gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Improvement of the standard dielectric breakdown test for insulating liquids (2006)

The dielectric breakdown voltage of an insulating liquid is of importance as a measure of the liquid's ability to withstand electric stress. The parameters of the standard test methods from different countries are not similar. In the different standards there are used five or six single breakdowns in a glass or a plastic vessel with about 0.5 lifter test oil content. The voltage raising up velocities are between 0.5 and 3 kV/s. After filling the test oil in the test cell until the start of the first breakdown test there is a pause between 3 to 10 minutes and between each breakdown there are breaks of 1 or 2 minutes. Also the form of electrodes are different, sphere formed (according VDE) or flat formed (ASTM). With these single breakdown values the mean value, which height is a parameter for the oil quality, and the coefficient of variation were calculated. A weak point of the standard dielectric breakdown tests is that it is possible to reach values for the coefficient of variation up to 30 % and higher. In this paper it will be shown where the problems are and some ways are given how to minimize the coefficient of variation
Light-Emitting Diode Based on ZnO and GaN Direct Wafer Bonding (2006)

We report on direct wafer bonding of an n-type ZnO wafer to a III–nitride light-emitting diode (LED) structure. Wafers were successfully bonded in nitrogen at 600 °C. ZnO was then selectively etched to form a p-type electrode having a truncated hexagonal pyramid shape. This wafer bonded LED was evaluated with transmission, reflectivity, current–voltage (I–V), and electroluminescence (EL) measurements. This electrode revealed to be highly transparent and suitable for improving light extraction.
Retrospective Evaluation of a Technique for Patient‐Customized Placement of Precurved Cochlear Implant Electrode Arrays (2017)

Objective Precurved electrode arrays (EAs) are commonly used in cochlear implants (CIs). Modiolar placement of such arrays has been shown to lead to better hearing outcomes. In this project, we retrospectively evaluated the modiolar positioning of EAs within a large CI imaging database. We aimed to discover the rate at which perimodiolar placement is successfully achieved and to evaluate a new technique we propose to preoperatively plan patient-customized EA insertion depths to improve perimodiolar placement at the time of surgery. Study Design Retrospective chart review and radiographic analysis. Setting Single tertiary academic referral center. Subjects and Methods Ninety-seven CI ears were evaluated. Perimodiolar positioning of electrodes was quantified using pre- and postimplantation computed tomography scans and automated image analysis techniques. Results Average perimodiolar distance was 0.59 ± 0.18 mm. Disagreement between the actual and our recommended insertion depth was found to be positively correlated with perimodiolar distance ( r = 0.49, P < .0001). Conclusions These results show that the average CI recipient with a precurved EA has a number of electrodes distant to the modiolus where they are not most effective. Our results also indicate the approach we propose for selecting patient-customized EA insertion depth would lead to better perimodiolar placement of precurved EAs.
A method to separate the rectum from the prostate during proton beam radiotherapy of prostate cancer patients (2010)

The proton boost treatment with retraction of rectum during treatment decreases the rectal dose substantially. This is expected to reduce rectal side effects.
Finite Alphabet Iterative Decoders for LDPC Codes: Optimization, Architecture and Analysis (2014)

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are adopted in many applications due to their Shannon-limit approaching error-correcting performance. Nevertheless, belief-propagation (BP) based decoding of these codes suffers from the error-floor problem, i.e., an abrupt change in the slope of the error-rate curve that occurs at very low error rates. Recently, a new type of decoders termed finite alphabet iterative decoders (FAIDs) were introduced. The FAIDs use simple Boolean maps for variable node processing, and can surpass the BP-based decoders in the error floor region with very short word length. We restrict the scope of this paper to regular d <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">v</sub> =3 LDPC codes on the BSC channel. This paper develops a low-complexity implementation architecture for the FAIDs by making use of their properties. Particularly, an innovative bit-serial check node unit is designed for the FAIDs, and a small-area variable node unit is proposed by exploiting the symmetry in the Boolean maps. Moreover, an optimized data scheduling scheme is proposed to increase the hardware utilization efficiency. From synthesis results, the proposed FAID implementation needs only 52% area to reach the same throughput as one of the most efficient standard Min-Sum decoders for an example (7807, 7177) LDPC code, while achieving better error-correcting performance in the error-floor region. Compared to an offset Min-Sum decoder with longer word length, the proposed design can achieve higher throughput with 45% area, and still leads to possible performance improvement in the error-floor region.
Porin activity and sequence analysis of a 31-kilodalton Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum rare outer membrane protein (Tromp1) (1995)

