Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phenylbutyrate-induced glutamine depletion in humans: effect on leucine metabolism.

The present study was designed to determine whether sodium phenylbutyrate (ΦB) acutely induces a decrease in plasma glutamine in healthy humans, and, if so, will decrease estimates of whole body protein synthesis. In a first group of three healthy subjects, graded doses (0, 0.18, and 0.36 g ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ day-1) of ΦB were administered for 24 h before study: postabsorptive plasma glutamine concentration declined in a dose-dependent manner, achieving an ≈25% decline for a dose of 0.36 g ΦB ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ day-1. A second group of six healthy adults received 5-h infusions ofl-[1-14C]leucine andl-[1-13C]glutamine in the postabsorptive state on two separate days: 1) under baseline conditions and 2) after 24 h of oral treatment with ΦB (0.36 g ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ day-1) in a randomized order. The 24-h phenylbutyrate treatment was associated with 1) an ≈26% decline in plasma glutamine concentration from 514 ± 24 to 380 ± 15 μM (means ± SE; P < 0.01 with paired t-test) with no change in glutamine appearance rate or de novo synthesis; 2) no change in leucine appearance rate (Ra), an index of protein breakdown (123 ± 7 vs. 117 ± 5 μmol ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ h-1; not significant); 3) an ≈22% rise in leucine oxidation (Ox) from 23 ± 2 to 28 ± 2 μmol ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ h-1( P < 0.01), resulting in an ≈11% decline in nonoxidative leucine disposal (NOLD = Ra - Ox), an index of protein synthesis, from 100 ± 6 to 89 ± 5 μmol ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ h-1( P < 0.05). The data suggest that, in healthy adults, 1) large doses of oral phenylbutyrate can be used as a "glutamine trap" to create a model of glutamine depletion; 2) a moderate decline in plasma glutamine does not enhance rates of endogenous glutamine production; and 3) a short-term depletion of plasma glutamine decreases estimates of whole body protein synthesis.
Chlamydia trachomatis‐derived deubiquitinating enzymes in mammalian cells during infection

Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium that causes a variety of diseases in humans. C. trachomatis has a complex developmental cycle that depends on host cells for replication, during which gene expression is tightly regulated. Here we identify two C. trachomatis proteases that possess deubiquitinating and deneddylating activities. We have designated these proteins ChlaDub1 and ChlaDub2. The genes encoding ChlaDub1 and ChlaDub2 are present in all Chlamydia species except for Chlamydia pneumoniae, and their catalytic domains bear similarity to the catalytic domains of other eukaryotic ubiquitin‐like proteases (Ulp). The C. trachomatis DUBs react with activity‐based probes and hydrolyse ubiquitinated and neddylated substrates. ChlaDub1 and ChlaDub2 represent the first known bacterial DUBs that possess both deubiquitinating and deneddylating activities.
UV-Lithographic Patterning of Micro-Features on a Conical Mold Insert

OF THESIS UV-LITHOGRAPHIC PATTERNING OF MICRO-FEATURES ON A CONICAL MOLD INSERT In past studies, several techniques have been employed to create microscopic features on relatively simple surfaces. Of these, lithography-based techniques have proven effective at manufacturing large fields of deterministic microasperities and microcavities on planar and cylindrical substrates. The present study focuses on adapting UV-lithography to a more complex substrate. Machined from stainless steel, a conical mold insert introduces an interesting geometry designed for the injection molding of radial lip seal elastomer. The distinct shape of this mold insert poises unique challenges to a conventional lithography procedure. Spray application is investigated as a feasible means to deposit layers of photoresist on the surface. An appropriate masking element is designed and created to facilitate transfer of a particular pattern via UV exposure. A clamping technique is implemented to align and secure the photomask. These techniques are incorporated into a three-day process, and results are obtained through optical microscopy and light interferometry. By applying Design of Experiments (DOE) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), significant process variables are indentified. Based on these findings, refinements to the process are enabled and future considerations are made evident.
SystemC - a modeling platform supporting multiple design abstractions

