Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Block Multiple Steps of Influenza A Virus Replication

ABSTRACT Host signaling pathways play important roles in the replication of influenza virus, but their functional effects remain to be characterized at the molecular level. Here we identify two receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (RTKIs) of the tyrphostin class that exhibit robust antiviral activity against influenza A virus replication in cultured cells. One of these (AG879) is a selective inhibitor of the nerve growth factor receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (TrkA/HER2) signaling; the other, tyrphostin A9 (A9), inhibits the platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR) pathway. We find that each inhibits at least three postentry steps of the influenza virus life cycle: AG879 and A9 both strongly inhibit the synthesis of all three influenza virus RNA species, block Crm1-dependent nuclear export, and also prevent the release of viral particles through a pathway that is modulated by the lipid biosynthesis enzyme farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FPPS). Tests of short hairpin RNA (shRNA) knockdown and additional small-molecule inhibitors confirmed that interventions targeting TrkA can suppress influenza virus replication. Our study suggests that host cell receptor tyrosine kinase signaling is required for maximal influenza virus RNA synthesis, viral ribonucleoprotein (vRNP) nuclear export, and virus release and that specific RTKIs hold promise as novel anti-influenza virus therapeutics.
Fully automatic synthesis of [18F]FES for reporter gene hERL expression imaging

We have developed a fully automatic method for the synthesis of 16&agr;-[18F]fluoroestradiol ([18F]FES) using a TRACERlab FXFN module. Following [18F]fluorination, the intermediate was hydrolyzed with a mixture of 2 N HCl in acetonitrile (CH3CN) and then neutralized with sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). After HPLC purification, the decay-corrected radiochemical yield of [18F]FES was 50±2.35% (n=4), which was stable up to 96.1±0.3% (n=4) at 8 h. This new fully automated synthesis method provided high and reproducible yields and the produced [18F]FES could be used to monitor in-vivo human estrogen receptor &agr; ligand binding domain gene expression using PET images.
Design and Implementation of a High Efficiency Cost Effective EV Charger Using LLC Resonant Converter

This paper focuses on the design and implementation of a Half Bridge LLC resonant converter for Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) battery charging applications. The proposed charger is designed to have high efficiency, low component cost, wide output voltage range, and low switching losses to maximize energy transfer through the converter to the battery using Constant Current (CC) and Constant Voltage (CV) control methods. The experimental results of the LLC resonant converter prototype, fed by a 322–420V PFC output, converts universal AC input to 57.6V DC at 345W power operating at peak efficiency of 96.3%.
Potential of Metriaclima lanisticola (Teleostei: Cichlidae) for biological control of schistosome intermediate host snails

ABSTRACT Metriaclima lanisticola, a native cichlid of Lake Malawi, was studied under laboratory conditions to evaluate its possible role as a predator of snails (Bulinus spp.). Bulinus globosus, B. nyassanus and B. tropicus were used as prey. B. globosus and B. nyassanus are intermediate hosts of human schistosomes in Lake Malawi. M. lanisticola orally shelled snails of all three species. Even when small snail sizes were offered, the fish shelled them. This suggests that M. lanisticola is entirely an oral sheller. Opercula of Melanoides species were commonly found in the stomach contents of wild-caught M. lanisticola, while whole snail shells or shell fragments were never observed, further suggesting that the fish is an oral sheller. M. lanisticola consumed more B. nyassanus in aquaria without substratum than in aquaria with a sandy substratum and apparently the fish is dependent on visual perception for prey detection.
Behavioural effects of acute phenylalanine and tyrosine depletion in healthy male volunteers

