Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Open-Access Atom Probe Tomography Mass Spectrum Database

Atom probe tomography as a reliable and accessible materials characterization technique has greatly expanded within the past decade. Along with that expansion has come the published analyses of a greater variety of materials [1]. While these have demonstrated a number of significant discoveries, many of the details and pragmatic aspects get overlooked. Among those details are the time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectra and associated collection parameters. Often, it is the knowledge of these facets that are critical for expanding the technique to additional materials or new applications. In order to facilitate the broad dissemination of such useful information, an open-access, online database has been created – http://atomprobe.mines. edu/mass-spectrum-database.html.
Quantitative structural analysis of pulmonary vessels in isolated ventricular septal defect in infancy.

Structural changes in the pulmonary circulation were studied in the lungs of 5 infants dying with ventricular septal defect. Applying precise quantitative morphological techniques to the pulmonary vessels, it was possible to correlate pathological change with clinical and haemodynamic findings, and to identify two patterns of response. Three of the infants (group I) ppresnted in cardiac failure with a large pulmonary blood flow, dilated and tortuous pulmonary arteries, and fewer intra-acinar vessels than normal. Medial hypertrophy was moderate and affected chiefly the larger arteries, i.e. those with a diameter greater than 200 mum. The other 2 infants (group 2) had a high pulmonary vascular resistance with an intermittent right-to-left shunt. The pulmonary arteries were of normal size and the reduction in the number of the arteries was less striking. Medial hypertrophy was greater than in the first group and affected all sizes of artery including those less than 200 mum in diameter. In both groups, muscle extended further along the axial pathway. Muscular hypertrophy was found also in the vein wall in most cases and, as with the arteries, was more severe in those with a higher pulmonary vascular resistance. The findings illustrate the variation in pulmonary vascular response in infants with a ventricular septal defect. It is suggested that in patients with a ventricular septal defect, arterial muscularity usually regresses after birth and a left-to-right shunt develops; secondary hypertrophy of the media then develops in reaponse to the shunt. Our findings also suggest, however, that in some infants arterial muscle fails to regress postnatally so that pulmonary blood flow is never high and a right-to-left shunt develops soon after birth.
Modeling protein conformational ensembles: From missing loops to equilibrium fluctuations

Characterizing protein flexibility is an important goal for understanding the physical–chemical principles governing biological function. This paper presents a Fragment Ensemble Method to capture the mobility of a protein fragment such as a missing loop and its extension into a Protein Ensemble Method to characterize the mobility of an entire protein at equilibrium. The underlying approach in both methods is to combine a geometric exploration of conformational space with a statistical mechanics formulation to generate an ensemble of physical conformations on which thermodynamic quantities can be measured as ensemble averages. The Fragment Ensemble Method is validated by applying it to characterize loop mobility in both instances of strongly stable and disordered loop fragments. In each instance, fluctuations measured over generated ensembles are consistent with data from experiment and simulation. The Protein Ensemble Method captures the mobility of an entire protein by generating and combining ensembles of conformations for consecutive overlapping fragments defined over the protein sequence. This method is validated by applying it to characterize flexibility in ubiquitin and protein G. Thermodynamic quantities measured over the ensembles generated for both proteins are fully consistent with available experimental data. On these proteins, the method recovers nontrivial data such as order parameters, residual dipolar couplings, and scalar couplings. Results presented in this work suggest that the proposed methods can provide insight into the interplay between protein flexibility and function. Proteins 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Why do some women change their opinion about childbirth over time?

BACKGROUND The current investigation is a follow-up of a study on women's memory of childbirth, which showed that 60 percent made the same assessment of their overall birth experience at 1 year after delivery as they did at 2 months postpartum, and 24 percent had became more negative and 16 percent more positive. The study purpose was to gain some understanding of what factors make some women change their assessment over time. METHODS Data from a longitudinal cohort study of 2,428 women who completed questionnaires in early pregnancy, at 2 months, and at 1 year after birth were analyzed. Two subsamples were studied: 1,451 women who said childbirth was a positive experience at 2 months and 151 who said it was a negative experience. Comparisons were made, within each sample, between those who made the same assessment at 1 year and those who had changed their view, with respect to psychosocial background, labor outcomes, infant health outcomes during first year, and experiences of intrapartum care. RESULTS Changing the assessment from positive to less positive, mostly to "mixed feelings," was associated with difficult childbirth, such as painful labor and cesarean section; dissatisfaction with intrapartum care; and psychosocial problems, such as single status, depressive symptoms, and worry about the birth in early pregnancy. Changing the assessment from negative to less negative was associated with less worry about the birth in early pregnancy and a more positive experience of support by the birth-attending midwife. CONCLUSIONS This study supported the view that measures of satisfaction with childbirth soon after delivery may be colored by relief that labor is over and the happy birth of a baby. More negative aspects may take longer to integrate. Supportive care may have long-term effects and may protect some women from a long-lasting negative experience.
Self-Concatenated Coding and Multi-Functional MIMO Aided H.264 Video Telephony

