gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Enhanced stimulation of human tumor-specific T cells by dendritic cells matured in the presence of interferon-γ and multiple toll-like receptor agonists (2017)

Dendritic cell (DC) vaccines have been demonstrated to elicit immunological responses in numerous cancer immunotherapy trials. However, long-lasting clinical effects are infrequent. We therefore sought to establish a protocol to generate DC with greater immunostimulatory capacity. Immature DC were generated from healthy donor monocytes by culturing in the presence of IL-4 and GM-CSF and were further differentiated into mature DC by the addition of cocktails containing different cytokines and toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists. Overall, addition of IFNγ and the TLR7/8 agonist R848 during maturation was essential for the production of high levels of IL-12p70 which was further augmented by adding the TLR3 agonist poly I:C. In addition, the DC matured with IFNγ, R848, and poly I:C also induced upregulation of several other pro-inflammatory and Th1-skewing cytokines/chemokines, co-stimulatory receptors, and the chemokine receptor CCR7. For most cytokines and chemokines the production was even further potentiated by addition of the TLR4 agonist LPS. Concurrently, upregulation of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was modest. Most importantly, DC matured with IFNγ, R848, and poly I:C had the ability to activate IFNγ production in allogeneic T cells and this was further enhanced by adding LPS to the cocktail. Furthermore, epitope-specific stimulation of TCR-transduced T cells by peptide- or whole tumor lysate-loaded DC was efficiently stimulated only by DC matured in the full maturation cocktail containing IFNγ and the three TLR ligands R848, poly I:C, and LPS. We suggest that this cocktail is used for future clinical trials of anti-cancer DC vaccines.
Selective kallikrein inhibitors alter human neutrophil elastase release during extracorporeal circulation (1995)

Cardiopulmonary bypass causes hemorrhagic complications and initiates a biochemical and cellular “whole body inflammatory response.” This study investigates whether a variety of selective inhibitors of the contact pathway of intrinsic coagulation modulate complement and neutrophil activation during simulated extracorporeal circulation. After 60 min of recirculation in the presence of the slow tight-binding boronic acid inhibitor, Bz-Pro-Phe-boroArg-OH (10.7 microM), complete inhibition of kallikrein-C1-inhibitor complex formation and marked inhibition of C1-C1-inhibitor complex formation and the release of human neutrophil elastase were observed. Arg15-aprotinin (3.1 microM), Ala357,Arg358 alpha 1-antitrypsin (2.6 microM), and soybean trypsin inhibitor (48.0 microM) either completely or partially inhibited the generation of kallikrein-C1-inhibitor complexes but were less effective inhibitors of human neutrophil elastase release. The second-order rate constants for the inhibition of kallikrein in purified systems are consistent with the order of effectiveness of the inhibitors in blocking human neutrophil elastase release in heparinized blood. Our results suggest that low-molecular-weight selective inhibitors of kallikrein may be effective agents in the attenuation of the contact-mediated inflammatory response in cardiopulmonary bypass.
Noninvasive optoacoustic temperature determination at the fundus of the eye during laser irradiation (2004)

In all fundus laser treatments of the eye, the temperature increase is not exactly known. In order to optimize treatments, an online temperature determination is preferable. We investigated a noninvasive optoacoustic method to monitor the fundus temperature during pulsed laser irradiation. When laser pulses are applied to the fundus, thermoelastic pressure waves are emitted, due to thermal expansion of the heated tissue. Using a constant pulse energy, the amplitude of the pressure wave increases linearly with an increase in the base temperature of between 30 and 80 degrees C. This method was evaluated in vitro on porcine retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cell samples and clinically during selective RPE treatment with repetitive microsecond laser pulses. During the irradiation of porcine RPE with a neodymium-doped yttrium (Nd:YLF) laser (527 nm, 1.7 micros, 500 Hz repetition rate, 160 mJ/cm(2)) an increase in the base temperature of 30+/-4 degrees C after 100 pulses was found. During patient treatments, a temperature increase of 60+/-11 degrees C after 100 pulses with a 500-Hz repetition rate and 7+/-1 degrees C after 30 pulses with 100 Hz at 520 mJ/cm(2) was found. All measured data were in good agreement with heat diffusion calculations. Optoacoustic methods can be used to noninvasively determine retinal temperatures during pulsed laser treatment of the eye. This technique can also be adapted to continuous-wave photocoagulation, photodynamic therapy and transpupillary thermotherapy, or other fields of laser-heated tissue.
Principles for human-centered interaction design, Part 2: Can humans and machines think together? (2015)

