Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ELIMINATING OR MINIMIZING ALKALI-SILICA REACTIVITY

This investigation into various aspects of alkali silica reactivity (ASR) as it affects performance of highway structures, emphasized the practical needs of the concrete engineer with respect to the evaluation of the potential of aggregate for expansive ASR in new concrete, procedures to evaluate material for safe use in new concrete, and means to mitigate ASR and associated adverse effects in existing concrete. A rapid test method, based on immersion of mortar bars in sodium hydroxide solution, originated by the National Building Research Institute of South Africa was evaluated and extended to identify cement alkali levels and pozzolan proportions required to prevent deleterious ASR with particular aggregate. The efficacy of using lithium salts in concrete to suppress expansion due to ASR was researched. Reaction chemistry and dosages were studied. Results were favorable and the approach is highly recommended. Means to mitigate ASR were also studied. Restraint to expansion and application of lithium hydroxide solutions are possible means to control expansion due to ASR.
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Clinically Relevant Drug Interactions with Antiepileptic Drugs

Some patients with difficult-to-treat epilepsy benefit from combination therapy with two or more antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Additionally, virtually all epilepsy patients will receive, at some time in their lives, other medications for the management of associated conditions. In these situations, clinically important drug interactions may occur. Carbamazepine, phenytoin, phenobarbital and primidone induce many cyto-chrome P450 (CYP) and glucuronyl transferase (GT) enzymes, and can reduce drastically the serum concentration of associated drugs which are substrates of the same enzymes. Examples of agents whose serum levels are decreased markedly by enzyme-inducing AEDs, include lamotrigine, tiagabine, several steroidal drugs, cyclosporin A, oral anticoagulants and many cardiovascular, antineoplastic and psy-chotropic drugs. Valproic acid is not enzyme inducer, but it may cause clinically relevant drug interactions by inhibiting the metabolism of selected substrates, most notably phenobarbital and lamotrigine. Compared with older generation agents, most of the recently developed AEDs are less likely to induce or inhibit the activity of CYP or GT enzymes. However, they may be a target for metabolically mediated drug interactions, and oxcarbazepine, lamotrigine, felbamate and, at high dosages, topira-mate may stimulate the metabolism of oral contraceptive steroids. Levetiracetam, gabapentin and pregabalin have not been reported to cause or be a target for clinically relevant pharmacokinetic drug interactions. Pharmacodynamic interactions involving AEDs have not been well characterized, but their understanding is impor tant for a more rational approach to combination therapy. In particular, neurotoxic effects appear to be more likely with coprescription of AEDs sharing the same primary mechanism of action.
The Pyramidal Tract

MODERATOR: The research committee of the American Academy of Neurology is pleased to present the second Symposium of Inquiry, for which the subject is the pyramidal tract. I t is our earnest hope that this discussion will stimulate new ideas and motivate many of you to undertake or to expand research into the form or function of this important part of the central nervous system. The pyramidal tract is the one portion of the central nervous system with which we all have a pleasant sense of familiarity. From the early years in medical school, we learned to equate the pyramidal tract and the upper motor neuron and, with clinical teaching, we quickly accepted the dictum that hyperactive tendon reflexes and the sign of Babinski are indicators of interruption in function of the pyramidal tract. Although these basic teachings should not be thought of as wrong, they are woefully inadequate. Much study has been done in recent years, and I believe, as our speakers summarize and challenge accepted knowledge, you will agree that there is as yet much to be learned about the pyramidal tract. The first speaker is Dr. A. M. Lassek, professor of anatomy at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Lassek, is probably more familiar with the pyramidal fibers than any man alive. DR. A. M. L ~ S S E K : The pyramidal tract has certain anatomic considerations which differentiate it from any other bundle in the central nervous system. It was the first discovered tract within the brain and spinal cord of man, having been put on the neurologic map by a German investigator, Ludwig Turck, in 1851; since that time there has been very little change in the general concept that the fasciculus is concerned with the important physiology of voluntary motion. Besides being the first observed tract, it has a known origin from the Betz cells, the largest in the cerebral cortex; it has the longest vertical course, the largest square area, and the greatest number of var-
The association of vitamin K status with warfarin sensitivity at the onset of treatment

