gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Identification of the functional PRL for fine visual tasks (2020)

During fine visual tasks, eyes undergo complex fixational eye movements (FEM) comprised of drift and microsaccades. The peak of the distribution formed by the aggregate FEM is generally considered to be the preferred retinal locus (PRL). But, owing to the fact that vision is widely believed to be suppressed during microsaccades, the functional PRL (fPRL) may represent a smaller retinal region. Accurate identification of the fPRL is an important step in better understanding human foveal vision. We used high-speed, sub-arcmin, retinal-image-based eye tracking to measure the fPRL’s exact location and distribution. The system is an Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope with stimulus projection capabilities combined with custom software for offline tracking and image analysis. We devised a Vernier hyperacuity task that engaged natural FEM while allowing acuity to be measured during brief stimulus exposures and over few cones of the retina. Three subjects reported offsets between two 2x1 arcmin horizontal black bars separated by 1 arcmin along 7 steps of 12 arcsec. Duration was 34ms. Each stimulus was presented monocularly within a small square in the center of four black fixation guides. Stimuli were presented in a predictable cadence every 2 seconds, which ensured constant fixation strategy during the experiment. Over 2000 trials with different offsets were presented in pseudorandom order for each subject. The conventional PRL was compared to the fPRL (determined from only those epochs of FEM when the stimulus was present). Preliminary results reveal a systematic tendency to recenter gaze within +/-3arcmin (+/-5 cones). The fPRL location is more confined and slightly deviated from the conventional PRL. Consistent with previous observations during a tumbling-E letter acuity task, microsaccade initiation and landing positions tended to form two distinct clusters, with the fPRL located somewhere in-between. More analysis will be presented to uncover the functional significance of the PRL.
Multi-trait genome-wide association study identifies new loci associated with optic disc parameters (2019)

A new avenue of mining published genome-wide association studies includes the joint analysis of related traits. The power of this approach depends on the genetic correlation of traits, which reflects the number of pleiotropic loci, i.e. genetic loci influencing multiple traits. Here, we applied new meta-analyses of optic nerve head (ONH) related traits implicated in primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG); intraocular pressure and central corneal thickness using Haplotype reference consortium imputations. We performed a multi-trait analysis of ONH parameters cup area, disc area and vertical cup-disc ratio. We uncover new variants; rs11158547 in <i>PPP1R36-PLEKHG3</i> and rs1028727 near <i>SERPINE3</i> at genome-wide significance that replicate in independent Asian cohorts imputed to 1000 Genomes. At this point, validation of these variants in POAG cohorts is hampered by the high degree of heterogeneity. Our results show that multi-trait analysis is a valid approach to identify novel pleiotropic variants for ONH.
The Effects of Various Catalyst Modifiers on the Hydrogenation of Fructose to Sorbitol and Mannitol (2006)

Fructose hydrogenations have been performed with various sponge-type Ni and Cu catalysts and the reaction data have been correlated to the catalysts’ properties. Cu is less active than Ni and it favors the production of mannitol over sorbitol by a ~2:1 ratio, while Ni generates them on a ~1:1 basis. Promoting Ni with Mo increased the rate of hydrogenation, and decreased the mannitol selectivity to 44.1%. The data show that the least active catalysts adsorb fructose weaker, have less zero order behavior and higher activation energies leading to higher mannitol selectivities from the preferred hydrogenation of the sparser less sterically hindered α-furanose with retention at the anomeric carbon. Highly active catalysts adsorb fructose stronger for a more competitive, but still not favored, adsorption of the more abundant β-furanose leading to more sorbitol. Depositing carbonaceous residues onto the catalyst prior to the reaction showed that smaller ensembles favor mannitol, thereby confirming its source to be the readily adsorbed α-furanose. Introduction Mannitol is widely used as a dusting, bulking and anticaking agent in the food and pharmaceutical industries due to its nonhygroscopicity (1). It is made by reducing invert sugar (1:1 glucose:fructose) over sponge-type Ni (2) to give a ~25%:~75% mannitol:sorbitol mix that is separated by fractional crystallization (3). Glucose gives almost exclusively sorbitol, and fructose generates roughly a 50:50 mannitol:sorbitol mix. Although mannitol’s market is much smaller than sorbitol’s, its price is 3.9 (1) to 4.4 (4) times higher meaning that an in-depth understanding of fructose hydrogenation could help to optimize this process for the marketplace.
Screening for depression in the rural population in Udmurtia (1997)

