Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of target cell susceptibility to human natural killer cells by interferon

The spontaneous cytolytic activity of human peripheral blood lymphocytes in a short‐term 51chromium release assay was markedly enhanced by pretreatment with partially purified “Namalva” lymphoblastoid (type I)interferon (IF), provided that the target cells, five lymphoblastoid cell lines of variable natural killer (NK) sensitivity (K562, Molt 4, CCRF/CEM, Raji and Bri8), were not similarly treated with IF. When the targets were pre‐exposed to comparable concentrations of IF, their susceptibility to lysis by IF‐stimulated or unstimulated effectors was diminished, while exposure of both effectors and targets to IF for the duration of the cytotoxicity assay produced levels of cytotoxicity intermediate between those obtained when either effectors or targets were pretreated. The results indicate that, depending on the experimental design, IF is capable of exerting a protective effect on certain targets, a conclusion supported by competition assays Wherein IF‐treated cold K562 cells competed less successfully than untreated cold K562 cells for lysis of their radiolabelled counterparts by both IF‐stimulated and unstimulated effectors. The data suggest that certain lymphoblastoid targets, in common with effector lymphocytes, possess receptors for IF. Some possible biological implications of the protective interaction of IF with tumour targets, which is antagonistic to that on effector cells, are discussed.
A Physical Interaction Network of Dengue Virus and Human Proteins*

Dengue virus (DENV), an emerging mosquito-transmitted pathogen capable of causing severe disease in humans, interacts with host cell factors to create a more favorable environment for replication. However, few interactions between DENV and human proteins have been reported to date. To identify DENV-human protein interactions, we used high-throughput yeast two-hybrid assays to screen the 10 DENV proteins against a human liver activation domain library. From 45 DNA-binding domain clones containing either full-length viral genes or partially overlapping gene fragments, we identified 139 interactions between DENV and human proteins, the vast majority of which are novel. These interactions involved 105 human proteins, including six previously implicated in DENV infection and 45 linked to the replication of other viruses. Human proteins with functions related to the complement and coagulation cascade, the centrosome, and the cytoskeleton were enriched among the DENV interaction partners. To determine if the cellular proteins were required for DENV infection, we used small interfering RNAs to inhibit their expression. Six of 12 proteins targeted (CALR, DDX3X, ERC1, GOLGA2, TRIP11, and UBE2I) caused a significant decrease in the replication of a DENV replicon. We further showed that calreticulin colocalized with viral dsRNA and with the viral NS3 and NS5 proteins in DENV-infected cells, consistent with a direct role for calreticulin in DENV replication. Human proteins that interacted with DENV had significantly higher average degree and betweenness than expected by chance, which provides additional support for the hypothesis that viruses preferentially target cellular proteins that occupy central position in the human protein interaction network. This study provides a valuable starting point for additional investigations into the roles of human proteins in DENV infection.
System integration and demonstration of a 4.5 MVA STATCOM based on emitter turn-off (ETO) thyristor and cascade multilevel converter

Static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), providing quick and robust voltage support, is an "enabling infrastructure technology" for power engineering today. The emitter turn-off (ETO) thyristor, as an emerging kilohertz power semiconductor device, provides significant advantages over other competing power switch technologies and will result in a fast response STATCOM system with reduced overall cost per kVA. Meanwhile, the cascade-multilevel converter (CMC) is the most feasible topology for STATCOM because of its compact structure, fast response, clean power quality, easy modularity and scalability. Combining advanced switch technology, modular converter technology and control technology, a 4.5 MVA STATCOM system is developed. This paper discusses system integration of the STATCOM with emphasis on power stage design and verification, digital controller design and verification. Finally, the grid tie system demonstration of STATCOM is presented.
La génération automatique de textes comme support à la compréhension de modèle de tâches en conception : une étude préliminaire

Pendant la conception de SI, plusieurs intervenants, qui ont cha- cun une expertise et une culture propres, sont amenes a utiliser le modele de tâches (MdT) et donc a le comprendre. Adapter la pre- sentation des informations du MdT a l’intervenant et a l’utilisation qu’il va en faire est alors un point cle pour qu’elles puissent etre comprises. Or, actuellement aucun des outils de presentation des MdT ne permet de comprendre l’activite modelisee sans connaitre la notation utilisee. Dans cet article, nous presentons une approche de generation d’une presentation textuelle du MdT. Deux evalua- tions ont ete menees sur l’utilisation de cette presentation pour (1) la correction d’un modele par ses concepteurs et pour (2) la comprehension d’un modele par des informaticiens qui ne l’ont pas concu. Ces evaluations montrent que la presentation textuelle apporte un point de vue complementaire sur le MdT permettant une meilleure comprehension et facilitant son amelioration.
Directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into functional hepatic cells