We investigated the association of vitamin K status with warfarin sensitivity among 40 orthopaedic patients beginning perioperative algorithm‐dosed warfarin. Baseline vitamin K status was assessed using plasma vitamin K‐1 and vitamin K‐1 2,3 epoxide concentrations, and a questionnaire‐based estimation of usual vitamin K intake. Warfarin sensitivity was assessed as the increase in the International Normalized Ratio (INR) after two doses of 5 mg of warfarin and as the 4‐d accumulation of under‐γ‐carboxylated prothrombin (PIVKA‐II), adjusted for warfarin dose requirement. Multivariate models were used to assess vitamin K variables as predictors of warfarin sensitivity. The mean INR increase was 0·53 U and the mean PIVKA‐II increase was 771 ng/ml/mg warfarin. Demographic factors were not associated with warfarin response. For each 1 standard deviation (SD) lower value of plasma vitamin K‐1, but not the other vitamin K variables, the INR rose 0·24 U (P ≤ 0·01). A higher usual vitamin K intake and plasma vitamin K‐1, and lower plasma vitamin K‐1 2,3 epoxide, were all associated with a lower PIVKA‐II increase over 4 d. Respective differences in PIVKA‐II accumulation per SD increase of each variable were −165, −218 and 236 ng/ml/mg warfarin (all P ≤ 0·05). We concluded that dietary and biochemical measures of vitamin K status were associated with early warfarin sensitivity.
Computationally efficient sparse-grid Gauss-Hermite filtering

A new nonlinear filtering algorithm based on sparse-grid Gauss-Hermite filter (SGHF) incorporated with the technique of algorithm adapting to dimensions based on their nonlinearity, is presented. The motive of this work is to reduce the computatioanl load of SGHF, while maintaining similar filtering accuracy. This is achieved by implementing adaptive tensor product to construct the multidimensional sparse-grid quadrature points. This reduction in computational burden may increase the scope of application of this filtering algorithm for higher dimensional problems in on-board applications. Performance of the proposed algorithm is illustrated by estimating the frequency and amplitude of multiple superimposed sinusoids.
Membrane docking of the C 2 domain from protein kinase C α as seen by polarized ATR-IR . The role of PIP 2

Abbreviations: PKC, protein kinase C; cPLA2, cytosol palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine; POPS, 1 3-phosphoserine; PI, phosphatidylinositol; PIP2, phosph DAG, diacylglycerol; PDB, protein data bank; PtdIns(3,4,5 trisphosphate; POPA, 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-p internal reflection; IR, infrared; EPR, electron paramagneti ⁎ Corresponding authors. J.C. Gómez-Fernández is to be Bioquímica y Biología Molecular A, Universidad deMurcia Spain.Marsh,Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Ch Göttingen, Germany. E-mail addresses: jcgomez@um.es (J.C. Gómez-Ferná (D. Marsh).
Perspectives for Medical Informatics

