Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hydrogen production via supercritical water gasification of bagasse using Ni–Cu/γ-Al2O3 nano-catalysts

Biomass gasification in supercritical water media is a promising method for the production of hydrogen. In this research, Cu-promoted Ni/γ-Al2O3 nano-catalysts were prepared with 2.5– 30 wt% Ni and 0.6– 7.5 wt% Cu loadings via the microemulsion method. Nano-catalysts were characterized by inductively coupled plasma (ICP), Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) technique, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), H2 chemisorption and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) technique, as well as Carbon-Hydrogen-Nitrogen-Sulfur (CHNS) analysis was carried out for elemental analysis of bagasse. Nano-catalysts were assessed in a batch micro-reactor under 400°C and 240 bar. The microemulsion method decreased the catalyst average particle size and increased the percentage dispersion and reduction of the catalysts. The total gas yield increased with an increase in Ni and Cu loadings up to 20 wt% Ni and 5 wt% Cu and then started to decrease. Using the microemulsion technique for the preparation of Ni–Cu/γ-Al2O3 nano-catalyst, increased the hydrogen yield to 11.76 (mmol of H2/g of bagasse), CO yield to 2.67 (mmol of CO/g of bagasse) and light gaseous hydrocarbons to 0.6 (mmol of light gaseous hydrocarbons/g of bagasse). Promotion of Ni/γ-Al2O3 with copper increased the mole fraction of hydrogen in the final gasification products to 58.1 mol%.
Role of systems pharmacology in understanding drug adverse events

Systems pharmacology involves the application of systems biology approaches, combining large‐scale experimental studies with computational analyses, to the study of drugs, drug targets, and drug effects. Many of these initial studies have focused on identifying new drug targets, new uses of known drugs, and systems‐level properties of existing drugs. This review focuses on systems pharmacology studies that aim to better understand drug side effects and adverse events. By studying the drugs in the context of cellular networks, these studies provide insights into adverse events caused by off‐targets of drugs as well as adverse events‐mediated complex network responses. This allows rapid identification of biomarkers for side effect susceptibility. In this way, systems pharmacology will lead to not only newer and more effective therapies, but safer medications with fewer side effects. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2011 3 129–135 DOI: 10.1002/wsbm.114
Population genetics of the potentially invasive African fruit fly species, Ceratitis rosa and Ceratitis fasciventris (Diptera: Tephritidae)

A set of 10 microsatellite markers was used to survey the levels of genetic variability and to analyse the genetic aspects of the population dynamics of two potentially invasive pest fruit fly species, Ceratitis rosa and C. fasciventris, in Africa. The loci were derived from the closely related species, C. capitata. The degree of microsatellite polymorphism in C. rosa and C. fasciventris was extensive and comparable to that of C. capitata. In C. rosa, the evolution of microsatellite polymorphism in its distribution area reflects the colonization history of this species. The mainland populations are more polymorphic than the island populations. Low levels of differentiation were found within the Africa mainland area, while greater levels of differentiation affect the islands. Ceratitis fasciventris is a central–east African species. The microsatellite data over the Uganda/Kenya spatial scale suggest a recent expansion and possibly continuing gene flow within this area. The microsatellite variability data from C. rosa and C. fasciventris, together with those of C. capitata, support the hypothesis of an east African origin of the Ceratitis spp.
The Prosorba column for treatment of refractory rheumatoid arthritis: a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the Prosorba column as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in patients with active and treatment-resistant (refractory) disease. METHODS A sham-controlled, randomized, double-blind, multicenter trial of Prosorba versus sham apheresis was performed in patients with RA who had failed to respond to treatment with methotrexate or at least 2 other second-line drugs. Patients received 12 weekly treatments with Prosorba or sham apheresis, with efficacy evaluated 7-8 weeks after treatment ended. Patients were characterized as responders if they experienced improvement according to the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) response criteria at the efficacy time point. A data safety monitoring board (DSMB) evaluated interim analyses for the possibility of early completion of the trial. RESULTS Patients in the trial had RA for an average of 15.5 years (range 1.7-50.6) and had failed an average of 4.2 second-line drug treatments prior to entry. After the completion of treatment of 91 randomized patients, the DSMB stopped the trial early due to successful outcomes. Of the 47 patients in the Prosorba arm, 31.9% experienced ACR-defined improvement versus 11.4% of the 44 patients in the sham-treated arm (P = 0.019 after adjustment for interim analysis). When results from 8 additional patients, who had completed blinded treatments at the time of DSMB action, were added to the analysis (n = 99), results were unchanged. The most common adverse events were a short-term flare in joint pain and swelling following treatment, a side effect that occurred in most subjects at least once in both treatment arms. Other side effects, although common, occurred equally as frequently in both treatment groups. CONCLUSION Apheresis with the Prosorba column is an efficacious treatment for RA in patients with active disease who have failed other treatments.
Electronic privacy and surveillance

