gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Performance assessment of outsourced service engagements: Leveraging economic theories based critical success factors (2014)

Periodic performance assessment is critical for outsourced service engagements to ascertain whether client and service provider objectives are being fulfilled. Performance assessment of dynamic system is a systemic problem and calls for systems thinking approach to solve it. Traditional methods of performance assessment of service engagement use metrics, which are not often the real driver of satisfaction [1]. Besides, traditional approaches provide static point-in-time view of the engagement's health. This paper proposes performance assessment along a set of critical success factors (CSF) derived from IT outsourcing theories [2]. These CSFs provide complete perspective to IT outsourcing as they are grounded in economic theories on IT outsourcing. We propose system dynamics modeling and simulation based approach to assess performance of a service engagement along a set of CSFs.
Bioconversion of chitin to chitosan: purification and characterization of chitin deacetylase from Mucor rouxii. (1993)

Chitin deacetylase, the enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of acetamido groups of N-acetylglucosamine in chitin, has been purified to homogeneity from mycelial extracts of the fungus Mucor rouxii and further characterized. The enzyme exhibits a low pI (approximately 3). Its apparent molecular mass was determined to be approximately 75 kDa by sodium dodecyl sulfate/polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and approximately 80 kDa by size-exclusion chromatography, suggesting that the enzyme exists as a monomer. Carbohydrate analysis of purified chitin deacetylase revealed that the enzyme is a high-mannose glycoprotein and that its carbohydrate content is approximately 30% by weight. Chitin deacetylase is active on several chitinous substrates and chitin derivatives. The enzyme requires at least four N-acetylglucosamine residues (chitotetraose) for catalysis, and it is inhibited by carboxylic acids, particularly acetic acid. When glycol chitin (a water-soluble chitin derivative) was used as substrate, the optimum temperature for enzyme activity was determined to be approximately 50 degrees C and the optimum pH was approximately 4.5.
The uniformity and imaging properties of some new ceramic scintillators (2012)

Results are presented of investigations into the composition, uniformity and gamma-ray imaging performance of new ceramic scintillators with synthetic garnet structure. The ceramic scintillators were produced by a process that uses flame pyrolysis to make nanoparticles which are sintered into a ceramic and then compacted by hot isostatic compression into a transparent material. There is concern that the resulting ceramic scintillator might not have the uniformity of composition necessary for use in gamma-ray spectroscopy and gamma-ray imaging. The compositional uniformity of four samples of three ceramic scintillator types (GYGAG:Ce, GLuGAG:Ce and LuAG:Pr) was tested using an electron microprobe. It was found that all samples were uniform in elemental composition to the limit of sensitivity of the microprobe (few tenths of a percent atomic) over distance scales from ~ 1 cm to ~ 1 um. The light yield and energy resolution of all ceramic scintillator samples were mapped with a highly collimated 57Co source (122 keV) and performance was uniform at mapping scale of 0.25 mm. Good imaging performance with single gamma-ray photon detection was demonstrated for all samples using a BazookaSPECT system, and the imaging spatial resolution, measured as the FWHM of a LSF was 150 um.
Aptamer- Based Label-Free Electrochemical Biosensor Array for the Detection of Total and Glycated Hemoglobin in Human Whole Blood (2017)

The increase of the level of glucose in blood leads to an increase in the fraction of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Therefore, the percentage of HbA1c in the blood can serve as a marker for the average glucose level over the past three months and thus, it can be used to diagnose diabetes. Here, we report the selection, identification and characterization of specific DNA aptamers against HbA1c- and total hemoglobin (tHb) and their integration into an electrochemical array sensing platform. High affinity and specificity aptamers were selected in vitro showing dissociation constants of 2.8 and 2.7 nM for HbA1c and tHb, respectively. Thiol-modified forms of the aptamers were then immobilised on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-modified array electrodes and used for the label-free detection of HbA1c and tHb using square wave voltammetry. The voltammetric aptasensors showed high sensitivity with detection limits of 0.2 and 0.34 ng/ml for HbA1c and tHb, respectively. This array platform is superior to the currently available immunoassays in terms of simplicity, stability, ease of use, reduction of sample volume and low cost. Moreover, this method enabled the detection of HbA1c % in human whole blood without any pre-treatment, suggesting great promise of this platform for the diagnosis of diabetes.
III-V based heterostructure integrated thermionic coolers (2002)