Summary Objectives: Even though today most university hospitals have already implemented commercial hospital information systems and started to build up comprehensive electronic medical records, reuse of such data for data warehousing and research purposes is still very rare. Given this situation, the focus of this paper is to present an overview on exemplary projects, which have already tackled this challenge, reflect on current initiatives within the United States of America and the European Union to establish IT infrastructures for clinical and translational research, and draw attention to new challenges in this area. Methods: This paper does not intend to provide a fully comprehensive review on all the issues of clinical routine data reuse. It is based, however, on a presentation of a large variety of historical, but also most recent activities in data warehousing, data retrieval and linking medical informatics with translational research. Results: The article presents an overview of the various international approaches to this issue and illustrates concepts and solutions which have been published, thus giving an impression of activities pursued in this field of medical informatics. Further, problems and open questions, which have also been named in the literature, are presented and three challenges (to establish comprehensive clinical data warehouses, to establish professional IT infrastructure applications supporting clinical trial data capture and to integrate medical record systems and clinical trial databases) related to this area of medical informatics are identified and presented. Conclusions: Translational biomedical research with the aim “to integrate bedside and biology” and to bridge the gap between clinical care and medical research today and in the years to come, provides a large and interesting field for medical informatics researchers. Especially the need for integrating clinical research projects with data repositories built up during documentation of routine clinical care, today still leaves many open questions and research challenges. Consideration of regulatory requirements, data privacy issues, data standards as well as people/organizational issues are prerequisites in order to vanquish existing obstacles.
Unliganded Thyroid Hormone Receptor α Regulates Developmental Timing via Gene Repression in Xenopus tropicalis

Thyroid hormone (TH) receptor (TR) expression begins early in development in all vertebrates when circulating TH levels are absent or minimal, yet few developmental roles for unliganded TRs have been established. Unliganded TRs are expected to repress TH-response genes, increase tissue responsivity to TH, and regulate the timing of developmental events. Here we examined the role of unliganded TRα in gene repression and development in Xenopus tropicalis. We used transcription activator-like effector nuclease gene disruption technology to generate founder animals with mutations in the TRα gene and bred them to produce F1 offspring with a normal phenotype and a mutant phenotype, characterized by precocious hind limb development. Offspring with a normal phenotype had zero or one disrupted TRα alleles, and tadpoles with the mutant hind limb phenotype had two truncated TRα alleles with frame shift mutations between the two zinc fingers followed by 40–50 mutant amino acids and then an out-of-frame stop codon. We examined TH-response gene expression and early larval development with and without exogenous TH in F1 offspring. As hypothesized, mutant phenotype tadpoles had increased expression of TH-response genes in the absence of TH and impaired induction of these same genes after exogenous TH treatment, compared with normal phenotype animals. Also, mutant hind limb phenotype animals had reduced hind limb and gill responsivity to exogenous TH. Similar results in methimazole-treated tadpoles showed that increased TH-response gene expression and precocious development were not due to early production of TH. These results indicate that unliganded TRα delays developmental progression by repressing TH-response genes.
Reflection and transmission for conformal defects

We consider conformal defects joining two conformal field theories along a line. We define two new quantities associated to such defects in terms of expectation values of the stress tensors and we propose them as measures of the reflectivity and transmissivity of the defect. Their properties are investigated and they are computed in a number of examples. We obtain a complete answer for all defects in the Ising model and between certain pairs of minimal models. In the case of two conformal field theories with an enhanced symmetry we restrict ourselves to non-trivial defects that can be obtained by a coset construction.
The Network Kinematic Waves Model: A Simplified Approach to Network Traffic

Flow of traffic on freeways and limited access highways can be represented as a series of kinemetic waves. Solutions to these systems of equations become problematic under congested traffic flow conditions, and under complicated (real-world) networks. A simplified theory of kinematics waves (KWaves) was previously proposed. Simplifying elements includes translation of the problem to moving coordinate system, adoption of triangular speed-density relationships, and adoption of restrictive constraints at the on- and off-ramps. However, these simplifying assumptions preclude application of this technique to most practical situations. By directly addressing the limitations of the original theory, this article proposes a simplified Kwaves model for network traffic (N-KWaves). Several key constraints of the original theory are relaxed. For example, the original merge model, which gives full priority to on-ramp traffic, is relaxed and replaced with a capacity-based weighted queuing (CBWFQ) merge model. The original diverge model, which blocks upstream traffic as a whole when a downstream queue exceeds the diverge, is also relaxed and replaced with a contribution-based weighted splitting (CBWS) diverge model. Based on the above, the original theory is reformulated and extended to address network traffic. Central to the N-KWaves model is a five-step computational procedure based on a generic building block. It is assumed that a freeway network can be represented by the combination of some special cases of the generic building block. An empirical field study showed satisfactory results. The N-KWaves model is best suited for modeling traffic operation in a regional freeway network and has a strong connection to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).
The effects of chemical treatment of whole canola seed on intake, nutrient digestibilities, milk production, and milk fatty acids of Holstein cows.