Robust video transmission using iteratively detected Self-Concatenated Coding (SCC), multi-dimensional Sphere Packing (SP) modulation and Layered Steered Space-Time Coding (LSSTC) is proposed for H.264 coded video transmission over correlated Rayleigh fading channels. The self-concatenated convolutional coding (SECCC) scheme is composed of a Recursive Systematic Convolutional (RSC) code and an interleaver, which is used to randomise the extrinsic information exchanged between the self-concatenated constituent RSC codes. Additionally, a puncturer is employed for improving the achievable bandwidth efficiency. The convergence behaviour of the MIMO transceiver advocated is investigated with the aid of Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts. The proposed system exhibits an $E_b/N_0$ gain of about $9~dB$ at the PSNR degradation point of $1~dB$ in comparison to the identical-rate benchmarker scheme.
Metal Oxide Sensors for Electronic Noses and Their Application to Food Analysis

Electronic noses (E-noses) use various types of electronic gas sensors that have partial specificity. This review focuses on commercial and experimental E-noses that use metal oxide semi-conductors. The review covers quality control applications to food and beverages, including determination of freshness and identification of contaminants or adulteration. Applications of E-noses to a wide range of foods and beverages are considered, including: meat, fish, grains, alcoholic drinks, non-alcoholic drinks, fruits, milk and dairy products, olive oils, nuts, fresh vegetables and eggs.
Source routing and scheduling in packet networks

We study routing and scheduling in packet-switched networks. We assume an adversary that controls the injection time, source, and destination for each packet injected. A set of paths for these packets is admissible if no link in the network is overloaded. We present the first on-line routing algorithm that finds a set of admissible paths whenever this is feasible. Our algorithm calculates a path for each packet as soon as it is injected at its source using a simple shortest path computation. The length of a link reflects its current congestion. We also show how our algorithm can be implemented under today's Internet routing paradigms. When the paths are known (either given by the adversary or computed as above) our goal is to schedule the packets along the given paths so that the packets experience small end-to-end delays. The best previous delay bounds for deterministic and distributed scheduling protocols were exponential in the path length. In this paper we present the first deterministic and distributed scheduling protocol that guarantees a polynomial end-to-end delay for every packet. Finally, we discuss the effects of combining routing with scheduling. We first show that some, unstable scheduling protocols remain unstable no matter how the paths are chosen. However, the freedom to choose paths can make a difference. For example, we show that a ring with parallel links is stable for all greedy scheduling protocols if paths are chosen intelligently, whereas this is not the case if the adversary specifies the paths.
Unidirectional link counter - a routing protocol for wireless sensor networks with many unidirectional links

Experiments with wireless sensor networks have shown that asymmetric and unidirectional links occur often. Protocols that detect these links on the link layer have been proposed, however, unidirectional links represent a challenge as well as a chance across all layers. Still, most routing protocols prefer to use only bidirectional links. In this paper we present Unidirectional Link Counter, a routing protocol that collects information about the unidirectional links on a path to make routing decisions. The collected information can furthermore be used for more effective neighborhood management and better quality estimation.
HBx regulates fatty acid oxidation to promote hepatocellular carcinoma survival during metabolic stress

Due to a high rate of nutrient consumption and inadequate vascularization, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells constantly undergo metabolic stress during tumor development. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) X protein (HBx) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of HBV-induced HCC. In this study, we investigated the functional roles of HBx in HCC adaptation to metabolic stress. Up-regulation of HBx increased the intracellular ATP and NADPH generation, and induced the resistance to glucose deprivation, whereas depletion of HBx via siRNA abolished these effects and conferred HCC cells sensitive to glucose restriction. Though HBx did not affect the glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation capacity of HCC cells under normal culture conditions, it facilitated fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in the absence of glucose, which maintained NADPH and ATP levels. Further investigation showed that HBx expression, under glucose deprivation, stimulated phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) via a calcium/CaMKK-dependent pathway, which was required for the activation of FAO. Conversely, inhibition of FAO by etomoxir (ETO) restored the sensitivity of HBx-expressing cells to glucose deficiency in vitro and retarded xenograft tumor formation in vivo. Finally, HBx-induced activation of the AMPK and FAO pathways were also observed in xenograft tumors and HBV-associated HCC specimens. Our data suggest that HBx plays a key role in the maintenance of redox and energy homeostasis by activating FAO, which is critical for HCC cell survival under conditions of metabolic stress and might be exploited for therapeutic benefit.
An Initial Examination of Free and Proprietary Software-Selection in Organizations

