. The total harmonic distortion of grid current is observed well within the limit of IEEE-519 standard.
Bootstrapping Language Associated with Biomedical Entities

Dye salts of a mono- or polycationic dye where the anion conforms to a general formula (1) or (2) [Me (XCN)4]2(-)(1)[Me (SCN)6]n(-)(2)in which Me in the formula (1) is the divalent zinc cation, the divalent iron cation, the divalent cobalt cation, the divalent tin cation or the divalent copper cation, and Me in the formula (2) stands for the divalent iron cation, the divalent nickel cation or the trivalent iron cation, X stands for an oxygen or sulfur atom and n depending on the valency of the corresponding metal cation, denotes the number 4 or 3. The novel dye salts can be obtained for example from aqueous solution or suspension by reacting the corresponding cationic dye which has a customary anion with a metal cation Me donor compound and an alkali metal thiocyanate or cyanate, alkaline earth metal thiocyanate or cyanate or ammonium thiocyanate or cyanate. They are used in particular in the spin-dyeing of acid-modified polyacrylonitrile and copolymers thereof.
Gemcitabine reverses cisplatin resistance: demonstration of activity in platinum- and multidrug-resistant ovarian and peritoneal carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE Preclinical models in an ovarian cancer cell line (A2780) demonstrate synergistic activity with the combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin compared to either single agent alone. Platinum resistance is related to expression of excision repair proteins, one of which (ERCC-1) has been identified as playing a critical role in the synergy of gemcitabine and cisplatin. We evaluated the cisplatin and gemcitabine regimen in patients with platinum refractory and multidrug refractory ovarian and peritoneal carcinoma. METHODS Gemcitabine (750 mg/m(2)) was administered intravenously over 30 min followed by cisplatin (30 mg/m(2)) on Days 1 and 8 every 21 days. Day 8 therapy was canceled for an absolute neutrophil count <1000/mm(3) or platelet count <75,000/mm(3). Sequential dose reductions of gemcitabine to 600, 400, and 300 mg/m(2) were prescribed in the event of canceled therapy, neutropenic sepsis, or severe thrombocytopenia (platelets <20,000/m(3)). RESULTS Thirty-six platinum- and paclitaxel-resistant patients were studied. Thirty-five were evaluable for response, of which 6 had progressed on gemcitabine as a single agent. Fifteen of the patients responded (42.9%, 95% CI 28.0-59.1%). Eleven were partial clinical responses and 4 were complete clinical responses, with 4 of the 6 patients who had failed gemcitabine as a single agent responding. Among the responding patients the median response duration was 11 months (range 4-14 months). For all patients the progression-free interval was 6 months (range 1-14 months). The median survival was 12 months. CONCLUSION The combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin is active in patients who are platinum resistant. Additionally, activity is demonstrated even in patients who have previously been resistant to gemcitabine.
Scanning tunneling microscopy observations on the reconstructed Au(111) surface: Atomic structure, long-range superstructure, rotational domains, and surface defects.

Keywords: Surface Electronic and Atomic Structure ; Spectroscopy ; Spin-Polarized STM Reference LNS-ARTICLE-1990-002doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.42. 9307 Record created on 2009-04-14, modified on 2017-05-12
Systemic Treatment of Malignant Thymoma: A Decade Experience at a Single Institution

Objectives:Thymic malignancies are rare tumors on the superior anterior mediastinum. Treatment of advanced stages includes chemotherapy. The objective of this analysis was to review the treatment of this disease in the past decade. Methods:This is a retrospective analysis of the results obtained in a total of 29 patients with advanced malignant thymomas who underwent systemic chemotherapy in the past 10 years at our institution. Sixteen received neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the attempt to shrink the tumor and then perform a radical operation. The others received chemotherapy as palliation. Platinum based chemotherapy was mainly used. Results:The response rate to first-line chemotherapy was 50% in the neoadjuvant setting and 31% in the advanced setting. A better survival was observed in patients who underwent chemotherapy as part of their combined modality treatment, in patients with thymomas, and in patients without visceral metastases. Some patients responded to targeted therapies at relapse. Conclusions:A better understanding of the biology of this rare tumor may allow in the future the development of better therapies for the more aggressive tumor types (WHO type C), which appear to be increasing in frequency.