To determine the effect of alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatment of whole canola seed on milk fatty acid composition, 12 multiparous lactating Holstein cows (618 kg, 47 d in milk) were fed total mixed rations in a replicated (3) 4 x 4 Latin square designed experiment. The control diet contained no supplemental fat source. Canola seed (11.2%), either crushed or treated with alkaline hydrogen peroxide or Megalac (5.6%) were supplemental fat sources in the crushed, treated, and calcium salts of long-chain fatty acids (Ca-LCFA) dietary treatments. Experimental periods consisted of 28 d, with 21 d of adaptation to diets and 7 d for data collection. Cows were offered ad libitum access to feed. Intakes, ruminal characteristics, and total tract apparent digestibilities were measured and are discussed. Production of milk and 4% fat-corrected milk were not different among treatment groups (average 35.0 and 32.8 kg/d, respectively). Milk fat percentages were greater (P = .02) for cows fed treated canola seed or Ca-LCFA than for cows fed crushed canola seed (average 3.71 vs 3.43%, respectively), but milk fat yield (kg/d) was unaffected. Cows fed fat-supplemented diets had lower milk protein percentages than cows fed the control diet. Within the fat-supplemented diet groups, cows fed crushed canola seed had greater milk protein percentages (P = .01) and yields (P < .01) than cows fed treated canola or Ca-LCFA. Milk fat from cows fed diets supplemented with canola seed (treated or crushed) had lower proportions of 14:0 and 16:0 and greater proportions of 18:0 and 18:1 than milk fat from cows fed the control or Ca-LCFA diets. Intakes, milk production, milk composition, and milk fatty acid profiles substantiate that treated canola seed was utilized by cows to an extent similar to that of crushed canola seed. Further definition of the method for treatment of canola seed may provide a strategy for adding higher levels of monounsaturated fatty acids to lactation diets to produce favorable alterations in milk fat composition.
Microbubble dynamics around melanosomes irradiated with microsecond pulses

The origin of cell damage due to irradiation of the retina with microsecond laser pulses is most likely the disintegration of retinal pigment epithelial cells, which is caused by the formation of microbubbles around the strongly absorbing melanosomes within the cell. In order to get a more detailed understanding of the laser tissue interaction in the retinal pigment epithelium we irradiated a suspension of porcine melanosomes, which served as a model system, by a frequency doubled Nd:YLF laser emitting at 527 nm. We used pulse durations of 500 ns and 3.5 microsecond(s) . The formation of microbubbles around isolated melanosomes was imaged directly on a microscopic level by fast flash light photography. Near threshold radiant exposure for bubble formation, we found transient bubbles with diameters below 1 micrometers and lifetimes below 500 ns. Applying super-threshold irradiation stable bubbles with diameters up to 7 micrometers and lifetimes in the millisecond time regimen were observed. This can be explained by production of stable gas inside the melanosome due to laser heating.
Uses and Consequences of Electronic Markets: An Empirical Investigation in the Aircraft Parts Industry

