Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Microfluidic Liquid-Liquid Extraction for Cocaine Detection in Human Saliva

Keywords: microfluidic ; saliva ; cocaine ; UV-curable adhesive NOA81 ; rapid prototyping ; continuous liquid-liquid extraction ; droplet generation ; droplet coalescence ; IR-spectroscopy These Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne EPFL, n° 5589 (2012)Programme doctoral Microsystemes et MicroelectroniqueFaculte des sciences et techniques de l'ingenieurLaboratoire de capteurs, actuateurs et microsystemesJury: J. Brugger (president), P. Jouy, B.E. Rapp, H. Shea Public defense: 2012-12-12 Reference doi:10.5075/epfl-thesis-5589Print copy in library catalog Record created on 2012-12-05, modified on 2016-08-09
Load Balanced Spanning Tree ( LBST ) in Metro Ethernet Networks

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a link management protocol that provides path redundancy while preventing undesirable loops in the Ethernet networks. In fact, STP defines a tree that spans all switches in the network such that the sum of the costs of the chosen links is minimized. Deploying the STP to manage the topology autonomously is inadequate and do not meet the requirement for Metro Area Networks because STP blocks redundant links leaving traffic on a single path, running the risk of congestion, especially close to the root. As a result, STP provides poor support for load balancing. A solution for this problem is using the multi-criteria Minimum Spanning Tree by considering criterions such as load balancing over links and switches. In our previous work, we proposed an algorithm named Best Spanning Tree (BST) to find the best spanning tree in a Metro Ethernet network. BST is based on the computation of total cost for each possible spanning tree. Therefore, it is very time consuming especially when our network is large. In this paper we propose an algorithm named Load Balanced Spanning Tree (LBST) to find the near-optimal Balanced Spanning Tree to reduce the computational complexity of BST algorithm.
Cancer Therapy : Clinical A Phase 1 Study of AS 1409 , a Novel Antibody-Cytokine Fusion Protein , in Patients with Malignant Melanoma or Renal Cell Carcinoma

Purpose: AS1409 is a fusion protein comprising a humanized antibody BC1 linked to interleukin-12 (IL-12). It is designed to deliver IL-12 to tumor-associated vasculature using an antibody targeting the ED-B variant of fibronectin. Experimental Design: We conducted a phase 1 trial of weekly infusional AS1409 in renal carcinoma and malignant melanoma patients. Safety, efficacy, markers of IL-12–mediated immune response, and pharmacokinetics were evaluated. Results: A total of 11melanoma and 2 renal cell carcinoma patients were treated. Doses of 15 and 25 mg/ kg were studied. Most drug-related adverse events were grade 2 or less, and included pyrexia, fatigue, chills, headache, vomiting, and transient liver function abnormalities. Three dose limiting toxicities of grade 3 fatigue and transaminase elevation were seen at 25 mg/kg. IFN-g and interferon-inducible protein-10 (IP10) were elevated in all patients, indicating activation of cell-mediated immune response; this was attenuated at subsequent cycles. Antidrug antibody responses were seen in all patients, although bioassays indicate these do not neutralize AS1409 activity. Plasma half-life was 22 hours and not dose-dependent. Five patients received 6 cycles or more and a best response of at least stable disease was seen in 6 (46%) patients. Partial response was seen in amelanoma patient, and disease shrinkage associated with metabolic response was maintained beyond 12 months in another melanoma patient despite previous rapid progression. Conclusions: Themaximum tolerated dose was established at 15 mg/kg weekly. AS1409 is well tolerated at this dose. Evidence of efficacy assessed by RECIST, functional imaging, and biomarker response warrants the planned further investigation using this dose and schedule inmalignant melanoma. Clin Cancer Res; 17 (7); 1998–2005. 2011 AACR.
Ancient Dispersal of the Human Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus gattii from the Amazon Rainforest