Acute phenylalanine and tyrosine depletion (APTD) studies have been used to assess the role of the cathecholaminergic system in various aspects of human behaviour. In this study we conducted a randomized, double-blind, controlled and cross-over comparison to evaluate the effects of APTD on memory, attention and mood in normal subjects. Twelve healthy male volunteers were included in this study. The subjects ingested a nutritionally balanced mixture (B) or a similar mixture deficient in phenylalanine and tyrosine (PT–). Before and 5 h after ingestion of the drink, volunteers underwent tests on mood, memory and attention. Results of the memory tests showed that PT– mixture impaired word recall as measured in Rey's test (p = 0.016). The assessment of changes in mood showed that the balanced mixture improved scores of as alertness (VAMS factor I, p = 0.037) and the PT– mixture induces an opposite effect, increased scores of anxiety (Profiles of Mental State composed-anxious dimension, p= 0.022). These results suggest that tyrosine plasma levels and cathecholamines may be important factors in regulating mood and memory.
Peceptual rendering of HDR in painting and photography

Pictures can be drawn by hand, or imaged by optical means. Over time, pictures have changed from being rare and unique to ubiquitous and common. They have changed from treasures to transients. This paper summarizes many picture technologies, and discusses their dynamic range, their color and tone-scale rendering and their spatial image processing. High Dynamic Range (HDR) image capture and display has long been an interest for artists and photographers. The discipline of reproducing scenes with a high range of luminances has a 5-century history that includes painting, photography, electronic imaging and image processing. HDR images render high-range scene information into lowrange reproductions. This paper studies the artistic techniques and scientific issues that control HDR image capture and reproduction. Both the artist and the scientist synthesize HDR reproductions with spatial image processing. The artists paints, or dodges and burns, the image he visualizes based on his human visual processing. The scientist, using algorithms that mimic vision, calculates perceptually correct renditions with inaccurate reproductions of scene radiances. The paper will discuss artists' techniques used in both painting and photography for HDR compression. It will also describe how optical veiling glare severely limits the range of luminance that can be captured and seen. The improvement in quality in digital HDR reproductions, as in HDR in art, depends on the spatial rendering of details in the highlights and shadows.
RELAX-based autofocus algorithm for high-resolution strip-map SAR

This paper addresses the non-iterative quality phase gradient autofocus (QPGA) technique which was originally proposed to remove one-dimensional phase errors in spotlight-mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. By enriching the source pool, the method is modified in a way suitable for autofocus in stripmap-mode SAR system with the advantage of being independent of any priori assumptions. Unlike the QPGA the potential candidates, i.e., dominant scatterers located along azimuth in each specific range bin, are automatically selected by exploiting the one-dimensional RELAX algorithm. Furthermore, RELAX is capable of estimating the size of blur window which is, in fact, associated with the Doppler spread of signal spectrum. The corresponding model includes four parameters i.e., complex amplitude, delay, Doppler center and spectral width. The proposed method has been applied to data extracted by a ground-based rotating coherent Doppler radar operating in strip-mapping mode SAR, with the aim of high-resolution clutter detection.
A Convex Optimization Framework for Connectivity Constraints in Image Segmentation and 3D Reconstruction

This thesis presents a framework for image segmentation and 3D reconstruction with topological constraints, a problem class not yet solved sufficiently by existing methods. The proposed method is specifically successful, when the object has a thin shape, e.g. when reconstructing vascular networks in medical image analysis, and for 3D reconstruction of thin structures. The constraints can be formulated as linear constraints in a convex optimization framework, which allows for a globally optimal solution.
Face recognition based on wavelet packet decomposition and support vector machines

Automated face detection and recognition is one of the most attentional branches of biometrics and it is also the one of the most active and challenging tasks for computer vision and pattern recognition. This paper present a method for face recognition based on wavelet packet decomposition and SVMs. The experiments show that the method has good performance and reduce the greatly computation.
Performance Evaluation of Navigation Approaches on High-resolution Displays