This article presents the findings of a study concerning organisational software-selection in the context of proprietary and "Free Software". Proprietary software with its inherent benefits and drawbacks remains dominant over Free Software in many business contexts. In contrast, the arrival of disruptive approaches to applying technology, such as cloud-computing, almost certainly mandates a heterogeneous software environment. However, this paper abstracts to the organisational context, as opposed to solely concentrating on the technical aspects, so that broader issues surrounding both proprietary software and Free Software adoption are brought into focus and may provide academics and practitioners with insight into what many would consider an information technology-centric matter. Contemporary multi-disciplinary literature addressing the areas of software-selection methodology, architectures for service delivery, and software types, are combined with recent findings from primary research in order to draw initial conclusions on the current state of software-selection in organisations.
What Can Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Movements in RAMIS Tell Us?

Quantitative characterization of surgical movements can improve the quality of patient care by informing the development of new training protocols for surgeons, and the design and control of surgical robots. Here, we present a novel characterization of open and teleoperated suturing movements that is based on principles from computational motor control. We focus on the extensively-studied relationship between the speed of movement and its geometry. In three-dimensional movements, this relationship is defined by the one-sixth power law that relates between the speed, the curvature, and the torsion of movement trajectories. We fitted the parameters of the one-sixth power law to suturing movements of participants with different levels of surgical experience in open (using sensorized forceps) and teleoperated (using the da Vinci Research Kit / da Vinci Surgical System) conditions from two different datasets. We found that teleoperation significantly affected the parameters of the power law, and that there were large differences between different stages of movement. These results open a new avenue for studying the effect of teleoperation on the spatiotemporal characteristics of the movements of surgeons, and lay the foundation for the development of new algorithms for automatic segmentation of surgical tasks.
Effects of excitation-contraction uncoupling by stretch and hypertonicity on metabolism and tension in single frog muscle fibers

Metabolism and tension were examined in single fibers of the semitendinosus muscle of Rana pipiens at 15 degree C after excitation- contraction uncoupling by stretch and hypertonicity. Interrupted tetanic stimulation at 20 HZ for 150 s, of control fibers in isotonic Ringer at a rest sarcomere length (SL) of 2.3 micrometers, resulted in a steadily declining tension, stimulated glycolysis, and significantly reduced fiber phosphocreatine (PCr) and ATP concentrations. Stretching resting muscle fibers to an SL of 4.7 micrometers did not alter metabolite concentrations, but glucose-6-phosphate rose and PCr fell markedly when the stretched fibers were stimulated tetanically, although tension was absent. Immersion of untetanized fibers in 2.5 X isotonic Ringer produced a transient rise in resting tension, an increase in glucose-6-phosphate, and a significant reduction in PCr. During the transient rise in resting tension, PCr consumption per unit of tension-time integral was the same as that in fibers stimulated tetanically in isotonic Ringer. Tetanization of fibers in hypertonic solution did not further alter metabolite concentrations or produce tension. The results indicate that exposure to hypertonicity induces an increase in both tension and consumption of high-energy phosphate bonds (approximately P) in resting fibers, but stretch does not. during tetanic stimulation, stretch interferes with contraction but does not prevent activation, whereas hypertonicity inhibits activation as well as contraction.
An efficient projected database method for mining sequential association rules

The mining of sequential patterns has been studied for several years, however, to our best knowledge, no study has considered the mining of sequential association rules despite such rules also providing valuable knowledge about many real applications. The sequential association rule represent that a set of items usually occur after a specific order sequence. In this paper, the concept of sequential association rule is proposed and an efficient algorithm, the SAR (Sequential Association Rules) algorithm, is proposed to discover these hidden knowledge. A set of experiments is also performed to show that the benefit of our approach.
Impairment of Mucosal Immunity by Total Parenteral Nutrition: Requirement for IgA in Murine Nasotracheal Anti-Influenza Immunity1

