gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Preparation of antimicrobial poly(vinyl alcohol) nanofibers containing silver nanoparticles (2006)

Abstract Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers containing Ag nanoparticles were prepared by electrospinning PVA/silver nitrate (AgNO 3 ) aqueous solutions, followed by short heat treatment, and their antimicrobial activity was investigated for wound dressing applications. Since PVA is a water soluble and biocompatible polymer, it is one of the best materials for the preparation of wound dressing nanofibers. After heat treatment at 155 °C for 3 min, the PVA/AgNO 3 nanofibers became insoluble, while the Ag + ions therein were reduced so as to produce a large number of Ag nanoparticles situated preferentially on their surface. The residual Ag + ions were reduced by subsequent UV irradiation for 3 h. The average diameter of the Ag nanoparticles after the heat treatment was 5.9 nm and this value increased slightly to 6.3 nm after UV irradiation. It was found that most of the Ag + ions were reduced by the simple heat treatment. The PVA nanofibers containing Ag nanoparticles showed very strong antimicrobial activity. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 2468–2474, 2006
A Rapid and Simple Procedure for the Establishment of Human Normal and Cancer Renal Primary Cell Cultures from Surgical Specimens (2011)

The kidney is a target organ for the toxicity of several xenobiotics and is also highly susceptible to the development of malignant tumors. In both cases, in vitro studies provide insight to cellular damage, and represent adequate models to study either the mechanisms underlying the toxic effects of several nephrotoxicants or therapeutic approaches in renal cancer. The development of efficient methods for the establishment of human normal and tumor renal cell models is hence crucial. In this study, a technically simple and rapid protocol for the isolation and culture of human proximal tubular epithelial cells and human renal tumor cells from surgical specimens is presented. Tumor and normal tissues were processed by using the same methodology, based on mechanical disaggregation of tissue followed by enzymatic digestion and cell purification by sequential sieving. The overall procedure takes roughly one hour. The resulting cell preparations have excellent viabilities and yield. Establishment of primary cultures from all specimens was achieved successfully. The origin of primary cultured cells was established through morphological evaluation. Normal cells purity was confirmed by immunofluorescent staining and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis for expression of specific markers.
The CMU Design Automation System - An Example of Automated Data Path Design (1979)

This paper illustrates the methodology of the CMU Design Automation system by presenting an automated design of the PDP-8/E data paths from a functional description. This automated design (using synthesis techniques) is compared both to DEC's implementation and the Intersil single chip implementation.
Measurement of distribution coefficients using a radial injection dual‐tracer test (1981)

The dispersive and adsorptive properties of a sandy aquifer were evaluated by using a radial injection dual‐tracer test with 131 I as the nonreactive tracer and 85 Sr as the reactive tracer. The tracer migration was monitored by using multilevel point‐sampling devices located at various radial distances and depths. Nonequilibrium physical and chemical adsorption effects for 85 Sr were treated as a spreading or dispersion mechanism in the breakthrough curve analysis. The resulting effective dispersivity values for 85 Sr (range of 0.7–3.3 cm; mean of 1.9 cm) were typically a factor of 2–5 larger than those obtained for 131 I (range of 0.4–1.5 cm; mean of 0.8). The distribution coefficient values obtained from analysis of the breakthrough curves at three depths and two radial distances ranged from 2.6 to 4.5 ml/g. These compare favorably with values obtained by separation of fluids from solids in sediment cores (4.3–11.7 ml/g), by batch experiments on core sediments (2.8–10.8 ml/g), and by analysis of a 25‐year‐old radioactive waste plume (mean of ≃10 ml/g) in another part of the same aquifer. Correlations of adsorbed 85 Sr radioactivity with grain size fractions demonstrated preferential adsorption to the coarsest fraction (associated with micaceous minerals) and to the finest fraction. The relative amounts of electrostatically and specifically adsorbed 85 Sr on the aquifer sediments were determined with desorption experiments on core sediments using selective chemical extradants. The withdrawal phase breakthrough curves for the well, obtained immediately following the injection phase, showed essentially full tracer recoveries for both 131 I and 85 Sr. Relatively slow desorption Of 85 Sr, indicated by extreme tailing of the return break‐through curve and analysis of residual radioactivity on sediment cores, provided further indication of the nonequilibrium nature of the adsorption‐desorption phenomena.
[Soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-I levels in sera of patients with Kawasaki disease]. (1992)