We conducted a study to discover if the data navigation techniques suitable for high-resolution displays differed significantly from those traditionally used for single-screen desktop displays. The high-resolution capability of the former display makes it possible to show more data at once without having the user drill-down to get to the details. At the same time, the larger physical size makes it difficult for the user to interact with such a display using current day interaction techniques. Given these factors, we compare the performance of users on tasks that involve navigating into hierarchically-structured data. The specific visualization we use is a cushion treemap, displayed at multiple resolutions—on a 3x3, 17” tiled screen display; on a 2x2, 17” tiled screen display; on a single 17” screen display, and on a 66” SMART Board™. Through the performance evaluation of 24 users, we show that beyond a certain resolution and physical screen size, the drill-down technique fares relatively poorly, while the straightforward technique of displaying all the data at once results in better performance at the tasks we studied.
Part 4: CPR overview: 2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a series of lifesaving actions that improve the chance of survival following cardiac arrest.1 Although the optimal approach to CPR may vary, depending on the rescuer, the victim, and the available resources, the fundamental challenge remains: how to achieve early and effective CPR. Given this challenge, recognition of arrest and prompt action by the rescuer continue to be priorities for the 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC. This chapter provides an overview of cardiac arrest epidemiology, the principles behind each link in the Chain of Survival, an overview of the core components of CPR (see Table 1), and the approaches of the 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC to improving the quality of CPR. The goal of this chapter is to integrate resuscitation science with real-world practice in order to improve the outcomes of CPR. View this table: Table 1. Summary of Key BLS Components for Adults, Children and Infants Despite important advances in prevention, cardiac arrest remains a substantial public health problem and a leading cause of death in many parts of the world.2 Cardiac arrest occurs both in and out of the hospital. In the US and Canada, approximately 350 000 people/year (approximately half of them in-hospital) suffer a cardiac arrest and receive attempted resuscitation.3,–,7 This estimate does not include the substantial number of victims who suffer an arrest without attempted resuscitation. While attempted resuscitation is not always appropriate, there are many lives and life-years lost because appropriate resuscitation is not attempted. The estimated incidence of EMS-treated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the US and Canada is about 50 to 55/100 000 persons/year and approximately 25% of these present with pulseless ventricular arrhythmias.3,8 The estimated incidence of in-hospital cardiac arrest is 3 to 6/1000 admissions4,– …
Microsomal prostaglandin E synthase‐1 is induced in alzheimer's disease and its deletion mitigates alzheimer's disease‐like pathology in a mouse model

Epidemiological studies have suggested that long‐term use of nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs that inhibit cyclooxygenase (COX) activity can moderate the onset or progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Thus it has been suggested that prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), a major end‐product of COX, may play a pathogenic role in AD, but the involvement of PGE synthase (PGES), a terminal enzyme downstream from COX, has not been fully elucidated. Here we found that, among three PGES enzymes, only microsomal PGES‐1 (mPGES‐1) is induced, and its expression is associated with β‐amyloid (Aβ) plaques in the cerebral cortex in human AD patients and in Tg2576 mice, a transgenic AD mouse model. Furthermore, to investigate whether mPGES‐1 contributes to AD‐like pathology, we bred mPGES‐1‐deficient mice with Tg2576 mice. We found that mPGES‐1 deletion reduced the accumulation of microglia around senile plaques and attenuated learning impairments in Tg2576 mice. These results indicated that mPGES‐1 is induced in the AD brain and thus plays a role in AD pathology. Blockage of mPGES‐1 could form the basis for a novel therapeutic strategy for patients with AD. Inc. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Fast template matching in images under non-linear tone mapping

A fast pattern matching scheme termed Matching by Tone Mapping (MTM) is introduced which allows matching under non-linear tone mappings. We show that, when tone mapping is approximated by a piecewise constant/linear function, a fast computational scheme is possible requiring computational time similar to the fast implementation of Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC). In fact, the MTM measure can be viewed as a generalization of the NCC for non-linear mappings and it actually reduces to NCC when mappings are restricted to be linear. We empirically show that the MTM is highly discriminative and robust to noise with comparable performance capability to that of the well performing Mutual Information, but on par with NCC in terms of computation time.
Heart rate control during exercise by baroreceptors and skeletal muscle afferents.