Over the past two decades, several fungal outbreaks have occurred, including the high-profile ‘Vancouver Island’ and ‘Pacific Northwest’ outbreaks, caused by Cryptococcus gattii, which has affected hundreds of otherwise healthy humans and animals. Over the same time period, C. gattii was the cause of several additional case clusters at localities outside of the tropical and subtropical climate zones where the species normally occurs. In every case, the causative agent belongs to a previously rare genotype of C. gattii called AFLP6/VGII, but the origin of the outbreak clades remains enigmatic. Here we used phylogenetic and recombination analyses, based on AFLP and multiple MLST datasets, and coalescence gene genealogy to demonstrate that these outbreaks have arisen from a highly-recombining C. gattii population in the native rainforest of Northern Brazil. Thus the modern virulent C. gattii AFLP6/VGII outbreak lineages derived from mating events in South America and then dispersed to temperate regions where they cause serious infections in humans and animals.
Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Systems

This paper is concerned with the adaptive sliding mode control problem of uncertain nonlinear systems. Interval type-2 Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model is employed to represent uncertain nonlinear systems. The input matrices of the nonlinear systems are allowed to be different for the sliding mode controller design. The uncertain parameters are described by the lower and upper membership functions. An integral sliding mode surface is designed for analysis of sliding motion. Based on the sliding mode surface, a novel sliding mode controller is designed to guarantee that the closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately bounded. Some simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the presented control scheme.
Tissue engineering of replacement skin: the crossroads of biomaterials, wound healing, embryonic development, stem cells and regeneration

Advanced therapies combating acute and chronic skin wounds are likely to be brought about using our knowledge of regenerative medicine coupled with appropriately tissue-engineered skin substitutes. At the present time, there are no models of an artificial skin that completely replicate normal uninjured skin. Natural biopolymers such as collagen and fibronectin have been investigated as potential sources of biomaterial to which cells can attach. The first generation of degradable polymers used in tissue engineering were adapted from other surgical uses and have drawbacks in terms of mechanical and degradation properties. This has led to the development of synthetic degradable gels primarily as a way to deliver cells and/or molecules in situ, the so-called smart matrix technology. Tissue or organ repair is usually accompanied by fibrotic reactions that result in the production of a scar. Certain mammalian tissues, however, have a capacity for complete regeneration without scarring; good examples include embryonic or foetal skin and the ear of the MRL/MpJ mouse. Investigations of these model systems reveal that in order to achieve such complete regeneration, the inflammatory response is altered such that the extent of fibrosis and scarring is diminished. From studies on the limited examples of mammalian regeneration, it may also be possible to exploit such models to further clarify the regenerative process. The challenge is to identify the factors and cytokines expressed during regeneration and incorporate them to create a smart matrix for use in a skin equivalent. Recent advances in the use of DNA microarray and proteomic technology are likely to aid the identification of such molecules. This, coupled with recent advances in non-viral gene delivery and stem cell technologies, may also contribute to novel approaches that would generate a skin replacement whose materials technology was based not only upon intelligent design, but also upon the molecules involved in the process of regeneration.
Eliminating Single Points of Failure in Software-Based Redundancy

In the domain of safety-critical embedded and cyber-physical systems, software-based redundancy is generally understood as an effective and cheap approach to improve reliability. Especially redundant execution in terms of triple modular redundancy is a well-known solution. However, triple modular redundancy (TMR) leaves unprotected single points of failure (SPOFs), such as the voter, which have to be carefully considered in all safety considerations. We present Combined Redundancy (CoRed), a holistic approach that hardens safety-critical parts of a system against soft-errors, while effectively eliminating the vulnerability caused by SPOFs. CoRed leverages redundant execution in combination with encoded processing to tackle the unprotected voting and data distribution. Its implementation does not require specific knowledge about the application and can be easily integrated into existing projects. We evaluated CoRed in a realistic setting using a quad rotor helicopter and provide experimental evidence for soft-error resistance and comparable low resource demand. In our experimental comparison plain TMR left more than seven percent of failures undetected, whereas CoRed was able to eliminate all silent data corruptions while inducing an overhead of just seven percent.
Mathematics in Chemical Engineering: A 50 Year Introspection (Journal Review)