SystemC is a C++ based modeling platform supporting design abstractions at the register-transfer, behavioral, and system levels. Consisting of a class library and a simulation kernel, the language is an attempt at standardization of a C/C++ design methodology, and is supported by the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI), a consortium of a wide range of system houses, semiconductor companies, intellectual property (IP) providers, embedded software developers, and design automation tool vendors. The advantages of SystemC include the establishment of a common design environment consisting of C++ libraries, models and tools, thereby setting up a foundation for hardware-software co-design; the ability to exchange IP easily and efficiently; and the ability to reuse test benches across different levels of modeling abstraction. We outline the features of SystemC that make it an attractive language for design specification, verification, and synthesis at different levels of abstraction, with particular emphasis on the new features included in SystemC 2.0 that support system-level design.
Minimum 2-year follow-up result of degenerative spinal stenosis treated with interspinous u (coflex).

OBJECTIVE Clinical and radiological results of posterior dynamic stabilization using interspinous U (ISU, Coflex, Paradigm Spine Inc.(R), NY, USA) were analyzed in comparison with posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) in degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). METHODS A retrospective study was conducted for a consecutive series of 61 patients with degenerative LSS between May 2003 and December 2005. We included only the patients completed minimum 24 months follow up evaluation. Among them, 30 patients were treated with implantation of ISU after decompressive laminectomy (Group ISU) and 31 patients were treated with wide decompressive laminectomy and posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF; Group PLIF). We evaluated visual analogue scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) for clinical outcomes (VAS, ODI), disc height ratio disc height (DH), disc height/vertebral body length x100), static vertebral slip (VS) and depth of maximal radiolucent gap between ISU and spinous process) in preoperative, immediate postoperative and last follow up. RESULTS The mean age of group ISU (66.2 +/- 6.7 years) was 6.2 years older than the mean age of group PLIF (60.4 +/- 8.1 years; p = 0.003 ). In both groups, clinical measures improved significantly than preoperative values (p < 0.001). Operation time and blood loss was significantly shorter and lower in group ISU than group PLIF (p < 0.001). In group ISU, the DH increased transiently in immediate postoperative period (15.7 +/- 4.5% --> 18.6 +/- 5.9%), however decreased significantly in last follow up (13.8 +/- 6.6%, p = 0.027). Vertebral slip (VS) of spondylolisthesis in group ISU increased during postoperative follow-up (2.3 +/- 3.3 --> 8.7 +/- 6.2, p = 0.040). Meanwhile, the postoperatively improved DH and VS was maintained in group PLIF in last follow up. CONCLUSION According to our result, implantation of ISU after decompressive laminectomy in degenerative LSS is less invasive and provides similar clinical outcome in comparison with the instrumented fusion. However, the device has only transient effect on the postoperative restoration of disc height and reduction of slip in spondylolisthesis. Therefore, in the biomechanical standpoint, it is hard to expect that use of Interspinous U in decompressive laminectomy for degenerative LSS had long term beneficial effect.
Studies on Commercial District Alliance Governance and Integration Governance Mode Selection

In the actual course of commercial operations, governance mode is mainly divided into two categories: alliance mode, leading by real estate developer, and integrated mode, leading by commercial operators. The transaction efficiency and cost vary corresponding to the different mode. In this paper, based on the traditional market, hybrid and hierarchical mode framework in transaction cost theory, inframarginal theory and the actual Chinese commercial management, the author discusses the existing conditions of market, hybrid and hierarchical mode, verifies that the complete market mode in the actual operation process does not exist, at the same time, deeply analyses boundary conditions for the existence and basis for decision making of the alliance mode and integration mode.
Physiological Concentrations of Leptin Do Not Affect Human Neutrophils

