gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Use of spider silk fibres as an innovative material in a biocompatible artificial nerve conduit (2006)

Defects of peripheral nerves still represent a challenge for surgical nerve reconstruction. Recent studies concentrated on replacement by artificial nerve conduits from different synthetic or biological materials. In our study, we describe for the first time the use of spider silk fibres as a new material in nerve tissue engineering. Schwann cells (SC) were cultivated on spider silk fibres. Cells adhered quickly on the fibres compared to polydioxanone monofilaments (PDS). SC survival and proliferation was normal in Live/Dead assays. The silk fibres were ensheathed completely with cells. We developed composite nerve grafts of acellularized veins, spider silk fibres and SC diluted in matrigel. These artificial nerve grafts could be cultivated in vitro for one week. Histological analysis showed that the cells were vital and formed distinct columns along the silk fibres. In conclusion, our results show that artificial nerve grafts can be constructed successfully from spider silk, acellularized veins and SC mixed with matrigel.
Soy Leaf Extract Containing Kaempferol Glycosides and Pheophorbides Improves Glucose Homeostasis by Enhancing Pancreatic β-Cell Function and Suppressing Hepatic Lipid Accumulation in <i>db</i>/<i>db</i> Mice (2015)

This study investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the antidiabetic effect of an ethanol extract of soy leaves (ESL) in db/db mice. Control groups (db/+ and db/db) were fed a normal diet (ND), whereas the db/db-ESL group was fed ND with 1% ESL for 8 weeks. Dietary ESL improved glucose tolerance and lowered plasma glucose, glycated hemoglobin, HOMA-IR, and triglyceride levels. The pancreatic insulin content of the db/db-ESL group was significantly greater than that of the db/db group. ESL supplementation altered pancreatic IRS1, IRS2, Pdx1, Ngn3, Pax4, Ins1, Ins2, and FoxO1 expression. Furthermore, ESL suppressed lipid accumulation and increased glucokinase activity in the liver. ESL primarily contained kaempferol glycosides and pheophorbides. Kaempferol, an aglycone of kaempferol glycosides, improved β-cell proliferation through IRS2-related FoxO1 signaling, whereas pheophorbide a, a product of chlorophyll breakdown, improved insulin secretion and β-cell proliferation through IRS1-related signaling with protein kinase A in MIN6 cells. ESL effectively regulates glucose homeostasis by enhancing IRS-mediated β-cell insulin signaling and suppressing SREBP-1-mediated hepatic lipid accumulation in db/db mice.
Nonlinear effects in high-spectral-efficiency transmission using differential polarization-phase-shift keying (2005)

The effect of optical nonlinearities on the fiber transmission of differential polarization-phase-shift keying (DPolPSK) signals is analyzed. For single-channel transmission, the effect of self-phase modulation depends on the order of the DPolPSK. In dense wavelength-division multiplexing, the dominant nonlinear effect is cross-phase-modulation-induced polarization scattering, which exists even if there is no intensity noise. It is found that differential detection greatly reduces the effect of polarization scattering in DPolPSK. Unlike in conventional polarization-division-multiplexed intensity-modulated direct-detection systems, the effect of polarization scattering strongly depends on the channel spacing and bit rate.
Photocatalytic Conversion of Nitrobenzene to Aniline through Sequential Proton-Coupled One-Electron Transfers from a Cadmium Sulfide Quantum Dot (2016)

This paper describes the use of cadmium sulfide quantum dots (CdS QDs) as visible-light photocatalysts for the reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline through six sequential photoinduced, proton-coupled electron transfers. At pH 3.6-4.3, the internal quantum yield of photons-to-reducing electrons is 37.1% over 54 h of illumination, with no apparent decrease in catalyst activity. Monitoring of the QD exciton by transient absorption reveals that, for each step in the catalytic cycle, the sacrificial reductant, 3-mercaptopropionic acid, scavenges the excitonic hole in ∼5 ps to form QD(•-); electron transfer to nitrobenzene or the intermediates nitrosobenzene and phenylhydroxylamine then occurs on the nanosecond time scale. The rate constants for the single-electron transfer reactions are correlated with the driving forces for the corresponding proton-coupled electron transfers. This result suggests, but does not prove, that electron transfer, not proton transfer, is rate-limiting for these reactions. Nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of the QD-molecule systems shows that the photoproduct aniline, left unprotonated, serves as a poison for the QD catalyst by adsorbing to its surface. Performing the reaction at an acidic pH not only encourages aniline to desorb but also increases the probability of protonated intermediates; the latter effect probably ensures that recruitment of protons is not rate-limiting.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) URIs for Applications such as Voicemail and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) (2006)

