gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Isolation of human leukocyte antigen G/cytokeratin 7 positive fetal cells from transcervical samples for potential use in prenatal genetic diagnosis (2015)

There has been an increase in rates of chromosomal abnormalities in newborns as a result of reproductive aging. For the past decades, a lot of effort has been placed on identifying pregnancies at risk of genetic defects. Conventional prenatal genetic diagnosis is achieved by invasive procedures that have been associated with an increased risk of pregnancy loss. This has led the researchers to explore the use of non-/minimally invasive techniques for prenatal diagnosis.\nTrophoblasts are known to be shed from regressing chorionic villi into the lower uterine pole of pregnant women during the first trimester. These cells are trapped within cervical mucus, which can be retrieved with a cytobrush. By using human leukocyte antigen G (HLA-G) and cytokeratin-7 (CK7) as trophoblast markers, this study aims to investigate the possibility of isolating individual fetal trophoblast from transcervical samples for genetic diagnosis.\n195 healthy pregnant women requesting for legal termination of pregnancy (TOP) were recruited in this study. Transcervical cells were collected from them with the use of a cytobrush before TOP. HLA-G+ or CK7+ cells were then isolated by a combination of mucolytic action, fluorescent immunohistochemistry, and micromanipulation. The origin of these cells was subsequently investigated by either fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) or allelic profiling by quantitative fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) based on chromosome 16, chromosome X, amelogenin gene and sex determining region Y (SRY) gene.\nThis study first demonstrated the presence of fetal cells in transcervical samples based on the detection of chromosome Y signal by ordinary PCR. Cells expressing HLA-G and CK7 were also identified among transcervical cells. Immunopositive cells were isolated by micromanipulation under fluorescent microscopy. One isolated cell expressing CK7 was shown to inherit paternal allele at a locus on chromosome 16, suggesting the possible fetal origin of this cell. However, this study was still hampered by a number of technical factors. Further optimization of the protocol is required before transcervical trophoblasts can be retrieved in a reliable manner.
Selenocysteine insertion directed by the 3'-UTR SECIS element in Escherichia coli (2005)

Co-translational insertion of selenocysteine (Sec) into proteins in response to UGA codons is directed by selenocysteine insertion sequence (SECIS) elements. In known bacterial selenoprotein genes, SECIS elements are located in the coding regions immediately downstream of UGA codons. Here, we report that a distant SECIS element can also function in Sec insertion in bacteria provided that it is spatially close to the UGA codon. We expressed a mammalian phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase in Escherichia coli from a construct in which a natural E.coli SECIS element was located in the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) and adjacent to a sequence complementary to the region downstream of the Sec UGA codon. Although the major readthrough event at the UGA codon was insertion of tryptophan, Sec was also incorporated and its insertion was dependent on the functional SECIS element in the UTR, base-pairing potential of the SECIS flanking region and the Sec UGA codon. These data provide important implications into evolution of SECIS elements and development of a system for heterologous expression of selenoproteins and show that in addition to the primary sequence arrangement between UGA codons and SECIS elements, their proximity within the tertiary structure can support Sec insertion in bacteria.
Universal Interfacing Circuit for Resistive-Bridge Sensors (2010)

A universal interfacing circuit for resistive-bridge sensing elements and bridge-output-to-frequency and/or duty cycle converters is described in this paper. It is based on a simple, cost effective three-point measuring technique and does not require any additional active components. The designed IC has been realized in a standard CMOS technology as a low power Application Specific Integrated Processor (ASIP). The active supply current at operating voltage +4.5 V and clock frequency 20 MHz is not more than 9.5 mA The circuit has been tested with a strain gauges bridge emulator and differential pressure resistive bridge sensor SX30GD2.
Automated macromolecular crystallization screening (2023)

An automated macromolecular crystallization screening system wherein a multiplicity of reagent mixes are produced. A multiplicity of analysis plates is produced utilizing the reagent mixes combined with a sample. The analysis plates are incubated to promote growth of crystals. Images of the crystals are made. The images are analyzed with regard to suitability of the crystals for analysis by x-ray crystallography. A design of reagent mixes is produced based upon the expected suitability of the crystals for analysis by x-ray crystallography. A second multiplicity of mixes of the reagent components is produced utilizing the design and a second multiplicity of reagent mixes is used for a second round of automated macromolecular crystallization screening. In one embodiment the multiplicity of reagent mixes are produced by a random selection of reagent components.
Montmorillonite‐K10‐Catalyzed Microwave‐Assisted Direct Amidation of Unactivated Carboxylic Acids with Amines: Maintaining Chiral Integrity of Substrates (2017)