Solid state coolers based on III-V materials can be monolithically integrated with optoelectronic and high-speed electronics components. The use of thermionic emission in heterostructures will permit enhanced cooling capacities beyond the linear transport regime. Monte Carlo calculations are used to study the main energy relaxation mechanisms in III-V thin barrier heterostructures, i.e., polar optical phonon and intervalley scattering. The bias dependence of electron energy relaxation length is analyzed and important parameters for the design of heterostructure integrated thermionic (HIT) coolers are identified. Single-stage InGaAsP based HIT coolers have been fabricated and characterized. Cooling up to 0.7 K over a one micron thick barrier has been measured.
SST: An algorithm for searching sequence databases in time proportional to the logarithm of the database size (2000)

We have developed an algorithm, called SST (Sequence Search Tree), that searches a database of DNA sequences for near exact matches, in time proportional to the logarithm of the database size n. In SST, we partition each sequence into fragments of fixed length called &quot;windows&quot; using multiple offsets. Each window is mapped into a vector of dimension 4 k which contains the frequency of occurrence of its component k-tuples, with k a parameter typically in the range 4 \\Gamma 6. Then we create a tree-structured index of the windows in vector space, using tree structured vector quantization (TSVQ). We identify the nearest-neighbors of a query sequence by partitioning the query into windows and searching the tree-structured index for nearest neighbor windows in the database. This yields an O(log n) complexity for the search. SST is most effective for applications in which the target sequences show a high degree of similarity to the query sequence, such as assembling shotgun sequenc...
Homodyne and heterodyne imaging through a scattering medium (2001)

We introduce a novel two-dimensional (2D) homodyne and heterodyne technique for imaging objects through or embedded in a scattering medium. Our imaging approach is based on heterodyning of light with different Doppler broadenings that is scattered from objects of two different textures or from an opaque object and a textured scattering medium. We report on the initial demonstration of pulling signals out of noise for an object hidden behind a scattering medium. Enhancements of signal-to-noise ratio of the order of 50 have been achieved by use of a 2D holographic phase-sensitive detector. We also discuss the experimental feasibility of this approach for objects embedded in a scattering medium.
Comparative performance evaluation of MIMO visible light communication systems (2016)

In this paper, we consider multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible light communication (VLC) systems. The physical layer of VLC system builds upon optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM). Repetition code (RC), spatial multiplexing (SMUX) and spatial modulation (SMUD) are considered as MIMO techniques. We evaluate the performance of three MIMO O-OFDM VLC systems under consideration through the derivation of bit error rate expressions.
Rapid and specific cyclosporine assay for the du pont aca® discrete clinical analyzer performed directly on whole blood (1991)

A rapid, sensitive, and specific enzyme immunometric assay for cyclosporine in whole blood has been developed for the aca analyzer, using a monoclonal antibody from Sandoz, Ltd. Between-run CVs ranged from 6.5 to 7.6% for samples containing between 60 and 400 ng/mL cyclosporine. Sensitivity was better than 25 ng/mL in the assay, which has an effective upper range of greater than 600 ng/mL. Two correlation studies compared cyclosporine values from the Du Pont method to those determined by HPLC procedures in three hospital laboratories. The results from a total of 120 whole blood samples with CsA between 20 and 800 ng/mL showed excellent correlation between the methodologies. HPLC and Du Pont CsA values from 10 day serial studies also correlated well for samples from a kidney, kidney-pancreas, heart, and two liver transplant patients. We conclude that the Du Pont CSA assay provides accurate and reproducible results in a convenient format in less than 30 minutes.
Enzyme-dependent fluorescence recovery of NADH after photobleaching to assess dehydrogenase activity of isolated perfused hearts (2017)