The confluence of big data, data analytics, and connected devices is facilitating electronic surveillance and compromising privacy in unprecedented ways. This panel brings together voices with a diverse set of experiences and interests to discuss electronic privacy and surveillance, and the contributions the human-computer interaction community can make in this arena. Topics will include the usability of privacy tools, how to design interactive technologies with privacy as a primary consideration while incorporating user-centered design practices, and how to manage the technical complexity involved in privacy tools while enabling users to make wise choices.
The ACL RD-TEC 2.

This paper introduces the ACL Reference Dataset for Terminology Extraction and Classiﬁcation , version 2.0 (ACL RD-TEC 2.0). The ACL RD-TEC 2.0 has been developed with the aim of providing a benchmark for the evaluation of term and entity recognition tasks based on specialised text from the computational linguistics domain. This release of the corpus consists of 300 abstracts from articles in the ACL Anthology Reference Corpus, published between 1978–2006. In these abstracts, terms (i.e., single or multi-word lexical units with a specialised meaning) are manually annotated. In addition to their boundaries in running text, annotated terms are classiﬁed into one of the seven categories method , tool , language resource (LR) , LR product , model , measures and measurements , and other . To assess the quality of the annotations and to determine the difﬁculty of this annotation task, more than 171 of the abstracts are annotated twice, independently, by each of the two annotators. In total, 6,818 terms are identiﬁed and annotated, resulting in a specialised vocabulary made of 3,318 lexical forms, mapped to 3,471 concepts. We explain the development of the annotation guidelines and discuss some of the challenges we encountered in this annotation task.
Frictio: Passive Kinesthetic Force Feedback for Smart Ring Output

Smart rings have a unique form factor suitable for many applications, however, they offer little opportunity to provide the user with natural output. We propose passive kinesthetic force feedback as a novel output method for rotational input on smart rings. With this new output channel, friction force profiles can be designed, programmed, and felt by a user when they rotate the ring. This modality enables new interactions for ring form factors. We demonstrate the potential of this new haptic output method though Frictio, a prototype smart ring. In a controlled experiment, we determined the recognizability of six force profiles, including Hard Stop, Ramp-Up, Ramp-Down, Resistant Force, Bump, and No Force. The results showed that participants could distinguish between the force profiles with 94% accuracy. We conclude by presenting a set of novel interaction techniques that Frictio enables, and discuss insights and directions for future research.
Efficient Asymptotic Preserving Deterministic methods for the Boltzmann Equation

Abstract : In this lecture notes we review some recent results concerning the numerical solution of nonlinear collisional kinetic equation. The most well-known example is represented by the Boltzmann equation of rarefied gas dynamics (Cercignani, 1988; Cercignani et al., 1994). Besides other classical examples, like the Landau equation of plasma physics (Landau, 1981), kinetic equations play an important role in modelling granular gases (Bobylev et al., 2000), charged particles in semiconductors (Markowich et al., 1989), neutron transport (Jin et al., 2000) and quantum gases (Escobedo et al., 2003b). More recently applications of kinetic equations have been considered for car traffic flows (Klar and Wegener, 1997), chemotactical movements (Chalub et al., 2004), tumor immune cells competition (Bellomo and Bellouquid, 2004), coagulation-fragmentation processes (Escobedo et al., 2003a), population dynamics (Desvillettes et al., 2004), market economies (Cordier et al., 2005), supply chains (Armbruster et al., 2007), flocking dynamics (Ha and Tadmor, 2008) and many other. For a recent introduction to the Boltzmann equation and related kinetic equations we refer the reader to Degond et al. (2004); Villani (2002), recent applications to biology and socio-economy can be found in Naldi et al. (2010).
Microencapsulation of avocado oil by spray drying using whey protein and maltodextrin

Cold pressed avocado oil was microencapsulated by spray drying in four different wall systems consisting of whey protein isolate (WPI) alone or in combination with maltodextrin (MD) DE 5 at various ratios (90 : 10, 50 : 50 and 10 : 90). The WPI only or WPI/MD (90 : 10) powders were spherical and smooth, whereas the WPI/MD (50 : 50 and 10 : 90) powders exhibited pronounced surface collapse. Increasing the MD ratio resulted in higher bulk density and wettability, probably due to more compact physical structure and hydrophilic wall matrix. Surface free oil contents and microencapsulation efficiencies of powders were 11–16% and 45–66%, respectively, and no significant differences were observed between the samples. The crude avocado oil used in this study appeared to be stable against oxidation at cold and ambient temperatures, irrespective of microencapsulation. However, at high temperature of 60°C, the oxidative stability decreased significantly in all cases but it was improved to some extent by microencapsulation.
Class II aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases: crystal structure of yeast aspartyl-tRNA synthetase complexed with tRNA(Asp)