A review is made of the role of mathematics in the field of chemical engineering in the latter half of the twentieth century. The beginning of this era was marked by the concerted effort of a few to raise the mathematical consciousness of the profession to think fundamentally about processes. We have accomplished this review by providing a rough structure of the areas of mathematics, deliberating on how each area has matured through growing applications, to conclude that mathematics is the main medium to meditate not only about processes, but even about materials and products. As we are clearly entering another era where the domain of chemical engineering is expanding into new areas with a focus on discovery oriented high throughput technology, modeling and rapid computation must provide the guidelines for rational interpretation of multitudes of observations. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 50: 7–23, 2004
Isolation and analysis of chick homeobox cDNA clones

Homeobox-containing clones were isolated from a Lambda-ZAP cDNA library derived from somites of 2.5 day old chick embryos. The clones were identified by hybridization to the homeobox-containing Xenopus gene Xhoxl-A (1). Fourteen clones isolated from a screen of 3.3 xlO plaques of an amplified library contain homeobox sequences and some are highly conserved homologues of murine Hox genes. Sequence analysis of these clones has shown three to be highly homologous, within their homeodomains, to the murine genes A. Hoxl . 4 (2), B. Hox 2.4 (3) and C. Hox2.7 (Robb Krumlauf, personal communication), and we have named them accordingly A. Choxl.4, B. Chox2.4 and C. Chox2.7 (Fig. 1, homeoboxes boxed and conserved hexapeptide motif underlined). Comparison with the sequences of chick homeobox clones so far isolated by others show that Chox2.4 and Chox2.7 described here are new chick isolates while Choxl.4 has also been isolated recently by Sasaki et al. (4). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Deposition of nonpolar m-plane InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells on LiGaO2(100) substrates

High-quality nonpolar m-plane InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) have been deposited on LiGaO2(100) substrates by the combination of pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technologies. This work opens up a new prospect for achieving high-efficiency nonpolar m-plane GaN-based devices.
The formation of molecular clouds

In a recent paper, Elmegreen has made a cogent case, from an observational point of view, that the lifetimes of molecular clouds are comparable to their dynamical time-scales. If so, this has important implications for the mechanisms by which molecular clouds form. In particular, we consider the hypothesis that molecular clouds may form not by in situ cooling of atomic gas, but rather by the agglomeration of the dense phase of the interstellar medium, much, if not most, of which is already in molecular form.
Understanding Differences in the Choice of College Attended: The Role of State Public Policies

This study uses multilevel modeling to examine, after taking student-level predictors of enrollment into account, the effects of state public policies on the type of institution high school graduates attend. Four types of state policies (direct appropriations, tuition, financial aid, and K-12 academic preparation) influence the type of college high school graduates select. Observed socioeconomic status differences in college enrollment patterns are not explained by the student- and state-level variables in the model.
Urine metabolomics in rats after administration of ketamine

In this study, we developed a urine metabonomic method, based on gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), to evaluate the effect of ketamine on rats. Pattern recognition analysis, including both principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminate analysis revealed that ketamine (50 mg/kg) induced metabolic perturbations. Compared with the control group, at day 7, the level of alanine, butanoic acid, glutamine, butanedioic, trimethylsiloxy, L-aspartic acid, D-glucose, cholesterol, acetamide, and oleic acid of the ketamine group was increased, while the level of 2,3,4-trihydroxybutyric acid, benzeneacetic acid, threitol, ribitol, xylitol, and glycine decreased. At day 14, the level of alanine, ethanedioic acid, L-proline, glycerol, tetradecanoic acid, l-serine, l-phenylalanine, L-aspartic acid, d-glucose, cholesterol, heptadecanoic acid, and acetamide in rat urine of the ketamine group was increased, while the 2,3,4-trihydroxybutyric acid, benzeneacetic acid, d-ribose, threitol, ribitol, glycine, pyrazine, and oleic acid levels decreased. Our results indicate that metabonomic methods based on GC-MS may be useful to elucidate ketamine abuse, through the exploration of biomarkers.
Fabrication of Nano Porous PVDF Beads

