Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Angiotensin II Receptors: Properties and Regulation in Adrenal Glomerulosa Cells

The properties of angiotensin II receptors and their role in mediating aldosterone secretion were analyzed in adrenal glomerulosa cells from normal and sodium-restricted rats. Adrenal receptors for angiotensin II were modulated by changes in sodium intake, with consistent increases after 36 hours of sodium restriction. Conversely, glomerulosa cell receptors for angiotensin II were decreased after 36 hours of high sodium diet. At each extreme of sodium intake, the change in angiotensin receptors was accompanied by a corresponding shift in adrenal sensitivity to angiotensin II, with increased or decreased aldosterone production by glomerulosa cells in vitro during stimulation by the octapeptide. The increases in adrenal receptors and aldosterone responses during sodium restriction were shown to be attributable to the trophic effect of angiotensin II on the zona glomerulosa cells by two approaches. First, infusion of angiotensin II into normal rats was found to increase adrenal angiotensin receptors and the magnitude of glomerulosa cell responses to angiotensin stimulation. Second, blockade of angiotensin II formation by infusion of the converting enzyme inhibitor, SQ 14,225, prevented the increases in adrenal receptors and aldosterone secretion that normally accompany sodium restriction. In animals on normal sodium intake, inhibition of converting enzyme activity also caused a fall in blood angiotensin II, adrenal angiotensin receptors, and plasma aldosterone. These findings have demonstrated that angiotensin II has a primary role in the control of aldosterone secretion, both as an acute stimulus and as a long-term regulator of glomerulosa cell function. It is concluded that the renin-angiotensin system acts as the major determinant of aldosterone secretion during physiological responses to altered sodium intake.
A 0.75‐V, 4‐μW, 15‐ppm/°C, 190 °C temperature range, voltage reference

A low‐voltage, low‐power, low‐area, wide‐temperature‐range CMOS voltage reference is presented. The proposed reference circuit achieves a measured temperature drift of 15 ppm/°C for an extremely wide temperature range of 190 °C (−60 to 130 °C) while consuming only 4 μW at 0.75 V. It performs a high‐order curvature correction of the reference voltage while consisting of only CMOS transistors operating in subthreshold and polysilicon resistors, without utilizing any diodes or external components such as compensating capacitors. A trade‐off of this circuit topology, in its current form, is the high line sensitivity. The design was fabricated using TowerJazz semiconductor's 0.18‐µm standard CMOS technology and occupies an area of 0.039 mm2. The proposed reference circuit is suitable for high‐precision, low‐energy‐budget applications, such as mobile systems, wearable electronics, and energy harvesting systems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Proper processing of dengue virus nonstructural glycoprotein NS1 requires the N-terminal hydrophobic signal sequence and the downstream nonstructural protein NS2a

Expression of dengue virus gene products involves specific proteolytic cleavages of a precursor polyprotein. To study the flanking sequences required for expression of the dengue virus nonstructural glycoprotein NS1, we constructed a series of recombinant vaccinia viruses that contain the coding sequence for NS1 in combination with various lengths of upstream and downstream sequences. The NS1 products expressed by these viruses in infected CV-1 cells were immune precipitated and analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The data show that the 24-residue hydrophobic sequence preceding NS1 was necessary and sufficient for the production of glycosylated NS1 and that this sequence was cleaved from NS1 in the absence of most dengue virus proteins. This finding is consistent with previous proposals that this hydrophobic sequence serves as an N-terminal signal sequence that is cleaved by signal peptidase. The cleavage between the C terminus of NS1 and the downstream protein NS2a occurred when the complete NS2a was present. Recombinant viruses containing NS1 plus 15 or 49% of NS2a produced proteins larger than authentic NS1, indicating that the cleavage between NS1 and NS2a had not occurred. Failure of cleavage was not corrected by coinfection with a recombinant virus capable of cleavage. These results suggest that NS2a may be a cis-acting protease that cleaves itself from NS1, or NS2a may provide sequences for recognition by a specific cellular protease that cleaves at the NS1-NS2a junction.
Intrathoracic Pressure Regulation Improves Cerebral Perfusion and Cerebral Blood Flow in a Porcine Model of Brain Injury

