Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DMD055988 377..383

Humans are exposed to nanoparticles in the environment as well as those in nanomaterials developed for biomedical applications. However, the safety and biologic effects of many nanoparticles remain to be elucidated. Over the past decade, our understanding of the interaction of proteins with various nanomaterials has grown. The protein corona can determine not only how nanoparticles interact with cells but also their biologic effects and toxicity. In this study, we describe the effects that several different classes of nanoparticles exert on the enzymatic activity of the cytosolic protein human arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1), a drug-metabolizing enzyme widely distributed in the body that is also responsible for the activation and detoxification of known carcinogens. We investigated three metal oxides (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and silicon dioxide), two synthetic clay nanoparticles (layered double hydroxide and layered silicate nanoparticles), and a self-assembling thermoresponsive polymeric nanoparticle that differ in size and surface characteristics. We found that the different nanoparticles induced very different responses, ranging from inhibition to marked enhancement of enzyme activity. The layered silicates did not directly inactivate NAT1, but was found to enhance substrate-dependent inhibition. These differing effects demonstrate the multiplicity of nanoparticle-protein interactions and suggest that enzyme activity may be compromised in organs exposed to nanoparticles, such as the lungs or reticulo-endothelial system.
BIOINDICATION OF WATER POLLUTION IN THE SOMES RIVER USING BIOCHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF THE GREEN ALGA SCENEDESMUS OPOLIENSIS P. RICHTER

Cultures of Scenedesmus opoliensis P. Richter, used as single-species test systems, were exposed to differently polluted water samples collected from distinct sectors of the Somes River, in order to identify physiological and biochemical markers suitable for a reliable bioindication of changes in the quality of aquatic environments. Algal cultures grown in Bold’s basal nutrient medium were used as control, and another reference consisted of cultures exposed to 25 μM CdCl2. Environmental stress exerted by water pollution induced changes in the antioxidative protection of algal cells. When only small amounts of hydrogen peroxide were generated, the activities of ascorbate peroxidase and of superoxide dismutase were enhanced, while the activity of these enzymes declined when hydrogen peroxide accumulated in cells. Vitamin C content of algal cells increased moderately, but significantly under water pollution. The chlorophylls to carotenoids ratio and net oxygen production decreased, while membrane lipid peroxidation increased in polluted water. Cell density was more affected than dry biomass. From among the parameters of induced chlorophyll fluorescence, potential quantum efficiency and vitality index exhibited the most sensitive changes in accordance with the pollution of aquatic environment. The above mentioned parameters of Scenedesmus opoliensis may be useful biochemical and physiological markers of water pollution.
Efficient Performance Diagnosis in OpenFlow Networks Based on Active Measurements

—To detect performance degradation and identify causal links promptly in OpenFlow networks, this paper presents the design of a scheme to actively measure the performance of all physical links from a single measurement point based on the controllable feature of individual traffic flow provided in OpenFlow. In the scheme, the measurement paths from a measurement box (called a “beacon”) are calculated to comprehensively cover all links and the probing packets are transmitted along elaborately defined routes in cooperation with the OpenFlow controller and multiple switches. Diagnosing the link performance of an entire OpenFlow network with a single beacon is expected to reduce operational costs, such as deployment and maintenance costs of beacons. In addition, reducing the number of flow-entries for active measurements on OpenFlow switches is considered to save the resources of OpenFlow switches. The effectiveness and feasibility of our solution are demonstrated through model emulations.
Underwater K-Means Clustering Segmentation Using SVM Classification

: In this paper we are going to recognize underwater images using k-means clustering segmentation. The images are filtered by median filtering. Then the images are enhanced segment wise by performing k-means clustering algorithm. We take the centroid values of each area of the image and adjust the enhancement of neighbouring pixels in that area of the image. The feature extraction is done by Histogram of Gradient (HOG) algorithm. For this we analyze the value of magnitude and angle parameters through gradient of pixels. Once the feature extraction is finished, classification is done using SVM classifier. Before this we train datasets of all underwater images according to their HOG feature and save them as (*.mat) files. The resultant image features is compared with trained datasets and classifies to which plant it belongs to. The experimental results show the clear cut verification of a given image by using this clustering algorithm and SVM classifier.
, Andrew and Garcia, Alvaro (2015) Generation of virtual asphalt mixture porosity for computational modelling. Powder