This column introduces the Network Observatory, a human-centered cyber sensemaking system, and discusses the visual and sensemaking design principles employed therein.
A Reference Instrument for 20°, 60° and 85° Gloss Measurements (1980)

NRC publication: Yes
A Low-Cost High-Performance Digital Radar Test Bed (2012)

This paper describes the design of a dual-channel S-band digital radar test bed. The test bed combines stretch processing with a novel and cost-effective hardware architecture that enables it to achieve an in-band dynamic range of 60 dB over 600 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth. The dual digital receiver channels allow for adaptive digital beamforming which can be used to mitigate a directional source of interference. Experimental test and verification results are presented to demonstrate system performance.
Plasma Circulating Tumor DNA in Pancreatic Cancer Patients Is a Prognostic Marker (2016)

ctDNA is an independent prognostic marker in advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Furthermore, it arises as an indicator of shorter disease-free survival in resected patients when detected after surgery. Clin Cancer Res; 23(1); 116-23. ©2016 AACR.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio Analysis of Policy Gradient Algorithms (2008)

Policy gradient (PG) reinforcement learning algorithms have strong (local) con-vergence guarantees, but their learning performance is typically limited by a large variance in the estimate of the gradient. In this paper, we formulate the variance reduction problem by describing a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for policy gradient algorithms, and evaluate this SNR carefully for the popular Weight Perturbation (WP) algorithm. We confirm that SNR is a good predictor of long-term learn-ing performance, and that in our episodic formulation, the cost-to-go function is indeed the optimal baseline. We then propose two modifications to traditional model-free policy gradient algorithms in order to optimize the SNR. First, we examine WP using anisotropic sampling distributions, which introduces a bias into the update but increases the SNR; this bias can be interpreted as following the natural gradient of the cost function. Second, we show that non-Gaussian distribu-tions can also increase the SNR, and argue that the optimal isotropic distribution is a ‘shell ’ distribution with a constant magnitude and uniform distribution in direc-tion. We demonstrate that both modifications produce substantial improvements in learning performance in challenging policy gradient experiments. 1
Growth and N Allocation in Rice Plants under CO2 Enrichment (1997)

The effects of CO2 enrichment on growth and N allocation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) were examined. The plants were grown hydroponically in growth chambers with a 14-h photoperiod (1000 [mu]mol quanta m-2 s-1) and a day/night temperature of 25/20[deg]C. From the 28th to 70th d after germination, the plants were exposed to two CO2 partial pressures, namely 36 and 100 Pa. The CO2 enrichment increased the final biomass, but this was caused by a stimulation of the growth rate during the first week of the exposure to elevated CO2 partial pressures. The disappearance of the initial stimulation of the growth rate was associated with a decreased leaf area ratio. Furthermore, CO2 enrichment decreased the investment of N in the leaf blades, whereas the N allocation into the leaf sheaths and roots increased. Thus, the decrease in leaf N content by CO2 enrichment was not due to dilution of N caused by a relative increase in the plant biomass but was due to the change in N allocation at the whole-plant level. We conclude that the growth responses of rice to CO2 enrichment are mainly controlled by leaf area expansion and N allocation into leaf blades at the whole-plant level.
Regulation and manipulation of ABA biosynthesis in roots (2006)

Overexpression of 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) is known to cause abscisic acid (ABA) accumulation in leaves, seeds and whole plants. Here we investigated the manipulation of ABA biosynthesis in roots. Roots from whole tomato plants that constitutively overexpress LeNCED1 had a higher ABA content than wild-type (WT) roots. This could be explained by enhanced in situ ABA biosynthesis, rather than import of ABA from the shoot, because root cultures also had higher ABA content, and because tetracycline (Tc)-induced LeNCED1 expression caused ABA accumulation in isolated tobacco roots. However, the Tc-induced expression led to greater accumulation of ABA in leaves than in roots. This demonstrates for the first time that NCED is rate-limiting in root tissues, but suggests that other steps were also restrictive to pathway flux, more so in roots than in leaves. Dehydration and NCED overexpression acted synergistically in enhancing ABA accumulation in tomato root cultures. One explanation is that xanthophyll synthesis was increased during root dehydration, and, in support of this, dehydration treatments increased beta-carotene hydroxylase mRNA levels. Whole plants overexpressing LeNCED1 exhibited greatly reduced stomatal conductance and grafting experiments from this study demonstrated that this was predominantly due to increased ABA biosynthesis in leaves rather than in roots. Genetic manipulation of both xanthophyll supply and epoxycarotenoid cleavage may be needed to enhance root ABA biosynthesis sufficiently to signal stomatal closure in the shoot.
Gate controlled magnetoresistance in a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (2010)

