Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fine structure of amylopectin in relation to gelatinization and retrogradation behavior of maize starches from three wx-containing genotypes in two inbred lines

had A:B chain ratios within the range of 0.9-1.1. The A:B chain ratio of 1.5, together with the high proportion of longer chains in that sample, is consistent with the interpretation that the population of A chains in this sample contains some unusually long chains. In both lines, the starch granules from the ae wx genotype had the highest AH and Tmax for both gelatinization and retrogradation. The high AHfor the ae wx starches might be attributed to greater amounts of longer chains in these amylopectins. Except the starches from the wx genotype at 10% concentration, all of the gelatinized starch samples showed a differential scanning calorimetry endothermic peak after being stored at 4°C for seven days. Retrogradation AH was highest for the ae wx starches, both in absolute terms and as the proportion of gelatinization AH. In most cases retrogradation AH was higher (on dry weight basis) for 30% than for 10% starch; for the du wx starches, the AH at 30% starch was approximately twice that at 10%. and maltotriose to other linear fractions of debranched 3-limit dextrin (Peat et al 1956). The maltose and maltotriose represent the A chains of the native amylopectin. Alternatively, Hizukuri (1986) estimated the A:B chain ratios for several starches from
Multifunctional coprocessed excipients for improved tabletting performance

With the advancement of tablet manufacturing process, the demand of excipients with improved functionalities, mainly in terms of flow and compression properties, has increased. Coprocessed excipients are a mixture of two or more existing excipients at subparticle level, offer substantial benefits of the incorporated excipients and minimize their drawbacks. These multipurpose excipients have dramatically reduced the number of incorporating excipients in the tablet. The present review discusses the potential advantages of coprocessing and coprocessed excipients, material characteristics required for coprocessing, methods of coprocessing and various coprocessed excipients for direct compression available in the market.
Proteomics on the rims: insights into the biology of the nuclear envelope and flagellar pocket of trypanosomes

SUMMARY Trypanosomatids represent the causative agents of major diseases in humans, livestock and plants, with inevitable suffering and economic hardship as a result. They are also evolutionarily highly divergent organisms, and the many unique aspects of trypanosome biology provide opportunities in terms of identification of drug targets, the challenge of exploiting these putative targets and, at the same time, significant scope for exploration of novel and divergent cell biology. We can estimate from genome sequences that the degree of divergence of trypanosomes from animals and fungi is extreme, with perhaps one third to one half of predicted trypanosome proteins having no known function based on homology or recognizable protein domains/architecture. Two highly important aspects of trypanosome biology are the flagellar pocket and the nuclear envelope, where in silico analysis clearly suggests great potential divergence in the proteome. The flagellar pocket is the sole site of endo- and exocytosis in trypanosomes and plays important roles in immune evasion via variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) trafficking and providing a location for sequestration of various invariant receptors. The trypanosome nuclear envelope has been largely unexplored but, by analogy with higher eukaryotes, roles in the regulation of chromatin and most significantly, in controlling VSG gene expression are expected. Here we discuss recent successful proteomics-based approaches towards characterization of the nuclear envelope and the endocytic apparatus, the identification of conserved and novel trypanosomatid-specific features, and the implications of these findings.
Immunocytochemical localization of the major polypeptides of the nuclear pore complex-lamina fraction. Interphase and mitotic distribution

This laboratory has previously isolated a fraction from rat liver nuclei consisting of nuclear pore complexes associated with the proteinaceous lamina which underlies the inner nuclear membrane. Using protein eluted from sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) gels, we have prepared antibodies in chickens to each of the three predominant pore complex-lamina bands. Ouchterlony double diffusion analysis shows that each of these individual bands cross-reacts strongly with all three antisera. In immunofluorescence localization performed on tissue culture cells with these antibodies, we obtain a pattern of intense staining at the periphery of the interphase nucleus, with little or no cytoplasmic reaction. Electron microscope immunoperoxidase staining of rat liver nuclei with these antibodies labels exclusively the nuclear periphery. Furthermore, reaction occurs in areas which contain the lamina, but not at the pore complexes. While our isolation procedure extracts the internal contents of nuclei completely, semiquantitative Ouchterlony analysis shows that it releases negligible amounts of these lamina antigens. Considered together, our results indicate that these three bands represent major components of a peripheral nuclear lamina, and are not structural elements of an internal "nuclear protein matrix. " Fluorescence microscopy shows that the perinuclear interphase localization of these lamina proteins undergoes dramatic changes during mitosis. Concomitant with nuclear envelope disassembly in prophase, these antigens assume a diffuse localization throughout the cell. This distribution persists until telophase, when the antigens become progressively and completely localized at the surface of the daughter chromosome masses. We propose that the lamina is a biological polymer which can undergo reversible disassembly during mitosis.
Study of Organosilicon Plasma Polymer Used in Composite Layers with Biomedical Application