We have recently reported the isolation and purification of the Treponema pallidum outer membrane and the identification of its rare protein constituents, including a 31-kDa protein markedly enriched in the outer membrane preparation (D.R. Blanco, K. Reimann, J. Skare, C.I. Champion, D. Foley, M. M. Exner, R. E. W. Hancock, J. N. Miller, and M. A. Lovett, J. Bacteriol. 176:6088-6099, 1994). In this study, we report the cloning, sequencing, and expression of the structural gene which encodes the 31-kDa outer membrane protein, designated Tromp1. The deduced amino acid sequence from the tromp1 gene sequence encodes a 318-amino-acid polypeptide with a putative 40-amino-acid signal peptide. Processing of Tromp1 results in a mature protein with a predicted molecular mass of 30,415 Da and a calculated pI of 6.6. Secondary-structure predictions identified repeated stretches of amphipathic beta-sheets typical of outer membrane protein membrane-spanning sequences. A topological model of Tromp1 containing 14 transmembrane segments is proposed. Specific antiserum against a recombinant Tromp1 fusion protein was generated and was used to identify native Tromp1 in cellular fractionation. Upon Triton X-114 extraction and phase separation of T. pallidum, the 31-kDa Tromp1 protein was detected in the detergent-phase fraction but not in the protoplasmic cylinder or aqueousphase fractions, consistent with a hydrophobic outer membrane protein. Anti-Tromp1 antiserum was also used to identify native Tromp1 purified from whole T. pallidum by Triton X-100 solubilization followed by nondenaturing isoelectric focusing. Reconstitution of purified Tromp1 into planar lipid bilayers showed porin activity based on the measured single channel conductanes of 0.15 and 0.7 nS in 1 M KCl. These findings demonstrate that Tromp1 is a transmembrane outer membrane porin protein of T. pallidum.
Better Late than Never; Scaling Computations in Blockchain by Delaying Transactions (2020)

Proof-of-Work~(PoW) based blockchains typically allocate only a tiny fraction (e.g., less than 1% for Ethereum) of the average interarrival time~($\mathbb{I}$) between blocks for validating transactions. A trivial increase in validation time~($\tau$) introduces the popularly known Verifier's Dilemma, and as we demonstrate, causes more forking and increases unfairness. Large $\tau$ also reduces the tolerance for safety against a Byzantine adversary. Solutions that offload validation to a set of non-chain nodes (a.k.a. off-chain approaches) suffer from trust issues that are non-trivial to resolve. 
In this paper, we present Tuxedo, the first on-chain protocol to theoretically scale $\tau/\mathbb{I} \approx 1$ in PoW blockchains. The key innovation in Tuxedo is to separate the consensus on the ordering of transactions from their execution. We achieve this by allowing miners to delay validation of transactions in a block by up to $\zeta$ blocks, where $\zeta$ is a system parameter. We perform security analysis of Tuxedo considering all possible adversarial strategies in a synchronous network with end-to-end delay $\Delta$ and demonstrate that Tuxedo achieves security equivalent to known results for longest chain PoW Nakamoto consensus. Additionally, we also suggest a principled approach for practical choices of parameter $\zeta$ as per the application requirement. Our prototype implementation of Tuxedo atop Ethereum demonstrates that it can scale $\tau$ without suffering the harmful effects of naive scaling in existing blockchains.
Urothelial Cell Culture: Stratified Urothelial Sheet and Three-Dimensional Growth of Urothelial Structure (2012)

