gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Furfural Substitutes for Chemical Modification of Asphalt (1995)

Researchers at Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) had previously prepared furfural-modified asphalts that were stiffer at higher temperatures and more flexible at low temperatures than the original asphalts; that is, they were less temperature-susceptible. Such changes in the rheological properties of asphalts have historically improved their performance in asphalt pavement. The objectives of this work were to determine the nature of the chemical reactions involved and to examine why furfural is improving asphalt properties. An AC-5 asphalt was reacted with four furfural partial analogs [3- (2-furyl)acrolein, furan, allyl alcohol, and furanone]. These reactants were selected because they had structural units similar to those found in furfural. The observed physical changes in the modified products were then correlated with the structural units contained in each reactant. The correlation of those units with related properties of the substituted asphalt products can show why the furfural-modified product is improved as well as the nature of the reaction. A mechanism for the polymerization of asphalt with furfural and these surrogate compounds is provided based on infrared spectral and gel permeation chromatographic data. Data from dynamic mechanical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and traditional physical methods for the four substitute products and the furfural modified product showed that the furan ring is the principal component in producing modified asphalts with increasing viscous and stiffness properties at high temperatures, and the furan ring with or without a conjugated aldehyde group is important in producing modified products that can lower the stiffness and can sustain a lower temperature than the other modified asphalts before becoming a brittle material.
Possible antistenotic effect of tranilast in a patient with small bowel tuberculosis to prevent intestinal obstruction due to stenosis progression by antituberculous chemotherapy (2012)

Small intestinal tuberculosis is a rare disorder of the small intestine. We report the development of deep small bowel tuberculosis in a rheumatoid arthritis patient who was taking methotrexate. The diagnosis of small bowel tuberculosis was ascertained by typical endoscopic findings and production of interferon gamma in the peripheral blood. The patient was successfully treated with antituberculous chemotherapy combined with an antifibrotic agent, tranilast, to suppress the progression of intestinal stenosis toward symptomatic stricture.
The ChiS-family DNA-binding domain contains a cryptic helix-turn-helix variant (2020)

Abstract Sequence specific DNA-binding domains (DBDs) are conserved in all domains of life. These proteins carry out a variety of cellular functions, and there are a number of distinct structural domains already described that allow for sequence-specific DNA binding, including the ubiquitous helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. In the facultative pathogen Vibrio cholerae , the chitin sensor ChiS is a transcriptional regulator that is critical for the survival of this organism in its marine reservoir. We have recently shown that ChiS contains a cryptic DBD in its C-terminus. This domain is not homologous to any known DBD, but it is a conserved domain present in other bacterial proteins. Here, we present the crystal structure of the ChiS DBD at a resolution of 1.28 Å. We find that the ChiS DBD contains an HTH domain that is structurally similar to those found in other DNA binding proteins, like the LacI repressor. However, one striking difference observed in the ChiS DBD is that the canonical tight “turn” of the HTH is replaced with an insertion containing a β-sheet, a variant which we term the “helix-sheet-helix”. Through systematic mutagenesis of all positively charged residues within the ChiS DBD, we show that residues within and proximal to the ChiS helix-sheet-helix are critical for DNA binding. Finally, through phylogenetic analyses we show that the ChiS DBD is found in diverse Proteobacterial proteins that exhibit distinct domain architectures. Together, these results suggest that the structure described here represents the prototypical member of the ChiS-family of DBDs. Importance Regulating gene expression is essential in all domains of life. This process is commonly facilitated by the activity of DNA-binding transcription factors. There are diverse structural domains that allow proteins to bind to specific DNA sequences. The structural basis underlying how some proteins bind to DNA, however, remains unclear. Previously, we showed that in the major human pathogen Vibrio cholerae the transcription factor ChiS directly regulates gene expression through a cryptic DNA binding domain. This domain lacked homology to any known DNA-binding protein. In the current study, we determined the structure of the ChiS DNA binding domain (DBD) and find that the ChiS-family DBD is a cryptic variant of the ubiquitous helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. We further demonstrate that this domain is conserved in diverse proteins that may represent a novel group of transcriptional regulators.
Gigawatt microwave emission from a relativistic reflex triode (1980)