AbstractThe Russian version of the Depression Scale (DEPS), consisting of 10 items, was used for screening for depressive disorders in the general population in the Udmurt Republic. The randomly selected study group consisted of individuals aged 18 to 65 years who lived in rural areas. Diagnostic assessments were made on the basis of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview 1.1 of 855 inhabitants. The DEPS proved to be satisfactory in different groups of the population on the basis of sex and nationality. The sensitivity of the DEPS for clinical depression was 78%, and the specificity for non-depression was 73%. The sensitivity for severe depression was 70%, for moderate depression 84%, and for mild depression 78%. The DEPS seems to be suitable for primary screening for depression in the general population.Key Words: DepressionGeneral populationScreening
Reinforcement of epithelial cell adhesion to basement membrane by a bacterial pathogen as a new infectious stratagem (2010)

The intestinal epithelium undergoes a rapid turnover in addition to rapid exfoliation in response to bacterial infection, thus acting as an intrinsic defense against microbial intruders. It has long been questioned how mucosal pathogens can circumvent the intestinal defense systems. Our recent discovery of a bacterial ploy used by Shigella provided us with fresh insight. Shigella delivers OspE via the type III secretion system during multiplication within epithelial cells. This effector protein reinforces epithelial adherence to the basement membrane by interacting with integrin-linked kinase (ILK), a unique intracellular Ser/Thr kinase that links the cell-adhesion receptors, integrin, and growth factors to the actin cytoskeleton. The interaction between OspE and ILK increased formation of focal adhesions (FAs) and surface levels of b1-integrin, while suppressing phosphorylation of FAK and paxillin, thus suppressing rapid turnover of FAs, reducing cell motility and promoting cell adhesion to extracellular matrix. The impact of this OspE-ILK interplay was demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo by infecting polarized epithelial cell monolayers and guinea pig colons with Shigella possessing or lacking the ospE gene. The findings thus establish a new class of virulence-associated factors, and provide new insight into the functioning of the intestinal barrier and bacterial strategies for circumventing it.
Evaluating clinical near-infrared surgical camera systems with a view to optimizing operator and computational signal analysis (2023)

Optimal clinical use and signal computational development requires detailed appreciation of system behaviors.
SBA-15-Supported Acid-Base Catalyst for Aldol Reaction (2006)

A silica gel (SBA-15)-supported acid/base catalyst 3 for the direct aldol reaction was developed. Thus, catalyst 3 was prepared from 2-(4-chlorosulfonylphenyl)ethyltrimethoxy­silane 1, 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane 2, triblock copolymer P123, and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). The direct aldol reaction of p-nitrobenzaldehyde (0.05 M) with acetone by using catalyst 1 (10 mol%) gave β-hydroxy ketone 4 (75% yield) and α,β-unsaturated ketone 5 (13%).
The BRG1 Chromatin Remodeler Protects Against Ovarian Cysts, Uterine Tumors, and Mammary Tumors in a Lineage-Specific Manner (2020)