The differentiation capacity of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) holds great promise for therapeutic applications. We report a novel three‐stage method to efficiently direct the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into hepatic cells in serum‐free medium. Human ESCs were first differentiated into definitive endoderm cells by 3 days of Activin A treatment. Next, the presence of fibroblast growth factor‐4 and bone morphogenetic protein‐2 in the culture medium for 5 days induced efficient hepatic differentiation from definitive endoderm cells. Approximately 70% of the cells expressed the hepatic marker albumin. After 10 days of further in vitro maturation, these cells expressed the adult liver cell markers tyrosine aminotransferase, tryptophan oxygenase 2, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK), Cyp7A1, Cyp3A4 and Cyp2B6. Furthermore, these cells exhibited functions associated with mature hepatocytes including albumin secretion, glycogen storage, indocyanine green, and low‐density lipoprotein uptake, and inducible cytochrome P450 activity. When transplanted into CCl4 injured severe combined immunodeficiency mice, these cells integrated into the mouse liver and expressed human alpha‐1 antitrypsin for at least 2 months. In addition, we found that the hESC‐derived hepatic cells were readily infected by human immunodeficiency virus‐hepatitis C virus pseudotype viruses. Conclusion: We have developed an efficient way to direct the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into cells that exhibit characteristics of mature hepatocytes. Our studies should facilitate searching the molecular mechanisms underlying human liver development, and form the basis for hepatocyte transplantation and drug tests. (HEPATOLOGY 2007;45:1229–1239.)
Towards IS-enabled Sustainable Communities - A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda

The trend of urbanization leads to several environmental problems such as shortage of resource, pollution, and rising carbon emissions. In the smart city context sustainable communities are considered as promising measures to tackle these issues. The technological evolution of the recent years offers versatile opportunities to convince people in their behavior and the potential of information systems to support ecological improvements gains increasing importance and interest in research. In this paper we propose a theoretical framework for the design of citizen-centric environmental sustainable information systems to build sustainable communities in smart cities. The framework considers theories and counter measures from psychological, social, environmental, and IS science to create a holistic architecture for green IS implementations. The goal is to drive further research and practical implementations in this domain.
Une preuve formelle de l'algorithme de Tarjan-1972 pour trouver les composantes fortement connexes dans un graphe

Nous presentons une preuve formelle de l'algorithme de Tarjan (1972) pour trouver les composantes fortement connexes dans un graphe. Cet algorithme execute une seule passe sur le graphe le parcourant en profondeur d'abord. Notre programme est ici ecrit dans un style de programmation fonctionnelle dans le langage Why3-ML. La preuve utilise des lemmes et des assertions exprimes dans la logique de Why3. La majorite d'entre eux sont prouves automatiquementaautomatiquementa l'exception de 5 assertions ou lemmes prouves manuellement en Coq. Une preuve d'une version imperative de ce programme ne figure pas dans notre article, mais nous indiquons comment y parvenir par raffinements successifs. Un point important de notre article est que nos preuves sont intuitives et lisibles par un humain.
O papel dos conectores na co-construção de imagens identitárias: o uso do mas em debates eleitorais

This study is part of a broader research whose purpose is to investigate whether the establishment of discourse relations and its marking through connectors have implications for the co-construction of identity images. Looking for additional evidence for this research and adopting contributions from the Modular Approach to Discourse Analysis, this paper studies the connector mas employed by candidates for public office in two electoral debates, one municipal and the other presidential. The objective is to verify to what extent mas, in signaling the discursive maneuvers performed by the candidates, is an important piece in the game through which they (de)construct identity images. Analysis revealed that the 55 occurrences of the connector signaled two groups of discursive maneuvers. By using the mas through which the candidate signals maneuvers of attack to the opponent (mas for hetero-attack), he tries to construct an unfavorable image of the other and a favorable one of himself. But by using the mas through which the candidate signals maneuvers in which he attacks himself (mas for self-attack), he tries to attribute to himself values such as humility and modesty, as well as anticipate future criticism from the adversary.
Power Admission Control With Predictive Thermal Management in Smart Buildings

This paper presents a control scheme for thermal management in smart buildings based on predictive power admission control. This approach combines model predictive control with budget-schedulability analysis in order to reduce peak power consumption as well as ensure thermal comfort. First, the power budget with a given thermal comfort constraint is optimized through budget-schedulability analysis which amounts to solving a constrained linear programming problem. Second, the effective peak power demand is reduced by means of the optimal scheduling and cooperative operation of multiple thermal appliances. The performance of the proposed control scheme is assessed by simulation based on the thermal dynamics of a real eight-room office building located at Danish Technical University.
The pattern visual evoked cortical response in human ageing.