In this work we study the ability of plasma polymer (PP) films obtained from hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDS) on silica glass (SG) to induce hydroxyapatite (HA)‐based composite layers from a mixture of simulated body fluid (SBF) and clear solution of detonation nanodiamond (DND) by a biomimetic process. The grown composites (PPHMDS/HADND) were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Rutherford backscattering (RBS) techniques. FTIR spectra of the PPHMDS indicated diminishing of the polymer characteristic bands when the polymer is immersed in DND clear solution. Furthermore, after sample immersion in the SBF‐DND mixture, the FTIR spectra showed the presence of carbonate‐containing HA through the characteristic vibration modes of P‐O in the phosphate group and C‐O in the carbonate group. The formation of HA layers, rich in silica and/or carbon was confirmed by RBS and SEM. The cell viability measured after 7 days on the polymer surface is more then 95% for.
Opportunities for PET to deliver clinical benefit in cancer: breast cancer as a paradigm

Abstract The glucose analogue fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has demonstrated enhanced uptake in the majority of tumours as a result of increased uptake and fixation by phosphorylation. It is the most widely used radiotracer in positron emission tomography (PET), being used in >90% of scans, and is useful for diagnosis, staging and detection of residual/recurrent cancer. However, there are limits to the utility of FDG, particularly in certain tumour types. The development of new radiotracers to study molecular processes such as proliferation, apoptosis, angiogenesis and hypoxia will complement FDG by providing additional information on the cell biology of tumours. The aim of this paper is to consider how the availability of new tracers, or new applications for existing PET/CT technologies, could deliver clinical benefit in cancer, using breast cancer as a paradigm.
From Recurrent Syncope to Sudden Cardiac Death: Clinical Characteristics in a Chinese Patient Carrying a Plakophilin-2 Gene Mutation

We report a case of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC) which illustrates the natural progression of disease in the absence of availability of an implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD). Electrocardiograms and cardiac imaging show the progress of ARVC and these clinical milestones of disease are presented herein.
Beamforming With a Maximum Negentropy Criterion

In this paper, we address a beamforming application based on the capture of far-field speech data from a single speaker in a real meeting room. After the position of the speaker is estimated by a speaker tracking system, we construct a subband-domain beamformer in generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) configuration. In contrast to conventional practice, we then optimize the active weight vectors of the GSC so as to obtain an output signal with maximum negentropy (MN). This implies the beamformer output should be as non-Gaussian as possible. For calculating negentropy, we consider the Gamma and the generalized Gaussian (GG) pdfs. After MN beamforming, Zelinski postfiltering is performed to further enhance the speech by removing residual noise. Our beamforming algorithm can suppress noise and reverberation without the signal cancellation problems encountered in the conventional beamforming algorithms. We demonstrate this fact through a set of acoustic simulations. Moreover, we show the effectiveness of our proposed technique through a series of far-field automatic speech recognition experiments on the Multi-Channel Wall Street Journal Audio Visual Corpus (MC-WSJ-AV), a corpus of data captured with real far-field sensors, in a realistic acoustic environment, and spoken by real speakers. On the MC-WSJ-AV evaluation data, the delay-and-sum beamformer with postfiltering achieved a word error rate (WER) of 16.5%. MN beamforming with the Gamma pdf achieved a 15.8% WER, which was further reduced to 13.2% with the GG pdf, whereas the simple delay-and-sum beamformer provided a WER of 17.8%. To the best of our knowledge, no lower error rates at present have been reported in the literature on this automatic speech recognition (ASR) task.
Optical modulators using fibreoptic Sagnac interferometers

We propose, and present a theoretical and experimental investigation of optical modulators using fibreoptic Sagnac interferometers. Several possible modulator configurations have been investigated and compared. An optical modulator using the ceramic material PLZT as the electrooptic modulating element has been experimentally demonstrated to show the feasibility of this new type of modulator structure. Preliminary experimental results show that the optical modulators using fibre Sagnac interferometer have a number of useful features such as input polarisation independence, readily adjustable phase bias, and suitability for forming fibre-to-fibre devices.
The Selective Monoacylglycerol Lipase Inhibitor MJN110 Produces Opioid-Sparing Effects in a Mouse Neuropathic Pain Model