Urothelial cells line the urinary tract, including the renal pelvis, ureters, bladder, superior urethra, and the central ducts of the prostate. They are highly specialized epithelial cell types possessing unique features, imparting important functional roles in the urinary system. They act as a permeability barrier and protect underlying muscle tissues from the caustic effects of urine while also expanding with bladder filling to adjust urine pressures. The multilayered urothelium is typically structured with differentiated, mature surface cells and less mature basal cells. The basal cell layer contains tissue-specific stem cells able to self-renew for the lifetime of the mammal and also produces a pool of maturing cells for tissue homeostasis. Maintaining regenerative basal cells in a culture facilitates urothelial cell growth in vitro. Additionally, epithelial-mesenchymal communication, epithelial-matrix interactions, and cytokines/growth factors are required to maintain the normal structure and function of mature urothelial cells in vitro and to induce stem cell differentiation into urothelial cells. These cultures are useful to study the biology and physiology of the urinary tract, particularly for the development of cell-based tissue engineering strategies in urology. This chapter describes methods for the isolation of urothelial cells and their maintenance in monolayer culture, and methods for the production of multilayer urothelial cell sheets and three-dimensional cocultures of urothelial and mesenchymal cells.
Nanotube manipulation with focused ion beam (2006)

We demonstrate the ability to straighten and align metal-coated carbon nanotubes with a focused ion beam. The metal-coated nanotubes align toward the source of the ion beam allowing their orientation to be changed at precise angles. By this technique, metal-coated nanotube tips that are several micrometers in length are prepared for scanning probe microscopy. We image high-aspect-ratio structures on the surface of a cell using these tips.
Breaking the Blood–Brain Barrier with Mannitol to Aid Stem Cell Therapeutics in the Chronic Stroke Brain (2016)

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeabilizers, such as mannitol, can facilitate peripherally delivered stem cells to exert therapeutic benefits on the stroke brain. Although this BBB permeation-aided stem cell therapy has been demonstrated in the acute stage of stroke, such BBB permeation in the chronic stage of the disease remains to be examined. Adult Sprague-Dawley rats initially received sham surgery or experimental stroke via the 1-h middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo) model. At 1 month after the MCAo surgery, stroke animals were randomly assigned to receive human umbilical cord stem cells only (2 million viable cells), mannitol only (1.1 mol/L mannitol at 4°C), combined human umbilical cord stem cells (200,000 viable cells) and mannitol (1.1 mol/L mannitol at 4°C), and vehicle (phosphate-buffered saline) only. Stroke animals that received human umbilical cord blood cells alone or combined human umbilical cord stem cells and mannitol exhibited significantly improved motor performance and significantly better brain cell survival in the peri-infarct area compared to stroke animals that received vehicle or mannitol alone, with mannitol treatment reducing the stem cell dose necessary to afford functional outcomes. Enhanced neurogenesis in the subventricular zone accompanied the combined treatment of human umbilical cord stem cells and mannitol. We showed that BBB permeation facilitates the therapeutic effects of a low dose of peripherally transplanted stem cells to effectively cause functional improvement and increase neurogenesis in chronic stroke.
A facile method for the simultaneous recovery of rare-earth elements and transition metals from Nd–Fe–B magnets (2020)

A closed loop of recovering rare-earth elements and transition metals from Nd–Fe–B magnets with the total re-use of the electrolyte using a facile electrolysis-selective precipitation procedure.
A Resonant-Tunneling Bipolar Transistor (RBT) –A New Functional Device with High Current Gain (1987)

A resonant-tunneling bipolar transistor (RBT) has been proposed and demonstrated. This is a AlGaAs/GaAs hetero-junction bipolar transistor using a AlAs/GaAs/ AlAs quantum well resonator as a minority carrier injector. The RBT exhibits a collector-current peak with respect to the base-emitter voltage, and therefore a negative transconductance, due to resonant-tunneling of electrons. The common-emitter current gain reaches 20 at 77 K. We also observed a base-current peak due to resonant-tunneling of holes.
Purification and Structural Characterization of Parathyroid Hypertensive Factor (1994)