The N1, P1, N2 and P2 components of the pattern visual evoked response (PVER) have been recorded to the onset of presentation of a sinusoidal grating pattern of 3 and 8 cycles/deg in groups of young (15-34 years) and old (53-94 years) subjects. The negative components were taken to arise from striate cortex and the positive components from extrastriate cortex. For grating contrasts of 3-40%, the time-to-peak of the N1, P1 and N2 components, but not the P2 component, increased with age while the amplitude and rise time showed no consistent changes. Comparisons between 3 and 8 cycles/deg revealed a longer time-to-peak of N1 and P1 at 8 cycles/deg within the young group though not within the old group, i.e. an additional increment in the time-to-peak had occurred at 3 cycles/deg with ageing. This was also reflected for grating contrasts which were multiples of each individual's contrast threshold, irrespective of age. Now, the time-to-peak of N1, P1 and N2 was similar in young and old groups at 8 cycles/deg. At 3 cycles/deg, however, the time-to-peak was still longer in the old group, though the intervals between components were similar to those of the young group. This suggested the requirement for a further increment in contrast to make the time-to-peak similar, due to a selective loss of sensitivity in ageing within the low-spatial-frequency channels which are additionally sensitive to temporal modulation. Thus, it appeared that, by incrementing the stimulus contrast by the appropriate amount, the PVER of the old group could be made to resemble that of the young group. These results are consistent with the occurrence of neural changes during ageing in the retino-geniculate pathway prior to the visual cortex.
Análisis de los trends generados por series financieras

En este trabajo se propone el diseno y la fabricacion de microcanales en placas de acrilico, con la finalidad de obtener jets aplicados a la implementacion de la aplicacion de inyecciones sin el uso de jeringas, la generacion de dichos jets se propone mediante microburbujas generadas con fibra optica. Sin embargo, la fabricacion de los microcanales se volvio un reto, debido a sus dimensiones y a que se requieren en materiales translucidos. Por esta razon, se realiza una caracterizacion de dichos microcanales que no dana su configuracion, empleando un interferometro de Twyman-Green. Para ello se capturan de forma digital, diversos pares de interferogramas con tres lentes diferentes. Posteriormente se realiza el analisis computacional de los interferogramas capturados, empleando el Metodo de Takeda. Para finalmente obtener la reconstruccion de las superficies de los microcanales y poder estimar de esta manera su profundidad.
Une borne PAC-Bayésienne en espérance et son extension à l'apprentissage multivues

Nous proposons un theoreme PAC-Bayesien s'exprimant comme une borne en esperance alors que les bornes PAC-Bayesiennes classiques sont des bornes probabilistes. Notre resultat principal est donc comme une borne en generalisation sur l'esperance du vote de majorite final. Nous utilisons ensuite ce resultat pour etudier l'apprentissage multivues lorsque l'on desire apprendre un modele en deux etapes: (i) apprentissage d'un ou plusieurs votes de majorite pour chaque vue, (ii) que l'on combine lors d'une seconde etape. Enfin, nous validons empiriquement l'interet de cette approche PAC-Bayesienne pour l'apprentissage multivues.
Secured architecture for remote virtual desktops

Clustered collaborative architecture brings serious security challenges. One of these collaborative solution is a remote desktop that provides a virtual graphical environment through a network displayed on a thin client. As several thin clients access to the same host, conflicts or non interference problems can raise. Although techniques exist for improving security of a host, few papers present how to secure a remote desktop architecture. This paper describes how to provide for this architecture a good level of security with strong authentication, Single Sign On, anomaly and intrusion detection systems. In particular, a correlation system checks that each remote user session have a valid behaviour. Load balancing aspects are discussed through the study of a new algorithm to distribute the server load generated by remote users.
Processo (constitucional): reconstrução do conceito à luz do paradigma do estado democrático de direito

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo discutir o conceito de processo constitucional em uma perspectiva compativel com o paradigma do Estado Democratico de Direito. Para tanto, pretende-se tracar um breve historico das teorias do processo, mostrando como a Teoria Estruturalista (Elio Fazzalari) superou definitivamente a Teoria da Relacao Juridica (Oskar von Bulow) como representacao ideal do fenomeno processual. Diante disso, pretende-se destacar a Teoria Constitucionalista, com especial destaque para o conceito de modelo constitucional de processo (Italo Andolina e Giuseppe Vignera), notadamente naquilo em que se relaciona com a ideia de democracia procedimental discursiva (Jurgen Habermas). Por fim, far-se-a uma exposicao critica da doutrina brasileira sob o tema, mostrando como a Escola Instrumentalista do Processo (Cândido Rangel Dinamarco) e fruto da perpetuacao de um conjunto de conceitos incompativeis com o Estado Democratico de Direito. Por fim, expor-se-a a dificuldade em transcender a Teoria da Relacao Juridica, o que tem gerado repercussoes praticas significativas na evolucao do direito processual patrio, especialmente no que se refere a busca por celeridade e a tentacao por realizar continuas reformas nos estatutos processuais.
Passenger flow connectivity in collective transportation line networks

