SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Zooming the link between diet and brain health: how phenolic metabolites modulate brain inflammation

Currently a big concern of our aging society is to efficiently delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases which are progressively rising in incidence. The paradigm that a diet rich in the phenolics, prevalent e.g. in fruits, is beneficial to brain health has reached the public. However their mechanistic actions in brain functions remain to be seen, particularly since the nature of those acting in the brain remains overlooked. I wish to address this gap by identifying candidate compounds that can support development of effective strategies to delay neurodegeneration.

Specifically, I will be analysing the potential of dietary phenolics in both prevention and treatment (i.e delay) of neuroinflammation – key process shared in neurodegenerative diseases. To break down the current indeterminate status of “cause vs effect”, my vision is to focus my research on metabolites derived from dietary phenolics that reach the brain. I will be investigating their effects in both established and unknown response pathways of microglia cells - the innate immune cells of the central nervous system, either alone or when communicating with other brain cells. Ultimately, to attain an integrated view of their effects I will establish nutrition trials in mice. LIMBo considers both pro- and anti- inflammatory processes to preliminary validate the action of any promising metabolite in prevention and/or therapeutics.

LIMBo provides valuable scientific insights for future implementation of healthy brain diets.  My group is in a unique position to address LIMBo objectives due to multidisciplinary expertise in organic synthesis, metabolomics and molecular and cellular biology, together with our previous data on novel neuroactive metabolites. 

LIMBo also creates far-reaching opportunities by generating knowledge that impacts our fundamental understanding on the diversity of phenolic metabolites and their specific influences in neuroinflammation and potential use as prodrugs.
Structural sudies of the bacterial lipid rafts.

One of the most sophisticated concepts in membrane organization is the proposed existence of lipid rafts. Membranes of eukaryotic cells organize signal transduction proteins into microdomains or rafts, that are enriched in particular lipids like cholesterol. Lipid rafts are important for the correct functionality of numerous cellular functions, and their disruption causes serious defects in several signal transduction processes. The assembly of lipid rafts in eukaryotes has been considered a fundamental step during the evolution of cellular complexity, suggesting that prokaryotes were too simple organisms to require such a sophisticated organization of their membranes. Dr Lopez discovered that bacteria organize many membrane-related cellular processes in Functional Membrane Microdomains (FMMs) constituted by specific lipids, similar to the lipid rafts that are found in eukaryotic cells. Importantly, the perturbation of FMMs inevitably leads to a potent and simultaneous impairment of all harbored signal transduction pathways, which causes a potent inhibition of the infective potential in pathogenic bacteria. One such pathogen is Staphylococcus aureus that also organizes its membranes into rafts. Pbp2a, a protein responsible for the ‘methicillin-resistance (MRSA) phenotype’, interacts with one of the main component of the rafts, flotillin. We propose to perform a comprehensive structural study of the lipid rafts from S. aureus, starting from the global view of the rafts in situ, through analysis of the rafts assembled in vitro and finally to investigate a 3D structure of the flotillin-Pbp2a complex, all by cryo-electron microscopy/tomography.
High-Throughput in vivo studies on posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms mediated by bacterial 3'-utrs

In eukaryotes, untranslated regions located at the 3′ end (3’UTRs) of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) have been proved to be key post-transcriptional regulatory elements controlling almost every single biological process. In contrast, in bacteria, most studies regarding post-transcriptional regulation have been mainly focused on specific non-coding RNAs and 5’UTRs, which often carry riboswitches or thermosensors. Remarkably, bacterial 3’UTRs have been largely disregarded and have not been considered as potential regulators. Recently, we found that a 3’UTR modulates biofilm formation in S. aureus through its interaction with the 5’UTR encoded in the same mRNA. This mechanism resembles eukaryotic mRNA circularization. Also, a 3’UTR that contributes to cellular homeostasis by promoting hilD mRNA turnover was recently shown in Salmonella. Although both studies are pioneering showing the potential of bacterial 3’UTRs as regulatory elements, many questions still remain to be answered. Are 3’UTRs roles conserved in bacterial species? Do 3’UTRs contain specific regulatory sequences or secondary RNA structures? Are transcriptional terminator sequences relevant for certain 3’UTRs? Are 3’UTRs specifically recognized by RNA-binding proteins? Might 3’UTRs be responsible for bacterial speciation? Might bacterial 3’UTRs be the ancestors of eukaryotic 3’UTR evolution? To achieve these questions, here we propose a high-throughput analysis based on the development of specialized dual-reporter libraries to identify in vivo functional 3’UTRs by fluorescence-activated cell sorting coupled to RNA sequencing. Also the pool of RNA-binding proteins associated to 3’UTRs will be identified by global MS2-tagging and mass spectrometry. Examples of 3’UTRs belonging to physiologically important genes will be selected to deeply study regulatory mechanisms at the molecular and single cell levels. We expect that this project will largely change the view of post-transcriptional regulation in bacteria.
Assessing human security through human development in Pakistan: Applying Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs

Human Security has gained much of the importance in the recent times due to its crucial links with development particularly talking about sustainable development. Assessing human security through the human development index will prove beneficial as it undertakes the three most important spheres of human life i.e. health, education and Gross National Income per Capita. Although, human development index has added few other indicators during the last few years. But the focus of my thesis would be specifically on health, education and Gross National Income indicators. Additionally, my thesis has also assessed the human satisfaction through utilizing Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchical Needs keeping in contexts with the human development index. My thesis has explored the major aspects of human development index as a tool to view the human security conditions in Pakistan. Pakistan misses some of the eminent milestones to achieve during the last few decades in the context of human development such as decreasing child mortality rates or increasing primary/secondary enrolment ratios to name some of the factors. In this regard, my thesis will also provide rationales to consider human security aspects while planning policies specifically ‘freedom from fear’ element. Human security is not only a concept to be studied in curriculums. Rather it is a strategy to be instigated in the state policies and meant to be implemented for better future prospects. Moreover, my thesis has also assessed that the country is struggling in the initial levels of Maslow’s theory of Hierarchical needs. Maslow’s Theory has provided a framework for the state policy makers to focus on achieving the highest level of human satisfaction, i.e. self-actualization needs. Under-utilization of resources (allocated budget) and policies is a major threat to the population at large whether in health, education or any field of humanity. Furthermore, the major country who has implemented human security in the state policies has progressed rapidly in ensuring wellbeing of its people. Therefore, human security is a unique aspect to deal with the current distressing situation in order to enhance the living conditions of population at large.
Unequal power allocation for real-time uncompressed video transmission over wireless channels

Uncompressed video transmission has recently attracted research attentions because it ensures low end-to-end latency, high video quality and low complexity. In this paper, we propose a real-time uncompressed video transmission system, where unequal power allocation (UPA) strategies are adopted to minimize the end-to-end mean square error (MSE). Specifically, the relationship between the bit error rate (BER) and the MSE is established. Based on the relationship, an optimization problem is formulated, where both the power budget and the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) constraint are satisfied. By solving the problem, an optimal iterative UPA algorithm and a suboptimal simplified UPA algorithm are proposed. Simulation results show that the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of the reconstructed video is improved largely.
AN IMPROVED BALCONY

In order to facilitate the restoration of balconies of the kind comprising concrete slabs (2) projecting from the building body (1), coffers (3) are used to enclose such concrete slabs (2). For fastening of the coffers (3) to the concrete slab (2) one upper tie rod (4) and one lower tie rod (5) are secured in the concrete slab (2) in the area thereof closest to the building body (1). The tie rods (4, 5) project from the building body (1) in the area of the joint between two coffers (3) positioned one on either side of the concrete slab (2), and externally thereof they are interconnected by means of a first vertical stay (9). A second vertical stay (10) extends from the lower tie rod (5) downwardly, alongside the building body (1). A pressure stay (11) extends between the second vertical stay (10) and the lower tie rod (5). The first vertical stay (9) is provided with a securement plate (13) bridging the joint between two coffers (3) and arranged to retain the latter in position in abutment against the building body (1).
PUMP DEVICE

A pump device (10) for pumping a fluid, having a hydraulic housing (12) which comprises an annular section, a pump ring (14) which is deformable and defines an annular pump chamber at least in sections, a pump ring carrier (16) which is connected fixedly to the pump ring (14), a first connector and a second connector, which first connector and which second connector are connected fluidically to the pump chamber, wherein the pump device (10) is set up in such a way that a parking position of an eccentric (18) is influenced by way of at least one measure in such a way that said parking position is preferred in the region of a clamping member (114), wherein the measure is selected from: a) at least one recess in the hydraulic housing, which recess widens the chamber for the pump ring (14) locally in the axial direction, b) a geometry of the pump ring carrier (16), which geometry is such that the pump ring carrier (16) has an enlarged diameter in the angular region of the clamping member (114) on its inner side which is assigned to the eccentric (18), and c) a geometric configuration of the pump ring (14), which geometric configuration provides at least a reduced thickness of the pump ring (14) in a region in the non-installed state of the pump ring (14), wherein said region lies in the clamping member region in the installed state of the pump ring (14), which results in a reduced axial pressing action of the pump ring (14) in the clamping member region.
5G intelligent automotive network applications