Parathyroid hypertensive factor (PHF) has been purified from two sources of material: plasma of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and culture medium from organ culture of SHR parathyroid glands. Chromatographic characteristics of PHF from these two sources are identical. Biological activity of PHF (assayed as the characteristic delayed hypertensive response in normotensive rats) is sensitive to degradation by treatment in base, and the enzymes trypsin, chymotrypsin, phospholipase C, and phospholipase D. PHF activity may also be extracted from source material with chloroform: methanol (4:1). A hypothetical structure for the active component of PHF is suggested. This is comprised of a peptide liked to a lysophospholipid.
<i>In Vivo</i> Activation of Duocarmycin–Antibody Conjugates by Near-Infrared Light (2017)

Near-IR photocaging groups based on the heptamethine cyanine scaffold present the opportunity to visualize and then treat diseased tissue with potent bioactive molecules. Here we describe fundamental chemical studies that enable biological validation of this approach. Guided by rational design, including computational analysis, we characterize the impact of structural alterations on the cyanine uncaging reaction. A modest change to the ethylenediamine linker (<i>N</i>,<i>N</i>'-dimethyl to <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>'-diethyl) leads to a bathochromic shift in the absorbance maxima, while decreasing background hydrolysis. Building on these structure-function relationship studies, we prepare antibody conjugates that uncage a derivative of duocarmycin, a potent cytotoxic natural product. The optimal conjugate, CyEt-Pan-Duo, undergoes small molecule release with 780 nm light, exhibits activity in the picomolar range, and demonstrates excellent light-to-dark selectivity. Mouse xenograft studies illustrate that the construct can be imaged <i>in vivo</i> prior to uncaging with an external laser source. Significant reduction in tumor burden is observed following a single dose of conjugate and near-IR light. These studies define key chemical principles that enable the identification of cyanine-based photocages with enhanced properties for <i>in vivo</i> drug delivery.
A segment-based approach to voice conversion (1991)

A voice conversion algorithm that uses speech segments as conversion units is proposed. Input speech is decomposed into speech segments by a speech recognition module, and the segments are replaced by speech segments uttered by another speaker. This algorithm makes it possible to convert not only the static characteristics but also the dynamic characteristics of speaker individuality. The proposed voice conversion algorithm was used with two male speakers. Spectrum distortion between target speech and the converted speech was reduced to one-third the natural spectrum distortion between the two speakers. A listening experiment showed that, in terms of speaker identification accuracy, the speech converted by segment-sized units gave a score 20% higher than the speech converted frame-by-frame.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
Inherently self‐calibrating non‐cartesian parallel imaging (2005)

The use of self-calibrating techniques in parallel magnetic resonance imaging eliminates the need for coil sensitivity calibration scans and avoids potential mismatches between calibration scans and subsequent accelerated acquisitions (e.g., as a result of patient motion). Most examples of self-calibrating Cartesian parallel imaging techniques have required the use of modified k-space trajectories that are densely sampled at the center and more sparsely sampled in the periphery. However, spiral and radial trajectories offer inherent self-calibrating characteristics because of their densely sampled center. At no additional cost in acquisition time and with no modification in scanning protocols, in vivo coil sensitivity maps may be extracted from the densely sampled central region of k-space. This work demonstrates the feasibility of self-calibrated spiral and radial parallel imaging using a previously described iterative non-Cartesian sensitivity encoding algorithm.
Modulating role of RNA structure in alternative splicing of a critical exon in the spinal muscular atrophy genes (2006)