A new algorithm is proposed for the computational generation of realistic asphalt mixture porosity for computational simulations. The algorithm starts by generating in a 2D domain a number of randomly positioned circular or elliptical elements that are meant to represent virtual asphalt aggregate particles. These elements are then grown by mimicking the biological mechanism called contact inhibition until a target air voids content (AVC), chosen by the user, is met. In addition, multiple 2D domains can be converted to 3D and combined to generate a multi-layered realistic representation of the porosity present in asphalt mixtures. In this paper, the working mechanism of the algorithm is described and its eﬃciency is assessed. Moreover, the validity of the results is discussed, and virtual domains, in both 2 and 3 dimensions, are compared with real CT scans in order to show the eﬃcacy of this approach. It was found that the virtual representations of the asphalt mixture porosity show realistic characteristics in terms of air voids content and that the air voids size distribution is consistent with that of real specimens.
Interference from 3O-Methyldopa with Ultra – High Performance LC-MS / MS Measurements of Plasma Metanephrines : Chromatographic Separation Remains Important

the samples from control subjects (Fig. 1). The PEth 16:0/18:1 concentrations in breath samples from alcohol-using patients did not correlate with the BAC (P 0.660, Spearman), nor was there any statistically significant difference in PEth 16:0/18:1 concentration between BAC-positive (median 50.5 pg/filter) and BAC-negative (median 45.5 pg/filter) patients (P 0.699, Mann–Whitney). Phospholipids are a main constituent of exhaled breath particles originating from the surfactant (3). The findings of this study extended this knowledge by demonstrating that abnormal phospholipids formed in blood following heavy alcohol consumption (i.e., PEth) (2) are also measurable in breath. Whether PEth has any influence on surfactant or respiratory function or is involved in alcoholic lung injury is not known. However, our results support PEth measurement in exhaled breath as offering a novel screening method for excessive drinking and, as such, a noninvasive alternative to blood biomarkers. Because there was no difference between intoxicated and sober patients, the breath PEth test apparently reflects chronic heavy drinking and not acute intoxication. The exact relationship between alcohol consumption and PEth in breath, and the association between concentrations in breath and blood, remains to be elucidated.
CMAR_A_252292 4519..4530

Tajindra Singh Saluja 1 Vijay Kumar 2 Monika Agrawal Abhilasha Tripathi 4 Rajesh Kumar Meher 5 Kamini Srivastava 1 Anurag Gupta 1 Anjana Singh 6 Arun Chaturvedi 2 Satyendra Kumar Singh 1 1Stem Cell/Cell Culture Unit, Center for Advance Research, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 2Department of Surgical Oncology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 3Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 4Department of Pharmacology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India; 5Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Sambalpur University, Sambalpur, Odisha, India; 6Department of Biochemistry, AIIMS, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India Introduction: Despite improved therapeutics in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), tumor cells that are either quiescent and/or endowed with stem cell–like attributes usually survive treatment and recreate tumor load at relapse. Through this study, we aimed strategically to eliminate these stem cell–like cancer cells using a combination drug approach. Methods: Primary cultures from 15 well–moderately differentiated OSCC were established, and the existence of cancer cells with stem cell–like characteristics using five cancer stem cell (CSC) specific markers — CD44, CD133, CD147, C166, SOX2 and spheroid assay was ascertained. Next, we assessed quiescence in CSCs under normal and growth factor–deprived conditions using Ki67. Among several gene signatures regulating quiescent cellular state, we evaluated the effect of inhibiting Dyrk1b in combination with topoisomerase II and histone deacetylase inhibitors in targeting quiescent CSCs. Multiple drug-effect analysis was carried out with CompuSyn software to determine combination-index values. Results: We observed that CD44CD133 showed the highest level of SOX2 expression. CSCs showed varying degrees of quiescence, and inhibition of Dyrk1b decreased quiescence and sensitized CSCs to apoptosis. In the drug-combination study, Dyrk1b inhibitor was combined with topoisomerase II and histone deacetylase inhibitors to target quiescent CSCs. In combination, a synergistic effect was seen even at a 16-fold lower dose than IC50. Furthermore, combined treatment decreased glutathione levels and increased ROS and mitochondrial stress, leading to increased DNA damage and cytochrome c in CSCs. Conclusion: We report marker-based identification of CSC subpopulations and synergy of Dyrk1b inhibitor with topoisomerase II and HDAC inhibitors in primary OSCC. The results provide a new therapeutic strategy to minimize quiescence and target oral CSCs simultaneously.
Package Fingerprint: a visual summary of package interfaces and relationships