ABSTRACT Brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability in children and adults in their most productive years. Use of intrathoracic pressure regulation (IPR) to generate negative intrathoracic pressure during the expiratory phase of positive pressure ventilation improves mean arterial pressure and 24-h survival in porcine models of hemorrhagic shock and cardiac arrest and has been demonstrated to decrease intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) in these models. Application of IPR for 240 min in a porcine model of intracranial hypertension (ICH) will increase CPP when compared with controls. Twenty-three female pigs were subjected to focal brain injury by insertion of an epidural Foley catheter inflated with 3 mL of saline. Animals were randomized to treatment for 240 min with IPR set to a negative expiratory phase pressure of −12 cmH2O or no IPR therapy. Intracranial pressure, mean arterial pressure, CPP, and cerebral blood flow (CBF) were evaluated. Intrathoracic pressure regulation significantly improved mean CPP and CBF. Specifically, mean CPP after 90, 120, 180, and 240 min of IPR use was 43.7 ± 2.8 mmHg, 44.0 ± 2.7 mmHg, 44.5 ± 2.8 mmHg, and 43.1 ± 1.9 mmHg, respectively; a significant increase from ICH study baseline (39.5 ± 1.7 mmHg) compared with control animals in which mean CPP was 36.7 ± 1.4 mmHg (ICH study baseline) and then 35.9 ± 2.1 mmHg, 33.7 ± 2.8 mmHg, 33.9 ± 3.0 mmHg, and 36.0 ± 2.7 mmHg at 90, 120, 180, and 240 min, respectively (P < 0.05 for all time points). Cerebral blood flow, as measured by an invasive CBF probe, increased in the IPR group (34 ± 4 mL/100 g-min to 49 ± 7 mL/100 g-min at 90 min) but not in controls (27 ± 1 mL/100 g-min to 25 ± 5 mL/100 g-min at 90 min) (P = 0.01). Arterial pH remained unchanged during the entire period of IPR compared with baseline values and control values. In this anesthetized pig model of ICH, treatment with IPR significantly improved CPP and CBF. This therapy may be of clinical value by noninvasively improving cerebral perfusion in states of compromised cerebral perfusion.
On-Line Cross-Modal Context Integration for Natural Language Parsing

In our work we present a system for the integration of visual information into the process of parsing natural language sentences of German. A high-level representation of visual context knowledge is used to guide the interpretations of the parser to an analysis of its input that conforms with the provided descriptions of visually perceived surroundings. Using non-linguistic information in this way is easy whenever it is evident which parts of the information is applicable for a useful integration that improves understanding of a given sentence. In a complex environment however useless information, not relevant for a given sentence, is perceived as well as useful information. As the processing capability of every system is limited, processing every visual entity available in the representation is undesirable as it consumes resources best to be used for other, possibly more important tasks. Furthermore, some information present in context might contradict other visual information, leading to conflicting influence on the interpretation of language input. The challenge thus is to choose from all available context knowledge the subset of entities that is useful for parsing the input sentence. This choice of an applicable subset of information is in part dependent on the result of language processing. Whenever the language processor changes an interpretation, either by incorporating additional language information such as newly perceived words and phrases or by changing the current analysis of a sentence, the set of visual entities that is applicable might change. Thus, the process of integrating the information becomes bi-directional: Visual referents influence the outcome of parsing which will have an effect on the choice of applicable visual units. An implementation of this behavior can benefit from aspects of context integration found in humans. Therefore, we adopt findings in this area for the design of our system. The thesis at hand will describe a model that works on a wide range of German utterances using descriptions of visual context. To visualize the effects of language on visual reference resolution, a model of human visual attention is integrated, showing the current focus of attention as well as
Analysis of FinFET based Low Power SRAM Cell

As CMOS electronic devices are continuously shrinking to nanometer regime, leads to increasing the consequences of short channel effects and variability due to the process parameters which lead to cause the reliability of the circuit as well as performance. To solve these issues of CMOS, FINFET is one of the promising and better technologies without sacrificing reliability and performance for its applications and the circuit design. Among the various embedded memory technologies, SRAM provides the highest performance along with low standby power consumption. In CMOS circuits, high leakage current in deep-submicron regimes is becoming a significant contributor to power dissipation due to reduction in threshold voltage, channel length, and gate oxide thickness. FinFET based SRAM design can be used as an alternative solution to the bulk devices. FinFET is suitable for Nano scale memory circuits design due to its reduced Short Channel Effects (SCE) and leakage current. As the impact of process variations become increasingly significant in ultra deep submicron technologies, FinFETs are becoming increasingly popular a contender for replacement of bulk FETs due to favorable device characteristics. The paper focuses on study of various design aspects of FinFET based SRAM.
NFC-Based User Interface for Smart Environments

The physical support of a home automation system, joined with a simplified user-system interaction modality, may allow people affected by motor impairments or limitations, such as elderly and disabled people, to live safely and comfortably at home, by improving their autonomy and facilitating the execution of daily life tasks. The proposed solution takes advantage of the Near Field Communications technology, which is simple and intuitive to use, to enable advanced user interaction. The user can performnormal daily activities, such as lifting a gate or closing a window, through a device enabled to read NFC tags containing the commands for the home automation system. A passive Smart Panel is implemented, composed of multiple Near Field Communications tags properly programmed, to enable the execution of both individual commands and so-called scenarios. The work compares several versions of the proposed Smart Panel, differing for interrogation and composition of the single command, number of tags, and dynamic user interactionmodel, at a parity of the number of commands to issue. Main conclusions are drawn from the experimental results, about the effective adoption of Near Field Communications in smart assistive environments.
Quantitation of mandibular ramus volume as a source of bone grafting.