After dissolve PVDF in DMF, porous PVDF beads were prepared by water assistant. The porous beads were better crystallized and possessed greater relative surface than ordinary PVDF. The results suggested that the relative surface of PVDF reach 6.53m2/g while the dripping speed was 0.95ml/min. The material could rise to the modulator to fabricate nanometer fiber polymers.
Model-Based Control of SMA Actuators with a Recurrent Neural Network in the Shape Control of an Airfoil

This paper describes the development of a neural network control for shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators as well as the control tests. Precise control of SMA actuators that are integrated in the composite structure is difficult because of the hysteretic behaviour of SMA and time delays in the control system. The weakness of the static model of SMA is that it does not take into account the actuator dynamics. The NARMA-L2 neural network model enables us to solve the inverse dynamic model of the nonlinear discrete-time dynamical system. In this study the NARMA-L2 model of the airfoil (a cross section of wind turbine blade) was created using Matlab Simulink software and neural networks. Data for network training was measured from the specimen. The performance of the constituted NARMA-L2 controller was tested in control tests. According to the control tests the NARMA-L2 controller is well suited for controlling embedded SMA actuators. The constituted controller enabled fast and stable actuation in step responses and it was also able to compensate for changes in cooling conditions.
University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Question generation in the CODA project Conference Item

In the ongoing CODA project, we are developing a system for automatically converting monologue into dialogue. The dialogue is generated in a two-step approach. Firstly, snippets of input monologue are mapped to dialogue act sequences. Secondly, these sequences are verbalized. The conversion relies partly on analysing input monologue in terms of its discourse relations. This short paper briefly describes the approach to the first step in CODA. This approach involves the use of a parallel corpus of monologues and dialogues to learn mappings from monologue to dialogue acts. Here, we focus on dialogue acts that involve question asking.
Partial Cox regression analysis for high-dimensional microarray gene expression data

MOTIVATION An important application of microarray technology is to predict various clinical phenotypes based on the gene expression profile. Success has been demonstrated in molecular classification of cancer in which different types of cancer serve as categorical outcome variable. However, there has been less research in linking gene expression profile to censored survival outcome such as patients' overall survival time or time to cancer relapse. In this paper, we develop a partial Cox regression method for constructing mutually uncorrelated components based on microarray gene expression data for predicting the survival of future patients. RESULTS The proposed partial Cox regression method involves constructing predictive components by repeated least square fitting of residuals and Cox regression fitting. The key difference from the standard principal components of Cox regression analysis is that in constructing the predictive components, our method utilizes the observed survival/censoring information. We also propose to apply the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to evaluate the results. We applied our methods to a publicly available dataset of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The outcomes indicated that combining the partial Cox regression method with principal components analysis results in parsimonious model with fewer components and better predictive performance. We conclude that the proposed partial Cox regression method can be very useful in building a parsimonious predictive model that can accurately predict the survival of future patients based on the gene expression profile and survival times of previous patients. AVAILABILITY R codes are available upon request.
Hemolytic Transfusion Reactions