Context: Object-oriented languages such as Java, Smalltalk, and C ++ structure their programs using packages. Maintainers of large systems need to understand how packages relate to each other, but this task is complex because packages often have multiple clients and play di ﬀ erent roles (class container, code ownership.). Several approaches have been proposed, among which the use of cohesion and coupling metrics. Such metrics help identify candidate packages for restructuring; however, they do not help maintainers actually understand the structure and interrelationships between packages. Objectives: In this paper, we use pre-attentive processing as the basis for package visualization and see to what extent it could be used in package understanding. Method: We present the package ﬁngerprint , a 2D visualization of the references made to and from a package. The proposed visualization o ﬀ ers a semantically rich, but compact and zoomable views centered on packages. We focus on two views (incoming and outgoing references) that help users understand how the package under analysis is used by the system and how it uses the system. Results: We applied these views on four large systems: Squeak, JBoss, Azureus, and ArgoUML. We obtained several interesting results, among which, the identiﬁcation of a set of recurring visual patterns that help maintainers: (a) more easily identify the role of and the way a package is used within the system (e.g., the package under analysis provides a set of layered services), and, (b) detect either problematic situations (e.g., a single package that groups together a large number of basic services) or opportunities for better package restructuring (e.g., removing cyclic dependencies among packages). The visualization generally scaled well and the detection of di ﬀ erent patterns was always possible. Conclusion: The proposed visualizations and patterns proved to be useful in understanding and maintaining the di ﬀ erent systems we addressed. To generalize to other contexts and systems, a real user study is required.
Palm Print Identification System Using Haralick Features

: To confirm or determine the identification of an individual, different types of systems are used depending upon the area in which it is used. The purpose of each system is to ensure that the service is provided to the only the legitimate user. Examples of such applications include secure access to buildings, computer systems, laptops, cellular phones and ATMs. Knowledge-based and token-based person recognition rely on surrogate representations of identity such as passwords or ID cards, which can be easily forgotten/lost, guessed/stolen, or shared. Moreover, they cannot provide vital identity management functions like nonrepudiation and detecting multiple enrollments by the same person under different identities. For example, individuals can easily deny (repudiate) using a service by claiming that their password had been stolen or guessed. Individuals can also conceal their true identity by presenting forged or duplicate identification documents. In addition, traditional mechanisms like passwords and tokens do not provide strong evidence for post-event person recognition, such as suspect identification at a crime scene. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that knowledge-based and token-based mechanisms alone are not sufficient for reliable identity management. Since the biometric identifiers are inherent to an individual, it is more difficult to manipulate, share, or forget these traits. Hence, biometric traits constitute a strong and reasonably permanent link between a person and his identity.
ICLR Reproducibility Challenge Report (Padam : Closing The Generalization Gap Of Adaptive Gradient Methods in Training Deep Neural Networks)

This work is a part of ICLR Reproducibility Challenge 2019, we try to reproduce the results in the conference submission PADAM: Closing The Generalization Gap of Adaptive Gradient Methods In Training Deep Neural Networks. Adaptive gradient methods proposed in past demonstrate a degraded generalization performance than the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with momentum. The authors try to address this problem by designing a new optimization algorithm that bridges the gap between the space of Adaptive Gradient algorithms and SGD with momentum. With this method a new tunable hyperparameter called partially adaptive parameter p is introduced that varies between [0, 0.5]. We build the proposed optimizer and use it to mirror the experiments performed by the authors. We review and comment on the empirical analysis performed by the authors. Finally, we also propose a future direction for further study of Padam. Our code is available at: this https URL
Coordination of cortical and thalamic activity during non-REM human sleep in humans

Every night, the human brain produces thousands of downstates and spindles during non-REM sleep. Previous studies indicate that spindles originate thalamically, and downstates cortically, loosely grouping spindle occurrence. However, the mechanisms whereby the thalamus and cortex interact in generating these sleep phenomena remain poorly understood. Using bipolar depth recordings, we report here a sequence wherein: 1) convergent cortical downstates lead thalamic downstates; 2) thalamic downstates hyperpolarize thalamic cells, thus triggering spindles; and 3) thalamic spindles are focally projected back to cortex, arriving during the down-to-upstate transition when the cortex replays memories. Thalamic intrinsic currents, therefore, 2.2 for M. Pul2/ Middle Frontal Gyrus. B. Spindle versus spindle. The highly associated M. Pul1/ Middle Frontal Gyrus and M. Pul2/ Post Central thalamocortical pairings share spindles centered on 0 and both have high enrichment factors (8.9 and 10.2, respectively). In comparison, M. Pul1/ Post Central exhibits a lower degree of association with an enrichment factor of 7 and M. Pul2/ Middle Frontal Gyrus has the lowest spindle enrichment factor at 3.2. M. Pul2 and Middle Frontal Gyrus still appear to be highly related, but have a low enrichment factor, due to the skewing to the right of Middle Frontal Gyrus spindles. C. Downstate versus spindle. The M. Pul1/ Middle Frontal Gyrus pair shows that Middle Frontal Gyrus spindles occur during and just after the M. Pul1 downstate peak, with an enrichment factor of 5.3. Similarly, the Post Central spindles occur during the M. Pul2 downstate peak, with an enrichment factor of 4. Conversely, the opposite pairings show fairly flat histograms with low enrichment factors (2 for M. Pul2/ Middle Frontal Gyrus and 1.7 for M. Pul1/ Post Central). These plots demonstrate a double dissociation wherein one medial pulvinar contact pair is more closely related (in downstates, spindles, and their combination) to the middle frontal gyrus, and the other to the post central gyrus.
The presence of end-tethered poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) at solid interfaces effectively impedes nonspecific protein adsorption [4-6]. This “protein resistance” always relates to PEG chain length, interface grafting density (the number of PEG chains