We investigated whether serum levels of soluble ICAM-1 antigens increases during acute Kawasaki disease (KD). We also compared levels in acute KD with those in anaphylactoid purpura (AP) and in measles. Serum soluble ICAM-1 levels were measured by a double determinant immunoassay using two monoclonal antibodies in the FAST system. Serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) were measured by a specific and sensitive sandwich enzyme immunoassay. Patients with KD, but not with AP or measles, had increased ICAM-1 levels in serum during the acute stage. In addition, during the acute stage, KD patients with coronary-artery lesions (CAL) were found to have increased ICAM-1 levels in serum compared to patients without CAL. We found a positive correlation between serum levels of ICAM-1 and levels of TNF-alpha during acute KD. Our results suggest that the serum level of soluble ICAM-1 is an important immunologic parameter for determining the severity of vascular damage during acute KD.
A strategy to decrease partial scan reconstruction artifacts in myocardial perfusion CT: Phantom and<i>in vivo</i>evaluation (2011)

TSFF demonstrated consistent reduction in CT number variations due to PSR using controlled phantom and in vivo experiments. TSFF-corrected data provided quantitative measures of perfusion (BV, MTT, and BF) with better agreement to a reference method compared to noncorrected data. Practical implementation of TSFF is expected to incur in an additional radiation exposure of 14%, when tube current is modulated to 20% of its maximum, to complete the needed full scan reconstruction.
Second harmonic generation in ferroelectric liquid crystals and their mixtures (1993)

Abstract The second harmonic generation (SHG) in the ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) state has been studied as functions of electric field strength, rotating angle, temperature and molecular structure. It has been confirmed that a sharp angularly phase-matching curve of the SHG controlled by an electric field is observed even in the liquid crystal. The temperature dependences of the phase-matched SHG and Maker fringe in the ferroelectric phase have also been studied, and temperature dependences of non-linear optical coefficients obtained. The SHG in several kinds of FLC and dye doped FLC have also been measured, and the enhancement of SHG realized by means of doping the FLC with several kinds of dye.
Modulation of microglia by Wolfberry on the survival of retinal ganglion cells in a rat ocular hypertension model (2009)

The active component of Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum), lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBP), has been shown to be neuroprotective to retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) against ocular hypertension (OH). Aiming to study whether this neuroprotection is mediated via modulating immune cells in the retina, we used multiphoton confocal microscopy to investigate morphological changes of microglia in whole-mounted retinas. Retinas under OH displayed slightly activated microglia. One to 100 mg/kg LBP exerted the best neuroprotection and elicited moderately activated microglia in the inner retina with ramified appearance but thicker and focally enlarged processes. Intravitreous injection of bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) decreased the survival of RGCs at 4 weeks, and the activated microglia exhibited amoeboid appearance as fully activated phenotype. When activation of microglia was attenuated by intravitreous injection of macrophage/microglia inhibitory factor, protective effect of 10 mg/kg LBP was attenuated. The results implicated that neuroprotective effects of LBP were partly due to modulating the activation of microglia.
Quorum Sensing in Staphylococci Is Regulated via Phosphorylation of Three Conserved Histidine Residues (2004)