Abstract A green, microwave‐assisted methodology for the selective direct amidation of carboxylic acids with amines, using montmorillonite K10 as a heterogeneous catalyst, has been developed. This is an efficient transition‐metal‐free, montmorillonite‐K10‐catalyzed direct amidation of carboxylic acids. The method is compatible with sterically hindered α‐branched, aliphatic, benzylic, aromatic, unsaturated and conjugated carboxylic acids. Moreover, chiral integrity of substrates remained unchanged after the reaction.
Glycosidic-Bond Hydrolysis Mechanism Catalyzed by Cellulase Cel7A from Trichoderma reesei: A Comprehensive Theoretical Study by Performing MD, QM, and QM/MM Calculations (2010)

Cellulase Cel7A from Trichoderma reesei is one of the most abundant and effective cellulases. Structural studies have established that Cel7A is a retaining glycosidase and it can processively hydrolyze cellobiose units from the reducing end of a cellulose chain. Here, to elucidate the mechanism of enzymatic catalysis of cellulase Cel7A, we carried out a multisized level theoretical study by performing MD, QM, and QM/MM calculations. At the accurate level of theory, we showed the mechanism details of the catalytic cycle, which involves the configuration inversion of the anomeric center twice: the first results in the glycosidic bond cleavage and the formation of covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediate, and the second restores the anomeric carbon to its original configuration. Calculated results have provided detailed structural and energetic information about these two processes, both of which proceed according to a S(N)2-type-like mechanism via loose transition state structures. It is clearly indicated that the glycosidic bond hydrolysis involves the formation of a covalent glycosyl-enzyme intermediate, which has been identified as the minimum on the potential energy surface. At the catalytic active region, hydrogen bond interactions exist throughout the whole process of the catalytic cycle, which are of special importance for stabilizing the glycosyl-enzyme intermediate. The present results provide a clear paradigm of the mechanisms of general glycosidases, which hydrolyze the glycosidic bonds with net retention of the anomeric configuration.
Primary Cell Model for Activation-Inducible Human Immunodeficiency Virus (2007)

Quiescent T lymphocytes containing latent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) provide a long-lived viral reservoir. This reservoir may be the source of active infection that is reinitiated following the cessation of antiretroviral therapy. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms involved in latent infection to develop new strategies to eliminate the latent HIV reservoir. We have previously demonstrated that latently infected quiescent lymphocytes can be generated during thymopoiesis in vivo in the SCID-hu mouse system. However, there is still a pressing need for an in vitro model of HIV latency in primary human cells. Here, we present a novel in vitro model that recapitulates key aspects of dormant HIV infection. Using an enhanced green fluorescent protein-luciferase fusion protein-containing reporter virus, we have generated a stable infection in primary human CD4(+) CD8(+) thymocytes in the absence of viral gene expression. T-cell activation induces a >200-fold induction of reporter activity. The induced reporter activity originates from a fully reverse-transcribed and integrated genome. We further demonstrate that this model can be useful to study long terminal repeat regulation, as previously characterized NF-kappaB response element mutations decrease the activation of viral gene expression. This model can therefore be used to study intricate molecular aspects of activation-inducible HIV infection in primary cells.
Innate Immune-Mediated Neuronal Injury Consequent to Loss of Astrocytes (2008)

Neuronal injury and loss are recognized features of neuroinflammatory disorders, including acute and chronic encephalitides and multiple sclerosis; destruction of astrocytes has been demonstrated in cases of Rasmussen encephalitis. Here, we show that innate immune cells (i.e. natural killer [NK] and gammadelta T cells) cause loss of neurons from primary human neuron-enriched cultures by destroying the supporting astrocytes. Interleukin 2-activated NK cells caused loss of astrocytes within 1 hour, whereas neurons were lost at 4 hours. Time-lapse imaging indicated that delayed neuron loss was due to early destruction of supporting astrocytes. Selective blocking of astrocyte death with anti-NKG2D antibodies reduced neuron loss, as did blocking of CD54 on astrocytes. gammadelta T cells also induced astrocyte cytotoxicity, leading to subsequent neuronal displacement. In astrocytes, NK cells caused caspase-dependent fragmentation of the intermediate filament proteins glial fibrillary acidic protein and vimentin, whereas anti-CD3-activated T cells produced fragmentation to a lesser extent and without measurable cytotoxicity. Glial fibrillary acidic protein fragmentation was also demonstrated in lysates from chronic multiple sclerosis plaques but not from normal control white matter. These data suggest that non-major histocompatibility complex-restricted immune effector cells may contribute to neuron loss in neuroinflammatory disorders indirectly through injury of glia.
Two‐Dimensional protein map of <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i>: Construction of a gene–protein index (1995)

