Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A study of the FM-AFM phase transition in FeRh : compositionally graded films and strain control

This thesis deals with the study and control of phase transition characteristics in magnetic films. In the case of FeRh-based magnetron sputtered films, the influence of both composition and strain were studied. Magnetic, structural and electrical characterization was made as a function of position on compositionally graded films. Addition of a third element (Pt or Ni) was used to shift the transition temperature. We established that a change in optical properties occurs in FeRh-based films on passing from the FM to AFM state. By studying the temperature dependent position of the optical transition, we were able to construct a phase diagram of the Fe-Rh-Pt system. Such a detailed phase diagram based on a continuous variation of composition, evidences an enhanced stability (higher transition temperature) of the AFM phase for a specific composition close to the equiatomic one. Strain control of the phase change in PMN-PT/FeRh heterostructures was investigated through transport measurements using set-ups developed in this thesis. The transition temperature could be shifted by up to 22 K upon application of a low electric field (10 V ~ 0.32 kV/cm). The strain-induced resistance change is large, which is attractive for applications. The AFM state is stabilized in strained films. The anisotropic character of the piezo-electric strain plays a significant role compared to the isotropic volume change. We succeeded in preparing films of La(Fe,Si)13 for the first time. While the optimal films show values of Curie temperature, lattice constant, field-induced isothermal entropy change and spontaneous magnetization comparable with values reported for bulk material of similar composition, they also display unusual features, i.e. irreversible M-T curves and an inverse thermal hysteresis. Elucidation of the origin of these effects requires further investigation.
Slothful reduction

In the implementation of many public key schemes, there is a need to perform modular arithmetic. Typically this consists of addition, subtraction, multiplication and (occasionally) division with respect to a prime modulus. To resist certain side-channel attacks it helps if implementations are “constant time”. But as the calculations proceed there is potentially a need to reduce the result of an operation to its remainder modulo the prime modulus. At first glance whether or not a reduction is required, seems dependent on the data being processed, and hence a constant time implementation would be difficult to achieve. However often this reduction can be delayed, a process known as “lazy reduction”. The idea is that results do not have to be fully reduced at each step, and that full reduction takes place only occasionally. Here we extend this idea to determine the circumstances under which full reduction can be delayed to the very end of a particular public key operation, and the entire operation executed in constant time.
Photonic microwire and nanowire devices: Fabrication and applications

Photonic microwire and nanowire devices made of silica or multicomponent glasses have opened a new era for fiber photonics. In order to significantly enhance various optical functions like nonlinearity, photosensitivity, fluorescence, birefringence, special dispersion and so forth in the micro- or nano-fiber devices, different kinds of ions or host glass are employed. In this paper, we report the fabrication and applications of several kinds of photonic microwire and nanowire devices including the multicolor fluorescence emission, polarizers, and filters.
Poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene-co-2-ethylhexyl)acrilate membranes with interconnected macroporous structure

A combination of doctor blading and emulsion templating was used to prepare macroporous poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene-co-2-ethylhexylacrylate) and poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) membranes with an interconnected porous structure. Water in oil high internal phase emulsions including monomers in the oil phase were cast onto a glass plate and polymerised at elevated temperature. After purification porous polyHIPE membranes were obtained. The volume ratio of aqueous phase (75 % or 85 %) and the molar ratio of divinylbenzene (2 % or 4 %) were varied, while the addition of chlorobenzene to the oil phase influenced the viscosity of the emulsions. A comonomer, 2-ethylhexylacrylate substantially improved the flexibility of the membranes. All yielding membranes were characterized by measuring their cast thicknesses and flow densities for deionised water. Scanning electron microscopy was used to study the morphological features of the membranes.
Sulphonylurea Usage in Melioidosis Is Associated with Severe Disease and Suppressed Immune Response

Background Melioidosis is a problem in the developing tropical regions of Southeast Asia and Northern Australia where the the Gram negative saprophytic bacillus Burkholderia pseudomallei is endemic with the risk of fulminant septicaemia. While diabetes mellitus is a well-established risk factor for melioidiosis, little is known if specific hypoglycemic agents may differentially influence the susceptibility and clinical course of infection with B. pseudomallei (Bp). Methodology/Principal Findings In this cohort study, patients with pre-existing diabetes and melioidosis were retrospectively studied. Outcome measures: mortality, length of stay and development of complications (namely hypotension, intubation, renal failure and septicaemia) were studied in relation to prior diabetic treatment regimen. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from diabetic patients and healthy PBMC primed with metformin, glyburide and insulin were stimulated with purified Bp antigens in vitro. Immune response and specific immune pathway mediators were studied to relate to the clinical findings mechanistically. Of 74 subjects, 44 (57.9%) had sulphonylurea-containing diabetic regimens. Patient receiving sulphonylureas had more severe septic complications (47.7% versus 16.7% p = 0.006), in particular, hypotension requiring intropes (p = 0.005). There was also a trend towards increased mortality in sulphonylurea-users (15.9% versus 3.3% p = 0.08). In-vitro, glyburide suppressed inflammatory cytokine production in a dose-dependent manner. An effect of the drug was the induction of IL-1R-associated kinase-M at the level of mRNA transcription. Conclusion/Significance Sulphonylurea treatment results in suppression of host inflammatory response and may put patients at higher risk for adverse outcomes in melioidosis.
Bioactive glass granules for regeneration of human periodontal defects.