The crystal structure of the binary complex tRNA(Asp)-aspartyl tRNA synthetase from yeast was solved with the use of multiple isomorphous replacement to 3 angstrom resolution. The dimeric synthetase, a member of class II aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (aaRS's) exhibits the characteristic signature motifs conserved in eight aaRS's. These three sequence motifs are contained in the catalytic site domain, built around an antiparallel beta sheet, and flanked by three alpha helices that form the pocket in which adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the CCA end of tRNA bind. The tRNA(Asp) molecule approaches the synthetase from the variable loop side. The two major contact areas are with the acceptor end and the anticodon stem and loop. In both sites the protein interacts with the tRNA from the major groove side. The correlation between aaRS class II and the initial site of aminoacylation at 3'-OH can be explained by the structure. The molecular association leads to the following features: (i) the backbone of the GCCA single-stranded portion of the acceptor end exhibits a regular helical conformation; (ii) the loop between residues 320 and 342 in motif 2 interacts with the acceptor stem in the major groove and is in contact with the discriminator base G and the first base pair UA; and (iii) the anticodon loop undergoes a large conformational change in order to bind the protein. The conformation of the tRNA molecule in the complex is dictated more by the interaction with the protein than by its own sequence.
Nódulos del tiroides: incidentalomas

RESUMEN Fundamento: los nodulos tiroideos son frecuentemente asintomaticos y se diagnostican de forma casual. Objetivo: establecer relacion clinico - imagenologica y citohistologica de los nodulos tiroideos diagnosticados de forma incidental. Metodo: se realizo un estudio descriptivo, en una muestra de ciento catorce pacientes tomados del universo formado por todos los pacientes a los que se les realizo estudio doppler (trescientos setenta y siete pacientes) en el periodo de septiembre del 2007 a octubre del 2008 en el Hospital “Manuel Ascunce”. Resultados: en la muestra de estudio existio una preponderancia de los pacientes del sexo femenino, donde predominaron las lesiones micronodulares en ambos sexos. La mayoria de los pacientes con nodulos tiroideos tenian cincuenta y uno o mas anos. Conclusiones: ultrasonograficamente se encontro predominio de lesiones nodulares solidas. Citohistologicamente fue mayor el numero de pacientes con bocio coloide ademas se encontraron tres pacientes con neoplasias tiroideas los que portaban lesiones macronodulares.
Dynamic power price problem: An inverse variational inequality approach

This paper considers an optimal control perspective on dynamic power price problem where the load on the power-grid is controlled via price. The optimal regulatory price is characterized by inverse variational inequality in which the function value and the control variable are in the opposite positions of the classical variational inequality. Discrete and continuum models with load constraints are developed and existence theorems are established under quite reasonable assumptions. Preliminary numerical results also show the feasibility of the proposed models.
Further observations on genetic transformation in pseudomonas.

SUMMARY: Intraspecific transformation in three strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens was observed with respect to gelatin liquefaction and chlortetracycline resistance. In interspecific transformation experiments involving 23 pairs of strains and four markers, two yielded positive results: a strain of P. fluorescens acquired the property of gelatin liquefaction when transformed with P. aeruginosa DNA, and a strain of fish Pseudomonas, incapable of growing at 37 °C, did so when transformed with DNA from another strain of P. aeruginosa. The guanine-cytosine content of the DNA of the strains investigated ranged between 61.0 and 64.4 mol%. The transforming ability of DNA was destroyed by DNase. The divalent ions Mg2+, Ca2+ and Ba2+ improved transformation frequency several fold. Actinomycin D inhibited transformation.
A novel prohibitin-binding compound induces the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway through NOXA and BIM upregulation

We previously described diaryl trifluorothiazoline compound 1a (hereafter referred to as fluorizoline) as a first-in-class small molecule that induces p53-independent apoptosis in a wide range of tumor cell lines. Fluorizoline directly binds to prohibitin 1 and 2 (PHBs), two proteins involved in the regulation of several cellular processes, including apoptosis. Here we demonstrate that fluorizoline-induced apoptosis is mediated by PHBs, as cells depleted of these proteins are highly resistant to fluorizoline treatment. In addition, BAX and BAK are necessary for fluorizoline-induced cytotoxic effects, thereby proving that apoptosis occurs through the intrinsic pathway. Expression analysis revealed that fluorizoline induced the upregulation of Noxa and Bim mRNA levels, which was not observed in PHB-depleted MEFs. Finally, Noxa−/−/Bim−/− MEFs and NOXA-downregulated HeLa cells were resistant to fluorizoline-induced apoptosis. All together, these findings show that fluorizoline requires PHBs to execute the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.
An observationally constrained evaluation of the oxidative capacity in the tropical western Pacific troposphere