Single microwave bursts in X-band of 10-ns duration at gigawatt power levels have been obtained with the relativistic reflex triode. The associated relativistic space-charge oscillations have rich high-frequency content. The dominant radiated modes are determined by gap spacing, beam diameter, and gap voltage. The theory of the collective electron space-charge oscillations and the resultant microwave power spectrum is reviewed and compared with experiment.
Higher-order-statistics and supertrace-based coherence-estimation algorithm (2005)

Abstract This article proposes a new higher-order-statistics-based coherence-estimation algorithm, which we denote as HOSC. Unlike the traditional crosscorrelation-based C1 coherence algorithm, which sequentially esti-mates correlation in the inline and crossline directions and uses their geometric mean as a coherence estimate at the analysis point, our method exploits three seismic traces simultaneously to calculate a 2D slice of their normalized fourth-order moment with one zero-lag correlation and then searches for the maximum correlation point on the 2D slice as the coherence estimate. To include more seismic traces in the coherence estimation, we introduce a supertrace technique that constructs a new data cube by rearranging several adjacent seismic traces into a single supertrace. Combining our supertrace technique with the C1 and HOSC algorithms, we obtain two efficient coherence-estimation algorithms, which we call ST-C1 and ST-HOSC. Application results on the real data set show that our algorithms are able to reveal more details about the structural and stratigraphic features than the traditional C1 algorithm, yet still preserve its computational efficiency.
[The impact of interaction between alcohol consumption and obesity on incident hypertension]. (2015)

Both obesity, high WC, high WHtR, and alcohol consumption were strong risk factors of EH, and impact of an additive interaction of alcohol consumption and high WC on EH risk existed.
An alternative scanning strategy to detect faces (2010)

The sliding window approach is the most widely used technique to detect faces in an image. Usually a classifier is applied on a regular grid and to speed up the scanning, the grid spacing is increased, which increases the number of miss detections. In this paper we propose an alternative scanning method which minimizes the number of misses, while improving the speed of detection. To achieve this we use an additional classifier that predicts the bounding box of a face within a local search area. Then a face/non-face classifier is used to verify the presence or absence of a face. We propose a new combination of binary features which we term as μ-Ferns for bounding box estimation, which performs comparable or better than former techniques. Experimental evaluation on benchmark database show that we can achieve 15-30% improvement in detection rate or speed when compared to the standard scanning technique.
Towards real-time multi-sensor information retrieval in Cloud Robotic System (2012)

Cloud Robotics is currently driving interest in both academia and industry. It allows different types of robots to share information and develop new skills even without specific sensors. They can also perform intensive tasks by combining multiple robots with a cooperative manner. Multi-sensor data retrieval is one of the fundamental tasks for resource sharing demanded by Cloud Robotic system. However, many technical challenges persist, for example Multi-Sensor Data Retrieval (MSDR) is particularly difficult when Cloud Cluster Hosts accommodate unpredictable data requested by multi robots in parallel. Moreover, the synchronization of multi-sensor data mostly requires near real-time response of different message types. In this paper, we describe a MSDR framework which is comprised of priority scheduling method and buffer management scheme. It is validated by assessing the quality of service (QoS) model in the sense of facilitating data retrieval management. Experiments show that the proposed framework achieves better performance in typical Cloud Robotics scenarios.
Design and Sizing of a Two-links Flexible Manipulator Using Inverse Bond Graph Methodology (2007)

International audience
An adaptable FPGA-based system for regular expression matching (2008)

In many applications string pattern matching is one of the most intensive tasks in terms of computation time and memory accesses. Network Intrusion Detection Systems and DNA Sequence Matching are two examples. Since software solutions are not able to satisfy the performance requirements, specialized hardware architectures are required. In this paper we propose a complete framework for regular expression matching, both in its architecture and compiler. This special-purpose processor is programmed using regular expressions as programming language. With the parallelism exploited in the design it is possible to achieve a throughput greater than one character per clock cycle, requiring O(n) memory space. The VHDL description of the proposed architecture is fully configurable. A design space exploration to find the optimal architecture based on area and performance cost-function is presented.
Regulatory Programs of B-cell Activation and Germinal Center Reaction Allow B-ALL Escape from CD19 CAR T-cell Therapy (2022)

