Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiphoton processes in an intense laser field. VI. Two-color ionization with incommensurable frequencies.

We present results of Floquet calculations of rates and yields for ionization of atomic hydrogen, in its ground state, in the presence of a relatively weak high-frequency field and a relatively strong low-frequency (1064-nm) field. We assume that the two frequencies are incommensurable, or, if they are not, we average over the relative phase. We explore three processes: (i) Resonance-enhanced ionization, via levels that are ac-Stark mixed or/and very strongly shifted, (ii) laser-induced continuum structure, and (iii) nonresonant ionization in a regime where, despite the fact that the infrared field significantly shifts the ground state relative to the continuum, it only redistributes the photoelectrons over the low-frequency channels. We also illustrate the sensitivity of the ionization yield to the spatiotemporal configuration of the two fields.
How well does net income measure firm performance? A discussion of two studies 1 I am grateful to KP

The papers by Dhaliwal, Subramanyam and Trezevant (1998) and Vincent (1998) both examine whether stock returns are more highly associated with net income or an alternative measure of firm performance in contexts that are of some current interest to accounting regulators. However, since neither paper does a very good job of motivating their basic economic questions, we are left with results that are not all that interesting or surprising. Both papers would have benefited greatly from a clearer delineation of the economic rationale for their tests and predictions. ( 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: L85; M41
OXIDATION AND PEROXIDATION OF POSTHARVEST BANANA FRUIT DURING SOFTENING

Softening is a characteristic of fruit ripening caused by oxidative action. The oxidized degree of membrane lipids and proteins in relation to production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) of postharvest banana fruit during softening were investigated. Firmness as an indictor of softening of banana fruit was also measured. Banana fruit firmness decreased markedly after 4 days of storage, which indicated the occurrence of fruit softening. The contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and protein carbonyl after 3 days and lipofuscin content after 4 days of storage increased markedly, which exhibited that the accumulation of lipofuscin appeared later than that of MDA and protein carbonyl which could be associated with the late softening stage. Hydroxyl radical level and hydrogen peroxide content decreased within 3 days and then increased significantly. However, production of superoxide anion radical decreased within 2 days, then maintained a low level, and finally increased significantly after 5 days of storage. It was apparent that the marked increases of hydroxyl radical and hydrogen peroxide contents of banana fruit appeared prior to the time of fruit softening and the accumulations of MDA, protein carbonyl and lipofuscin. This study suggested that enhanced production of hydroxyl radical and hydrogen peroxide could participate in the formation of oxidative products and then involve the initiation of banana fruit softening.
Effect of temperature on the evaluation of hydrophobic condition of polymer surface

Hydrophobicity of polymer surface is one of the degradation indices of polymer insulator material and is usually evaluated by using an image of sprayed water on the sample surface. Surface free energy of both solid and liquid have negative temperature dependence. The decrease of surface free energy of solid increases the hydrophobic property; however, the decrease of the one of liquid decreases the hydrophobic property. In this study, the hydrophobic condition of the sample surface was measured at 5, 22 (Room temperature), and 50degC. During the temperature equalization to the room temperature, changes in the hydrophobic condition were measured. Comparing of these results can define the degradation of hydrophobicity of polymer insulator more accurately.
The resonant frequency optimization of aperture-coupled microstrip antenna using particle swarm optimization algorithm

Aperture coupled microstrip antenna is gathering a lot of interest in communication and radar systems. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been introduced to the electromagnetic community recently for design optimization of microstrip patch antenna . In this paper PSO has been used for accurate determination of resonant frequency of rectangular aperture-coupled microstrip antenna. The investigation is made at different microwave frequency ranges and it extends up to Ku band. The procedure is repeated for different dielectric constant of antenna and feed substrate. The optimization problem has three variables namely, aperture length, aperture width and stub length respectively. Accuracy of the results encourages the use of PSO.
Molecular characterization of the O‐acetyl transferase gene of converting bacteriophage SF6 that adds group antigen 6 to Shigella flexneri