We present a study of the magnetoresistance (MR) of a Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET) at the break-down regime when a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the plane of the device. We have identified two different regimes where we observe a large and gate-voltage dependent MR. We suggest two different mechanisms which can explain the observed high MR. Moreover, we have studied how the MR of the MOSFET scales with the dimensions of the channel for gate voltages below the threshold. We observed a decrease in the MR by two orders of magnitude by reducing the dimensions of the channel from 50×280 μm2 to 5×5 μm2.
The role of sensors, big data and machine learning in modern animal farming (2020)

Ever since man began domesticating animals several thousand years ago, we have always relied on our intuition, collective knowledge, and sensory signals to make effective animal production decisions. So far, this has helped us make significant gains in animal husbandry and farming. Together the growing demand for food and the advancement in sensing technology have the potential to make animal farming more centralized, large scale and efficient. It has the potential to change animal farming as we know it. At a broader level, this paper explores the challenges and opportunities that sensor technologies present in terms of helping animal farmers produce more meat and animal products. More specifically, this paper explores the role of sensors, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning in helping animal farmers to lower production costs, increase efficiencies, enhance animal welfare and grow more animals per hectare. It also explores the challenges and limitations of technology. The paper reviews various animal farming technology applications to understand its value in helping farmers improve animal health, increase profits and lower environmental footprint.
Design of a dual biometric authentication system (2016)

Present research is on the combination of two biometric identification and recognition, i.e., iris pattern based and contours of fingerprint based, for identification and hence authentication. From the pre processed iris images of any person and fingerprint, the contours and countourlets are obtained. Localization followed by a normalization of an iris image is given for feature extraction using Gabor convolution, while minutia extraction of an enhanced finger print image is done using Crossing Number method. These features of contours and countourlets obtained from a sampled stream and in order to get the matching scores, they are estimated with samples in database. Comparison techniques used are hamming distance and Euclidean distance respectively for iris and fingerprint. Pattern of similarity and difference of scores are obtained after the passing of matching to the combination module. The score obtained finally is used to inform whether the person is authenticated or a bluffer. For a critical situation both the scores need to be matched i.e., for high security related applications both the scores need to be matched individually so that the combination will give better results. For some non critical application any one of the traits need to be matched so that the genuine persons would not miss a chance.
The blood–brain barrier in systemic infection and inflammation (2021)

The vascular blood-brain barrier is a highly regulated interface between the blood and brain. Its primary function is to protect central neurons while signaling the presence of systemic inflammation and infection to the brain to enable a protective sickness behavior response. With increasing degrees and duration of systemic inflammation, the vascular blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable to solutes, undergoes an increase in lymphocyte trafficking, and is infiltrated by innate immune cells; endothelial cell damage may occasionally occur. Perturbation of neuronal function results in the clinical features of encephalopathy. Here, the molecular and cellular anatomy of the vascular blood-brain barrier is reviewed, first in a healthy context and second in a systemic inflammatory context. Distinct from the molecular and cellular mediators of the blood-brain barrier's response to inflammation, several moderators influence the direction and magnitude at genetic, system, cellular and molecular levels. These include sex, genetic background, age, pre-existing brain pathology, systemic comorbidity, and gut dysbiosis. Further progress is required to define and measure mediators and moderators of the blood-brain barrier's response to systemic inflammation in order to explain the heterogeneity observed in animal and human studies.
On Performance Testing with Path Delay Patterns (2007)

Application specific ICs are typically designed to meet a given performance specification. For these ICs a higher performance does not add value and less performance makes the IC useless. This class of ICs is designed based on worst-case corner analysis. It is expected that this will become area costly in more advanced technologies. An alternative is to use statistical design techniques but this implies that the performance needs to be tested with, for example, path delay testing. Our experiments in 65 nm show that the actual delay depends on the global activity within an IC as well as effects in the local neighbourhood of the path. These global and local effects can independently cause about 15% of additional delay. Hence, their impact needs to be included during test and thr authors propose to create (close to) worst-case delay patterns. Individually, the patterns have an enhanced sensitivity for the most important local effects and combined they provide coverage for global effects. This makes them better suited as speed indicators than conventional path delay patterns.
Estimating target orientation with a single camera for use in a human-following robot (2010)