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has led to tremendous successes in the treatment of B-cell malignancies. However, a large fraction of treated patients relapse, often with disease expressing reduced levels of the target antigen. Here, we report that exposing CD19+ B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) cells to CD19 CAR T cells reduced CD19 expression within hours. Initially, CD19 CAR T cells caused clustering of CD19 at the T cell-leukemia cell interface followed by CD19 internalization and decreased CD19 surface expression on the B-ALL cells. CD19 expression was then repressed by transcriptional rewiring. Using single-cell RNA sequencing and single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing, we demonstrated that a subset of refractory CD19low cells sustained decreased CD19 expression through transcriptional programs of physiologic B-cell activation and germinal center reaction. Inhibiting B-cell activation programs with the Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib increased the cytotoxicity of CD19 CAR T cells without affecting CAR T-cell viability. These results demonstrate transcriptional plasticity as an underlying mechanism of escape from CAR T cells and highlight the importance of combining CAR T-cell therapy with targeted therapies that aim to overcome this plasticity. See related Spotlight by Zhao and Melenhorst, p. 1040.
Epicatechin and its in vivo metabolite, 3′-O-methyl epicatechin, protect human fibroblasts from oxidative-stress-induced cell death involving caspase-3 activation (2001)

There is considerable current interest in the cytoprotective effects of natural antioxidants against oxidative stress. In particular, epicatechin, a major member of the flavanol family of polyphenols with powerful antioxidant properties in vitro, has been investigated to determine its ability to attenuate oxidative-stress-induced cell damage and to understand the mechanism of its protective action. We have induced oxidative stress in cultured human fibroblasts using hydrogen peroxide and examined the cellular responses in the form of mitochondrial function, cell-membrane damage, annexin-V binding and caspase-3 activation. Since one of the major metabolites of epicatechin in vivo is 3'-O-methyl epicatechin, we have compared its protective effects with that of epicatechin. The results provide the first evidence that 3'-O-methyl epicatechin inhibits cell death induced by hydrogen peroxide and that the mechanism involves suppression of caspase-3 activity as a marker for apoptosis. Furthermore, the protection elicited by 3'-O-methyl epicatechin is not significantly different from that of epicatechin, suggesting that hydrogen-donating antioxidant activity is not the primary mechanism of protection.
Iterative image reconstruction using prior knowledge (2006)

A method is proposed to reconstruct signals from incomplete data. The method, which can be interpreted both as a discrete implementation of the so-called prior discrete Fourier transform (PDFT) spectral estimation technique and as a variant of the algebraic reconstruction technique, allows one to incorporate prior information about the reconstructed signal to improve the resolution of the signal estimated. The context of diffraction tomography and image reconstruction from samples of the far-field scattering amplitude are used to explore the performance of the method. On the basis of numerical computations, the optimum choice of parameters is determined empirically by comparing image reconstructions of the noniterative PDFT algorithm and the proposed iterative scheme.
Untangling Euler Diagrams (2010)

In many common data analysis scenarios the data elements are logically grouped into sets. Venn and Euler style diagrams are a common visual representation of such set membership where the data elements are represented by labels or glyphs and sets are indicated by boundaries surrounding their members. Generating such diagrams automatically such that set regions do not intersect unless the corresponding sets have a non-empty intersection is a difficult problem. Further, it may be impossible in some cases if regions are required to be continuous and convex. Several approaches exist to draw such set regions using more complex shapes, however, the resulting diagrams can be difficult to interpret. In this paper we present two novel approaches for simplifying a complex collection of intersecting sets into a strict hierarchy that can be more easily automatically arranged and drawn (Figure 1). In the first approach, we use compact rectangular shapes for drawing each set, attempting to improve the readability of the set intersections. In the second approach, we avoid drawing intersecting set regions by duplicating elements belonging to multiple sets. We compared both of our techniques to the traditional non-convex region technique using five readability tasks. Our results show that the compact rectangular shapes technique was often preferred by experimental subjects even though the use of duplications dramatically improves the accuracy and performance time for most of our tasks. In addition to general set representation our techniques are also applicable to visualization of networks with intersecting clusters of nodes.
Influence of biochar on improving hydrological and nutrient status of two decomposed soils for yield of medicinal plant - Pinellia ternata (2023)

