Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Making Shaders More Physically Plausible

There is a need to develop shaders that not only “look good”, but are more physically plausible. From physical and geometric considerations, we review the derivation of a shading equation expressing rejected radiance in terms of incident radiance and the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). We then examine the connection between this equation and conventional shaders used in computer graphics. Imposing the additional physical constraints of energy conservation and Helmholtz reciprocity allows us to create variations of the conventional shaders that are more physically plausible.
Crystal structure of ScpB from Chlorobium tepidum, a protein involved in chromosome partitioning

Structural maintenance of chromosome (SMC) proteins are essential in chromosome condensation and interact with non‐SMC proteins in eukaryotes and with segregation and condensation proteins (ScpA and ScpB) in prokaryotes. The highly conserved gene in Chlorobium tepidum gi 21646405 encodes ScpB (ScpB_ChTe). The high resolution crystal structure of ScpB_ChTe shows that the monomeric structure consists of two similarly shaped globular domains composed of three helices sided by β‐strands [a winged helix‐turn‐helix (HTH)], a motif observed in the C‐terminal domain of Scc1, a functionally related eukaryotic ScpA homolog, as well as in many DNA binding proteins. Proteins 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A gripper for grasping non-rigid material pieces out of a bundle

This paper deals with the concept, design, construction and experimental results of a gripper dedicated to the grasping of nonrigid material pieces out of a bundle. Based on a number of functional requirements a gripper is proposed with two passively rotating fingers and its performance is assessed experimentally in the case of grasping furs.
Monte Carlo simulation of the dielectric susceptibility of Ginzburg-Landau mode relaxors

The electric dipole configuration and dielectric susceptibility of a Ginzburg-Landau model ferroelectric lattice with randomly distributed defects are simulated using the Monte Carlo method. The simulated characteristics of the lattice configuration and dielectric susceptibility indicate that the model lattice evolves from a normal ferroelectric state to a typical relaxor state with increasing defect concentration. Consequently, the energy and dielectric susceptibility characteristics associated with the ferroelectric phase transitions become smeared. The simulated results approve the applicability of the Ginzburg-Landau model in approaching relaxor ferroelectrics.
Experimental Research on Therapeutic Angiogenesis Induced by Hepatocyte Growth Factor Directed by Ultrasound‐Targeted Microbubble Destruction in Rats

Objective. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of therapeutic angiogenesis in myocardial infarction induced by hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) mediated by ultrasound‐targeted microbubble destruction. Methods. Forty Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups after the models of myocardial infarction were prepared: (1) HGF, ultrasound, and microbubbles (HGF+US/MB), (2) HGF and ultrasound, (3) HGF and microbubbles, and (4) surgery alone. Destruction of ultrasound‐targeted microbubbles loaded with the HGF gene with an electrocardiographic trigger mode was performed in the HGF+US/MB group. All the rats were killed after being transfected for 14 days. Enhanced green fluorescent protein expression was examined in the myocardium, liver, and kidney in all groups by fluorescence microscopy; CD34 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry, and microvessel density (MVD) was counted in the high‐power field on microscopy. Hepatocyte growth factor expression in the myocardium was detected by western blotting and an enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. Results. Enhanced green fluorescent protein expression was detected in the myocardium of the HGF+US/MB group, but a few areas of HGF expression were detected only in small vessels and the capillary endothelium, and no expression was found in the surgery‐alone and HGF and microbubbles groups. The results of MVD counting by microscopy showed that the MVD in the myocardium of the HGF+US/MB group was the highest among all the groups. The results of western blotting and the enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay showed that the amount of HGF in the myocardium was highest in the HGF+US/MB group. Conclusions. Ultrasound‐targeted microbubble destruction could deliver HGF into the infracted myocardium and produce an angiogenesis effect, which could provide a novel strategy for gene therapy of myocardial infarction.
Coupled-rearrangement-channel Gaussian-basis variational method for trinucleon bound states.