Leptin is an adipokine that is thought to be important in many inflammatory diseases, and is known to influence the function of several leukocyte types. However, no clear consensus is present regarding the responsiveness of neutrophils for this adipokine. In this study a 2D DIGE proteomics approach was used as an unbiased approach to identify leptin-induced effects on neutrophils. Additionally chemotaxis and survival experiments were performed to reproduce results from literature showing putative effects of leptin on these neutrophil responses. Leptin did not induce any significant changes in the proteome provided leptin was added at physiologically relevant concentrations (250 ng). Our leptin batches were biologically active as they induced proliferation in LeptinR expressing Ba/F3 cells. At high concentrations (25000 ng) leptin induced a change in neutrophil proteome. Seventeen differently regulated spots were identified of which twelve could be characterized by mass spectrometry. Two of these identified proteins, SerpinB1 and p40 phox, were chosen for further analysis but leptin-induced expression analyzed by western blot were highly variable. Additionally leptin also induced neutrophil survival at these high concentrations. No leptin-induced chemotaxis of human neutrophils was detected at any concentration. In conclusion, physiological concentrations of leptin do not affect neutrophils. High leptin concentrations induced survival and changes in the neutrophils proteome, but this was most likely mediated by an indirect effect. However, it cannot be ruled out that the effects were mediated by a yet not-identified leptin receptor on human neutrophils.
Clinical outcome of Taiwanese men with clinically localized prostate cancer post-radical prostatectomy: a comparison with other ethnic groups

Background. Prostate cancer incidence varies significantly among different ethnic groups. However, the report concerning the clinical outcome after radical prostatectomy (RP) in the low incidence Asian population is still limited. We aimed to compare the clinical outcome in patient treated with RP among different ethnic groups and to identify significant prognostic factors in Taiwanese patients. Methods. A total of 341 patients with clinical localized prostate cancer undergoing curative RP in three medical centers in Taiwan were included in this study. Ethnic group comparison was performed using the CaPSURE, SEARCH databases from United States (US) and one large European series. The Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard model were used to identify significant predictors for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) recurrence. Results. Compared to the Caucasian white population in the US and Europe studies, the Taiwanese population have higher age at surgery and higher pre-operative PSA level. With mean and median follow-up of 39.1 months and 31.0 months (range 5–120 months), 127 men (37.2%) had PSA recurrence which was significant higher than the Western series. Significant predictors for PSA recurrence identified in the post-operative overall model were PSA level, pathological Gleason Score, pathological tumor stage and lymph node metastasis. Conclusions. The clinical outcome of Taiwanese male with prostate cancer post-RP appears inferior to the Western country, which is largely due to delay surgery at higher PSA level. Earlier diagnosis and treatment may improve the cancer control of RP.
Exploring traversal strategy for web forum crawling

In this paper, we study the problem of Web forum crawling. Web forum has now become an important data source of many Web applications; while forum crawling is still a challenging task due to complex in-site link structures and login controls of most forum sites. Without carefully selecting the traversal path, a generic crawler usually downloads many duplicate and invalid pages from forums, and thus wastes both the precious bandwidth and the limited storage space. To crawl forum data more effectively and efficiently, in this paper, we propose an automatic approach to exploring an appropriate traversal strategy to direct the crawling of a given target forum. In detail, the traversal strategy consists of the identification of the skeleton links and the detection of the page-flipping links. The skeleton links instruct the crawler to only crawl valuable pages and meanwhile avoid duplicate and uninformative ones; and the page-flipping links tell the crawler how to completely download a long discussion thread which is usually shown in multiple pages in Web forums. The extensive experimental results on several forums show encouraging performance of our approach. Following the discovered traversal strategy, our forum crawler can archive more informative pages in comparison with previous related work and a commercial generic crawler.
Object segmentation by alignment of poselet activations to image contours

