Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel SCN5A Mutation Leading Either to Isolated Cardiac Conduction Defect or Brugada Syndrome in a Large French Family

Background—The SCN5A gene encoding the human cardiac sodium channel &agr; subunit plays a key role in cardiac electrophysiology. Mutations in SCN5A lead to a large spectrum of phenotypes, including long-QT syndrome, Brugada syndrome, and isolated progressive cardiac conduction defect (Lenègre disease). Methods and Results—In the present study, we report the identification of a novel single SCN5A missense mutation causing either Brugada syndrome or an isolated cardiac conduction defect in the same family. A G-to-T mutation at position 4372 was identified by direct sequencing and was predicted to change a glycine for an arginine (G1406R) between the DIII-S5 and DIII-S6 domain of the sodium channel protein. Among 45 family members, 13 were carrying the G1406R SCN5A mutation. Four individuals from 2 family collateral branches showed typical Brugada phenotypes, including ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads and right bundle branch block. One symptomatic patient with the Brugada phenotype required implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator. Seven individuals from 3 other family collateral branches had isolated cardiac conduction defects but no Brugada phenotype. Three flecainide test were negative. One patient with an isolated cardiac conduction defect had an episode of syncope and required pacemaker implantation. An expression study of the G1406R-mutated SCN5A showed no detectable Na+ current but normal protein trafficking. Conclusions—We conclude that the same mutation in the SCN5A gene can lead either to Brugada syndrome or to an isolated cardiac conduction defect. Our findings suggest that modifier gene(s) may influence the phenotypic consequences of a SCN5A mutation.
Synthesis, Densification and Characterization of Boron Carbide

This paper presents the experimental results on synthesis of boron carbide from its elements. Boron to carbon ratio of 4:1 and a synthesis temperature of 1850°C was found optimum to obtain stoichiometric B4C. Higher boron in charge resulted in the formation of boron rich phase B8C along with B4C but was not effective in eliminating free carbon in the product. Effect of hot pressing parameters on densification of boron carbide was investigated and the optimum operating parameters to obtain B4C pellets with a density of ≥95% TD were identified. Mechanical and thermal properties were characterized and compared with literature values.
Theory of Interacting Quantum Gases

We present a unified picture of the interaction effects in dilute atomic quantum gases. We consider fermionic as well as bosonic gases and, in particular, discuss for both forms of statistics the fundamental differences between a gas with effectively repulsive and a gas with effectively attractive inter atomic interactions, i.e., between a gas with either a positive or a negative scattering length.
Learning Semantics and Selectional Preference of Adjective-Noun Pairs

We investigate the semantic relationship between a noun and its adjectival modifiers. We introduce a class of probabilistic models that enable us to to simultaneously capture both the semantic similarity of nouns and modifiers, and adjective-noun selectional preference. Through a combination of novel and existing evaluations we test the degree to which adjective-noun relationships can be categorised. We analyse the effect of lexical context on these relationships, and the efficacy of the latent semantic representation for disambiguating word meaning.
5-fluorouracil (5-FU) induces the formation of giant cells and sloughing of seminiferous epithelium in the rat testis.

The chemotherapeutic agent, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) has been widely used in the treatment of a variety of cancers. Its effect on the testis has not been substantially studied. Present study was conducted to evaluate the gonadotoxicity of 5-FU in male albino rats. Animals were injected with single dose of 5-FU (10, 50 and 100 mg/kg, i.p.) and sampled on 1, 3, 15 and 30 day post exposure. Animals were anaesthetised, testes were perfusion fixed by Bouin's fluid. Five micron thick paraffin sections were stained with haematoxylin and eosin. Slides were screened for the incidence of partially and extensively sloughed tubules. Data were analysed by Mann Whitney 'U' test. Only 100 mg/kg induced multinucleated cells on 3rd day. All doses of 5-FU induced sloughing of the seminiferous epithelium. Maximum number of partially sloughed tubules were seen on third day. Partial sloughing was not dose dependent except on 15th day. The extensive sloughing was dose dependent except on 30th day. The result indicates that all the doses of 5-FU tested in this study cause sloughing of epithelium and only 100 mg/kg induces the formation of giant cells on third day.
Wide bandgap UV photodetectors: a short review of devices and applications

Ultraviolet detectors are of a great interest to a wide range of industrial, military, environmental and even biological applications. This paper intends first to review some of the most relevant recent developments in the field of wide bandgap semiconductor UV detectors, and to give an overview of their applications. A special focus is given on III-nitride based devices, which more and more clearly represent to date one of the most promising and flexible technical solutions for UV detection.
Face Recognition Using Total Margin-Based Adaptive Fuzzy Support Vector Machines