To the $^{3}\mathrm{H}$ and $^{3}\mathrm{He}$ ground states, we apply the coupled-rearrangement-channel variational method with Gaussian-basis functions which has successfully been used in precise calculations of muonic molecular ions, Coulomb-interacting three-body systems. The trinucleon wave function is decomposed into angular-momentum-projected three-body channels as done in the Faddeev equations method, but the interaction is fully incorporated with no partial-wave decomposition. The radial part of the channel amplitudes is expanded with a sufficient number of Gaussian-tail basis functions of the Jacobi coordinates. The Gaussian ranges are taken to be geometrical progressions which run from very short ranges through large enough ones. This ab initio variational approach is found to describe accurately both the short-range correlations and the asymptotic behavior. The Argonne ${V}_{14}$ potential is used as an example of realistic two-nucleon interactions; for $^{3}\mathrm{He}$, the Coulomb potential is included nonperturbatively. The calculation reproduces precisely the results of the Faddeev calculations for $^{3}\mathrm{H}$ and $^{3}\mathrm{He}$ for binding energy, probabilities of the S, S', P, and D states, and the S- and D-wave asymptotic normalization constants. Convergence of the present results is seen at a much smaller number of the three-body channels than in the Faddeev calculations. This is because the interaction is truncated in the angular momentum space in the Faddeev calculations but the full interaction is taken in the present method.
A cubic B-spline Galerkin approach for the numerical simulation of the GEW equation

The generalized equal width (GEW) wave equation is solved numerically by using lumped Galerkin approach with cubic B-spline functions. The proposed numerical scheme is tested by applying two test problems including single solitary wave and interaction of two solitary waves. In order to determine the performance of the algorithm, the error norms L 2 and L ∞ and the invariants I 1 , I 2 and I 3 are calculated. For the linear stability analysis of the numerical algorithm, von Neumann approach is used. As a result, the obtained findings show that the presented numerical scheme is preferable to some recent numerical methods.
Operating Range Evaluation of Double-Side Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor/Generator for Flywheel Energy Storage System

This paper deals with the operating rage evaluation on double-side permanent magnet synchronous motor/generator (DPMSM/G) for flywheel energy storage system (FESS). The motor/generators used in FESS have wide operating range due to its charge/discharge mechanism. The motor/generators should be operated to satisfy not only the required electric power but also structural stability in operating range of FESS. To evaluate the operating range of FESS, this paper presents the approach on the electromagnetic and mechanic characteristic analysis using a developed DPMSM/G. As the electromagnetic characteristic, the motoring and generating characteristic analysis are performed by circuit parameter estimation. In addition, as the mechanical characteristic, the rotor dynamics analysis of the flywheel rotor is performed. Finally, the operating performance and analysis result will be confirmed by experiment.
Taurine amplifies renal kallikrein and prevents salt‐induced hypertension in Dahl rats

Objective To determine whether taurine reduces blood pressure by stimulating the renal kallikrein—kinin system. Methods The effects of taurine on blood pressure, urinary kallikrein activity and renal kallikrein gene expression were investigated in Dahl salt-sensitive (Dahl-S) rats. The specificity of the action of taurine was verified by comparison with the action of β-alanine, a carboxylic analogue of taurine. The effect of co-administration of the specific bradykinin B2 receptor antagonist Hoe 140 was also examined. Results Administration of taurine (3% in drinking water) for 4 weeks retarded the development of salt (4% sodium chloride diet)-induced hypertension. Systolic blood pressure at the end of the experiment was significantly higher in control rats than in taurine-treated rats. Urinary sodium excretion was not decreased by the reduction in blood pressure. The heart weight: body weight ratio was significantly lower, and urinary volume and kallikrein excretion were significantly higher, in taurine-treated rats. Renal kallikrein gene expression at weeks 1 and 4 was higher in taurine-treated rats. Systolic blood pressure 3 and 4 weeks after the administration of β-alanine was slightly, but not significantly, lower than that of untreated rats on a high-salt diet, and was accompanied by a significantly lower body weight. Urinary kallikrein excretion decreased with a high-salt diet regardless of β-alanine administration. Continuous systemic administration of Hoe 140 did not cause any significant alteration in blood pressure in Dahl-S rats that received taurine with a high-salt diet. Taurine also showed a renoprotective effect, as judged by a reduction in proteinuria. Conclusion These results suggest that taurine is an effective antihypertensive agent for salt-induced hypertension. Although taurine activated renal kallikrein, further studies are required to confirm the participation of activated kallikrein in the antihypertensive, cardioprotective and renoprotective effects of taurine.
Analysis of X-ray diffraction from fibres of Pf1 Inovirus (filamentous bacteriophage) shows that the DNA in the virion is not highly ordered.