Staphylococcus aureus cause infections by producing toxins, a process regulated by cell-cell communication (quorum sensing) through the histidine-phosphorylation of the target of RNAIII-activating protein (TRAP). We show here that TRAP is highly conserved in staphylococci and contains three completely conserved histidine residues (His-66, His-79, His-154) that are phosphorylated and essential for its activity. This was tested by constructing a TRAP(-) strain with each of the conserved histidine residues changed to alanine by site-directed mutagenesis. All mutants were tested for pathogenesis in vitro (expression of RNAIII and hemolytic activity) and in vivo (murine cellulitis model). Results show that RNAIII is not expressed in the TRAP(-) strain, that it is non hemolytic, and that it does not cause disease in vivo. These pathogenic phenotypes could be rescued in the strain containing the recovered traP, confirming the importance of TRAP in S. aureus pathogenesis. The phosphorylation of TRAP mutated in any of the conserved histidine residues was significantly reduced, and mutants defective in any one of these residues were non-pathogenic in vitro or in vivo, whereas those mutated in a non-conserved histidine residue (His-124) were as pathogenic as the wild type. These results confirm the importance of the three conserved histidine residues in TRAP activity. The phosphorylation pattern, structure, and gene organization of TRAP deviates from signaling molecules known to date, suggesting that TRAP belongs to a novel class of signal transducers.
Mining social relationship types in an organization using communication patterns (2013)

Our goal is to show that it is possible to automatically infer social relationship types among people who stay together in an organization by analyzing communication patterns. We collected indoor co-location data and instant messenger data from 22 participants for one month. Based on the data, we designed and explored several indicators which are considered to be useful for mining social relationship types. We applied machine learning techniques using the indicators and found that it is possible to develop an intelligent method to infer social relationship types.
Antigen preservation in microwave‐irradiated tissues: A comparison with formaldehyde fixation (1988)

A wide range of immunoreactive antigens commonly investigated in diagnostic pathology were evaluated in tissues subjected to fixation by microwave irradiation in normal saline to 63 degrees C. All of the 23 antigens studied were well preserved and compared with corresponding tissues conventionally fixed by formaldehyde for periods of 16 and 18 h, respectively, immunostaining in microwave-irradiated tissues was clearly superior, being more intense and also more extensive. Proteolytic digestion was not necessary for irradiated tissues except for the staining of cytokeratins and desmin. It was also possible to stain for Leu-14 (CD22) and Leu-1 (CD5), whereas these lymphocyte antigens were lost during formaldehyde fixation. Cytomorphological details were well preserved in the rapidly-fixed irradiated tissues.
The relationship between tumour T-lymphocyte infiltration, the systemic inflammatory response and survival in patients undergoing curative resection for colorectal cancer (2005)

There is increasing evidence that both local and systemic inflammatory responses play an important role in the progression of a variety of common solid tumours. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between tumour T-lymphocyte subset infiltration, the systemic inflammatory response and cancer-specific survival in patients with colorectal cancer. In all, 147 patients undergoing potentially curative resection for colorectal cancer were studied. Circulating concentrations of C-reactive protein were measured prior to surgery. CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocyte infiltration of the tumour was assessed using immunohistochemistry and a point counting technique. When patients were grouped according to the percentage tumour volume of CD4+ T-lymphocytes, there was no difference in terms of age, sex, tumour site, stage and tumour characteristics. However, there was an inverse relationship between percentage tumour CD4+ T-lymphocytes and C-reactive protein (P<0.01). On univariate analysis, both C-reactive protein concentrations (P<0.001) and percentage tumour volume of CD4+ (P<0.05) T-lymphocytes were associated with cancer-specific survival. The results of the present study show that low tumour CD4+ T-lymphocyte infiltration is associated with elevated C-reactive protein concentrations and both predict poor cancer-specific survival.
Progress With Physically and Logically Reversible Superconducting Digital Circuits (2011)