This publication marks the beginning of the construction of a gene-protein index that relates proteins which are resolved on the two-dimensional protein map of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with their corresponding genes. We report the identification of 36 novel polypeptide spots on the yeast protein map. They correspond to the products of 26 genes. Together with the polypeptide spots previously identified, this raises to 41 the number of genes whose products have been identified on the protein map. The proteins identified here are concerned with four major areas of yeast cellular physiology: carbon metabolism, heat shock, amino acid biosynthesis and purine biosynthesis. Given the molecular weight and isoelectric point of the identified proteins, and the codon-usage bias of the corresponding genes, it can be estimated that 25 to 35% of all the soluble yeast proteins are detectable under the labelling and running gel conditions used in this study.
Frac sand mining countries to keep an eye on (2014)

The world's largest shale oil resource, Russia's Bazhenov, is set to be exploited this spring with ExxonMobil and Russian state oil company Rosneft leading this new phase of exploration.

Alongside the reserves in Western Siberia's Bazhenov formation, which spans an area of roughly 570m acres (2.3m km 2 ), about 80 times the size of North Dakota's Bakken shale, northern Siberia's Achimov formation and the Domanik formation in the Volga-Urals region also has viable resources.

French oil and gas giant Total became one of the first oil majors to invest in the UK's burgeoning shale gas industry, with an investment of a reported Pounds 12.7m, but environmentalists are calling for the company to halt its shale exploration projects until the result is known of an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into a gas leak in the North Sea in 2012.
Design Concept of MAS Effect Dominant MAMR Head and Numerical Study (2020)

We summarize several key factors in microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) design, particularly interactions between spin-torque oscillators (STOs) and write poles, frequency matching, the negative flux-control (FC) effect, and the STO vertical field effect. To satisfy these key factors, we study several configurations with longer gap lengths of 30 nm using a simulation based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation with a spin torque (ST) term including both the write head and STO. This simulation compared a dual spin-injection layer (SIL) structure, a dual flux-generation layer (FGL) structure, and two types of all-in-plane STO. While the dual SIL and dual FGL structures indicate sufficient oscillation behavior to satisfy the examined key factors, the dual SIL structure demonstrates poorer signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance than even conventional magnetic recording (CMR). We conclude that this poor performance is due to the STO vertical field effect. We newly propose a dual FGL structure with no vertical field in the in-plane field peak, leading to much better performance than that of the dual SIL structure. While this structure requires a much longer write gap than does a CMR writer, it retains an erase width comparable with CMR writers. These results indicate that MAMR with the proposed dual FGL structure will be usable at over 2800 kFCI without TPI loss.
Selective Oligomerization of Ethylene to Linear α-Olefins by Tetrahedral Cobalt(II) Complexes with 6-(Organyl)-2-(imino)pyridyl Ligands:  Influence of the Heteroatom in the Organyl Group on the Catalytic Activity (2003)

The oligomerization of ethylene to α-olefins has been obtained by MAO activation of tetrahedral CoII complexes of iminopyridines substituted in the 6-position of the pyridine ring by thiophen-2-yl, furan-2-yl, or phenyl groups. An intriguing heteroatom effect has been noticed on both activity and selectivity, together with a change in the CoII spin state upon activation of the dichloride precursors with MAO.
Relationship between antibacterial activity of chitosan and surface characteristics of cell wall. (2004)

Results showed the hydrophilicity in Gram-negative bacteria was much higher than in Gram-positive ones. The correlation coefficient 0.988 between the amount of absorbed chitosan and its inhibition efficiency indicated a close relationship.
A novel voltage-control scheme for low-voltage DC-DC converters with fast transient recovery (2000)

This paper proposes a novel voltage-control scheme to improve the slow dynamic response of the conventional pulse-width-modulation (PWM) continuous-current-mode (CCM) voltage-programming DC-DC converter. By introducing a high-pass notch filter in the control loop of the conventional converter, the unity gain bandwidth of the loop gain is enhanced and the system Q value is decreased. To demonstrate the improvement in the transient response, voltage-programming PWM CCM DC-DC converters with both the conventional and the proposed control schemes are designed and simulated. Results show that the dynamic response has 10 times improvement.
Resource Access Management for a Utility Hosting Enterprise Applications (2003)

In this paper we introduce a Resource Access Management (RAM) framework for resource utilities that facilitates Class of Service (CoS) based automated resource management. The framework may be used to offer resources on demand to enterprise applications that have time varying resource needs. The classes of service include guaranteed, predictable best effort, and best effort. The analytical apparatus we exploit requires the notion of application demand profiles that specify each application’s resource requirements. These profiles may be statistical in nature. Consequently a policing mechanism is introduced to constrain each application’s resource usage within its profile. A case study that exploits data from 48 data center servers, is used to demonstrate the framework. We show that our techniques are effective in: exploiting statistical multiplexing while providing service level assurances, limiting application demands in the presence of hostile application behaviour, and providing for differentiated service levels as planned.
Induction of inclusion formation and disruption of lamin A/C structure by premutation CGG-repeat RNA in human cultured neural cells (2005)

Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects some adult carriers of pre-mutation alleles (55-200 CGG repeats) of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene. FXTAS is thought to be caused by a toxic 'gain-of-function' of the expanded CGG-repeat FMR1 mRNA, which is found in the neuronal and astrocytic intranuclear inclusions associated with the disorder. Using a reporter construct with a FMR1 5' untranslated region harboring an expanded (premutation) CGG repeat, we have demonstrated that intranuclear inclusions can be formed in both primary neural progenitor cells and established neural cell lines. As with the inclusions found in post-mortem tissue, the inclusions induced by the expanded CGG repeat are alphaB-crystallin-positive; however, inclusions in culture are not associated with ubiquitin, indicating that incorporation of ubiquitinated proteins is a later event in the disease process. The absence of ubiquitinated proteins also argues against a model in which inclusion formation is due to a failure of the proteasomal degradative machinery. The presence of the expanded CGG repeat, as RNA, results in reduced cell viability as well as the disruption of the normal architecture of lamin A/C within the nucleus. This last observation, and the findings that lamin A/C is present in both the inclusions of FXTAS patients and the inclusions in cell culture, suggests that lamin A/C dysregulation may be a component of the pathogenesis of FXTAS; in particular, the Charcot-Marie-Tooth-type neuropathy associated with FXTAS may represent a functional laminopathy.
Reductive Dechlorination of Activated Carbon‐Adsorbed Trichloroethylene by Zero‐Valent Iron: Carbon as Electron Shuttle (2011)

Sequestration of organic contaminants in carbonaceous materials can significantly affect contaminant fate and transport. We investigated the reductive dechlorination of granular-activated carbon (GAC)-adsorbed trichloroethylene (TCE) by nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) to understand the effect of sequestration on abiotic reactivity of organic contaminants. Significant reduction of TCE sequestered in GAC micropores was observed, even though direct contact with nZVI was unlikely. Reduction of sequestered TCE by reactive Fe(II) species or molecular hydrogen was ruled out as the reaction mechanisms. We propose that GAC served as the conductor for the transfer of electrons or atomic hydrogen from nZVI to the micropores, wherein adsorbed TCE molecules were reduced. An important implication for environmental remediation is that carbonaceous adsorbents not only function as a superb sink for organic contaminants but also allow them to be slowly degraded while being trapped.
Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor administration to healthy volunteers: analysis of the immediate activating effects on circulating neutrophils (1994)

In four healthy volunteers, we analyzed in detail the immediate in vivo effects on circulating neutrophils of subcutaneous administration of 300 micrograms of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). Neutrophil activation was assessed by measurement of degranulation. Mobilization of secretory vesicles was shown by a decrease in leukocyte alkaline phosphatase content of the circulating neutrophils. Furthermore, shortly postinjection, Fc gamma RIII was found to be upregulated from an intracellular pool that we identified by immunoelectron microscopy as secretory vesicles. Intravascular release of specific granules was shown by increased plasma levels of lactoferrin and by upregulation of the expression of CD66b and CD11b on circulating neutrophils. Moreover, measurement of fourfold elevated plasma levels of elastase, bound to its physiologic inhibitor alpha 1-antitrypsin, indicated mobilization of azurophil granules. However, no expression of CD63, a marker of azurophil granules, was observed on circulating neutrophils. G-CSF--induced mobilization of secretory vesicles and specific granules could be mimicked in whole blood cultures in vitro, in contrast to release of azurophil granules. Therefore, we postulate that the most activated neutrophils leave the circulation, as observed shortly postinjection, and undergo subsequent stimulation in the endothelial microenvironment, resulting in mobilization of azurophil granules. Our data demonstrate that G-CSF should be regarded as a potent immediate activator of neutrophils in vivo.
General Principles and Strategies for Salting-Out Informed by the Hofmeister Series (2017)

Overarching principles for salting-out extraction are long-established but poorly disseminated. We highlight the opportunity for more widespread application of this technique using the Hofmeister series as a foundational basis for choosing the right salt. The power of this approach is exemplified by the aqueous workup of a highly water-soluble nucleoside in which the use of sodium sulfate allowed for high recoveries without relying on back extraction.
Beyond audiofacial morbidity after vestibular schwannoma surgery (2009)

This study provides statistically powerful data for practitioners to advise patients about the published risks of surgery for VS unrelated to compromised CNs VII and VIII.