Adsorption of proteins onto a solid surface is believed to be the initial and controlling step in biofouling. A better knowledge of the fouling process can be obtained by controlling the formation of the first protein layer at a solid surface. A number of methods have been investigated to inhibit adsorption of proteins. In this study, the adsorption kinetics of -casein onto bimodal PEG brushes on a stainless steel surface has been studied by means of a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). Bimodal brushes consist of long and short PEG chains were prepared in situ using a physisorption method. The adsorption kinetics of -casein were monitored with different PEG combinations and concentrations. -casein adsorptions onto monomodal PEG brushes were determined for comparison. -casein adsorption was also studied on a bare stainless steel surface as a control. All adsorptions were conducted at 23 C and pH 7.2. The results obtained showed that depositing PEG from solutions with increasing concentrations from 0.1 to 5.0 g / L decreased adsorption of -casein by about 40% on monomodal surfaces. Bimodal PEG surfaces appeared to be less effective than monomodal PEG brushes surfaces in preventing adsorption of casein. It is suggested that bimodal PEG surfaces behave like a ‘solid’ which leads to -casein adsorption at the surface via hydrophobic interaction for this observation. The difference between PEG combinations in suppressing the adsorption of -casein was not very significant, indicating the existence of an optimal value of chain density to effectively suppress the adsorption of -casein. Keywords— -casein, QCM-D, stainless steel, bimodal brush, PEG
Measurement-based study of vehicle to Internet opportunistic communications

Advances in wireless communication technologies as well as the low cost of wireless equipments have increased the ubiquity of network connectivity, illustrated by the large deployment of IEEE 802.11 access points (APs). Anytime, anywhere, users are being connected to networks and desire consequently more services on their mobile devices. The Internet access from vehicles, in particular short lived connections, to roadside APs is a one of challenging services in this direction. Meanwhile, we wonder if those APs could oﬀer Internet connectivity to vehicular networks especially for delay-tolerant applications. A preliminary requirement to make this possible is to provide the vehicle communication router with a list of available APs in its neighborhood. In this paper, we introduce ScanCar, a layered measurement system for wireless infrastructure discovery, which is integrated in the vehicle’s router to build and maintain a database of WIFI APs in the vehicle’s range. Then, we report results of a real measurement study conducted on the data set ScanCar has provided through wardriving in diﬀerent regions of the French Riviera. For instance, in Antibes Juan-les-Pins, which is a residential city, our ﬁndings show that the scan duration of the 2369 discovered APs, varies between 200 ms and 664 ms. Despite that among those APs only 8.2% were not protected, we found that on average, clients can potentially remain in at least one AP’s coverage for 23.86 seconds which can be considered as a very promising result toward the development of services for vehicle to Internet opportunistic communication.
Tolerating defiance? Local average treatment effects without monotonicity

Instrumental variables (IVs) are commonly used to estimate the effects of some treatments. A valid IV should be as good as randomly assigned, it should not have a direct effect on the outcome, and it should not induce any unit to forgo treatment. This last condition, the so-called monotonicity condition, is often implausible. This paper starts by showing that actually, IVs are still valid under a weaker condition than monotonicity. It then derives conditions that are sufficient for this weaker condition to hold and whose plausibility can easily be assessed in applications. It finally reviews several applications where this weaker condition is applicable while monotonicity is not. Overall, this paper extends the applicability of the IV estimation method.
Small Area Estimation of the Homeless in Los Angeles: An Application of Cost-Sensitive stochastic Gradient Boosting Author:

Abstract: In many metropolitan areas, efforts are made to count the homeless to ensure proper provision of social services. Some areas are very large, which makes spatial sampling a viable alternative to an enumeration of the entire terrain. Counts are observed in sampled regions but must be imputed in unvisited areas. Along with the imputation process, the costs of underestimating and overestimating may be different. For example, if precise estimation in areas with large homeless counts is critical, then underestimation should be penalized more than overestimation in the loss function. We analyze data from the 2004-2005 Los Angeles County homeless study using an augmentation of L1 stochastic gradient boosting that can weight overestimates and underestimates asymmetrically. We discuss our choice to utilize stochastic gradient boosting over other function estimation procedures. In-sample fitted and out-of-sample imputed values, as well as relationships between the response and predictors, are analyzed for various cost functions. Practical usage and policy implications of these results are discussed briefly.