5G-IANA aims at providing an open 5G experimentation platform, on top of which third party experimenters (i.e., SMEs) in the Automotive-related 5G-PPP vertical will have the opportunity to develop, deploy and test their services. An Automotive Open Experimental Platform (AOEP) will be specified, as the whole set of hardware and software resources that provides the compute and communication/transport infrastructure as well as the management and orchestration components, coupled with an enhanced NetApp Toolkit tailored to the Automotive sector. 5G-IANA will expose to experimenters secured and standardized APIs for facilitating all the different steps towards the production stage of a new service. 5G-IANA will target different virtualization technologies integrating different MANO frameworks for enabling the deployment of the end-to-end network services across different domains (vehicles, road infrastructure, MEC nodes and cloud resources). 5G-IANA NetApp toolkit will be linked with a new Automotive VNFs Repository including an extended list of ready to use open accessible Automotive-related VNFs and NetApp templates, that will form a repository for SMEs to use and develop new applications. Finally, 5G-IANA will develop a distributed AI/ML (DML) framework, that will provide functionalities for simplified management and orchestration of collections of AI/ML service components and will allow ML-based applications to penetrate the Automotive world, due to its inherent privacy preserving nature. 5G-IANA will be demonstrated through 7 Automotive-related use cases in 2 5G SA testbeds. Moving beyond technological challenges, and exploiting input from the demonstration activities, 5G-IANA will perform a multi-stakeholder cost-benefit analysis that will identify and validate market conditions for innovative, yet sustainable business models supporting a long-term roadmap towards the pan-European deployment of 5G as key advanced Automotive services enabler.
Thermoelectric detector based on superconductor-ferromagnet heterostructures

Superconducting detectors, such as the transition edge sensor and the kinetic inductance detector, are some of the most sensitive detectors of electromagnetic radiation and they have found application in various fields ranging from astrophysical observations to security imaging and materials characterization. The present tendency is to increase the number of sensor pixels to allow for a simultaneous imaging and spectroscopy in the video rate of the measured object. However, increasing the number of pixels is hampered by the technical difficulty of fabricating and controlling the bias lines needed next to each pixel in these types of sensors, along with the heating problem associated with them. In this project, we propose to study a new type of sensor that overcomes this limitation as it is based on the thermoelectric conversion of the radiation signal to electrically measurable one. This approach is based on the newly found giant thermoelectric effect taking place in superconductor/ferromagnet heterostructures. Utilizing this effect, the sensor pixels can be self-powered by the measured radiation, and therefore extra bias lines are not needed (patent pending for the detector concept). Within the project, we aim to establish a proof of concept of this device by (i) fabricating such detector elements, and (ii) characterizing single pixels of thermoelectric detectors for X-ray and THz imaging via approaches that are scalable to large arrays. Within the project, we also actively seek to establish technology transfer to pave the way for the possible commercial application of such sensors.
Cluster and Network Cooperation for Business Success in Central Europe

Clusters are one of the most important instruments for economic development and innovation policy. They play an active role in reinforcing the competitiveness of the regions by contributing to the creation of an attractive regional profile and encouraging application-oriented research and supporting SMEs.
The project CNCB focuses on the development of cluster initiatives. Its aim is to target specific challenges of the participating regions related to the cluster management qualification and working on elaboration of a standardized transferable module that is not available so far.
MELT-SPINNING FINE POLYESTER FILAMENTS WITH HIGH WITHDRAWAL SPEEDS

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) filaments of enhanced dyeability, low boil-off shrinkage (even in as-spun condition), good thermal stability over a large temperature range, and useful as texturing feed yarns and/or as hard yarns requiring no further drawing are prepared by spinning at a withdrawal speed (V in yards/minute) of at least about 5500 yards/minute and with a polymer temperature (Tp) measured (in .degree.C) in the filter pack at a point 50-100 mils above the center of the spinneret plate of wherein (L) and (D) are the length and diameter (in mils) of the spinneret capillary and (w) is the throughput (in pounds/ hour) per capillary. The filaments are characterized by a long period spacing above 300 .ANG. in their as-spun condition, and, whether in as-spun condition or after heat-treatment, by a low skin-core value as measured by a differential birefringence in relation to their stress measured at 20% extension which correlates approximately with the spinning speed), a large crystal size, and low amorphous orientation. The continuous filament yarns may be draw-textured to provide textured yarns which also show enhanced dyeability. The staple fiber yarns also have very useful properties as compared with conventional staple yarns. A preferred process of spinning at these extremely high speeds is characterized by the use of a spinneret with capillary-dimensions that produce high shear as the polyester is extruded and is applicable also to copolyesters, whose filaments show a similar low skin-core in relation to their stress at 20% extension, the precise values for copolymers being different from the relationship for poly(ethylene terephthalate).
IMPROVED CONNECTION POOL AND PREPARED STATEMENT CACHE