An electronic market is an interorganizational information system through which multiple buyers and sellers interact to accomplish one or more of the following market-making activities: (1) identifying potential trading partners, (2) selecting a specific partner, and (3) executing the transaction. It has been suggested that electronic markets, by lowering search costs, may lead to significantly increased price competition among sellers and hence, lower prices for buyers. Or, by allowing efficient, direct interaction between buyers and sellers, they may eliminate the role of intermediaries. Little evidence exists to support the claims. This paper empirically examines the validity of these arguments in the context of one electronic market: Inventory Locator Service (ILS) in the aircraft parts industry.Specifically, the paper addresses two questions: When do buyers use an electronic market? How do electronic markets affect each of the following: prices, inventory levels, and the role of brokers? The data show that current models do not adequately capture the complexity of electronic markets. For instance, while ILS sometimes helps buyers find a better price, in other cases it can help suppliers extract an extra premium by providing more accurate information on parts availability. ILS has also had little impact on the extent to which brokers are used, although the specific nature of the value added by brokers appears to be changing. Finally, inventory levels in the industry have been unaffected by the use of ILS.The scope of ILS is limited to the identification process only, so caution must be exercised in generalizing the findings to systems that also support selection and execution. However, the data do suggest additional variables that must be considered in understanding the uses and impacts of electronic markets, including the scope of the electronic market.
Simulating pathological gait using the enhanced linear inverted pendulum model

In this paper, we propose a new method to simulate human gait motion when muscles are weakened. The method is based on the enhanced version of three-dimensional linear inverted pendulum model that is used for generation of gait in robotics. After the normal gait motion is generated by setting the initial posture and the parameters that decide the trajectories of the center of mass and angular momentum, the muscle to be weakened is specified. By minimizing an objective function based on the force exerted by the specified muscle during the motion, the set of parameters that represent the pathological gait was calculated. Since the number of parameters to describe the motion is small in our method, the optimization process converges much more quickly than in previous methods. The effects of weakening the gluteus medialis, the gluteus maximus, and vastus were analyzed. Important similarities were noted when comparing the predicted pendulum motion with data obtained from an actual patient.
Provably good global buffering using an available buffer block plan

To implement high-performance global interconnect without impacting the performance of existing blocks, the use of buffer blocks is increasingly popular in structured-custom and block-based ASIC/SOC methodologies. Recent works by Cong et al. (1999) and Tang and Wong (2000) give algorithms to solve the buffer block planning problem. In this paper we address the problem of how to perform buffering of global nets given an existing buffer block plan. Assuming that global nets have been already decomposed into two-pin connections, we give a provably good algorithm based on a recent approach of Garg and Konemann (1998) and Fleischer (1999). Our method routes connections using available buffer blocks, such that required upper and lower bounds on buffer intervals-as well as wirelength upper bounds per connection-are satisfied. Our model allows more than one buffer to be inserted into any given connection. In addition, our algorithm observes buffer parity constraints, i.e., it will choose to use an inverter or a buffer (=co-located pair of inverters) according to source and destination signal parity. The algorithm outperforms previous approaches and has been validated on top-level layouts extracted from a recent high-end microprocessor design.
Can Censorship Measurements Be Safe(r)?

Understanding censorship requires performing widespread, continuous measurements "on the ground". Yet, measuring censorship is potentially dangerous, due to the threat of retaliation against citizens who perform measurements. We must balance measurement accuracy, reliability, and scalability with user safety which leads us to the question: Can we design censorship measurements that mitigate risk to the users who consent to perform them? Although it is almost certainly impossible to eliminate risk (or even determine if we have succeeded in doing so), we posit that we may be able to reduce risk with measurement techniques that are difficult to observe or distinguish from innocuous network activity. We observe that surveillance and censorship systems have different goals, and thus certain types of measurement techniques may be able to characterize a censorship system without triggering a surveillance system. We design and implement several techniques for measuring censorship that controlled tests suggest might be less risky than existing methods; we also highlight potential pitfalls, limitations, and avenues for future work.
The potential for phospholipase D as a new therapeutic target

Mammalian phospholipase D (PLD), a signal transduction-activated enzyme, hydrolyzes phosphatidylcholine to generate the lipid second messenger phosphatidic acid (PA) and choline. Genetic and pharmacological methods have implicated PLD and its product PA in a wide variety of cellular processes including vesicle trafficking, receptor signaling, cell proliferation and survival. Dysregulation of these cell biologic processes occurs in a diverse range of illnesses including cancer. This review summarizes PLD regulation and function and highlights its potential as a therapeutic target in disease settings.