Serious clinical liabilities associated with the prescription of opiates for pain control include constipation, respiratory depression, pruritus, tolerance, abuse, and addiction. A recognized strategy to circumvent these side effects is to combine opioids with other antinociceptive agents. The combination of opiates with the primary active constituent of cannabis (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol) produces enhanced antinociceptive actions, suggesting that cannabinoid receptor agonists can be opioid sparing. Here, we tested whether elevating the endogenous cannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol through the inhibition of its primary hydrolytic enzyme monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL), will produce opioid-sparing effects in the mouse chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve model of neuropathic pain. The dose-response relationships of i.p. administration of morphine and the selective MAGL inhibitor 2,5-dioxopyrrolidin-1-yl 4-(bis(4-chlorophenyl)methyl)piperazine-1-carboxylate (MJN110) were tested alone and in combination at equieffective doses for reversal of CCI-induced mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia. The respective ED50 doses (95% confidence interval) of morphine and MJN110 were 2.4 (1.9–3.0) mg/kg and 0.43 (0.23–0.79) mg/kg. Isobolographic analysis of these drugs in combination revealed synergistic antiallodynic effects. Acute antinociceptive effects of the combination of morphine and MJN110 required μ-opioid, CB1, and CB2 receptors. This combination did not reduce gastric motility or produce subjective cannabimimetic effects in the drug discrimination assay. Importantly, combinations of MJN110 and morphine given repeatedly (i.e., twice a day for 6 days) continued to produce antiallodynic effects with no evidence of tolerance. Taken together, these findings suggest that MAGL inhibition produces opiate-sparing events with diminished tolerance, constipation, and cannabimimetic side effects.
An Experiment on Prediction Markets in Science

Prediction markets are powerful forecasting tools. They have the potential to aggregate private information, to generate and disseminate a consensus among the market participants, and to provide incentives for information acquisition. These market functionalities can be very valuable for scientific research. Here, we report an experiment that examines the compatibility of prediction markets with the current practice of scientific publication. We investigated three settings. In the first setting, different pieces of information were disclosed to the public during the experiment. In the second setting, participants received private information. In the third setting, each piece of information was private at first, but was subsequently disclosed to the public. An automated, subsidizing market maker provided additional incentives for trading and mitigated liquidity problems. We find that the third setting combines the advantages of the first and second settings. Market performance was as good as in the setting with public information, and better than in the setting with private information. In contrast to the first setting, participants could benefit from information advantages. Thus the publication of information does not detract from the functionality of prediction markets. We conclude that for integrating prediction markets into the practice of scientific research it is of advantage to use subsidizing market makers, and to keep markets aligned with current publication practice.
Constraints on Non-Projective Dependency Parsing

We investigate a series of graph-theoretic constraints on non-projective dependency parsing and their effect on expressivity, i.e. whether they allow naturally occurring syntactic constructions to be adequately represented, and efficiency, i.e. whether they reduce the search space for the parser. In particular, we define a new measure for the degree of non-projectivity in an acyclic dependency graph obeying the single-head constraint. The constraints are evaluated experimentally using data from the Prague Dependency Treebank and the Danish Dependency Treebank. The results indicate that, whereas complete linguistic coverage in principle requires unrestricted non-projective dependency graphs, limiting the degree of non-projectivity to at most 2 can reduce average running time from quadratic to linear, while excluding less than 0.5% of the dependency graphs found in the two treebanks. This is a substantial improvement over the commonly used projective approximation (degree 0), which excludes 15–25% of the graphs.
Model checking finite paths and trees

This thesis presents efficient parallel algorithms for checking temporal logic formulas over finite paths and trees. We show that LTL path checking is in AC1(logDCFL) and CTL tree checking is in AC2(logDCFL). For LTL with pastime and bounded modalities, which is an exponentially more succinct logic, we show that the path checking problem remains in AC1(logDCFL). Our results provide a foundation for efficient algorithms of various applications in monitoring, testing, and verification as well as for query processing for tree-datastructures, e.g. XML documents. The presented path and tree checking algorithms are based on efficient parallel evaluation strategies for monotone Boolean circuits. We reduce the evaluation of product circuits to the problem of evaluating one-input-face monotone planar Boolean circuits: for a monotone Boolean circuit that is a product of a tree and a path, we provide an AC1-reduction; for a monotone Boolean circuit that is a product of two trees, we provide an AC2-reduction. We develop a classification of Kripke structures with respect to the complexity of LTL model checking: Kripke structures for which the problem is PSPACE- complete, Kripke structures for which the problem is coNP-complete, and Kripke structures for which the problem is in NC. Wir prasentieren effiziente parallele Algorithmen zum Uberprufen der Erfulltheit von temporal logischen Formeln auf Pfaden und Baumen. Wir zeigen, dass fur die Logik LTL das Uberprufen von Ausfuhrungspfaden in der Komplexitatsklasse AC1(logDCFL) liegt. Fur die Logik CTL ist das Uberprufen von Baumen in AC2(logDCFL). Fur Erweiterungen von LTL mit Vergangenheit und beschrankten zeitlichen Modalitaten beweisen wir, dass Pfade ebenfalls in AC1(logDCFL) uberpruft werden konnen, obwohl die Logik exponentiell kompakter ist als einfaches LTL. Unsere Resultate bielden eine Grundlage fur effiziente Algorithmen fur verschiedene Anwendungen in den Bereichen der Systemuberwachung, des Testens und der Verfikation sowie fur die Anfragebearbeitung fur Baumdatenstrukturen, wie zum Beispiel XML Dokumente. Die prasentierten Algorithmen zum Uberprufen von Pfaden und Baumen basieren auf effizient parallelen Strategien zur Evaluierung von monotonen Boolschen Schaltkreisen. Wir reduzieren die Evaluierung von Produkt-Schaltkreisen auf das Problem der Evaluierung von monoton planaren Boolschen Schaltkreisen, bei denen sich alle Eingaben auf dem auseren Rand befinden. Fur monotone Boolsche Schaltkreise, die das Produkt von einem Baum und einem Pfad sind, geben wir eine AC1-Reduktion an. Fur monotone Boolsche Schaltkreise, die das Produkt von zwei Baumen sind, geben wir eine AC2-Reduktion an. Wir entwickeln eine Klassifizierung von Kripkestrukturen im Hinblick auf die Komplexitat des Erfulltheitsproblems fur LTL: Kripkestrukturen, fur die das Problem PSPACE-vollstandig ist, Kripkestrukturen, fur die das Problem coNP- vollstandig ist, und Kripkestrukturen, fur die das Problem in NC liegt.
Vehicle-to-vehicle channel models with large vehicle obstructions