This paper presents a new classifier called total margin-based adaptive fuzzy support vector machines (TAF-SVM) that deals with several problems that may occur in support vector machines (SVMs) when applied to the face recognition. The proposed TAF-SVM not only solves the overfitting problem resulted from the outlier with the approach of fuzzification of the penalty, but also corrects the skew of the optimal separating hyperplane due to the very imbalanced data sets by using different cost algorithm. In addition, by introducing the total margin algorithm to replace the conventional soft margin algorithm, a lower generalization error bound can be obtained. Those three functions are embodied into the traditional SVM so that the TAF-SVM is proposed and reformulated in both linear and nonlinear cases. By using two databases, the Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) multiview and the facial recognition technology (FERET) face databases, and using the kernel Fisher's discriminant analysis (KFDA) algorithm to extract discriminating face features, experimental results show that the proposed TAF-SVM is superior to SVM in terms of the face-recognition accuracy. The results also indicate that the proposed TAF-SVM can achieve smaller error variances than SVM over a number of tests such that better recognition stability can be obtained
Modeling dislocation density evolution in continuum crystal plasticity

Dislocations are the singly most important material defects in crystal plasticity, and although dislocation mechanics has long been understood as the underlying physical basis for continuum crystal plasticity formulations, explicit consideration of crystallographic dislocation mechanics has been largely absent in working constitutive models. In light of recent theoretical developments in dislocation dynamics, and the introduction of geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) density in continuum formulations through plastic strain gradients, a single crystal plasticity model based on dislocation density state variables is developed. The density state variables evolve from initial conditions according to equations based on fundamental concepts in dislocation mechanics such as the conservation of Burgers vector in multiplication and annihilation processes. Along with those processes that account for bulk statistical dislocation evolution, the evolving polarity due to dislocation species flux divergences may be included to detail the length-scale dependence of mechanical properties on the micron level. The full dislocation density description of plasticity allows a simple evaluation of the role of GND density in non-homogeneously deforming bodies. A local version of the constitutive model, which captures the bulk processes of dislocation multiplication and annihilation during plastic deformation, is implemented within a finite element framework to investigate the poly-slip behavior of aluminum single crystals under tension. A non-local version of the constitutive model using an idealized planar double slip system geometry is implemented within a finite element framework to investigate the length-scale dependence observed in the bending of thin single crystal beams. The results not only capture the mechanical stress/strain response of the material, but also detail the development of underlying dislocation structure responsible for the plastic behavior of the crystal. Thesis Supervisor: David M. Parks Title: Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Differential extractability of influenza virus hemagglutinin during intracellular transport in polarized epithelial cells and nonpolar fibroblasts

Biochemical changes in the influenza virus hemagglutinin during intracellular transport to the apical plasma membrane of epithelial cells were investigated in Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells and in LLC-PK1 cells stably transfected with a hemagglutinin gene. After pulse-labeling a substantial fraction of hemagglutinin was observed to become insoluble in isotonic solutions of Triton X-100. Insolubility of hemagglutinin was detected late in the transport pathway after addition of complex sugars in the Golgi complex but before insertion of the protein in the plasma membrane. Insolubility was not dependent on oligosaccharide modification since deoxymannojirimycin (dMM), which inhibits mannose trimming, failed to prevent its onset. Insolubility was not due to assembly of virus particles at the plasma membrane because insoluble hemagglutinin was also observed in transfected cells. Hemagglutinin insolubility was also seen in MDCK cells cultured in suspension and in chick embryo fibroblasts, indicating that insolubility and plasma membrane polarity are not simply correlated. In addition to insolubility, an apparent transport-dependent reduction of the disulfide bond linking HA1 and HA2 in hemagglutinin was detected. Because of the timing of both insolubility and the loss of the disulfide bond, these modifications may be important in the delivery of the hemagglutinin to the cell surface.
Grain boundary grooving in bi-crystal thin films induced by surface drift-diffusion driven by capillary forces and applied uniaxial tensile stresses