PURPOSE A comparative study which evaluated the effectiveness of bioactive glass granules of uniform size (300-335 microns) for the regenerative treatment of interproximal intrabony periodontal defects was conducted. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twelve pairs of advanced periodontal lesions in 12 patients (6 males and 6 females) were treated in a split-mouth design with open flap débridement in the control sites and open flap débridement with bioactive glass particles placed in the test sites. RESULTS At 6 months post-treatment, both treatment modalities demonstrated a gain in clinical attachment level (CAL), with the test sites having a significantly (p < .01) greater gain in CAL than the control sites. Reentry procedures were performed to assess the amount of hard tissue fill. The test sites demonstrated significantly (p < .001) more gain in hard tissue fill than the controls.
Embedded contract languages

Specifying application interfaces (APIs) with information that goes beyond method argument and return types is a long-standing quest of programming language researchers and practitioners. The number of type system extensions or specification languages is a testament to that. Unfortunately, the number of such systems is also roughly equal to the number of tools that consume them. In other words, every tool comes with its own specification language. In this paper we argue that for modern object-oriented languages, using an embedding of contracts as code is a better approach. We exemplify our embedding of Code Contracts on the Microsoft managed execution platform (.NET) using the C# programming language. The embedding works as well in Visual Basic. We discuss the numerous advantages of our approach and the technical challenges, as well as the status of tools that consume the embedded contracts.
The Paranodal Complex of F3/Contactin and Caspr/Paranodin Traffics to the Cell Surface via a Non-conventional Pathway*

During myelination, membrane-specialized domains are generated by complex interactions between axon and glial cells. The cell adhesion molecules caspr/paranodin and F3/contactin play a crucial role in the generation of functional septate-like junctions at paranodes. We have previously demonstrated that association with the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked F3/contactin is required for the recruitment of caspr/paranodin into the lipid rafts and its targeting to the cell surface. When transfected alone in neuroblastoma N2a cells, caspr/paranodin is retained in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Using chimerical constructs, we show that the cytoplasmic region does not contain any ER retention signal, whereas the ectodomain plays a crucial role in caspr/paranodin trafficking. A series of truncations encompassing the extracellular region of caspr/paranodin was unable to abolish ER retention. We show that N-glycosylation and quality control by the lectin-chaperone calnexin are required for the cell surface delivery of caspr/paranodin. Cell surface transport of F3/contactin and caspr/paranodin is insensitive to brefeldin A and the two glycoproteins are endoglycosidase H-sensitive when associated in complex, recruited into the lipid rafts, and expressed on the cell surface. Our results indicate a Golgi-independent pathway for the paranodal cell adhesion complex that may be implicated in the segregation of axonal subdomains.
FLiP: Managing Software Product Line Extraction and Reaction with Aspects

Summary form only given. The extractive and the reactive software product line (SPL) adoption strategies involve, respectively, bootstrapping existing products into a SPL and extending an existing SPL to encompass another product. In both cases, product line refactorings are useful to guide the SPL derivation process by extracting product variations and appropriately structuring them. They also help to assure the safety of the whole process by preserving SPL configurability. In this context, we describe FLiP, which is a suite of tools implemented as Eclipse plugins and has been designed and tested in the context of mobile game SPLs.
Cdc42 Regulates the Restoration of Endothelial Barrier Function

Abstract— The mechanisms involved in the restoration of endothelial cell junctions subsequent to barrier disruption remain unclear. It is known that formation of adherens junctions (AJs) affects cytoskeletal actin arrangement and that Rho GTPases regulate the state of actin polymerization. In the present study, we examined the role of the Rho GTPases, Rho, Rac, and Cdc42 in the reannealing of AJs. We studied the response to thrombin, which increases endothelial permeability through disassembly of AJs, followed by recovery of barrier function through junctional reannealing within 2 hours. Cdc42 was activated late, at ≈1 hour after thrombin exposure, concurrent with its translocation from the cytoplasm to the membrane. Activation and translocation of Cdc42 preceded the reformation of AJs. Expression of the dnCdc42 mutant (N17Cdc42) significantly delayed the reformation of the VE-cadherin-containing AJs and restoration of endothelial barrier function. We also studied the lung microcirculation to address the in vivo relevance of Cdc42 signaling in barrier restoration. N17Cdc42 expression in the mouse lung endothelium markedly attenuated the endothelial barrier recovery after the permeability increase induced by activation of the thrombin receptor protease-activated receptor-1. These findings demonstrate the critical function of Cdc42 in restoring AJ-dependent, endothelial cell homotypic adhesion and barrier function. The delayed activation of Cdc42 represents a negative-feedback mechanism that signals AJ reassembly after the increase in endothelial permeability induced by inflammatory mediators such as thrombin.
Sodium Butyrate Reduces Colitogenic Immunoglobulin A-Coated Bacteria and Modifies the Composition of Microbiota in IL-10 Deficient Mice

High levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA)-coated bacteria may have a role in driving inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We therefore investigated the effect of sodium butyrate on microbiota in IBD prone interleukin (IL)-10−/− mice. At 8 weeks of age, mice were allocated into three groups (n = 4/group): normal (C57BL/6), IL-10−/−, and IL-10−/− treated with sodium butyrate (100 mM). Severity of colitis, inflammatory cytokine and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentration in proximal colon contents, the percentage of IgA-coated bacteria and microbiota composition by 16S ribosomal RNA assessment of stool were measured after 4 weeks of treatment. Sodium butyrate ameliorated histological colitis and decreased levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and IL-6 in IL-10−/− mice compared with those without treatment. At the phylum level, a reduction in Bacteroidetes and an increase in Firmicutes in IL-10−/− mice treated with sodium butyrate were observed. Additionally, Prevotellaceae species were reduced in IL-10−/− mice treated with sodium butyrate as compared with those without treatment. The level of biodiversity was slightly increased and the amount of IgA-coated bacteria decreased in IL-10−/− mice treated with sodium butyrate compared with those without treatment. Our results indicate that sodium butyrate protects against colitis, possibly through modifying the gut microbiota, enriching biodiversity and reducing the amount of colitogenic IgA-coated bacteria in IL-10−/− mice.
Taxane-Induced Peripheral Neurotoxicity

Taxane-derived agents are chemotherapy drugs widely employed in cancer treatment. Among them, paclitaxel and docetaxel are most commonly administered, but newer formulations are being investigated. Taxane antineoplastic activity is mainly based on the ability of the drugs to promote microtubule assembly, leading to mitotic arrest and apoptosis in cancer cells. Peripheral neurotoxicity is the major non-hematological adverse effect of taxane, often manifested as painful neuropathy experienced during treatment, and it is sometimes irreversible. Unfortunately, taxane-induced neurotoxicity is an uncertainty prior to the initiation of treatment. The present review aims to dissect current knowledge on real incidence, underlying pathophysiology, clinical features and predisposing factors related with the development of taxane-induced neuropathy.
On the estimation of error-correcting parameters

Error-correcting (EC) techniques allow for coping with divergences in pattern strings with regard to their "standard" form as represented by the language /spl Lscr/ accepted by a regular or context-free grammar. There are two main types of EC parsers: minimum-distance and stochastic. The latter apply the maximum likelihood rule: classification into the classes of the strings in /spl Lscr/ that have the greatest probability given the strings representing unknown patterns. Stochastic models are important in pattern recognition if good estimations for their parameters are provided. The problem of parameter estimation has been well studied for stochastic grammars, but this is not the case of EC parameters. This work is aimed at providing solutions to adequately solve it.
Probabilistic predicate transformers

Probabilistic predicates generalize standard predicates over a state space; with probabilistic predicate transformers one thus reasons about imperative programs in terms of probabilistic pre- and postconditions. Probabilistic healthiness conditions generalize the standard ones, characterizing “real” probabilistic programs, and are based on a connection with an underlying relational model for probabilistic execution; in both contexts demonic nondeterminism coexists with probabilistic choice. With the healthiness conditions, the associated weakest-precondition calculus seems suitable for exploring the rigorous derivation of small probabilistic programs.
Recovering Probability Distributions from Missing Data

A probabilistic query may not be estimable from observed data corrupted by missing values if the data are not missing at random (MAR). It is therefore of theoretical interest and practical importance to determine in principle whether a probabilistic query is estimable from missing data or not when the data are not MAR. We present algorithms that systematically determine whether the joint probability distribution or a target marginal distribution is estimable from observed data with missing values, assuming that the data-generation model is represented as a Bayesian network, known as m-graphs, that not only encodes the dependencies among the variables but also explicitly portrays the mechanisms responsible for the missingness process. The results significantly advance the existing work.
Matched filter estimation of serial blood vessel diameters from video images

A method for making a contiguous series of blood vessel diameter estimates from digitized images is proposed. It makes use of a vessel intensity profile model based on the vessel geometry and the physics of the imaging process, providing estimates of far greater accuracy than previously obtained. A variety of techniques are used to reduce the computational demand. The method includes the generation of measurement estimation error, which is important in determining total vessel patency as well as providing a basic measure of diameter estimate accuracy.
The hyperferritinemic syndromes and CD163: a marker of macrophage activation.