We continue to develop a new Superconductor Flux Logic (SFL) family based on nSQUID gates with fundamentally low energy dissipation and the ability to operate in irreversible and reversible modes. Prospective computers utilizing the new gates can keep conventional logically irreversible architectures. In this case the energy dissipation is limited by fundamental thermodynamic laws and could be as low as a few <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">kBT</i> s per logic operation. Highly exotic and less practical logically and physically reversible circuit architectures are more attractive for us because they enable a reduction of the specific energy dissipation well below the thermodynamic threshold <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">kBT</i> ln2. The reversible option is of interest to us because we can then experimentally demonstrate that all technical mechanisms of the energy dissipation could be cut below the fundamental thermodynamic limit. In other words, we like to set the energy dissipation record for all conventional digital technologies that (if measured in <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">kBT</i> ) is about one million times below the best figures achieved in commercially available semiconductor circuits. Besides, we believe that diving below the thermodynamic threshold would have impressive scientific and philosophical impacts. In the paper we introduce a new timing belt clocking scheme and present new circuits. While we still work with test circuits, some of them contain two 8-stage shift registers, one with direct and the other with inverted outputs. The energy dissipation per nSQUID gate per bit measured at 4 K temperature is already below the thermodynamic threshold. We are confident that we passed through the critical phase of the project and we simply need more time to make more sophisticated circuits. The extremely low energy dissipation converts our circuits into a natural candidate to support circuitry for any sensors operating at milli-Kelvin temperatures.
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy: A review of the pathology and pathogenesis (1995)

Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy is an important viral opportunistic infection of oligodendrocytes leading to direct demyelination. Virus is likely disseminated to the brain via the blood. However, the timing of that dissemination with relationship to clinical disease is unknown. Important clues about viral pathogenesis have been learned by applying molecular in situ techniques to diseased brain. The oligodendrocyte is the primary target for JC virus infection, and its death is the primary reason for demyelination. Bizarre astrocytes show limited viral DNA replication but are abortively infected. Although lymphoid organs can be infected by JC virus, there is no definitive evidence that lymphoid cells carry virus into the brain at the time of immunosuppression. JC virus may be reactivated from a latent state in both the brain and in non-central nervous system (CNS) organs at the time of immunosuppression, leading to clinical disease. Future sensitive in situ studies will likely resolve controversies about pathogenesis.
Training Deep Spiking Neural Networks for Energy-Efficient Neuromorphic Computing (2020)

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs), widely known as the third generation of neural networks, encode input information temporally using sparse spiking events, which can be harnessed to achieve higher computational efficiency for cognitive tasks. However, considering the rapid strides in accuracy enabled by state-of-the-art Analog Neural Networks (ANNs), SNN training algorithms are much less mature, leading to accuracy gap between SNNs and ANNs. In this paper, we propose different SNN training methodologies, varying in degrees of biofidelity, and evaluate their efficacy on complex image recognition datasets. First, we present biologically plausible Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) based deterministic and stochastic algorithms for unsupervised representation learning in SNNs. Our analysis on the CIFAR-10 dataset indicates that STDP-based learning rules enable the convolutional layers to self-learn low-level input features using fewer training examples. However, STDP-based learning is limited in applicability to shallow SNNs (≤4 layers) while yielding considerably lower than state-of-the-art accuracy. In order to scale the SNNs deeper and improve the accuracy further, we propose conversion methodology to map off-the-shelf trained ANN to SNN for energy-efficient inference. We demonstrate 69.96% accuracy for VGG16-SNN on ImageNet. However, ANN-to-SNN conversion leads to high inference latency for achieving the best accuracy. In order to minimize the inference latency, we propose spike-based error backpropagation algorithm using differentiable approximation for the spiking neuron. Our preliminary experiments on CIFAR-10 show that spike-based error backpropagation effectively captures temporal statistics to reduce the inference latency by up to 8× compared to converted SNNs while yielding comparable accuracy
Polyimides and polyamide–imides containing arylene sulfone ether linkages (1990)