Grain boundary (GB) grooving, induced by surface drift-diffusion and driven by the combined actions of capillary forces and applied uniaxial tensile stresses, is investigated in bi-crystal thin films using self-consistent dynamical computer simulations. A physico-mathematical model, based on the irreversible thermodynamics treatment of surfaces and interfaces with singularities allowed auto-control of the otherwise free-motion of the triple junction at the intersection of the grooving surface and the GB, without having any a priori assumption on the equilibrium dihedral angles. In the present theory, the generalised driving forces for stress-induced surface drift-diffusion arise not only from the usual elastic strain energy density (ESED), but also much stronger elastic dipole tensor interactions (EDTI) between the applied stress field and the mobile atomic species situated at the surface layer and in the GB regions. Accelerated groove-deepening kinetics shows that the surface drift-diffusion enhanced by the applied uniaxial tensile stresses through EDTI is dominant over the GB flux leakage at the triple junction. At high uniaxial stress levels (≥500 MPa for a 100-nm thick copper film), a sequential time-frame for micro-crack nucleation and growth is recorded just before specimen failure took place. These non-equilibrium thermokinetics discoveries (kinetics and energetics) contradict or at least do not support the hypothesis of the steady-state diffusive GB micro-crack formation and propagation due to ‘constant’ flux drainage through GB enhanced by tensile stresses acting normal to it.
Optical sensors and their applications

Optical Sensors are used in numerous research, and commercial applications today. These sensors are used for quality and process control, medico technologies, metrology, imaging, and remote sensing to mention a few examples. Today there are many types of optical sensors; many based on the use of lasers, imaging systems, and/or fibers. In this article, development of devices to implement the various sensor types and their configuration into sensing elements are presented. Some of the enabling technologies discussed include advances in short pulsed high power lasers, imaging methods, micro and nano-structured optical sensing systems, and THz sensing. This article addresses various sensor types, and include all aspects of optical sensors from the components employed, their configuration through detection schemes and algorithms, and application of sensors.
A Hybrid Chinese Language Model based on a Combination of Ontology with Statistical Method

In this paper, we present a hybrid Chinese language model based on a combination of ontology with statistical method. In this study, we determined the structure of such a Chinese language model. This structure is firstly comprised of an ontology description framework for Chinese words and a representation of Chinese lingual ontology knowledge. Subsequently, a Chinese lingual ontology knowledge bank is automatically acquired by determining, for each word, its cooccurrence with semantic, pragmatics, and syntactic information from the training corpus and the usage of Chinese words will be gotten from lingual ontology knowledge bank for a actual document. To evaluate the performance of this language model, we completed two groups of experiments on texts reordering for Chinese information retrieval and texts similarity computing. Compared with previous works, the proposed method improved the precision of nature language processing.
Impediment Profiling for Smoking Cessation

Introduction: Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of preventable death. Methods: Long and short `impediment profilers' (LIPs and SIPs, respectively) addressing nicotine addiction, depression, anxiety, stress, chemical dependency, weight control, and household smoking were developed and applied in a pilot smoking cessation study to tailor treatment. Results: Quit rate 72 hours after the target quit date was 50%; at 8 and 12 weeks it was 61% and 39%, respectively. The LIP identified fewer impediments than the SIP. Conclusions: Impediment profiling for tailored smoking cessation intervention is associated with high initial quit rates and warrants further study.
Teaching and Learning of Chinese History in Minecraft: A Pilot Case-Study in Hong Kong Secondary Schools

Minecraft is the best-selling and the most popular digital sandbox games, allowing children to freely create their own buildings and objects. It has been widely used in education. In this research, we developed a real-scale Forbidden City in Minecraft, as a history education platform for Hong Kong secondary schools. The platform allows teachers to manage the class in Minecraft, meanwhile preserving the freedom for students to explore, collaborate, and create. We piloted the platform with 3 teachers and 50 students, and collected feedbacks on the teaching and the learning experience, for future development.
Energy-aware checkpointing of divisible tasks with soft or hard deadlines

In this paper, we aim at minimizing the energy consumption when executing a divisible workload under a bound on the total execution time, while resilience is provided through checkpointing. We discuss several variants of this multi-criteria problem. Given the workload, we need to decide how many chunks to use, what are the sizes of these chunks, and at which speed each chunk is executed. Furthermore, since a failure may occur during the execution of a chunk, we also need to decide at which speed a chunk should be re-executed in the event of a failure. The goal is to minimize the expectation of the total energy consumption, while enforcing a deadline on the execution time, that should be met either in expectation (soft deadline), or in the worst case (hard deadline). For each problem instance, we propose either an exact solution, or a function that can be optimized numerically.
after Acute Damage Synthase for Skeletal Muscle Regeneration Requirement of Inducible Nitric Oxide

Adult skeletal muscle regeneration results from activation, proliferation, and fusion of muscle stem cells, such as myogenic pre-cursor cells. Macrophages are consistently present in regenerating skeletal muscles and participate into the repair process. Thesignals involved in the cross-talk between various macrophage populations and myogenic precursor cells have been only partiallyidentiﬁed. In this study, we show a key role ofinducible NO synthase (iNOS), expressed by classically activated macrophages in thehealing ofskeletalmuscle. Wefoundthat,aftersterile injury,iNOSexpression isrequired foreffective regenerationofthetissue,asmyogenic precursor cells in the muscle of injured iNOS
Microstructure and Electrical Properties of Porous PZT Ceramics with Unidirectional Pore Channel Structure Fabricated by Freeze-Casting