Bacteriophage SF6 antigenically converts Shigella flexneri serotype Y strains (‐;3,4) to type 3b carrying group antigen 6,3,4 by means of an O‐acetylation of the O‐antigenic polysaccharide chain. The gene for O‐acetyl transferase of bacteriophage SF6 has been cloned, identified and sequenced. The predicted O‐acetyl transferase protein encoded by this gene was found to consist of 333 amino acids, (37 185 daltons) and to have some similarity with the galactose‐1‐phosphate uridylyltransferase protein of Escherichia coli. The gene has been shown to function in a live vaccine strain of S. flexneri Y type (ΔaroD), making it a 3b type. The converted type 3b strain, SFL1104, was found to elicit significant protection against challenge by both wild‐type serotypes 3b and Y in a guinea‐pig keratoconjunctivitis model.
[Asbestos fiber count in extra-pulmonary tissues].

Most autoptic tissues of three men (two with pulmonary asbestosis and one without any exposure to asbestos) were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersion spectrometry for the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of asbestos fibers. Preliminary results indicate that only in cases with occupational exposure were found asbestos fibers (in lung, pleura , bladder, kidney and liver). These results allow interesting speculations on some environmental pathogenetic questions and deserve further investigations.
Low-dose dental computed tomography: significant dose reduction without loss of image quality

Purpose: To measure and reduce the patient dose during computed tomography (CT) for dental applications. Material and Methods: Lithium fluoride thermoluminescent dosimeters were implanted in a tissue-equivalent humanoid phantom (Alderson-Rando-Phantom) to determine doses to the thyroid gland, the active bone marrow, the salivary glands, and the eye lens. Dental CT was performed with spiral CT and a dental software package. The usual dental CT technique was compared with a new dose-reduced protocol, which delivered best image quality at lowest possible radiation dose, as tested in a preceding study. Image quality was analysed using a human anatomic head preparation. In addition, the radiation dose was compared with panoramic radiography and digital volume tomography (DVT). Eight radiologists evaluated all images in a blinded fashion. A Wilcoxon rank pair test was used for statistical evaluation. Results: Radiation dose could be reduced by a factor of 9 (max.) with the new dose-reduced protocol (e.g. bone marrow dose from 23.6 mSv to 2.9 mSv; eye lens from 0.5 mSv to 0.3 mSv; thyroid gland from 2.5 mSv to 0.5 mSv; parotid glands from 2.3 mSv to 0.4 mSv). Dose reduction did not reduce image quality or diagnostic information. Conclusion: A considerable dose reduction without loss of diagnostic information is achievable in dental CT. As radiation exposure of the presented low-dose protocol is expected to be in the same range as DVT, low-dose dental CT might be superior to DVT, because CT can be used to evaluate soft tissues as well.
Strengthening a curated web of trust in a geographically distributed project