The risk of hemolytic transfusion reactions (HTRs) is approximately 1:70,000 per unit. Acute HTRs occurring during or within 24 h after administration of a blood product are usually caused by transfusion of incompatible red blood cells (RBCs), and, more rarely, of a large volume of incompatible plasma. Delayed HTRs are caused by a secondary immune response to an antigen on the donor’s RBCs. In some patients with delayed HTRs, an additional bystander hemolysis of the patient’s RBCs can be assumed. Different mechanisms lead to intra- and extravascular hemolysis, such as complete complement activation, phagocytosis of RBCs covered with C3b by macrophages after incomplete complement activation, or destruction of RBCs covered only with IgG by direct cell-cell contact with K cells. The clinical consequences of HTRs are triggered via several pathophysiological pathways like formation of anaphylatoxins, release of cytokines causing a systemic inflammatory response syndrome, activation of the kinin system, the intrinsic clotting cascade and fibrinolysis resulting in hypotension, disseminated intravascular coagulation, diffuse bleeding, and disruption of microcirculation leading to renal failure and shock. In the following, the symptoms of HTR are introduced, laboratory investigations and treatment are described, and some recommendations for prevention are given.
High Sensitivity and Fast Acquisition Signal Processing Techniques for GNSS Receivers: From fundamentals to state-of-the-art GNSS acquisition technologies

Higher sensitivity and faster acquisition can be two conflicting goals for a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) acquisition function, and both of the goals must be considered in the development of GNSS signal processing techniques to meet the demands for location-based services (LBSs) in GNSS-challenged environments. This article introduces the fundamentals of GNSS acquisition functions and various GNSS acquisition techniques for new GNSS signals and investigates recent acquisition techniques achieving high sensitivity and fast acquisition. It provides useful information for engineers who study state-of-the-art GNSS signal acquisition techniques and want to understand the challenges involved in improving GNSS acquisition sensitivity and acquisition time.
Identity Deception Detection

This paper addresses the task of detecting identity deception in language. Using a novel identity deception dataset, consisting of real and portrayed identities from 600 individuals, we show that we can build accurate identity detectors targeting both age and gender, with accuracies of up to 88. We also perform an analysis of the linguistic patterns used in identity deception, which lead to interesting insights into identity portrayers.
Catatonia, schizophrenia, and affective disorders - Diagnostic associations in different cultural settings

The nosological status of catatonia in modern classificatory systems and the influence of culture on its presentation are not fully understood. A secondary analysis of the data collected for another study that looked at the incidence of catatonia in India and Wales was performed to examine the association of catatonia to ICD 10 F diagnostic categories in two different cultural settings. The most common clinical diagnosis assigned by clinicians in India was from ICD10 F 20, while in Wales it was from ICD10 F30. The differences between the two settings were found in the F20 group. Association of catatonia appears to be more consistent with affective disorders in the two settings, but not with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The findings are subjected to the limitations of secondary analysis.
Tracking the virus-like particles of Macrobrachium rosenbergii nodavirus in insect cells

Macrobrachium rosenbergii nodavirus (MrNv) poses a major threat to the prawn industry. Currently, no effective vaccine and treatment are available to prevent the spread of MrNv. Its infection mechanism and localisation in a host cell are also not well characterised. The MrNv capsid protein (MrNvc) produced in Escherichia coli self-assembled into virus-like particles (VLPs) resembling the native virus. Thus, fluorescein labelled MrNvc VLPs were employed as a model to study the virus entry and localisation in Spodoptera frugiperda, Sf9 cells. Through fluorescence microscopy and sub-cellular fractionation, the MrNvc was shown to enter Sf9 cells, and eventually arrived at the nucleus. The presence of MrNvc within the cytoplasm and nucleus of Sf9 cells was further confirmed by the Z-stack imaging. The presence of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), genistein, methyl-β-cyclodextrin or chlorpromazine (CPZ) inhibited the entry of MrNvc into Sf9 cells, but cytochalasin D did not inhibit this process. This suggests that the internalisation of MrNvc VLPs is facilitated by caveolae- and clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The whole internalisation process of MrNvc VLPs into a Sf9 cell was recorded with live cell imaging. We have also identified a potential nuclear localisation signal (NLS) of MrNvc through deletion mutagenesis and verified by classical-NLS mapping. Overall, this study provides an insight into the journey of MrNvc VLPs in insect cells.
Effects of Perceptual Fluency on Judgments of Truth

Statements of the form "Osorno is in Chile" were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.