Humans have two nearly identical copies of the survival motor neuron (SMN ) gene, SMN1 and SMN2. Homozygous loss of SMN1 causes spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). SMN2 is unable to prevent the disease due to skipping of exon 7. Using a systematic approach of in vivo selection, we have previously demonstrated that a weak 5' splice site (ss) serves as the major cause of skipping of SMN2 exon 7. Here we show the inhibitory impact of RNA structure on the weak 5' ss of exon 7. We call this structure terminal stem-loop 2 (TSL2). Confirming the inhibitory nature of TSL2, point mutations that destabilize TSL2 promote exon 7 inclusion in SMN2, whereas strengthening of TSL2 promotes exon 7 skipping even in SMN1. We also demonstrate that TSL2 negatively affects the recruitment of U1snRNP at the 5' ss of exon 7. Using enzymatic structure probing, we confirm that the sequence at the junction of exon 7/intron 7 folds into TSL2 and show that mutations in TSL2 cause predicted structural changes in this region. Our findings reveal for the first time the critical role of RNA structure in regulation of alternative splicing of human SMN.
Automatic detection of aflatoxin contaminated corn kernels using dual-band imagery (2009)

Aflatoxin is a mycotoxin predominantly produced by <i>Aspergillus flavus</i> and <i>Aspergillus parasitiucus</i> fungi that grow naturally in corn, peanuts and in a wide variety of other grain products. Corn, like other grains is used as food for human and feed for animal consumption. It is known that aflatoxin is carcinogenic; therefore, ingestion of corn infected with the toxin can lead to very serious health problems such as liver damage if the level of the contamination is high. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict guidelines for permissible levels in the grain products for both humans and animals. The conventional approach used to determine these contamination levels is one of the destructive and invasive methods that require corn kernels to be ground and then chemically analyzed. Unfortunately, each of the analytical methods can take several hours depending on the quantity, to yield a result. The development of high spectral and spatial resolution imaging sensors has created an opportunity for hyperspectral image analysis to be employed for aflatoxin detection. However, this brings about a high dimensionality problem as a setback. In this paper, we propose a technique that automatically detects aflatoxin contaminated corn kernels by using dual-band imagery. The method exploits the fluorescence emission spectra from corn kernels captured under 365 nm ultra-violet light excitation. Our approach could lead to a non-destructive and non-invasive way of quantifying the levels of aflatoxin contamination. The preliminary results shown here, demonstrate the potential of our technique for aflatoxin detection.
Toward 16 megapixel focal plane arrays (2007)

Mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) and long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) 1024x1024 pixel InGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs based quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) focal planes have been demonstrated with excellent imaging performance. The MWIR QWIP detector array has demonstrated a noise equivalent differential temperature (NEΔT) of 17 mK at a 95K operating temperature with f/2.5 optics at 300K background and the LWIR detector array has demonstrated a NEΔT of 13 mK at a 70K operating temperature with the same optical and background conditions as the MWIR detector array after the subtraction of system noise. Both MWIR and LWIR focal planes have shown background limited performance (BLIP) at 90K and 70K operating temperatures respectively, with similar optical and background conditions. It is well known that III-V compound semiconductor materials such as GaAs, InP, etc. are easy to grow and process into devices. In addition, III-V compound semiconductors are available in large diameter wafers, up to 8-inches. Thus, III-V compound semiconductor based infrared focal plane technologies such as QWIP, InSb, and strain layer superlattices (SLS) are potential candidates for the development of large format focal planes such as 4096x4096 pixels and larger. In this paper, we will discuss the possibility of extending the infrared detector array size up to 16 megapixels.
A Dynamic Stack Allocating Method in Multi-Threaded Operating Systems for Wireless Sensor Network Platforms (2007)

Typical sensor nodes have a small amount of memory with 2-10 KB and even no hardware devices for memory protection such as MMU. Consider multi-threaded sensor applications running on such a memory-constrained hardware platform. In most sensor operating systems, it is assumed that thread stacks are statically allocated. However, this static allocation is not appropriate for memory constrained sensor hardware because shortage of stack memory space can bring in the stack overflow problem. As an alternative method, this paper proposes a dynamic stack allocating method, which enables to adaptively adjust the stack size of each threads based on the stack usage information. The information of the stack usage is obtained by measurement at run-time. The proposed method also defines a stack reallocating problem and solves it in n steps, where n is the number of thread stacks. Our experimental results showed that the proposed method significantly minimizes the waste of thread stack memory space compared to the static stack allocating method.