X-ray fibre diffraction patterns of well-aligned Pf1 filamentous bacteriophage show sharp layer-lines attributable to an ordered helical array of protein subunits. Electron density maps calculated from the intensity on these layer-lines show no evidence for DNA following the symmetry of the protein, nor is there evidence on the diffraction patterns for the additional layer-lines expected if ordered DNA follows a symmetry different from that of the protein. We conclude that the interactions between DNA and protein in the Pf1 virion, like those in the Ff virion, are delocalized rather than specific, and the DNA structure in the virion is less regular than the protein structure. This conclusion has implications for the process of virion assembly, and we suggest a possible model for the change in the viral DNA symmetry as the DNA is passed to the virion from the intracellular complex with the viral gene 5 single-stranded DNA-binding protein.
Age is not a significant risk factor for failed trial of beta-blocker therapy in older patients with chronic heart failure.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate how well older heart failure patients tolerate beta-blockers in everyday clinical practice. DESIGN Retrospective casenote analysis. SETTING Specialist heart failure clinic in a large teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS 226 patients with a clinical diagnosis of heart failure and evidence of left ventricular systolic dysfunction. MEASUREMENTS Data on age, sex, comorbid illness, other medications, duration of beta-blocker therapy, side-effects and reasons for discontinuation. RESULTS Patients aged 75 years and over had a higher level of comorbid disease and worse New York Heart Association status. Despite this, 60.4% of those aged 75 or over had been tried on a beta-blocker (versus 69% of those aged <75), and of those tried, 80% of those aged 75 or over were still taking a beta-blocker at the time of survey (versus 86% of those aged <75). Forty-seven percent of those aged 75 or over had at least one side-effect recorded (versus 48% of those aged <75). Significant risk factors for failing a trial of beta-blocker therapy were worse New York Heart Association status and worse left ventricular function, but importantly not age. CONCLUSIONS A high proportion of older heart failure patients tolerate beta-blockers. Side-effects and failure rates are comparable to younger patients. Left ventricular function and worse New York Heart Association class, rather than age, predict low tolerability of therapy. Further studies are warranted to evaluate whether frail patients with heart failure can improve their quality of life by taking beta-blockers.
Caching and Memory Management in Client-Server Database Systems

The widespread adoption of client-server architectures has made distributed computing the conventional mode of operation for many application domains. At the same time, new classes of applications have placed additional demands on database systems, resulting in an emerging generation of Object-Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMSs). The combination of these factors gives rise to significant challenges and performance opportunities in the design of modern database systems. This thesis proposes and investigates techniques to provide high performance and scalability for these new systems, while maintaining the transaction semantics, reliability, and availability associated with more traditional database architectures. The common theme of the techniques developed here is the utilization of client resources through caching-based data replication. The initial chapters describe the architectural alternatives for client-server database systems, present the arguments for using caching as the basis for constructing page server database systems, and provide an overview of other environments in which caching-related issues arise. The bulk of the thesis is then focused on the development and simulation-based performance analysis of algorithms for data caching and memory management. A taxonomy of transactional cache consistency algorithms is developed, which includes the algorithms proposed in this thesis as well as others that have appeared in the literature. A performance study of seven proposed algorithms is then presented. The study shows that significant performance and scalability gains can be obtained through client caching, and enables the quantification of the design tradeoffs that are identified in the taxonomy. The remainder of the thesis extends the caching-based techniques to further improve system performance and scalability. The first extension is the investigation of algorithms to efficiently manage the "global memory hierarchy" that results from allowing client page requests to be satisfied from the caches of other clients, thus avoiding disk accesses at the server. The second extension investigates algorithms for using local client disks to augment client memory caches. Both extensions are shown to be simple and effective way to reduce dependence on server disk and cpu resources.
An Examination of the Hexokinase Method for Serum Glucose Assay Using External Quality Assessment Data

Hexokinase methods for serum glucose assay appeared to give slightly but consistently higher inter-laboratory coefficients of variation than all methods combined in the UK External Quality Assessment Scheme; their performance over a two-year period was therefore compared with that for three groups of glucose oxidase methods. This assessment showed no intrinsic inferiority in the hexokinase method. The greater variation may be due to the more heterogeneous group of instruments, particularly discrete analysers, on which the method is used. The Beckman Glucose Analyzer and Astra group (using a glucose oxidase method) showed the least inter-laboratory variability but also the lowest mean value. No comment is offered on the absolute accuracy of any of the methods.
Characterizing and predicting carboxylic acid reductase activity for diversifying bioaldehyde production

Chemicals with aldehyde moieties are useful in the synthesis of polymerization reagents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, flavors, and fragrances because of their high reactivity. However, chemical synthesis of aldehydes from carboxylic acids has unfavorable thermodynamics and limited specificity. Enzymatically catalyzed reductive bioaldehyde synthesis is an attractive route that overcomes unfavorable thermodynamics by ATP hydrolysis in ambient, aqueous conditions. Carboxylic acid reductases (Cars) are particularly attractive, as only one enzyme is required. We sought to increase the knowledge base of permitted substrates for four Cars. Additionally, the Lys2 enzyme family was found to be mechanistically the same as Cars and two isozymes were also tested. Our results show that Cars prefer molecules where the carboxylic acid is the only polar/charged group. Using this data and other published data, we develop a support vector classifier (SVC) for predicting Car reactivity and make predictions on all carboxylic acid metabolites in iAF1260 and Model SEED. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2016;113: 944–952. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Proteolytic Cleavage of Ostrich and Turkey Pancreatic Lipases: Production of an Active N-Terminal Domain