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is often used to initiate connections to applications such as voicemail or interactive voice recognition systems.This specification describes a convention for forming SIP service URIs that request particular services based on redirecting targets from such applications.
Automatic Test Data Generation for C Programs (2009)

Preparation of test data that adequately tests a given piece of code is very expensive and effort intensive. This paper presents a tool AutoGen that reduces this cost and effort by automatically generating test data for C code. AutoGen takes the C code and a criterion such as statement coverage, decision coverage, or Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MCDC) and generates non-redundant test data that satisfies the specified criterion. This paper also presents our experience in using this tool to generate MCDC test data for three embedded reactive system applications. The effort required using the tool was one third of the manual effort required. The main contributions of this paper are a tool that can generate data for various kinds of coverage including MCDC and the experience of running this tool on real applications.
A Connectivity Criterion to Select the Best Coarse Reservoir Model (2013)

Reservoir models are commonly built to represent hydrocarbon reservoirs and study fluid flows. To properly capture reservoir heterogeneity and to account for resolution data, engineers build very detailed geological models. However, this contributes to strongly increase the number of grid blocks, hence the computational overburden. A possibility to circumvent this weakness is upscaling: it consists in converting the fine geological model into a coarser reservoir model. The resulting decrease in the number of grid blocks makes it possible to perform flow simulation in a reasonable amount of time. The coarse reservoir model does not reproduce exactly the dynamic behavior of the fine geological model as upscaling induces a loss of information. An issue is the choice of the upscaling techniques. Distinct criteria have been proposed to evaluate the information loss induced by upscaling without performing flow simulation, but none of them has focused on connectivity. We introduce a new quality indicator depending on reservoir connectivity, the leading idea being that upscaling must preserve connectivity between wells. The potential of such a criterion to evaluate the value of upscaled reservoir models is investigated by considering two types of numerical experiments inspired by the SPE10 case.
UNITE-an architecture for lightweight signaling in ATM networks (2002)

Networks support a wide range of applications with diverse service quality requirements. This demands distinct identification of flows according to their requirements, and the ability to service them differently. Different networking technologies have been evolving towards this common goal. ATM is cost-efficient by exploiting switching. But signaling is slow making ATM unattractive for bursty data traffic. One difficulty with ATM signaling is the inextricable connection between basic connectivity and QoS management. Consequently, every flow, even a best-effort flow suffers the overhead of end-to-end connection establishment. We propose a new lightweight architecture for ATM signaling called UNITE. The fundamental philosophy of UNITE is the separation of connectivity from QoS control. This eliminates the round-trip connection setup delay before initiating data transmission. Using a single cell with proper encoding, we avoid the overhead of reassembly and segmentation on the signaling channel, and enable hardware implementation. Performing QoS negotiation in-band, allows the switches in the path to process QoS-requests in parallel, facilitates connection specific control policies, supports both sender and receiver initiated QoS, and allows for uniform treatment of unicast and multicast connections. UNITE supports variegated multicast trees.
A rapid acquisition method for Impulse Ultra-Wideband signals (2010)

A rapid timing acquisition method for Impulse Ultra-Wideband (IUWB) signals is presented. This method reaches the performance of parallel search techniques with much lower hardware complexity. It removes the assumption that the channel delay is a multiple of the chip interval and can reach a search resolution that is a fraction of the chip interval in a short time. Simulation results prove that this method works well in channels with both small and large number of multipaths and is robust again noise.
Novel Ionic Lubricants for Magnetic Thin Film Media (2013)

New protic ionic liquids (PILs) have been developed. The kinetic friction coefficients of ammonium salts of the alcolate, the carboxylate, and the sulfonate were from 0.23, 0.17, and 0.15, respectively, and 0.26 for Fomblin Z-DOL. PILs have better friction and wear properties compared to Z-DOL. The ammonium salts as a hydrophilic group have a lower frictional coefficient, which enhanced the abrasion resistance. The friction and the thermal degradation decreases with the increasing between the Broensted acid and the Broensted amine. The material based on an ammonium sulfonate has higher , and does not decompose even at 300 , making it more thermally stable than Z-DOL.
Rich image capture with plenoptic cameras (2010)

The plenoptic function was originally defined as a record of both the 3D structure of the lightfield and of its dependence on parameters such as wavelength, polarization, etc. Still, most work on these ideas has emphasized the 3D aspect of lightfield capture and manipulation, with less attention paid to other parameters. In this paper, we leverage the high resolution and flexible sampling trade-offs of the focused plenoptic camera to perform high-resolution capture of the rich “non 3D” structure of the plenoptic function. Two different techniques are presented and analyzed, using extended dynamic range photography as a particular example. The first technique simultaneously captures multiple exposures with a microlens array that has an interleaved set of different filters. The second technique places multiple filters at the main lens aperture. Experimental results validate our approach, producing 1.3Mpixel HDR images with a single capture.
Sparse MIMO architectures for through-the-wall imaging (2014)