BACKGROUND When alveolar atrophy impairs dental implant placement, ridge augmentation using mandibular ramus graft may be considered. In live patients, however, an accurate calculation of the amount of bone that can be safely harvested from the ramus has not been reported. The use of a software program to perform these calculations can aid in preventing surgical complications. PURPOSE The aim of the present study was to intra-surgically quantify the volume of the ramus bone graft that can be safely harvested in live patients, and compare it to presurgical computerized tomographic calculations. MATERIALS AND METHODS The AutoCAD software program quantified ramus bone graft in 40 consecutive patients from computerized tomographies. Direct intra-surgical measurements were recorded thereafter and compared to software data (n = 10). In these 10 patients, the bone volume was also measured at the recipient sites 6 months post-sinus augmentation. RESULTS The mandibular second and third molar areas provided the thickest cortical graft averaging 2.8 +/- 0.6 mm. The thinnest bone was immediately posterior to the third molar (1.9 +/- 0.3 mm). The volume of ramus bone graft measured by AutoCAD averaged 0.8 mL (standard deviation [SD] 0.2 mL, range: 0.4-1.2 mL). The volume of bone graft measured intra-surgically averaged 2.5 mL (SD 0.4 mL, range: 1.8-3.0 mL). The difference between the two measurement methods was significant (p < 0.001). The bone volume measured 6 months post-sinus augmentation averaged 2.2 mL (SD 0.4 mL, range: 1.6-2.8 mL) with a mean loss of 0.3 mL in volume. CONCLUSION The mandibular second molar area provided the thickest cortical graft. A cortical plate of 2.8 mm in average at combined second and third molar areas provided 2.5 mL particulated volume. The use of a design software program can improve surgical treatment planning prior to ramus bone grafting. The AutoCAD software program did not overestimate the volume of bone that can be safely harvested from the mandibular ramus.
Biological Activity of Rehmannia glutinosa Transformed with Resveratrol Synthase Genes

The rate of increase of food crop production has decreased due different factors such as global climate change, alteration in use of land, pests, disease, salinity and drought. Food production was said to be inadequate for the increasing world population (WHO, 1996a). Therefore, it is essential to increase food production and distribution in order to meet its demand and free from hunger. Furthermore, transgenic plants can enhance yields, harvesting of crops, reduce dependency on chemical insecticides. Production of transgenic plants can address the global problems such as climate change, deficiency of food and nutrition. Development of transgenic plant involves manipulation or transfer of genes from other organisms which may improve yield, quality, herbicides, and pest or diseases resistant or environmental conditions, increased agricultural productivity and better quality foods. Modification of genetic constitute of plant by inserting transgene enhances nutritional composition of the foods and improve human health and minimizes the use of pesticides and insecticides.
Terrain Based Localization Method for Wreck Observation AUV

In this paper, we propose a wreck observation system using an AUV (Autonomous underwater vehicle) and introduce an AUV that we are developing for this system. Furthermore, we propose a terrain based localization method for the positioning of the AUV, which does not depend on external and costly help such as transponder based positioning systems. The proposed method is robust against altitude offset compared to conventional terrain based methods. The results of the simulation, performed using the data collected during a sea experiment, demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method
Risk factors for the development of bacterial infections in multiple myeloma treated with two different vincristine-adriamycin-dexamethasone schedules.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We evaluated bacterial infections (BIs) in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) treated with two different schedules of vincristine-adriamycin-dexamethasone (VAD). DESIGN AND METHODS Ninety-seven patients were studied during 340 VAD cycles. VAD was given by either continuous intravenous infusion (CII) to hospitalized patients or rapid intravenous infusion (RII) to outpatients. The characteristics of patients and VAD schedules were retrospectively analyzed to detect correlations with the incidence of BI. RESULTS By analyzing each VAD cycle, we found that profound hypogammaglobulinemia (p=0.06) and post-treatment neutropenia (p=0.08) were associated with a trend for a higher risk of infection, while renal function impairment was significantly correlated with BI risk at both univariate (p<0.02) and multivariate (p<0.002) analyses. Evaluating only the first 4 months of therapy, characterized by a significantly higher incidence of BI than the later period (p<0.0001), previously untreated disease was significantly correlated with BI risk (p<0.04), while male sex (p=0.06), CII schedule (p=0.07), and profound hypogammaglobulinemia (p=0.1) were associated with a tendency to a higher risk of infection; however, at multivariate analysis the latter two parameters independently predicted BI probability (p<0.015 and p<0.03, respectively) as did previously untreated disease (p<0.025). The high probability of CII-related infection was demonstrated to depend on the frequent development of nosocomial infections. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS Patients with profound hypogammaglobulinemia who receive VAD as first line treatment are at a major risk of BI up to the completion of the fourth month of therapy. In this setting hospitalization should be avoided and, if patients require admission, antibacterial prophylaxis with intravenous immunoglobulins could be appropriate and effective.
Ultrahigh-Voltage SiC p-i-n Diodes With Improved Forward Characteristics