By a novel freeze-casting technique, PZT ceramics with unidirectional pore channel structure were fabricated using tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) as pore forming template, PVB as adhesive, and arabic gum as dispersing agent. The solid loading in the initial slurry varied from 15 vol.% to 40 vol.%. The porous structure can be controlled by the freezing temperature condition which was chosen by dry ice (-78°C). The sintered PZT ceramics with a high porosity showed high piezoelectric coefficient. The d33 value of some samples with the porosity 26% was larger than the dense PZT ceramics which was 690 pC/N. Meanwhile, pore morphology of the porous PZT ceramics was observed with SEM and analyzed changing with the solid loading of PZT in slurry. In addition, the influences of solid loading in PZT slurry on piezoelectric and dielectric properties of the porous PZT ceramics were discussed from a theoretical perspective.
A Photolyase-Like Protein from Agrobacterium tumefaciens with an Iron-Sulfur Cluster

Photolyases and cryptochromes are evolutionarily related flavoproteins with distinct functions. While photolyases can repair UV-induced DNA lesions in a light-dependent manner, cryptochromes regulate growth, development and the circadian clock in plants and animals. Here we report about two photolyase-related proteins, named PhrA and PhrB, found in the phytopathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens. PhrA belongs to the class III cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) photolyases, the sister class of plant cryptochromes, while PhrB belongs to a new class represented in at least 350 bacterial organisms. Both proteins contain flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) as a primary catalytic cofactor, which is photoreduceable by blue light. Spectral analysis of PhrA confirmed the presence of 5,10-methenyltetrahydrofolate (MTHF) as antenna cofactor. PhrB comprises also an additional chromophore, absorbing in the short wavelength region but its spectrum is distinct from known antenna cofactors in other photolyases. Homology modeling suggests that PhrB contains an Fe-S cluster as cofactor which was confirmed by elemental analysis and EPR spectroscopy. According to protein sequence alignments the classical tryptophan photoreduction pathway is present in PhrA but absent in PhrB. Although PhrB is clearly distinguished from other photolyases including PhrA it is, like PhrA, required for in vivo photoreactivation. Moreover, PhrA can repair UV-induced DNA lesions in vitro. Thus, A. tumefaciens contains two photolyase homologs of which PhrB represents the first member of the cryptochrome/photolyase family (CPF) that contains an iron-sulfur cluster.
Jitter comparison of tones generated by squaring and by fourth-power circuits

The tone-to-jitter power ratio is calculated for some conventional methods of generating a tone at the pulse repetition frequency of a PAM data signal by operating on the latter by an appropriate nonlinearity. Attention is focused on this ratio for a fourth-order nonlinearity, which will produce a tone even in the absence of excess bandwidth, and on this ratio for a square-law nonlinearity for small excess bandwidth. If the excess bandwidth is less than about 50 percent, the fourth power is superior. In particular, it yields a 10-dB improvement for 12 percent roll-off and binary data.
Imaging Spectrum after Pancreas Transplantation with Enteric Drainage

Since the introduction of pancreas transplantation more than 40 years ago, surgical techniques and immunosuppressive regiments have improved and both have contributed to increase the number and success rate of this procedure. However, graft survival corresponds to early diagnosis of organ-related complications. Thus, knowledge of the transplantation procedure and postoperative image anatomy are basic requirements for radiologists. In this article, we demonstrate the imaging spectrum of pancreas transplantation with enteric exocrine drainage.
Advanced Treatment of Wastewater from an Ethylene Chemical Enterprise by a Biological Aerated Filter-Ultrafiltration-Reverse Osmosis Process

This work focused on the advanced treatment of the secondary treated ethylene chemical plant effluent, which contained high conductivity and high organic concentration. To reduce the cost and improve operation stability, a biological aerated filter-ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis (BAF-UF-RO) process was proposed. The feasibility and effectiveness of the BAF loaded with a novel non-sintered fly-ash ceramsite (NSFC) as pretreatment method were investigated in detail. The results showed that the COD, turbidity, NH3-N and SDI15 in the effluent from the BAF were reduced largely. The BAF-UF-RO process was stable with the recovery rate of 75%, and the desalination rate was up to about 97.5%. Moreover, the operating pressure and backwash frequency of RO maintained 0.94-0.98 MPa and 2 times/d, respectively. After continuous operation for four months, there appeared to be no need for chemical cleaning of the RO membrane.