The objective of this brief review is to discuss current hypotheses describing the roles of the arterial baroreflex and reflexes originating from afferents within the active skeletal muscle (metaboreceptors and mechanoreceptors) in mediating reflex changes in heart rate. The major focus is on how the techniques of reflex activation and analysis of the subsequent responses may markedly affect conclusions drawn regarding the role of these reflexes during exercise. The disparate conclusions regarding the importance of these reflexes are likely reflective of the different autonomic mechanisms mediating the reflex responses (i.e., parasympathetic vs sympathetic) as well as the techniques utilized for reflex activation and analysis. Conclusions reached are that these reflexes are important in the regulation of heart rate during exercise but the relative roles are dependent on work load.
Regulated expression and dynamic changes in subnuclear localization of mammalian Rad18 under normal and genotoxic conditions

Rad18 plays a crucial role in postreplication repair in both lower eukaryotes and higher eukaryotes. However, regulation of the Rad18 expression in higher eukaryotes is largely unknown. We found that the RAD18 transcript is expressed ubiquitously in various tissues and very highly in the testis in mammals. Although human RAD18 (hRAD18) transcription levels fluctuate during the cell cycle, being maximal in the late S and minimal in the early G1, the protein levels remain constant throughout the cell cycle. Following UV‐irradiation, hRAD18 transcription levels decrease significantly, but Rad18 protein levels change little. The protein levels are maintained at least in part by enhanced translation rates. hRad18 localizes in the nucleus in two forms: a diffused form and a condensed form forming nuclear dots. These nuclear dots disperse rapidly in the nucleoplasm after treatments with various genotoxic agents, resulting in an enhancement of the intranuclear Rad18 concentration of the diffused form. No de novo protein synthesis is required for this process. These results suggest that in higher eukaryotes, the maintenance and dynamic translocation of Rad18 protein is important for postreplication repair.
Rickettsial Diseases and Ectoparasites from Military Bases in Japan

Abstract: Ectoparasitic arthropods are often vectors of rickettsiosis. We conducted a survey of ectoparasites on U.S. military facilities throughout Japan with the use of specimens submitted by pest control, public health, and veterinary personnel. Over 1,600 individual ectoparasites were collected. Fifteen species were identified, including several significant vectors of human diseases such as scrub typhus and rickettsial spotted fevers. These ectoparasites included Ctenocephalides felis, Haemaphysalis longicornis, Ixodes persulcatus, Leptotrombidium fuji, Leptotrombidium pallidum, and Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Rickettsial agents were detected by PCR and DNA sequencing. These included Bartonella henselae, Bartonella japonica, a novel Bartonella, Coxiella burnetii, an unnamed Coxiella, Ehrlichia canis, Orientia tsutsugamushi, Rickettsia typhi, and “Rickettsia Rf2125”/“Rickettsia cf1and5”.
A newly developed assay to study the minimum inhibitory concentration of Satureja spinosa essential oil

Aims: The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of Satureja spinosa essential oil against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella enterica, Salmonella serovar Enteritidis PT4 and Bacillus cereus was comparatively assessed with an established optical density method as well as a novel impedimetric method.
Power Analyses When Comparing Trimmed Means

Given a random sample from each o f two independent groups, this article takes up the problem o f estimating power, as well as a power curve, when comparing 20% trimmed means with a percentile bootstrap method. Many methods were considered, but only one was found to be satisfactory in terms o f obtaining both a point estimate o f power as well as a (one-sided) confidence interval. The method is illustrated with data from a reading study where theory suggests two groups should differ but nonsignificant results were obtained.
Detection of estrogenic potency in wastewater and surface water with three in vitro bioassays