Reduction of NAD<sup>+</sup> by dehydrogenase enzymes to form NADH is a key component of cellular metabolism. In cellular preparations and isolated mitochondria suspensions, enzyme-dependent fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (ED-FRAP) of NADH has been shown to be an effective approach for measuring the rate of NADH production to assess dehydrogenase enzyme activity. Our objective was to demonstrate how dehydrogenase activity could be assessed within the myocardium of perfused hearts using NADH ED-FRAP. This was accomplished using a combination of high intensity UV pulses to photobleach epicardial NADH. Replenishment of epicardial NADH fluorescence was then imaged using low intensity UV illumination. NADH ED-FRAP parameters were optimized to deliver 23.8 mJ of photobleaching light energy at a pulse width of 6 msec and a duty cycle of 50%. These parameters provided repeatable measurements of NADH production rate during multiple metabolic perturbations, including changes in perfusate temperature, electromechanical uncoupling, and acute ischemia/reperfusion injury. NADH production rate was significantly higher in every perturbation where the energy demand was either higher or uncompromised. We also found that NADH production rate remained significantly impaired after 10 min of reperfusion after global ischemia. Overall, our results indicate that myocardial NADH ED-FRAP is a useful optical non-destructive approach for assessing dehydrogenase activity.
Effects of humidity and surface on photoalignment of brilliant yellow (2016)

Controlling and optimising the alignment of liquid crystals is a crucial process for display application. Here, we investigate the effects of humidity and surface types on photoalignment of an azo-dye brilliant yellow (BY). Specifically, the effect of humidity on the photoalignment of BY was studied at the stage of substrate storage before coating, during the spin-coating process, between film coating and exposure, and after exposure. Surprising results are the drastic effect of humidity during the spin-coating process, the humidity annealing to increase the order of the BY layer after exposure and the dry annealing to stabilise the layer. Our results are interpreted in terms of the effect of water on the aggregation of BY. The type of surface studied had minimal effects. Thin BY films (about 3 nm thickness) were sensitive to the hydrophilicity of the surface while thick BY films (about 30 nm thickness) were not affected by changing the surface. The results of this paper allow for the optimisation of the BY photoalignment for liquid crystal display application as well as a better understanding of the BY photoalignment mechanism.
Continuous finite‐time TSM control for electronic throttle system (2019)

This article examines the position tracking difficulties of the electronic throttle (ET) system and presents a continuous finite‐time terminal sliding mode (TSM) control method. The development of this control method involves two procedures: (i) designing a global finite‐time observer to estimate the derivative and higher order derivatives of the ET system output, and the total disturbances; and (ii) construction of a continuous finite‐time TSM controller based on observer estimations, to ensure the realisation of fast finite‐time convergence of system output with a comparatively smooth control action. Comprehensive stability proof, simulation study, and experimental implementation are provided to affirm the applicability of the proposed method.
Synthesis and antibacterial activity of 1-hydroxy-1-methyl-1,3-dihydrofuro[3,4-b]quinoxaline 4,9-dioxide and related compounds (1979)

A Free-Wilson analysis of the antibacterial activity found in a variety of quinoxaline 1,4-dioxides prepared and tested in these laboratories unexpectedly predicted that potent activity should be found in the case where the heterocyclic ring system was substituted with an acetyl group in the 2 position and a hydroxymethyl group in the 3 position (2). The synthesis and antibacterial activity of this compound, which was actually isolated in the hemiketal form (3), and of several of its derivatives are reported. 1-Hydroxy-1-methyl-1,3-dihydrofuro[3,4-b]quinoxaline 4,9-dioxide (3) possesses exceptional activity in vivo against Escherichia coli, Salmonella choleraesuis, and Pasteurella multocida.
Modulation of CD4 T cell function by soluble MHC II-peptide chimeras (2001)