In this paper, we propose techniques to make use of two complementary bottom-up features, image edges and texture patches, to guide top-down object segmentation towards higher precision. We build upon the part-based pose-let detector, which can predict masks for numerous parts of an object. For this purpose we extend poselets to 19 other categories apart from person. We non-rigidly align these part detections to potential object contours in the image, both to increase the precision of the predicted object mask and to sort out false positives. We spatially aggregate object information via a variational smoothing technique while ensuring that object regions do not overlap. Finally, we propose to refine the segmentation based on self-similarity defined on small image patches. We obtain competitive results on the challenging Pascal VOC benchmark. On four classes we achieve the best numbers to-date.
Regulating air traffic flow with coupled agents

The ability to provide flexible, automated management of air traffic is critical to meeting the ever increasing needs of the next generation air transportation systems. This problem is particularly complex as it requires the integration of many factors including, updated information (e.g., changing weather info), conflicting priorities (e.g., different airlines), limited resources (e.g., air traffic controllers) and very heavy traffic volume (e.g., over 40,000 daily flights over the US airspace). Furthermore, because the Federal Flight Administration will not accept black-box solutions, algorithmic improvements need to be consistent with current operating practices and provide explanations for each new decision. Unfortunately current methods provide neither flexibility for future upgrades, nor high enough performance in complex coupled air traffic flow problems. This paper extends agent-based methods for controlling air traffic flow to more realistic domains that have coupled flow patterns and need to be controlled through a variety of mechanisms. First, we explore an agent control structure that allows agents to control air traffic flow through one of three mechanisms (miles in trail, ground delays and rerouting). Second, we explore a new agent learning algorithm that can efficiently handle coupled flow patterns. We then test this agent solution on a series of congestion problems, showing that it is flexible enough to achieve high performance with different control mechanisms. In addition the results show that the new solution is able to achieve up to a 20% increase in performance over previous methods that did not account for the agent coupling.
Fourier transform mechanical analysis for determining the nonlinear viscoelastic properties of polymers

Fourier Transform Mechanical Analysis (FTMA) has been used to study the strain amplitude dependent nonlinear dynamic mechanical properties of two elastomer compounds, nitrile rubber (NBR) and Neoprene, at various frequencies up to 750 Hz. Basic theory and experimental results are presented for one-dimensional isothermal single frequency simple shear deformation. The Green-Rivlin constitutive equation was used to model the observed behavior. The energy dissipation mechanism and a physical meaning for the material functions in the Green-Rivlin representation have also been examined. The stress Fourier spectrum contained terms at the input frequency and its higher harmonics. It can qualitatively indicate the type of mathematical mode that best describes the observed behavior. The first harmonic storage and loss moduli showed strong dependence on the strain amplitude and frequency. The FTMA methodology presented can be used to systematically conduct nonlinear dynamic mechanical studies on any polymer. It can provide enough insight which, along with a knowledge of the molecular structure, may indicate a path for developing a better representative continuum constitutive model of these complex materials.
Technical Project Plan for The Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of Oxide Fuels Through the Addition of High Thermal Conductivity Fibers and Microstructural Engineering

The commercial nuclear power industry is investing heavily in advanced fuels that can produce higher power levels with a higher safety margin and be produced at low cost. Although chemically stable and inexpensive to manufacture, the in-core performance of UO{sub 2} fuel is limited by its low thermal conductivity. There will be enormous financial benefits to any utility that can exploit a new type of fuel that is chemically stable, has a high thermal conductivity, and is inexpensive to manufacture. At reactor operating temperatures, UO{sub 2} has a very low thermal conductivity (<5 W/m {center_dot}K), which decreases with temperature and fuel burnup. This low thermal conductivity limits the rate at which energy can be removed from the fuel, thus limiting the total integrated reactor power. If the fuel thermal conductivity could be increased, nuclear reactors would be able to operate at higher powers and larger safety margins thus decreasing the overall cost of electricity by increasing the power output from existing reactors and decreasing the number of new electrical generating plants needed to meet base load demand. The objective of the work defined herein is to produce an advanced nuclear fuel based on the current UO{sub 2} fuel with superiormore » thermal conductivity and structural integrity that is suitable for current and future nuclear reactors, using the existing fuel fabrication infrastructure with minimal modifications. There are two separate components to the research: (1) Enhanced Thermal Conductivity (ETC) - adding high conductivity fibers to the UO{sub 2} prior to sintering, which act as conduits for moving the heat energy generated within the pellet to the outer surface, (2) Microstructural Engineering (ME) - adding second phase particulates to UO{sub 2} bodies to retard grain growth and to increase thermal conductivity, as well as improve fracture and creep resistance. Different groups will perform the laboratory work for each of these research components with some overlap in personnel. The overlapping areas primarily involve computer simulations and final testing of the fuel in a reactor. The estimated cost and duration of this project is $5,000,000 over three years. « less
Measurement-Based Modeling of Interarrivals for the Simulation of Highway Vehicular Networks