Abstract Polyimides and polyamide–imides containing arylene sulfone ether linkages were synthesized from 4,4′‐bis(4‐isocyanatophenoxy) diphenylsufone (SPI), 4,4′‐bis(3‐isocyanatophenoxy) diphenylsulfone (SMI), pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA), 3,3′,4,4′‐benzophenone tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA), and trimellitic anhydride (TMA) using one‐step method. The diisocyanates SPI and SMI were synthesized from 4,4′‐bis (4‐carboxyphenoxy) diphenylsulfone (SPA) and 4,4′‐bis(3‐carboxyphenoxy) diphenylsulfone (SMA) by a Weinstock‐modified curtius rearrangement method. All the polycondensation reactions were carried out in N ‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP) and the polymers obtained were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, solution viscosity, elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and X‐ray diffraction.
Image-guided diffuse optical fluorescence tomography implemented with Laplacian-type regularization (2007)

A promising method to incorporate tissue structural information into the reconstruction of diffusion-based fluorescence imaging is introduced. The method regularizes the inversion problem with a Laplacian-type matrix, which inherently smoothes pre-defined tissue, but allows discontinuities between adjacent regions. The technique is most appropriately used when fluorescence tomography is combined with structural imaging systems. Phantom and simulation studies were used to illustrate significant improvements in quantitative imaging and linearity of response with the new algorithm. Images of an inclusion containing the fluorophore Lutetium Texaphyrin (Lutex) embedded in a cylindrical phantom are more accurate than in situations where no structural information is available, and edge artifacts which are normally prevalent were almost entirely suppressed. Most importantly, spatial priors provided a higher degree of sensitivity and accuracy to fluorophore concentration, though both techniques suffer from image bias caused by excitation signal leakage. The use of spatial priors becomes essential for accurate recovery of fluorophore distributions in complex tissue volumes. Simulation studies revealed an inability of the "no-priors" imaging algorithm to recover Lutex fluorescence yield in domains derived from T1 weighted images of a human breast. The same domains were reconstructed accurately to within 75% of the true values using prior knowledge of the internal tissue structure. This algorithmic approach will be implemented in an MR-coupled fluorescence spectroscopic tomography system, using the MR images for the structural template and the fluorescence data for region quantification.
Path delay fault diagnosis in combinational circuits with implicit fault enumeration (2001)

A new methodology involving effect-cause analysis has been demonstrated for the diagnosis of path delay faults. The paper illustrates a structural representation, called the suspect circuit, of all the possible path delay faults in a faulty circuit. This representation has been used to design efficient algorithms that enable us to manipulate the suspect faults without having to enumerate them explicitly. Procedures for removing fault-free paths from the list of suspect faults have been implemented to improve the diagnostic resolution. Moreover, efficient data structures are used to complement the procedures and reduce the memory footprint of the algorithms. Results indicate that the diagnostic resolution obtained is very high and includes all possible causes of the observed delay faults.
Liver-resident NK cells confer adaptive immunity in skin-contact inflammation (2013)

Liver natural killer (NK) cells were recently reported to possess memory-like properties in contact hypersensitivity (CHS) models. However, the phenotype and origin of these "memory" NK cells cannot be distinguished from other NK cell subpopulations. Here, we define the transcriptional, phenotypic, and functional features of liver NK cell subsets and their roles in mediating CHS. Liver NK cells can be divided into two distinct subsets: CD49a+DX5- and CD49a-DX5+. Substantial transcriptional and phenotypic differences existed between liver CD49a+DX5- NK cells and other NK cell subsets. CD49a+DX5- NK cells possessed memory potential and conferred hapten-specific CHS responses upon hapten challenge. Importantly, CD49a+DX5- NK cells were liver resident and were present in the liver sinusoidal blood, but not the afferent and efferent blood of the liver. Moreover, they appeared to originate from hepatic hematopoietic progenitor/stem cells (HPCs/HSCs) but not from the bone marrow, and maintained their phenotypes in the steady state. Our findings of liver-resident NK cells shed new light on the acquisition of memory-like properties of NK cells.