Secretory IgA (SIgA) is the primary mucosal Ig and has been shown to mediate nasotracheal (NT) mucosal immunity in normal immune BALB/c mice. This finding has been challenged by a report of NT immunity without IgA in knockout mice, suggesting that IgA may not be necessary for the protection of mucosal surfaces. Although other protective mechanisms may become active in the congenital absence of SIgA, these mechanisms are not the primary means of protection in normal mice. In this paper we show that feeding chemically defined total parenteral nutrition (TPN) to genetically normal, immune ICR mice by the i.v. route results in loss of nasal anti-influenza immunity and a significant drop in influenza-specific SIgA in the upper respiratory tract compared with chow-fed mice (p < 0.005), while the serum influenza-specific IgG titer is unaffected. Loss of upper respiratory tract mucosal immunity is not related to serum Ab, because 10 of 13 TPN-fed mice shed virus into their nasal secretions despite adequate serum anti-influenza IgG titers. The number of IgG Ab-secreting cells in the nasal passages and spleens of TPN-fed mice was unaffected, while both the number and the percentage of splenic IgA-secreting cells were decreased relative to those in chow-fed animals. The loss of immunity is due to the route of nutrition, not the composition of the diet, because TPN solution fed orally via gastrostomy instead of i.v. maintains NT anti-influenza mucosal immunity. We hypothesize that delivery of nutrition via the gut triggers the release of gastrointestinal neuropeptides necessary for maintenance of the mucosal immune system.
Involvement of Helices at the Dimer Interface in ClC-1 Common Gating

ClC-1 is a dimeric, double-pored chloride channel that is present in skeletal muscle. Mutations of this channel can result in the condition myotonia, a muscle disorder involving increased muscle stiffness. It has been shown that the dominant form of myotonia often results from mutations that affect the so-called slow, or common, gating process of the ClC-1 channel. Mutations causing dominant myotonia are seen to cluster at the interface of the ClC-1 channel monomers. This study has investigated the role of the H, I, P, and Q helices, which lie on this interface, as well as the G helix, which is situated immediately behind the H and I helices, on ClC-1 gating. 11 mutant ClC-1 channels (T268M, C277S, C278S, S289A, T310M, S312A, V321S, T539A, S541A, M559T, and S572V) were produced using site-directed mutagenesis, and gating properties of these channels were investigated using electrophysiological techniques. Six of the seven mutations in G, H, and I, and two of the four mutations in P and Q, caused shifts of the ClC-1 open probability. In the majority of cases this was due to alterations in the common gating process, with only three of the mutants displaying any change in fast gating. Many of the mutant channels also showed alterations in the kinetics of the common gating process, particularly at positive potentials. The changes observed in common gating were caused by changes in the opening rate (e.g. T310M), the closing rate (e.g. C277S), or both rates. These results indicate that mutations in the helices forming the dimer interface are able to alter the ClC-1 common gating process by changing the energy of the open and/or closed channel states, and hence altering transition rates between these states.
Reflective Liquid-Crystal Displays

Reflective full-color liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) are attracting a great deal of interest as portable information systems because of their extremely low power consumption and light weight; also, the color does not wash out in outdoor use. In this article, reflective LCDs are classified into three types. Among them, the diffusing-reflector type and the front-diffusing film type are suitable for high-quality active-matrix displays. Diffusingreflector LCDs have the advantage of uniform reflectance at the desired viewing angle due to the design of the surface microstructure of the reflector. Front-diffusing film LCDs using metallic mirrors and an optimally designed light-controlling film enable high contrast in a wide viewing-angle range and uniform reflectance with no blurring. Thus, both types have a high potential for achieving excellent color quality comparable to printed paper. In the near future, these reflective LCDs will likely be applied not only to portable systems, but also to high-performance wireless monitor displays and various other information systems.
A comparison of conservative and invasive dental approaches in the treatment of tension-type headache.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the efficacy of conservative dental treatment (occlusal splint and pharmacologic therapy) and invasive therapy (prosthetic restorations) in the treatment of tension-type headache (TTH). METHOD AND MATERIALS The study sample was composed of 70 patients who presented with symptomatic TTH and were assigned to three treatment groups according to their treatment needs. Group A (30 patients): a conservative treatment protocol with a combination of an occlusal splint and analgesic and muscle relaxant medication. Group B (10 patients): invasive prosthodontic procedures. Group C (30 patients): patients who refused any type of treatment but consented to the study served as a control group. Pain quality was measured with the Headache Impact Test (HIT-6). The statistical analysis was performed with the Wilcoxon rank test (P≤.05). RESULTS Conservative treatment with splints and analgesic medication and invasive treatment by prosthetic rehabilitation relieved the TTH symptoms. The patients who received treatment experienced a significant reduction in their discomfort after 6 months (P≤.01), whereas the patients who refused therapy remained, on average, at the same pain level (P≤.117). In group A, the HIT-6 score was reduced for 26 patients, and in group B for 8 patients. In group C a reduction of HIT-6 scores was observed in 10 patients. CONCLUSION Conservative or invasive occlusal adjustments may serve as a useful tool in the treatment of TTH.