Simulation is the standard approach to the performance evaluation of vehicular network solutions. However, the relevance of its results is often questioned by the adoption of unrealistic vehicular mobility representations. In this letter, we propose a measurement-based hidden Markov model that generates realistic synthetic interarrivals. The proposed methodology accurately captures important traffic dynamics and provides a reliable input for the simulation of highway vehicular networks.
Simulation and modeling of carbon nanotube synthesis: current trends and investigations

Abstract A review of significant investigations reported on simulating the nucleation and growth processes of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using different modeling techniques is presented here. Special emphasis is given to the chemical vapor deposition method, being the cheapest and most versatile of the fabrication methods. The modeling methods involve the conventional computational fluid dynamics approaches as well as discrete computation techniques. Some in-house investigations utilizing chemical kinetic modeling and discrete computations to predict the growth of CNTs using the chemical vapor deposition method are also discussed. The modeling and simulation techniques reviewed here are expected to assist in the design of chirality-specific single-walled CNT synthesis systems.
A runner’s high depends on cannabinoid receptors in mice

Significance A runner’s high is a subjective sense of well-being some humans experience after prolonged exercise. For decades, it was hypothesized that exercise-induced endorphin release is solely responsible for a runner’s high, but recent evidence has suggested that endocannabinoids also may play a role. Here, we demonstrate that wheel running increases endocannabinoids and reduces both anxiety and sensation of pain in mice. Ablation of cannabinoid receptor 1 receptors on GABAergic neurons inhibits running-induced anxiolysis, and pharmacological blockage of central and peripheral cannabinoid receptors inhibits analgesia. We thus show for the first time to our knowledge that cannabinoid receptors are crucial for main aspects of a runner’s high. Exercise is rewarding, and long-distance runners have described a runner’s high as a sudden pleasant feeling of euphoria, anxiolysis, sedation, and analgesia. A popular belief has been that endogenous endorphins mediate these beneficial effects. However, running exercise increases blood levels of both β-endorphin (an opioid) and anandamide (an endocannabinoid). Using a combination of pharmacologic, molecular genetic, and behavioral studies in mice, we demonstrate that cannabinoid receptors mediate acute anxiolysis and analgesia after running. We show that anxiolysis depends on intact cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) receptors on forebrain GABAergic neurons and pain reduction on activation of peripheral CB1 and CB2 receptors. We thus demonstrate that the endocannabinoid system is crucial for two main aspects of a runner's high. Sedation, in contrast, was not influenced by cannabinoid or opioid receptor blockage, and euphoria cannot be studied in mouse models.
Circuit implementation of piecewise-affine functions based on a binary search tree

In this paper we introduce a digital architecture implementing piecewise-affine functions defined over domains partitioned into polytopes: the functions are linear affine over each polytope. The polytope containing the input vector is found by exploring a previously constructed binary search tree. Once the polytope is detected, the function is evaluated by addressing an affine map whose coefficients are stored in a memory. The architecture has been implemented on FPGA and experimental results for a benchmark example are shown.