Objectives: The aim of this study was to check some biochemical and structural properties of ostrich and turkey pancreatic lipases (OPL and TPL, respectively). Methods: Limited proteolysis of OPL and TPL was performed in conditions similar to those reported for porcine pancreatic lipase. Results: In the absence of bile salts and colipase, OPL failed to catalyze the hydrolysis of pure tributyrin or efficiently hydrolyze olive oil emulsion. When bile salts and colipase were preincubated with the substrate, the OPL kinetic behavior remained linear for more than 30 minutes. The enzyme presented a penetration power value into an egg phosphatidylcholine monomolecular film that was comparable to that of HPL and lower than that of TPL. Chymotrypsin, trypsin, and thermolysin were able to hydrolyze OPL and TPL in different ways. In both cases, only N-terminal fragments accumulated during the hydrolysis, whereas no C-terminal fragment was obtained in either case. Tryptic cleavage of OPL and TPL completely degraded the enzymes. Nevertheless, chymotryptic attack generated 35-kd and 43-kd forms for TPL and OPL, respectively. Interestingly, the OPL 43-kd form was inactive, whereas the TPL 35-kd protein conserved its lipolytic activity. Conclusions: OPL, TPL, and mammal pancreatic lipases share a high amino acid sequence homology. Further investigations are, however, needed to identify key residues involved in substrate recognition responsible for biochemical differences between the 2 classes of lipases.Abbreviations: HPL - human pancreatic lipase, PPL - porcine pancreatic lipase, OPL - ostrich pancreatic lipase, TPL - turkey pancreatic lipase, PVDF - polyvinylidene difluoride, BSA - bovine serum albumin, NaDC - sodium deoxycholate, NaTDC - sodium taurodeoxycholate, THL - tetrahydralipstatin, E600 - diethyl-p-nitrophenyl phosphate, SDS-PAGE - sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, CMC - critical micellar concentration
Reinforcement or Displacement? The Reciprocity of FtF, IM, and SNS Communication and Their Effects on Loneliness and Life Satisfaction

Does communication on social network sites SNSs or instant messengers IMs reinforce or displace face-to-face FtF communication, and how do the 3 channels affect loneliness and life satisfaction? Using cross-lagged structural equation modeling in a longitudinal and representative sample from Germany, we found that SNS communication increased both FtF and IM communication 6 months later. Likewise, IM communication at T1 increased SNS communication at T2. FtF, SNS, and IM communication did not affect loneliness, and FtF and IM communication did not change life satisfaction. However, communication on SNSs slightly increased life satisfaction. Thus, the data indicated that conversing via SNSs and IM has a mainly reinforcing effect and that communicating via SNSs can enhance life satisfaction several months later.
Atypical strains of Candida albicans recovered from AIDS patients.

By using multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) we have analyzed the genetic diversity encountered among chlamydospore-positive Candida albicans strains. While the type II strains of the former C. stellatoidea were genetically indistinguishable from those of C. albicans, type I strains constituted a distinct subgroup compared with C. albicans strains. Nevertheless, all these strains remained genetically very closely related compared with other species of Candida (e.g. C. tropicalis, C. krusei and C. glabrata). These results corroborate the synonymy between C. stellatoidea and C. albicans. Chlamydospore-positive C. albicans strains with atypical sugar assimilation patterns displayed a great genetic divergence from the cluster constituted by C. albicans and the strains of the former C. stellatoidea. However, these atypical strains were more closely related to C. albicans than they were to C. tropicalis, C. krusei or C. glabrata. These strains represent a genetically entity distinct from the typical C. albicans strains used in this study. The data also support the view that the atypical strains described here belong to the same genetic group as atypical C. albicans strains previously described by others.
A combined observer and filter based approach for the determination of unknown parameters

We consider the simultaneous reconstruction of the state vector and unknown parameters for a special class of non-linear parameter-dependent systems. The approach suggested here consists of two stages. First, the state is reconstructed by a reduced order unknown input observer. Second, this observer is augmented by a filter to obtain the desired parameter. The design procedure is straightforward and may be used for an online estimation of the unknown parameter. In contrast to previous work on adaptive systems, we do not require a persistence of excitation. The approach is illustrated on two non-linear cell models.