Abstract The root tuber of Pinellia ternata has been used as a traditional therapeutic herbal medicine. It is reported to impart beneficial attributes in recovering COVID-19 patients. To meet an increasing demand of P. ternata , this study is intended to investigate the effects of biochar on the soil hydrological and agronomic properties of two decomposed soils (i.e., completely decomposed granite (CDG) and lateritic soil) for the growth of P. ternata . The plant was grown in instrumented pots with different biochar application rate (0%, 3% and 5%) for a period of three months. Peanut shell biochar inclusion in both soils resulted in reduction of soil hydraulic conductivity and increase in soil water retention capacity. These alterations in hydrological properties were attributed to measured change in total porosity, biochar intra pore and hydrophilic functional groups. The macro-nutrient (i.e., N, P, K, Ca, and Mg) concentration of both soils increased substantially, while the pH and cation exchange capacity levels in the amended soils were altered to facilitate optimum growth of P. ternata. The tuber biomass in biochar amended CDG at all amendment rate increases by up to 70%. In case of lateritic soil, the tuber biomass increased by 23% at only 5% biochar application rate. All treatments satisfied the minimum succinic acid concentration required as per pharmacopoeia standard index. The lower tuber biomass exhibits a higher succinic acid concentration regardless of the soil type used to grow P. ternata . The biochar improved the yield and quality of P. ternata in both soils.
Aging Effects on Time-Dependent Nuclear Plant Component Unavailability: An Investigation of Variations from Static Calculations (1995)

In the nuclear industry, aging effects have been traditionally incorporated into probabilistic risk assessment studies by using a constant (static) unavailability (qs) averaged over time. However, recent work shows that because of aging, substantial deviations may occur in time-dependent nuclear plant component unavailability from that predicted by static models well within the plant lifetime. A methodology based on the standard extension of the classic renewal equation when repair is explicitly considered is used to investigate (a) the trends in the effects of aging on time-dependent component unavailability as a function of changing first failure density (FFD) and test parameters and (b) the circumstances for which static approximations may be inadequate to describe these effects. The investigation uses several point- and time-averaged unavailability measures based on time-dependent unavailability, such as before-test unavailability (BTU), average-interval unavailability (AIU) and year-average unavailability (YAU), and is restricted to periodically tested components whose FFDs satisfy the Weibull distribution with aging threshold. The results show that while point measures (e.g., BTU) can substantially differ from static unavailability and while all measures are sensitive to changes in the Weibull shape parameter b, aging threshold time t, and time between tests T, the differences between the time-averaged measures used (e.g., AIU, YAU) and the static unavailability were only found to be relatively significant for one case among more than 100 combinations of b, T, and T that were investigated. The differences are a factor of <2 for all other cases, which is within the uncertainty margin on the data used in the study. The results also show that qs may be an adequate unavailability measure for low values of b (i.e., b<2) and high values of T (i.e., T> 18 months) and may describe the late effects of aging on component unavailability irrespective of band T (i.e., beyond 25 yr of component age for the data under consideration).
MICROTEXTURE MEASUREMENTS OF PAVEMENT SURFACES (1970)