ABSTRACT In this article the authors present a trust management scheme, derived from the horizontal and almost anarchic web of trust model, but following a curatorship step that allows it to become a centerpiece for authentication in Debian, one of the largest and longest lived free software projects and producer of the eponymous GNU/Linux software distribution. This is done by analyzing the experience gained through a large-scale key migration process that spanned five years and nearly 100% of the originally existing keys, carried out attempting to minimize loss of keyring connectivity and strength, while keeping up to date with the best current security practices.
Angiogenic alterations associated with circulating neoplastic DNA in ovarian carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES Forty percent of women with ovarian carcinoma have circulating free neoplastic DNA identified in plasma. Angiogenesis is critical in neoplastic growth and metastasis. We sought to determine whether circulating neoplastic DNA results from alterations in the balance of angiogenesis activators and inhibitors. METHODS Sixty patients with invasive ovarian carcinomas with somatic TP53 mutations that had been characterized for circulating neoplastic DNA had carcinoma analyzed for microvessel density using immunohistochemistry with CD31 and for the expression of VEGF, ANGPT1, ANGPT2, PTGS2, PLAU, THBS1, CSF1, PIK3CA, HIF1A, IL8, MMP2, and MMP9 message by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The expression of each gene was calculated relative to GAPDH expression for each neoplasm. Patient plasma had been tested for circulating neoplastic DNA using a ligase detection reaction. RESULTS MMP2 expression was significantly correlated with free plasma neoplastic DNA (P = .007). Microvessel density was not correlated with plasma neoplastic DNA or BRCA1/2 mutation status. The expression pattern of other angiogenic factors did not correlate with plasma neoplastic DNA but correlated with each other. BRCA1/2 mutated carcinomas had significantly different expression profiles of angiogenesis activators and inhibitors in comparison to sporadic carcinomas. CONCLUSIONS MMP2 expression is associated with the presence of circulating neoplastic DNA in women with ovarian carcinoma. These data are consistent with the proinvasive properties of MMP2 and suggest that the presence of circulating neoplastic DNA indicates a more aggressive malignant phenotype. Carcinomas with germ line BRCA1/2 mutations had a lower angiogenic profile than those without mutations.
DC-SIGN and CLEC-2 Mediate Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Capture by Platelets

ABSTRACT Platelets can engulf human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), and a significant amount of HIV-1 in the blood of infected individuals is associated with these cells. However, it is unclear how platelets capture HIV-1 and whether platelet-associated virus remains infectious. DC-SIGN and other lectins contribute to capture of HIV-1 by dendritic cells (DCs) and facilitate HIV-1 spread in DC/T-cell cocultures. Here, we show that platelets express both the C-type lectin-like receptor 2 (CLEC-2) and low levels of DC-SIGN. CLEC-2 bound to HIV-1, irrespective of the presence of the viral envelope protein, and facilitated HIV-1 capture by platelets. However, a substantial fraction of the HIV-1 binding activity of platelets was dependent on DC-SIGN. A combination of DC-SIGN and CLEC-2 inhibitors strongly reduced HIV-1 association with platelets, indicating that these lectins are required for efficient HIV-1 binding to platelets. Captured HIV-1 was maintained in an infectious state over several days, suggesting that HIV-1 can escape degradation by platelets and might use these cells to promote its spread. Our results identify CLEC-2 as a novel HIV-1 attachment factor and provide evidence that platelets capture and transfer infectious HIV-1 via DC-SIGN and CLEC-2, thereby possibly facilitating HIV-1 dissemination in infected patients.
A Logical Approach to Access Control , Security , and Trust

Designers, auditors, and certifiers of trustworthy systems must rigorously assess compliance with security policies. Because security is best built into systems at all levels of abstraction, engineers and other practitioners who design, verify, or certify trustworthy systems need the capability to reason rigorously about security policies in general, and access decisions in particular. What is required is a logic or calculus general enough to be useful from the concrete hardware level to the abstract policy level that also captures access-control concepts such as authorization, certified statements, jurisdiction, and delegation. Ideally, this calculus should be straightforward for practitioners to use, much like the propositional logic used in hardware design by engineers. We have created an accesscontrol logic that meets these requirements and have used this logic to account for security, trust, and access policies in hardware, software, protocols, and concepts of operations. We give an overview of the logic and its application to hardware, protocols, and policy.
Developments in hepatitis C therapy during 2000 – 2002

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a human hepatotropic virus with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 170 million cases, including ~ 4 million cases in the US. It is a major cause of liver disease and is the most common indication for liver transplantation in the US. The majority of infected individuals are eligible for therapy. Since it is difficult to predict who will have progressive disease, those with significant inflammation or fibrosis on histologic examination of liver biopsy are generally offered treatment. The following chapter is an overview of the patent literature during 2000 – mid-2002, and discusses the potential of various treatment modalities for HCV.
Determination of the electron lifetime in nanocrystalline dye solar cells by open-circuit voltage decay measurements.