Silicon carbide (SiC) p-i-n diodes having five different n--layer (i-layer) thicknesses from 48 to 268 μm are fabricated. The forward characteristics of SiC p-i-n diodes are significantly improved by carrier-lifetime enhancement. After this improvement, the differential on-resistance is inversely proportional to the square root of current density for all the diodes with different thicknesses of n--layer. As a result, the forward current density-voltage characteristics can be approximately expressed by a parabolic function, as in the case of Si p-i-n diodes. Using a 268-μm-thick n--layer, the lifetime enhancement, and an improved space-modulated junction termination extension structure, a very high blocking voltage over 26.9 kV and low differential on-resistance of 9.7 mΩ·cm2 are achieved.
Young adolescents’ emotional and regulatory responses to positive life events: Investigating temperament, attachment, and event characteristics

Very little is known about what factors predict variations in responses to positive events among youth. Consequently, we examined young adolescents’ positive emotional reactions and their savoring and dampening responses to their most intense positive event across a four-day period. The investigated predictors were parent-reported adolescent temperament, adolescent-reported attachment security with mothers and fathers, and researcher-coded event characteristics. The sample was 56 youth (31 boys, 10–14 years of age). More support was found for temperament than attachment. Specifically, effortful control predicted more savoring and sustained positive affect (PA) about the events, whereas negative emotionality predicted more dampening. Adolescents’ reports of more secure attachment to fathers were marginally linked to more savoring of their positive event. Girls reported higher levels of initial PA yet endorsed more dampening responses than boys. Event type (interpersonal vs. not) was unrelated to responses to the events. Overall, this study offers new information on the development of PA regulation and responses to positive events in youth.
Hetero-oligomerization with MdmX Rescues the Ubiquitin/Nedd8 Ligase Activity of RING Finger Mutants of Mdm2*

Mdm2 is a member of the RING finger family of ubiquitin ligases and is best known for its role in targeting the tumor suppressor p53 for ubiquitination and degradation. Mdm2 can bind to itself and to the structurally related protein MdmX, and these interactions involve the RING finger domain of Mdm2 and MdmX, respectively. In this study, we performed a mutational analysis of the RING finger domain of Mdm2, and we identified several amino acid residues that are important for Mdm2 to exert its ubiquitin ligase function. Mutation of some of these residues interfered with the Mdm2-Mdm2 interaction indicating that a homomeric complex represents the active form of Mdm2. Mutation of other residues did not detectably affect the ability of Mdm2 to interact with itself but reduced the ability of Mdm2 to interact with UbcH5. Remarkably, MdmX efficiently rescued the ubiquitin ligase activity of the latter Mdm2 mutants in vitro and within cells. Because the interaction of Mdm2 with MdmX is more stable than the Mdm2-Mdm2 interaction, this suggests that Mdm2-MdmX complexes play a prominent role in p53 ubiquitination in vivo. Furthermore, we show that, similar to Mdm2, the Mdm2-MdmX complex has Nedd8 ligase activity and that all mutations that affect the ubiquitin ligase activity of Mdm2 also affect its Nedd8 ligase activity. From a mechanistic perspective, this suggests that the actual function of Mdm2 and Mdm2-MdmX, respectively, in p53 ubiquitination and in p53 neddylation is similar for both processes.
Polysaccharide-Supported Planar Bilayer Lipid Model Membranes†

Bilayer lipid membranes were deposited onto two different thin water swellable polymer cushions predominantly by Langmuir−Blodgett trough methods. Membranes consisting of zwitterionic lipids supported by agarose films were shown to be unstable, as observed by fluorescence microscopy, reflection interference contrast microscopy, and the impossibility of bilayer spreading (Radler, J.; Strey, H.; Sackmann, E. Langmuir 1995, 11, 4539−4548) on the agarose surface. Chitosan, formerly observed to permanently coat liposome surfaces of zwitterionic lipid membranes (Henriksen, I.; Smistad, G.; Karlsen, J. Int. J. Pharm. 1994, 101, 227−236), was used to prepare thin films by spin-coating and was found to sufficiently adsorb and thereby stabilize planar bilayer lipid membranes. Bilayer spreading on a chitosan surface was observed, indicating the self-healing ability of chitosan-supported lipid membranes.