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication is an en-abler for improved traffic safety and congestion control. As for any wireless system the ultimate performance limit is determined by the propagation channel. A particular point of interest is the shadowing effect of large vehicles such as trucks and buses, as this might affect the communication range significantly. In this paper we present measurement results and model the propagation channel in which a bus acts as a shadowing object between two passenger cars. The measurement setup is based on a WARP FPGA software radio as transmitter, and a Tektronix RSA5106A real-time complex spectrum analyzer as receiver. We analyze the influence of the bus location and car separation distance on the large-scale path loss, shadowing, and small-scale fading. The main effect of the bus is that it is acting as an obstruction creating an additional 15-20 dB attenuation. A Nakagami distribution is found to describe the statistics of the small-scale fading, by using Akaike's Information Criterion and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The distance-dependency of the path loss is analyzed, and a stochastic model is developed to reflect the impact.
Documenting pattern use in Java programs

Design patterns are widely recognized as important software development methods. Their use as software understanding tools, though generally acknowledged, has been scarcely explored. Patterns are most useful in understanding software when they are well documented. Sometimes they are described separately from code as design comments. Nevertheless, they have a strong relationship with the source code and thus they should also be documented at the source level. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on how to document pattern use. This paper describes a structured approach to documenting pattern use in the Java language. Our solution is based on the standard Javadoc tool and is able to generate HTML documentation. The approach has been implemented and tested with software that uses patterns.
Characterization of the binding activities of proteinase-adhesin complexes from Porphyromonas gingivalis

Adhesins from oral bacteria perform an important function in colonizing target tissues within the dentogingival cavity. In Porphyromonas gingivalis certain of these adhesion proteins exist as a complex with either of two major proteinases referred to as gingipain R (arginine-specific gingipain) and gingipain K (lysine-specific gingipain) (R. N. Pike, W. T. McGraw, J. Potempa, and J. Travis, J. Biol. Chem. 269:406-411, 1994). With specific proteinase inhibitors, it was shown that hemagglutination by either proteinase-adhesin complex could occur independently of proteinase activity. Significantly, low concentrations of fibrinogen, fibronectin, and laminin inhibited hemagglutination, indicating that adherence to these proteins and not the hemagglutination activity was a primary property of the adhesin activity component of complexes. Binding studies with gingipain K and gingipain R suggest that interaction with fibrinogen is a major function of the adhesin domain, with dissociation constants for binding to fibrinogen being 4 and 8.5 nM, respectively. Specific association with fibronectin and laminin was also found. All bound proteins were degraded by the functional proteinase domain, with gingipain R being more active on laminin and fibronectin and gingipain K being more effective in the digestion of fibrinogen. Cumulatively, these data suggest that gingipain R and gingipain K, acting as proteinase-adhesin complexes, progressively attach to, degrade, and detach from target proteins. Since such complexes appear to be present on the surfaces of both vesicles and membranes of P. gingivalis, they may play an important role in the attachment of this bacterium to host cell surfaces.
Membrane-targeted WAVE mediates photoreceptor axon targeting in the absence of the WAVE complex in Drosophila

The Abelson interactor (Abi) has a conserved role in Arp2/3-dependent actin polymerization, regulating WASP and WAVE. In this study, the function of Abi was analyzed in the context of the developing fly visual system, and the steps in the molecular regulation of WAVE activity by its regulatory complex in vivo were identified.