Compressive sensing and sparse array processing has provided new approaches to improve radar imaging systems. This paper, explores the potential of sparse Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) radar arrays to significantly reduce the cost of through-the-wall imaging (TWI). We analyze three well-known sparse array structures-nested arrays, co-prime arrays and random arrays-and examine their performance in the presence of common types of layered walls. The reconstruction is performed by formulating and solving a wall parameter estimation problem in conjunction with a sparse reconstruction problem that takes the wall parameters into account. Our simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and validate the performance of the system for the three different MIMO sparse array structures.
Microfabricated rubber microscope using soft solid immersion lenses (2006)

We show here a technique of soft lithography to microfabricate efficient solid immersion lenses (SIL) out of rubber elastomers. The light collection efficiency of a lens system is described by its numerical aperture (NA), and is critical for applications as epifluorescence microscopy [B. Herman, Fluorescence Microscopy (BIOS Scientific, Oxford/Springer, United Kingdom, 1998). While most simple lens systems have numerical apertures less than 1, the lenses described here have NA=1.25. Better performance can be engineered though the use of compound designs; we used this principle to make compound solid immersion lenses (NA=1.32). An important application of these lenses will be as integrated optics for microfluidic devices. We incorporated them into a handheld rubber microscope for microfluidic flow cytometry and imaged single E. Coli cells by fluorescence.
A Polymerase Chain Reaction-Mediated Yeast Artificial Chromosome-Splitting Technology for Generating Targeted Yeast Artificial Chromosomes Subclones (2006)

The yeast artificial chromosomes (YAC) system makes it possible not only to clone large DNA fragments but also to simplify the physical mapping and functional analysis of chromosomes and genomes through YAC manipulation. To manipulate large DNA fragments cloned into YACs, YAC fragmentation has been developed and also a new method called the YAC-splitting method was developed recently. Although the YAC fragmentation method can be used to delete DNA from one side of a YAC, the YAC-splitting method generates two smaller YACs, both of which are transmitted to daughter cells during mitotic growth. This chapter describes the YAC-splitting method improved by incorporating polymerase chain reaction-mediated chromosome splitting (PCS) technique and by adding yeast autonomously replicating sequence (ARS) to the system. The PCS method combines a streamlined procedure (two-step PCR and one transformation per splitting event) with the Cre/loxP system for marker rescue. The improved YAC-splitting method can convert a targeted region of a eukaryotic chromosome within a YAC into a new replicating YAC.
Development and validation of a sensitive and selective LC–MS/MS method for determination of tacrolimus in oral fluids B Analytical technologies in the biomedical and life sciences (2016)

Tacrolimus is a commonly used immunosuppressive agent in organ transplant recipients. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of tacrolimus is essential to adjust the dose and achieve optimal immunosuppression level. Routine TDM is practiced using whole blood samples obtained through venipuncture. However, tacrolimus concentration that is present in oral fluid (OF) can theoretically represent the free or pharmacologically active form of tacrolimus. In this study, we report the development and validation of a rapid, sensitive and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method for quantification of tacrolimus in OF. Chromatographic separation were achieved on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column by a gradient elution using 2mM ammonium acetate/0.1% (v/v) formic acid in water (mobile phase A) and in methanol (mobile phase B) with a 2.2min chromatographic run time. Tacrolimus was extracted from OF with acetonitrile as the precipitating solvent. Both extraction and chromatography was optimized to provide optimal sample cleanness, negligible matrix effect, and optimal specificity. The lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) for the assay was set at 10pg/mL using a 50μL aliquot of OF obtained by passive drool. The method demonstrated adequate accuracy and precision with accuracy between 94.5–103.6%, and coefficient of variation ranging from 4 to 9.8%. Tacrolimus was stable in OF for up to one month at −80°C and the extracted matrix was stable up to 48h in auto-sampler at 20°C. The method showed high reproducibility as confirmed by incurred sample reanalysis test. This assay was employed in several clinical pharmacokinetic studies and could successfully measure the concentration of tacrolimus in OF.
Challenges and Outlook in Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects (2022)

Deformable object manipulation (DOM) is an emerging research problem in robotics. The ability to manipulate deformable objects endows robots with higher autonomy and promises new applications in the industrial, services, and health-care sectors. However, compared to rigid object manipulation, the manipulation of deformable objects is considerably more complex and is still an open research problem. Addressing DOM challenges demands breakthroughs in almost all aspects of robotics: hardware design, sensing, (deformation) modeling, planning, and control. In this article, we review recent advances and highlight the main challenges when considering deformation in each subfield. A particular focus of our article lies in the discussions of these challenges and proposing future directions of research.
Low-latency architectures for high-throughput rate Viterbi decoders (2004)