Peptides antigens of 8 to 24 amino acid residues in length that are derived from processing of foreign proteins by antigen presenting cells (APC), and then presented to T cells in the context of major histocompatibility complex molecules (MHC) expressed by APC, are the only physiological ligands for T cell receptor (TCR). Co-ligation of TCR and CD4 co-receptor on T cells by MHC II-peptide complexes (signal 1) leads to various T cell functions depending on the nature of TCR and CD4 co-ligation, and whether costimulatory receptors (signal 2) such as CD28, CTLA-4, CD40L are involved in this interaction. Recently, the advance of genetic engineering led to the generation of a new class of antigen-specific ligands for TCR, i.e., soluble MHC class I-, and MHC class II-peptide chimeras. In principle, these chimeric molecules consist of an antigenic peptide which is covalently linked to the amino terminus of alpha-chain in the case of MHC I, or beta-chains in the case of MHC II molecules. Conceptually, such TCR/CD4 ligands shall provide the signal 1 to T cells. Since soluble MHC-peptide chimeras showed remarkable regulatory effects on peptide-specific T cells in vitro and in vivo, they may represent a new generation of immunospecific T cell modulators with potential therapeutic applicability in autoimmune and infectious diseases. This review is focused on the immunomodulatory effects of soluble, MHC class II-peptide chimeras, and discuss these effects in the context of the most accepted theories on T cell regulation.
A Motion Vector Entropy Coding Scheme Based on Motion Field Referencing for Video Compression (2018)

Video codec exploits the temporal correlations in video signal through block-based motion compensated prediction. The motion vector associated with each prediction unit needs to be coded in the bit-stream. A differential coding scheme that employs the motion information from spatial neighbors and collocated blocks in the reference frames to predict the current motion vector is commonly used. Its efficacy is largely limited to track consistent or slow motion activities. A linear projection model is proposed in this work to create a motion field estimation that is capable to capture motion trajectory with high velocity. The resulting motion field motion vectors (MFMV) are fed into a dynamic motion vector referencing system as candidates in addition to those obtained from the spatial neighboring blocks. It allows the codec to closely track complex motion activities that the spatial neighbors or collocated motion vector referencing system usually fail to keep synchronized with. The MFMV system improves the prediction quality of the motion vectors and substantially reduces the energy in the difference motion vector for entropy coding, which translates into considerable compression performance improvements, especially for video sequences that contain complex motion activities. A number of design considerations to make the computation efficiency in both hardware and software platforms practical for production are discussed.
Separation and characterization of a novel isoenzyme of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase from rat cerebrum (1994)

Anion-exchange chromatography on a Mono-Q column of the supernatant fraction, after ultracentrifugation, from a homogenate of rat cerebrum, prepared under isotonic conditions in the presence of protease inhibitors, yielded a novel isoenzyme of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) with properties unlike those of known PDEs. The isoenzyme was insensitive to stimulation by Ca2+/calmodulin and cyclic GMP, and it hydrolyzed both cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP with KM values of 0.109 +/- 0.008 microM and 1.78 +/- 0.04 microM, respectively. The ratio of Vmax of hydrolysis of cyclic GMP to that of cyclic AMP was 1.90 +/- 0.07. Nicardipine (PDE I inhibitor), SK&F 94120 (PDE III inhibitor), rolipram (PDE IV inhibitor) and zaprinast (PDE V inhibitor) had very weak inhibitory effects on the PDE activity of the isoenzyme. These results suggest that the isoenzyme is a novel and previously unreported species of PDE, which we tentatively designate PDE VIII.
New extraction process for recovery of metals in glass deposits (2017)

A new process, named salt extraction process, has been developed to enable recovery of metal values from secondary sources e.g. scrap and waste materials such as slag and flue dust. It is also feasible in extracting metals from certain ores that normally are difficult to enrich and process by traditional metallurgy – two examples are nickel and cobalt. The salt extraction process has also been applied in the recovery of metals from silicates including lead from glass wastes.The process is based on the extraction of metal values from the raw materials into a molten salt bath consisting of NaCl, LiCl, and KCl corresponding to the ternary eutectic composition and with AlCl3 dissolved in the salt melt acting as the chlorinating agent. This is followed by the electrolysis of the salt bath in the same reactor. The normal processing temperature is in the range 973 K (700 °C) to 1173 K (900 °C). The aluminium chloride in the salt bath reacts with the metals in the fine comminuted raw material and metal ions are formed in the chloride bath. During the electrolysis, the metal ions reach the solid cathode and get deposited in metallic form. Liquid aluminium is used as the anode. Chlorine gas formed at the anode reacts with aluminium forming aluminium chloride in situ, which gets dissolved in the salt melt supplying the required amount of the flux.The salt extraction process has been used successfully in the extraction of Cr and Fe from electric arc furnace (EAF) silicate slag. Experiments have also been carried out in which lead has been recovered with high yield from spent cathode ray tubes. The process was shown to be successful in the extraction of the rare-earth metals neodymium and dysprosium from permanent magnet scrap. The method is a highly promising process route for the recovery of strategic metals. It also has the added important advantage of being environment-friendly, with only small amount recyclable, potentially useful rest products like alumina and silica as with limited energy consumption.
Integrated Wideband Self-Interference Cancellation in the RF Domain for FDD and Full-Duplex Wireless (2015)