An improved resource pool is provided that provides for dynamic configuration and is comprised of code that is configured to be used for different subsystems, including JDBC, Connector, and JMS subsystems. Pool maintenance, resource object creation and timeout, multiple deque management, and pool state transition features are provided. An application server may include at least one resource pool object, wherein each resource pool object represents a resource pool in the application server. An improved prepared statement cache is also provided that works in conjunction with the resource pool implementation to more effectively provide for prepared statement processing.
Identification and validation of human proteins that control tau seeding in cell-based and in vivo models

The microtubule-associated protein tau is the most commonly misfolded protein in neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and other related tauopathies. These neurological illnesses are hypothesized to share a common mechanism of disease progression, where pathogenic aggregates or ‘seeds’ of the tau protein function as templates promoting misfolding of functional, soluble tau protein. Under this premise, therapeutic strategies that modulate the seeding cascade, have high potential to interfere with the disease process. 
I will apply a recently developed highly sensitive and specific FRET-based biosensor cell assay as well as C.elegans to identify proteins that robustly influence tau seeding to understand the self-propagation process, ultimately aiming to stall disease progression. To this purpose, I will perform an shRNA-based knockdown screen of ~500 target genes preselected from literature, with potential to influence tau seeding. These will include known interactors of tau, proteostasis and tau life cycle regulators, and kinases, which modify tau post-translationally. After systematic validation, hits will be comprehensively investigated to unravel the mechanistic details of how modulation of the seeding activity was induced by the relevant gene. In addition, based on the results from the cellular assay, network models will be generated that delineate the causal relationships between identified target genes and tau seeding. This will help to understand, which proteins are able to directly or indirectly affect tau seeding, based on which new drug screens can be established. Moreover, already known drug targets will be attempted to be linked to cellular pathways, which have been identified to be relevant to tau seeding.
In the medium term, this study may not only identify novel target genes and molecular pathways but also lay the important foundation to identify chemical compounds that slow or inhibit tau seeding.
Hybrid epitaxial materials for novel quantum state detection and manipulation

Research in quantum information technologies is receiving increasing attention worldwide, and huge efforts are put into the realization of the first reliable building blocks for quantum computation. The main challenge the field is facing today is unquestionably related to the loss of information due to quantum state decoherence. As indicated by our recent experiments, the perennial problem of decoherence might be solved by fully epitaxial semiconductor-superconductor growth techniques of high quality topological superconducting materials. Moreover, quantum systems based around design principles such as gate-controlled semiconductor-superconductor materials that can hold topologically‐motivated symmetry protection, might enable simpler forms of control and less dependence on available control technology.

While research has made a lot of progress in the growth of semiconductor heterostructures and associated interfaces, the synthesis of semiconductor – metal/superconductor interfaces are comparably both uncontrolled and very poorly understood. As the device performance and potential applicability of nanostructured crystals largely depend on the quality of the involved interfaces, progress in synthesis of high quality interfaces will likely dictate the advancement and development not only of future quantum electronics but also play a key role in nanostructured device applications in general. 

The core of this proposal concerns the material synthesis of epitaxially grown semiconductor - metal/superconductor materials for advanced topological quantum electronics. The ambition will be to build an innovative environment that links between material and quantum sciences - with an overall emphasis on developing disorder-free hybrid semiconductor-superconductor crystals for novel quantum state detection and manipulation. This also includes an emphasis on developing high quality Josephson junctions - the key control point and crucial element in gatable superconductivity.
A markedness account of romance clitic systems

This project deals with Romance clitic pronouns, i.e. pronominal elements that i) cannot bear primary stress and ii) may have a strong counterpart occurring in a different syntactic position.
The project aims to combine evidence from different empirical domains (historical linguistics, synchronic comparison of present day vernaculars, L1/L2 acquisition, pathology) to elaborate a markedness model accounting for the organization of Romance clitic systems.
First of all, I will try to single out the factors that shape clitic inventories and constrain clitic syntax. These factors can be reduced to abstract parameters, i.e. binary choices with two possible values (positive/negative) dealing with the degree of markedness of syntactic, phonological and morphological structures.
Parameters having a negative value act as filters preventing the occurrence of certain configurations across languages. Languages, however, tend to avoid such configurations by means of different repair strategies (Calabrese 2005), which in turn can be ranked according to a scale of markedness. This hypothesis (namely, a parametric account based on a markedness model with repairs) may provide a better account of the number of variants displayed by grammatical systems w.r.t. cliticization.