A study was performed to optimize sample preparation and application of three in vitro assays for measuring estrogenic potency in environmental extracts. The three assays applied were an estrogen receptor (ER)‐binding assay and two reporter gene effect assays: a yeast estrogen screen (YES) and the ER‐mediated chemically activated luciferase gene expression (ER‐CALUX) assay. All assays were able to detect estrogenicity, but the amounts of material needed for the assays differed greatly between the three assays (ER‐binding assay ≫ YES > ER‐CALUX). In addition, in the ER‐binding assay, both agonists and antagonists give an estrogenic response, resulting in higher estradiol equivalency (EEQ) levels than both the ER‐CALUX and the YES assay for the same samples. The EEQs found in wastewater treatment plants (WTPs) with the ER‐CALUX assay were in the range of 4 to 440 and 0.11 to 59 pmol/L for influent and effluent, respectively. Water extracts from four large rivers had levels ranging from 0.25 to 1.72 pmol/L. Extracts from suspended matter and sludge contained estrogenic potency of 0.26 to 2.49 and 1.6 to 41 pmol EEQ/g dry weight, respectively. In WTPs, the average reduction of estrogenic potency in effluent compared to influent was 90 to 95% in municipal WTPs and about 50% in industrial WTPs. In influent, 30% of the ER‐CALUX activity could not be explained by the calculated potencies based on chemical analysis of a number of known (xeno)estrogens; in effluent the unexplained fraction was 80%. These first results of analyzing estrogenic potency in WTP water and surface water in The Netherlands indicate that further studies are warranted to investigate the actual risks for aquatic systems.
Using historical data for bioprocess optimization: modeling wine characteristics using artificial neural networks and archived process information.

Optimization of fermentation processes is a difficult task that relies on an understanding of the complex effects of processing inputs on productivity and quality outputs. Because of the complexity of these biological systems, traditional optimization methods utilizing mathematical models and statistically designed experiments are less effective, especially on a production scale. At the same time, information is being collected on a regular basis during the course of normal manufacturing and process development that is rarely fully utilized. We are developing an optimization method in which historical process data is used to train an artificial neural network for correlation of processing inputs and outputs. Subsequently, an optimization routine is used in conjunction with the trained neural network to find optimal processing conditions given the desired product characteristics and any constraints on inputs. Wine processing is being used as a case study for this work. Using data from wine produced in our pilot winery over the past 3 years, we have demonstrated that trained neural networks can be used successfully to predict the yeast-fermentation kinetics, as well as chemical and sensory properties of the finished wine, based solely on the properties of the grapes and the intended processing. To accomplish this, a hybrid neural network training method, Stop Training with Validation (STV), has been developed to find the most desirable neural network architecture and training level. As industrial historical data will not be evenly spaced over the entire possible search space, we have also investigated the ability of the trained neural networks to interpolate and extrapolate with data not used during training. Because a company will utilize its own existing process data for this method, the result of this work will be a general fermentation optimization method that can be applied to fermentation processes to improve quality and productivity.
Mist: Efficient Dissemination of Erasure-Coded Data in Data Centers

Data centers store a massive amount of data in a large number of servers built by commodity hardware. To maintain data integrity against server failures, erasure codes have been extensively deployed in modern data centers to provide a higher level of failure tolerance with less storage overhead than replication. Yet, compared to replication, disseminating erasure-coded data from a source server into multiple servers will also take significantly more time. In this paper, we design and implement Mist, a new mechanism for disseminating erasure-coded data efficiently to multiple receiving servers (receivers) in data centers. Mist speeds up the dissemination process by building an efficient topology among the receivers with heterogeneous performance, so that coded data can be received from other receivers in a pipelined fashion, rather than directly from the source. Mist flexibly supports a wide range of erasure codes, without imposing constraints to the range of system parameters, and can be extended for specific erasure codes with better performance by taking advantage of the corresponding erasure code. We have implemented Mist in Python, and our experimental results in Amazon EC2 have demonstrated that the dissemination time can be reduced by up to 96.3 percent with different kinds of erasure codes.