A REVIEW OF SOME TEXTURE-MEASURING TECHNIQUES WAS MADE AND A LIMITED NUMBER OF MICROTEXTURE MEASUREMENTS OF PAVEMENT SURFACES WAS OBTAINED WITH THE CLEVITEBL-185 SURFINDICATOR. THIS INSTRUMENT IS GENERALLY USED TO MEASURE UNIFORM TEXTURES ON SURFACES SUCH AS THOSE FOUND ON FINISHED METALLIC PARTS. THE RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE SURFINDICATOR HAS SOME UNDESIRABLE FEATURES FOR MEASURING MICROTEXTURES OF PAVEMENT SURFACES. BASED ON A LIMITED NUMBER OF TESTS, A TREND WAS FOUND BETWEEN SKID NUMBERS AT 40 MPH AND MICROTEXTURE VALUES; HOWEVER, THE CORRELATION COEFFICIENT BETWEEN THE PARAMETERS WAS NOT VERY HIGH. SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE MICROTEXTURES OF SOME PAVEMENT SURFACES WERE DETERMINED BY THE DEVICE. RECOMMENDATIONS ARE GIVEN TO CONTINUE MICROTEXTURE MEASUREMENS WITH THE SURFINDICATOR ON A LIMITED BASIS AND TO DEVELOP ANOTHER INSTRUMENT TO OBTAIN MACROTEXTURES AS WELL AS MICROTEXTURES. /AUTHOR/
Therapeutic Inhibition of MAP Kinase Interacting Kinase Blocks Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4E Phosphorylation and Suppresses Outgrowth of Experimental Lung Metastases (2011)

Activation of the translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) promotes malignant transformation and metastasis. Signaling through the AKT-mTOR pathway activates eIF4E by phosphorylating the inhibitory 4E binding proteins (4E-BP). This liberates eIF4E and allows binding to eIF4G. eIF4E can then be phosphorylated at serine 209 by the MAPK-interacting kinases (Mnk), which also interact with eIF4G. Although dispensable for normal development, Mnk function and eIF4E phosphorylation promote cellular proliferation and survival and are critical for malignant transformation. Accordingly, Mnk inhibition may serve as an attractive cancer therapy. We now report the identification of a potent, selective and orally bioavailable Mnk inhibitor that effectively blocks 4E phosphorylation both in vitro and in vivo. In cultured cancer cell lines, Mnk inhibitor treatment induces apoptosis and suppresses proliferation and soft agar colonization. Importantly, a single, orally administered dose of this Mnk inhibitor substantially suppresses eIF4E phosphorylation for at least 4 hours in human xenograft tumor tissue and mouse liver tissue. Moreover, oral dosing with the Mnk inhibitor significantly suppresses outgrowth of experimental B16 melanoma pulmonary metastases as well as growth of subcutaneous HCT116 colon carcinoma xenograft tumors, without affecting body weight. These findings offer the first description of a novel, orally bioavailable MNK inhibitor and the first preclinical proof-of-concept that MNK inhibition may provide a tractable cancer therapeutic approach.
Analysis of the max-binding protein MNT in human medulloblastomas (1999)

Medulloblastomas (MBs) are the most frequent malignant brain tumors in children. The molecular pathogenesis of these tumors is still poorly understood. Microsatellite and restriction-fragment-length polymorphism studies have revealed allelic loss of genetic material on the short arm of chromosome 17 in the region 17p13 in approximately 50% of MBs, suggesting the presence of a tumor-suppressor gene in this region. A candidate for this putative tumor-suppressor is the MNT gene, located at 17p13.3 and encoding a Max-interacting nuclear protein with transcriptional-repressor activity. In this study, we analyzed MNT mRNA and protein expression in 44 MB samples, including 32 primary tumors, 3 recurrent tumors and 9 MB cell lines. Allelic loss at 17p13.3 was found in 49% of informative cases. RT-PCR showed MNT mRNA expression in all cases analyzed. Endogenous Mnt protein with an apparent molecular weight of 72 to 74 kDa was detected in lysates from MB cell lines. The presence and functional integrity of Mnt in MBs were tested in electrophoretic mobility-shift assays. These experiments demonstrated that Mnt interacts with Max, and that this heterodimer binds DNA specifically, suggesting a functional bHLHZip domain of MB-derived Mnt. In support, single-strand conformation-polymorphism (SSCP) analyses revealed no mutation in the bHLHZip region. Deletion of the Mnt Sin3 interaction domain was shown to convert Mnt from an inhibitor of myc/ras-co-transformation into a molecule capable of cooperating with Ras in transformation. This region therefore was screened for mutation by SSCP: again, no alterations were found. These findings indicate that the MNT gene located at 17p13.3 is not likely to be involved in the molecular pathogenesis of MBs.