21st Annual Symposium of the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa. Stellenbosch, South Africa, 22-23 November 2010
Software Development Environments for Scientific and Engineering Software: A Series of Case Studies (2007)

The need for high performance computing applications for computational science and engineering projects is growing rapidly, yet there have been few detailed studies of the software engineering process used for these applications. The DARPA High Productivity Computing Systems Program has sponsored a series of case studies of representative computational science and engineering projects to identify the steps involved in developing such applications (i.e. the life cycle, the workflows, technical challenges, and organizational challenges). Secondary goals were to characterize tool usage and identify enhancements that would increase the programmers' productivity. Finally, these studies were designed to develop a set of lessons learned that can be transferred to the general computational science and engineering community to improve the software engineering process used for their applications. Nine lessons learned from five representative projects are presented, along with their software engineering implications, to provide insight into the software development environments in this domain.
Spasticity: Orthopedic Perspective (2001)

The orthopedic management of spasticity is based on the effects of this neurologic condition on the bones and tissues of the growing child. The goal of such intervention is to maximize function, reduce disability, and facilitate mobility. Goal-directed treatment plans are tailored for each patient and may include a combination of modalities such as physical and occupational therapy, casting, orthoses, and surgery. Physical and occupational therapy is emphasized up to 4 to 5 years of age, whereas surgery is best between 5 and 7 years of age. Education and psychosocial development should be emphasized beginning at age 7 years through adulthood, with surgery reserved for more involved cases of contracture or bony dysplasia. In adulthood, treatment should be focused on integration into society and maximizing functional independence. Although there are many undisputed benefits of therapy, no consensus exists regarding the most beneficial modality, the age group that would benefit most, or whether continued treatment is beneficial in adulthood. Whereas the use of serial casting and tone-reducing casts has lessened, lower extremity orthoses have gained widespread acceptance with improvements in design and fabrication and have been demonstrated to help restore normal heel-toe gait. Surgical techniques such as tendon lengthening, transfer, bony osteotomy, and joint fusion are time-honored techniques that continue to be refined with current advances in the use of computerized gait analysis for preoperative planning. Further research in long-term results and outcomes measurement will be necessary to fully assess the impact of current treatment.
Field emission from submicron emitter arrays (2002)

The authors describe the preparation and emission characteristics of emitter tips with fourfold symmetry based on the mold techniques of H.F. Gray and R.F. Greene. By appropriate selection of film thicknesses, grid to emitter spacing of less than 0.5 mu m was achieved. The authors have prepared and studied the emission characteristics of several geometries that include emitter tips above and below the plane of the grid with grid to emitter spacings ranging from 0.4 to 1.0 mu m. Onset of emission was observed at grid potentials as low as 10 V with Fowler-Nordheim-like emission characteristics. Emission current vs voltage measurements over the temperature range 300 K to 450 K showed no detectable change in characteristics as expected in field emission. Stable current densities of 0.5 A/cm/sup 2/ (500 nA/tip) have been obtained and illumination of a phosphor anode has been demonstrated.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
Periplasmic expression of human growth hormone via plasmid vectors containing the  PL promoter: use of HPLC for product quantification (2003)

The influence of different factors acting on Escherichia coli periplasmic expression of recombinant human growth hormone (hGH) in shake flask cultures has been investigated. Bacterial vectors containing the phage lambdaP(L) promoter, which is temperature activated, were utilized. Four different signal peptides were compared: DsbA, npr, STII and one derived from the natural hGH signal peptide, this last used as a reference. Other factors such as medium composition, optimized induction and expression conditions, and different bacterial strains were also studied. The determination of hGH, carried out directly in osmotic shock fluids, was based on an isocratic reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method, which allows direct, rapid evaluation of the quality and quantity of hGH being secreted in the bacterial periplasmic space immediately after or even during fermentation. The level of hGH production increased 2.5-fold compared with the reference vector, reaching a level of 3.9 +/- 0.63 micro g/ml/A(600) (n = 6; coefficient of variation = 16.2%). The expression level was affected by the signal peptide and by the induction conditions, being more effective when activation started in the early logarithmic phase which, however, exhibited remarkably different optical density (OD) according to medium composition. Our results thus indicate that 6 h activation at 40-42 degrees C, starting with an OD (A(600)) of approximately 3 in a very rich medium, were conditions capable of providing the maximum secretion level for a vector utilizing the DsbA signal sequence and E.coli W3110 or RB791 as host cells.