Hydroxyl radical (OH) is the main daytime oxidant in the troposphere and determines the atmospheric lifetimes of many compounds. We use aircraft measurements of O3, H2O, NO, and other species from the Convective Transport of Active Species in the Tropics (CONTRAST) field campaign, which occurred in the tropical western Pacific (TWP) during January–February 2014, to constrain a photochemical box model and estimate concentrations of OH throughout the troposphere. We find that tropospheric column OH (OHCOL) inferred from CONTRAST observations is 12 to 40% higher than found in chemical transport models (CTMs), including CAM‐chem‐SD run with 2014 meteorology as well as eight models that participated in POLMIP (2008 meteorology). Part of this discrepancy is due to a clear‐sky sampling bias that affects CONTRAST observations; accounting for this bias and also for a small difference in chemical mechanism results in our empirically based value of OHCOL being 0 to 20% larger than found within global models. While these global models simulate observed O3 reasonably well, they underestimate NOx (NO + NO2) by a factor of 2, resulting in OHCOL ~30% lower than box model simulations constrained by observed NO. Underestimations by CTMs of observed CH3CHO throughout the troposphere and of HCHO in the upper troposphere further contribute to differences between our constrained estimates of OH and those calculated by CTMs. Finally, our calculations do not support the prior suggestion of the existence of a tropospheric OH minimum in the TWP, because during January–February 2014 observed levels of O3 and NO were considerably larger than previously reported values in the TWP.
A Novel Sealing Redistribution Layer Approach for Through-Glass via Fabrication

A sealing redistribution layer (RDL) approach for the interposer fabrication is developed to simplify the conventional bottom-up process flow. By using this approach, bottom-up plating can achieve the integration of Cu-filler plating and its bottom RDL simultaneously. In this paper, through-glass via in glass interposer or 3-D integration is fabricated using the proposed approach. The electrical measurement and reliability tests indicate that the proposed approach can be an attractive candidate for interposer fabrication with great performance.
Leptospirosis: A Silent Epidemic Disease

This special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is dedicated to leptospirosis, an endemic zoonotic disease that is a cause of many acute undifferentiated fevers, especially in tropical countries. While it can be debated whether leptospirosis is an emerging disease, it is evident that it is becoming an emerging public health problem. It is recognized as a disease of epidemic potential that has a significant health impact in many parts of the world.
Pharmacokinetics of extended-release epidural morphine sulfate: pooled analysis of six clinical studies.

PURPOSE A pooled analysis of six clinical studies was conducted to describe the pharmacokinetics of extended-release epidural morphine sulfate. METHODS Data from six clinical studies evaluating extended-release epidural morphine sulfate in volunteers and abdominal or hip surgery patients were pooled and analyzed. Participants age 18 years or older received extended-release epidural morphine sulfate (2.5-40 mg) within 30 minutes of surgery initiation. Most participants received a test dose of 1.5% lidocaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine for epidural space identification 15 minutes before study drug administration. Blood samples were generally collected at 0.5, 2, 4, 8, 12, 18, 24, and 48 hours postinjection. RESULTS Standard epidural morphine sulfate exhibited a spike in drug release, producing higher peak concentrations (C(max)) than 5-mg extended-release epidural morphine sulfate, which produced more prolonged serum morphine concentrations. Using labeled doses of extended-release epidural morphine sulfate (10-20 mg), the C(max) was comparable to that for 5-mg standard epidural morphine sulfate, whereas the apparent terminal elimination half-life and area under the serum concentration-time curve were twofold to fourfold greater and consistent with dose-proportional exposure. The mean dose-normalized C(max) for extended-release epidural morphine sulfate was 25% higher for women versus men. Administering extended-release epidural morphine sulfate 15 minutes after the test dose mitigated any pharmacokinetic interaction. Extended-release epidural morphine sulfate demonstrated dose- related reductions in postoperative fentanyl consumption and pain intensity. CONCLUSION A pooled analysis of six studies revealed that extended-release epidural morphine sulfate provided a more prolonged release of morphine compared with standard epidural morphine sulfate. Extended-release epidural morphine sulfate displayed a consistent pharmacokinetic profile among adults, with only slight variability between men and women in C(max), which appeared to be mainly caused by differences in body weight.