Recently, a new class of photoelectrochemical cells based on nanoscaled porous metal oxide semiconductors (dye-sensitized solar cell) has promoted intense research due to the prospects of cheap and efficient conversion of visible light into electricity and of new applications such as transparent solar cells. It is widely agreed that the electron-transfer kinetics play a major role in determining the energy conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells. 3] Herein, we develop a new powerful tool to study the electron lifetime in dye solar cells as a function of the photovoltage (Voc) ; the open-circuit voltage-decay (OCVD) technique. This technique has certain advantages over frequenIn summary, the temperature effect on the arrangement of stilbenoid dendrimers on HOPG is presented in this work. It is seen that SD12 molecules form well-ordered hexagonal nanostructures at 16 C. However, if the adlayer is annealed at 65 C, the adlayer structure is changed into a well-ordered parallelogram nanostructure in a close-packed arrangement with a higher surface coverage. The phenomenon described here supports the earlier reports on two liquid-crystalline phases for SD12. The results in this research are useful in understanding the phase transition of SD12 as well as metastable complex systems with temperature.
AIS Electronic

With the growing attention to data as a critical resource, data loss and its associated consequences are of greater concern. Data loss due to different kind of system failures, physical disasters, crimes and human errors may cause costly business damages. This study proposes an analytical framework for assessing the monetary damage of data loss. The assessment is done at the data batch level, and considers factors such as the cost of restoration, monetary damages due to irrecoverable loss, and system interdependencies. A context in which such valuation framework can be applied is the replication of data to remote sites and the associated information technology tools. The configuration of replication solutions is driven today primarily by technical characteristic. This study suggests that value assessment of data batches can be embedded into replication configuration toward reducing business damages of data loss. The proposed framework is evaluated in a simulated environment with large datasets. The results highlight the feasibility of the proposed framework in terms of application and parameter estimation, as well as the potential benefits in terms of taking into consideration the high variability in the value of data between systems when configuring a replication process.
Two independent transcriptional units control the complex and simultaneous expression of the bmp paralogous chromosomal gene family in Borrelia burgdorferi

The chromosomal paralogous gene family 36 encodes for four lipoproteins with high amino acid homology that are expressed in vivo in humans and animals and are immunogenic. Transcriptional analysis of the bmp gene cluster indicated that all four genes of this cluster are expressed in vitro and constitute two transcriptional units with a complex pattern of transcription, including alternative monocistronic and polycistronic messages. One unit consists of bmpD, whose transcription is coupled to the transcription of the ribosomal protein genes, rpsG and rpsL. The second unit includes bmpC, bmpA and bmpB. The simultaneous expression of the four bmp genes in Borrelia burgdorferi suggests that their gene products may have either different or complementary functions. Primer extension experiments identified promoters for bmpD, bmpC and bmpA, but not for bmpB. The concentration of gene‐specific mRNA paralleled its promoter homology to the Escherichia coliσ70 promoter. The linkage of bmpD expression to rpsL and rpsG suggests that the expression of this gene may be controlled by growth‐related global regulation mechanisms in B. burgdorferi. These results indicate that the bmp family constitutes a good model for the investigation of complex regulation of chromosomal gene expression in this bacteria.
Transcriptional Regulation of the Rat Steroidogenic Acute Regulatory Protein Gene by Steroidogenic Factor 1* * This work was supported by NIH Grant R01-HD35163 (to M.P.M.).

Steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein is synthesized in response to tropic hormones to facilitate cholesterol transport to the inner mitochondrial membrane-bound P450 side-chain cleavage enzyme (P450scc), the first enzymatic step in the steroid hormone biosynthetic pathway. Gonadotropins activate expression of their target genes via the cAMP second messenger system. We have demonstrated that cAMP administration to rat luteal cells stimulates expression of both StAR messenger RNA and protein. Because cholesterol delivery is the first regulated step in steroidogenesis, and because StAR messenger RNA levels are increased in response to tropic hormone and cAMP stimulation, the mechanism by which tropic hormones/cAMP stimulate transcription needs to be elucidated. To this end, approximately 2.7 kb of the rat StAR promoter was isolated and sequenced. Sequence analysis revealed the presence of a TATA-like element as well as multiple regulatory motifs including steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) binding sites,.
Reconfigurable slotted microstrip patch using VO2

A reconfigurable slotted patch antenna, with the slot filled with VO2, is designed to take advantage of the insulator-to-metal transition of the material. The antenna presents a change in resonant frequency from 9.3 GHz, when the VO2 acts as a conductor, to 11.53 GHz, when the VO2 acts as an insulator.
Positive and Negative Spatial Priming in Schizophrenia

Priming tasks are used for investigating the deficits of selective attention in schizophrenia, which are thought to be related to the psychotic symptoms. Priming was assessed in acutely psychotic unmedicated (n = 22) and medicated (n = 36) schizophrenia patients and in control subjects (n = 42). The subjects had to indicate the location of a target stimulus in two consecutive stimulus displays (prime and probe). Each stimulus appeared together with a distractor on a screen. Negative Priming is characterized by an increase in reaction time, whenever a probe target is presented at a prime distractor location. Positive Priming is characterized by a decrease in reaction time, when the probe target is presented at the prime target location. Schizophrenia patients altogether showed no abnormalities in priming effects, neither in the acute phase of illness (medicated and unmedicated) nor in partial remission (one month later, medicated). In unmedicated patients however Negative Priming was inversely correlated with the severity of positive symptoms. This indicates a priming deficit in a small subgroup of severely ill patients. The data support the notion that automatic (implicit) mechanisms of learning are unimpaired in schizophrenia patients unless symptoms exceed a certain critical level. This research was supported by a grant to D. Vaitl from the German Research Society (Az. Va 37/32–1). We wish to thank Prof. Dr. Bernd Gallhofer (director of the Psychiatry Department, Medical Center, University of Giessen) for his support.
On Hamiltonian cycles as optimal p-cycles

Using Hamiltonian p-cycles, it can be shown that p-cycle design is able to reach the logical redundancy bound of 1/(d~-1) where d~ is the average node degree. We formulate two conditions on which the design is able to reach this bound if and only if Hamiltonian p-cycles are used.
Neonatal Lethality of LGR5 Null Mice Is Associated with Ankyloglossia and Gastrointestinal Distension

ABSTRACT The physiological role of an orphan G protein-coupled receptor, LGR5, was investigated by targeted deletion of this seven-transmembrane protein containing a large N-terminal extracellular domain with leucine-rich repeats. LGR5 null mice exhibited 100% neonatal lethality characterized by gastrointestinal tract dilation with air and an absence of milk in the stomach. Gross and histological examination revealed fusion of the tongue to the floor of oral cavity in the mutant newborns and immunostaining of LGR5 expression in the epithelium of the tongue and in the mandible of the wild-type embryos. The observed ankyloglossia phenotype provides a model for understanding the genetic basis of this craniofacial defect in humans and an opportunity to elucidate the physiological role of the LGR5 signaling system during embryonic development.
Software variability through C++ static polymorphism: a case study of challenges and open problems in eclipse OMR

Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) creates configurable platforms that can be used to efficiently produce similar, and yet different, product variants. SPLs are typically modular such that it is easy to connect different blocks of code together, creating different variations of the product. There are many variability implementation mechanisms to achieve an SPL. This paper shows how static polymorphism can be used to implement variability, through a case study of IBM’s open-source Eclipse OMR project. We discuss the current open problems and challenges this variability implementation mechanism raises and highlight technology gaps for reasoning about variability in OMR. We then suggest steps to close these gaps.