F erritin is a key protein in iron metabolism. Its involvement in iron detoxification and iron storage is known, but recently, a new role in the pathogenesis of different autoimmune and autoinflammatory syndromes was hypothesized [1]. Four immune mediated conditions sharing the feature of marked hyperferritinemia have been gathered under the single term “Hyperferritinemic Syndromes” [1]. Such syndromes include macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome (CAPS), septic shock, and adultonset Still’s disease (AOSD). These conditions constitute the scenario of the so-called cytokine storm and share a marked hyperferritinemia as well as clinical and laboratory features. As far as we know, with regard to its structure, ferritin is composed of two different subunits, H and L, whose ratio is not fixed as it varies among several inflammatory and infectious conditions. Ferritin in spleen and liver, as well as in serum, is largely composed of L-subunits (involved in iron storage), while in heart and kidney the H-subunits (involved in iron detoxification) are predominant. Recently, an increase in the H-subunit expression, driven by different inflammatory stimuli, was demonstrated [2]. Furthermore, a possible role for ferritin in the regulation of immune response was suggested by Recalcati et al. in 2008 [3]. Indeed, the H-ferritin subunit can inhibit lymphoid and myeloid cell proliferation; and a specific ferritin receptor named TIM2, present on several immune effector cells in murine models, has been identified [4]. Ruddell et al. reported in 2009 [5] that ferritin may behave similarly to pro-inflammatory cytokines, binding to the TIM-2 receptor in hepatic cell media. In doing so it may activate the hepatic cells, inducing enhanced production of several cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β. With regard to its production, ferritin synthesis is induced by several inflammatory stimuli including cytokines IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-18, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), interferongamma (IFNγ), macrophage-colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) and IL-6. It was initially believed that the main passive source of ferritin was its leakage from damaged cells during inflammatory conditions. Ghosh et al. [6] later described an active production of ferritin L-subunit through a classical secretory pathway. More recently, Cohen et al. [7] reported the significant contribution of macrophages in ferritin production owing to the proven ability of these cells to actively secrete this protein through a non-classical secretory pathway. Such findings support the idea of active production of ferritin in the course of specific autoinflammatory conditions and, thus, a possible role other than second acute inflammatory reactant.
BMP1 controls TGFβ1 activation via cleavage of latent TGFβ-binding protein

Transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1), an important regulator of cell behavior, is secreted as a large latent complex (LLC) in which it is bound to its cleaved prodomain (latency-associated peptide [LAP]) and, via LAP, to latent TGFβ-binding proteins (LTBPs). The latter target LLCs to the extracellular matrix (ECM). Bone morphogenetic protein 1 (BMP1)–like metalloproteinases play key roles in ECM formation, by converting precursors into mature functional proteins, and in morphogenetic patterning, by cleaving the antagonist Chordin to activate BMP2/4. We provide in vitro and in vivo evidence that BMP1 cleaves LTBP1 at two specific sites, thus liberating LLC from ECM and resulting in consequent activation of TGFβ1 via cleavage of LAP by non–BMP1-like proteinases. In mouse embryo fibroblasts, LAP cleavage is shown to be predominantly matrix metalloproteinase 2 dependent. TGFβ1 is a potent inducer of ECM formation and of BMP1 expression. Thus, a role for BMP1-like proteinases in TGFβ1 activation completes a novel fast-forward loop in vertebrate tissue remodeling.
From depressive symptoms to depressive disorders: the relevance of thresholds

Background Nosological boundaries for depressive disorders as well as the prevalence and impact of ‘subsyndromal’ depression remain unclear. Aims To examine the impact of subsyndromal depressive disorders on health status and to assess if depressive disorders lie on a continuum of severity. Method The sample was composed of randomly selected respondents from the general population in 68 countries from across the world participating in the World Health Organization's World Health Survey. Results The pattern of risk factors for depressive disorders was consistent across all types of depression (subsyndromal, brief depressive episode and depressive episode): odds ratios for females ranged between 1.49 and 1.80, and for the unemployed from 1.19 to 1.25. All types of depression produced a significant decrement in health status compared with no depression after controlling for demographic variables, income and country. Conclusions Subthreshold depressive disorders occur commonly all across the world and are associated with the same risk factors everywhere. They produce significant decrements in health and do not qualitatively differ from full-blown episodes of depression as currently defined, and lie on a continuum with more severe forms of depressive episodes but are distinct from normal mood changes.