In this work we analyze the connectivity, in terms of number of transfers, of collective transportation line networks. In contrast to other existing works in the literature, where connectivity is analyzed from a topological point of view, we analyze it from a passengers flow perspective. This enables us to provide a real picture of the connectivity of a transportation system. We accomplish this task by means of hypergraphs, as well as their linearization and measures coming from Complex Network Theory.
N-3 PUFA-Enriched Diet Delays the Occurrence of Cancer Cachexia in Rat With Peritoneal Carcinosis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a fish oil (FO) diet (rich in long chain, n-3, polyunsaturated fatty acid) on cancer cachexia symptoms in rats. To this end, peritoneal carcinosis (PC) was generated by an intraperitoneal injection of cancer cells in BDIX rats fed FO or standard (Std) diets. Food intake and body weight were recorded throughout the study until sacrifice. PC rats were sacrificed when food intake was significantly and severely reduced. Fat and skeletal muscles masses were weighed and serum inflammatory cytokines concentration measured at sacrifice. Occurrence of anorexia in PC rats was delayed in the FO diet group (median time was multiplied by 2.5) in comparison with Std diet. At the time of sacrifice, PC rats displayed a lower body weight gain as well as lower muscle and fat masses than pair-fed rats, suggesting the presence of a hypermetabolism state. Serum TNF-α was significantly increased in PC rats compared with controls rats. There was no effect of FO diet on tissue mass (skeletal muscle and fat) or on TNF-alpha concentration. In conclusion, FO diet delays the appearance of anorexia induced by PC in rats.
Spatiotemporal sequence matching for efficient video copy detection

This paper proposes a novel sequence matching technique to detect copies of a video clip. If a video copy detection technique is to be effective, it needs to be robust to the many digitization and encoding processes that give rise to several distortions, including changes in brightness, color, frame format, as well as different blocky artifacts. Most of the video copy detection algorithms proposed so far focus mostly on coping with signal distortions introduced by different encoding parameters; however, these algorithms do not cope well with display format conversions. We propose a copy-detection scheme that is robust to the above-mentioned distortions and is also robust to display format conversions. To this end, each image frame is partitioned into 2 /spl times/ 2 by intensity averaging, and the partitioned values are stored for indexing and matching. Our spatiotemporal approach combines spatial matching of ordinal signatures obtained from the partitions of each frame and temporal matching of temporal signatures from the temporal trails of the partitions. The proposed method has been extensively tested and the results show the proposed scheme is effective in detecting copies which have been subjected to wide range of modifications.
Pipelined DAC architecture using gray coding

This work describes a new architecture suitable for wideband digital to analog converter for system-on-chip. The architecture use switched capacitor pipelined D/A converter design with selection inversion based on gray coded bits. A 95dB DC-gain fully differential folded cascode gain-boosted OTA has been designed to be used in each pipelined stage. High linearity up to 61 db (SFDR) is achieved for a 5MHz input sign wave at a 50MHz update frequency. This work describes a new architecture suitable for wideband digital to analog converter for system-on-chip.
Microwave Permeability and Mössbauer Spectra of Flaky Fe–Si–Al Particles

Fe84.94Si9. 68Al5.38 flaky particles have been obtained by ball attrition method. The volume fraction dependence of microwave permeability has been measured for composites filled with these particles. Effective medium theories have been employed to extract the apparent microwave permeability. It is found that the flaky Fe-Si-Al particles have large apparent microwave permeability and large microwave magnetic loss. For example, at 0.5 GHz, the real and imaginary parts of apparent permeability are 10 and 5, respectively. The extracted microwave permeability is found to be consistent with generalized Snoek's limit. Due to high microwave magnetic loss, the flaky Fe-Si-Al particles can be useful for technical applications in the field of electromagnetic compatibility. Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements show that the hyperfine magnetic field and isomer shift have wide distribution, indicating that Fe atoms in the flaky Fe-Si-Al alloys have complicated environments.
Genetic parameters in two populations of chickens under reciprocal recurrent selection.

Synopsis Genetic information on two traits, age at sexual maturity and survivors’ per cent production, was obtained from two strains of the White Leghorn breed under a reciprocal recurrent selection scheme where the reciprocal crosses were raised at three locations representing diversified environments. Genotype by environment interactions were detected by a number of methods; (1) from analyses of variance of sire means within years and over locations where sires, locations, and sire by location interactions were important sources of variation; (2) from genetic correlations of the same trait at different locations; (3) from comparisons of the components that constitute the genetic correlations between the two traits at the same versus different locations. The sire by location interaction variance components when taken as a percentage of the total variation, although not large, 10 per cent for sexual maturity and 8 per cent for egg production, were found to be significant sources of variation. The genetic .