In this paper, a novel K-nested layered look-ahead method and its corresponding architecture, which combine K-trellis steps into one trellis step (where K is the encoder constraint length), are proposed for implementing low-latency high-throughput rate Viterbi decoders. The proposed method guarantees parallel paths between any two-trellis states in the look-ahead trellises and distributes the add-compare-select (ACS) computations to all trellis layers. It leads to regular and simple architecture for the Viterbi decoding algorithm. The look-ahead ACS computation latency of the proposed method increases logarithmically with respect to the look-ahead step (M) divided by the encoder constraint length (K) as opposed to linearly as in prior work. For a 4-state (i.e., K=3) convolutional code, the decoding latency of the Viterbi decoder using proposed method is reduced by 84%, at the expense of about 22% increase in hardware complexity, compared with conventional M-step look-ahead method with M=48 (where M is also the level of parallelism). The main advantage of our proposed design is that it has the least latency among all known look-ahead Viterbi decoders for a given level of parallelism.
Maximizing Performance of Residue-Free Fracturing Fluids Using Nanomaterials at High Temperatures (2016)

Abstract Polysaccharide-based fluids such as guar fluids are commonly used in hydraulic fracturing operations, primarily because of their abundance, relative low cost, and capability to work at up to 350°F when formulated at high pH. However, one notable disadvantage for most guar is the insoluble residue which tends to cause permeability reduction. Another disadvantage for using guar-based fluids at high pH is the tendency of forming divalent ion scales at high pH. In general, thermally stable synthetic polymers, such as acrylamide based polymers are considered to be residue-free. They can be used for preparing fracturing fluids around 300-450°F or more. However, high dosage of acrylamide based polymers may still cause formation damage due to factors such as incomplete degradation. This paper demonstrates the advantage of using selected nanomaterials to enhance the thermal stability of the crosslinked synthetic fluids and to reduce the polymer loading. With addition of a small amount of nanomaterials (e.g. 0.02wt%), the polymer loading used at temperatures 300-450°F can be reduced dramatically compared to other existing commercial products. This paper presents results from rheological studies which demonstrate superior viscosity performance and excellent thermal stability of this novel fluid system enhanced with the nanomaterials at this high temperature range. For example, at 30 pounds per one thousand gallons (pptg) polymer dose, the fluid viscosity stays above 500cP (at 40 s-1 shear rate) at 350°F for more than 3 hours. This fracturing fluid system has therefore shown sufficient proppant carrying and transporting capability. The fluids can be efficiently broken to allow for good cleanup using oxidative breakers. Proppant-pack conductivity tests for a 300°F fluid formulation gives 83% regained perm proving the low damaging potential of this type of fluids. Using low loading of residue-free polymer therefore results in better cleanup, reduced formation damage, and enhanced production rates. The nanomaterial-enhanced fracturing fluid system based on the synthetic acrylamide copolymers demonstrates the unforeseen combination of a number of advantages including low polymer loading, excellent high-temperature performance, and high retained permeability.
The Development of the Transvenous Automatic Defibrillator (2000)

The transvenous automatic defibrillator is a device which automatically recognizes and treats ventricular fibrillation. The initial clinical prototype resembles an external pacemaker: the electronic components and power supply are external to the body, the sensing and defibrillating elements being contained in a transvenous catheter. The sensors monitor intracardiac R waves and cardiac contraction. Absence of both signals identifies the arrhythmia and triggers the defibrillatory shock, delivered through the right ventricular electrode and another more proximal on the catheter. If needed, the device recycles automatically. It is also adaptable for pacing and for elective intraatrial cardioversion. Results of animal experiments were successful, and tests are currently being done on patients requiring defl‐brillation during open heart surgery. The clinical indications for the device are numerous and it is hoped that this approach will decrease the present prohibitive mortality from coronary heart disease.
Aerodynamic Focusing of Nanoparticles: II. Numerical Simulation of Particle Motion Through Aerodynamic Lenses (2005)

Abstract We have developed a numerical simulation methodology that is able to accurately characterize the focusing performance of aerodynamic lens systems. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT was used to simulate the gas flow field. Particle trajectories were tracked using the Lagrangian approach. Brownian motion of nanoparticles was successfully incorporated in our numerical simulations. This simulation tool was then used to evaluate the performance of an aerodynamic lens assembly that was designed to focus 3 nm spherical unit density particles following the guidelines described in Paper I (Wang et al. 2005). Our simulations show that the performance of this lens assembly is close to what is predicted by the design guidelines. The simulations also demonstrate the ability of aerodynamic lenses to focus sub-30 nm spherical unit density particles.