A fully integrated technique for wideband cancellation of transmitter (TX) self-interference (SI) in the RF domain is proposed for multiband frequency-division duplexing (FDD) and full-duplex (FD) wireless applications. Integrated wideband SI cancellation (SIC) in the RF domain is accomplished through: 1) a bank of tunable, reconfigurable second-order high-Q RF bandpass filters in the canceller that emulate the antenna interface's isolation (essentially frequency-domain equalization in the RF domain) and 2) a linear N-path G <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</sub> -C filter implementation with embedded variable attenuation and phase shifting. A 0.8-1.4 GHz receiver (RX) with the proposed wideband SIC circuits is implemented in a 65 nm CMOS process. In measurement, >20 MHz 20 dB cancellation bandwidth (BW) is achieved across frequency-selective antenna interfaces: 1) a custom-designed LTElike 0.780/0.895 GHz duplexer with TX/RX isolation peak magnitude of 30 dB, peak group delay of 11 ns, and 7 dB magnitude variation across the TX band for FDD and 2) a 1.4 GHz antenna pair for FD wireless with TX/RX isolation peak magnitude of 32 dB, peak group delay of 9 ns, and 3 dB magnitude variation over 1.36-1.38 GHz. For FDD, SIC enhances the effective outof-band (OOB) IIP3 and IIP2 to +25-27 dBm and +90 dBm, respectively (enhancements of 8-10 and 29 dB, respectively). For FD, SIC eliminates RX gain compression for as high as -8 dBm of peak in-band (IB) SI, and enhances effective IB IIP3 and IIP2 by 22 and 58 dB.
Association of the RGS2 gene with extrapyramidal symptoms induced by treatment with antipsychotic medication (2007)

Subject to replication, these findings suggest that genetic variation in the RGS2 gene is associated with susceptibility to extrapyramidal symptoms induced by antipsychotic drugs.
Speech and music recognition with acoustic simulations of a harmonic single sideband encoding strategy for cochlear implants. (2011)

Cochlear implant users experience difficulties in speech perception in noise and music perception. Previous studies suggested that these difficulties are partially due to the lack of temporal fine structure (TFS) coding in cochlear implants [Moore, JARO (2008)]. TFSs are generally high-frequency signals; therefore, delivering perceivable TFS cues in electrical hearing is a challenge because the temporal sensitivity in cochlear implants is typically restricted to 300 Hz and below. A recently-proposed strategy, harmonic single sideband encoder (HSSE), could potentially use the harmonic structure of sounds to coherently demodulate TFS information [Li et al., ICASSP (2010)]. To evaluate these potential benefits to speech and music perception, this study compared the performance of five normal hearing listeners using four- and eight-channel sinusoidal vocoder simulations of HSSE and the continuous interleaved stimulation (CIS) strategy. Scores on the following tasks were measured: sentence recognition in noise and single-talker maskers, melody and timbre recognition, and Mandarin tone discrimination. In all of the tasks, HSSE listeners obtained a significant performance improvement over the CIS vocoder. Furthermore, simulation results from an electrically-stimulated model of the auditory nerve fibers demonstrated that HSSE is capable of encoding temporal pitch cues better than CIS. [This study was supported by NIH R01-DC007525, P30-DC004661, and T32-DC005361; AFOSR Grant FA9550061019; CGF 657635; ITHS 620491; Advanced Bionics Graduate Fellowship; and NSF TG-IBN090004.]