The BRG1 catalytic subunit of SWI/SNF-related complexes is required for mammalian development as exemplified by the early embryonic lethality of Brg1 null homozygous mice. BRG1 is also a tumor suppressor and, in mice, 10% of heterozygous (Brg1null/+) females develop mammary tumors. We now demonstrate that BRG1 mRNA and protein are expressed in both the luminal and basal cells of the mammary gland, raising the question of which lineage requires BRG1 to promote mammary homeostasis and prevent oncogenic transformation. To investigate this question, we utilized Wap-Cre to mutate both Brg1 floxed alleles in the luminal cells of the mammary epithelium of pregnant mice where WAP is exclusively expressed within the mammary gland. Interestingly, we found that Brg1Wap-Cre conditional homozygotes lactated normally and did not develop mammary tumors even when they were maintained on a Brm-deficient background. However, Brg1Wap-Cre mutants did develop ovarian cysts and uterine tumors. Analysis of these latter tissues showed that both, like the mammary gland, contain cells that normally express Brg1 and Wap. Thus, tumor formation in Brg1 mutant mice appears to be confined to particular cell types that require BRG1 and also express Wap. Our results now show that such cells exist both in the ovary and the uterus but not in either the luminal or the basal compartments of the mammary gland. Taken together, these findings indicate that SWI/SNF-related complexes are dispensable in the luminal cells of the mammary gland and therefore argue against the notion that SWI/SNF-related complexes are essential for cell survival. These findings also suggest that the tumor-suppressor activity of BRG1 is restricted to the basal cells of the mammary gland and demonstrate that this function extends to other female reproductive organs, consistent with recent observations of recurrent ARID1A/BAF250a mutations in human ovarian and endometrial tumors.
Vectorial mapping of exchange anisotropy in IrMn/FeCo multilayers using the reversible susceptibility tensor (2003)

A method for probing exchange anisotropy based on reversible susceptibility tensor is proposed. The experimental results obtained on exchange biased IrMn/FeCo multilayers are supported by the theoretical analysis of the transverse and longitudinal susceptibilities in the case of exchange-coupled systems. The vectorial mapping of the exchange bias in the studied sample is performed by detecting a composite signal containing both transverse and longitudinal susceptibilities for different orientations of the applied field. This procedure, that is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, allows one to obtain the critical curve of the switching fields. The critical curve constitutes the fingerprint of the switching processes from which both magnitude and direction of the directional anisotropy can be determined.
Technology and Heart Failure Therapeutics (THT2022) (2022)

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Changes in intracellular calcium during the development of epithelial polarity and junctions. (1992)

The "Ca2+ switch" model with cultured Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells is useful in studying the biogenesis of epithelial polarity and junction formation and provides insight into early steps in the morphogenesis of polarized epithelial tissues. When extracellular Ca2+ in the medium is changed from less than 5 microM to 1.8 mM, MDCK cells rapidly change from a nonpolarized state exhibiting little cell-cell contact (with the apical membrane and junctional proteins largely within the cell) to a polarized state with well-formed tight junctions and desmosomes. To examine the role of intracellular Ca2+ in the development of polarity and junctions, we made continuous spectrofluorimetric measurements of intracellular Ca2+ during the "switch," using the fluorescent indicator fura-2. Intracellular Ca2+ increased greater than 10-fold during the switch and gave a complex pattern of increase, decrease, and stabilization. In contrast, intracellular pH [monitored with 2',7'-bis(2-carboxyethyl)-5(and 6)-carboxyfluorescein (BCECF)] did not change during the period studied. When intracellular Ca2+ curves in several cells were compared, considerable heterogeneity in the rate of increase of intracellular Ca2+ levels and in peak levels was evident, perhaps reflecting the heterogeneity among cells in establishing junctions and polarity. The heterogeneity of the process was confirmed by digital imaging of intracellular Ca2+ and was present even in a "clonal" line of MDCK cells, indicating the heterogeneity was intrinsic to the process and not simply a function of slight genetic variation within the population of MDCK cells. In pairs of cells that had barely established cell-cell contact, often one cell exhibited a much greater increase in intracellular Ca2+ than the other cell in the pair. At the site of cell-cell contact, an apparent localized change (an increase over the basal level) in intracellular Ca2+ was frequently present and occasionally appeared to extend beyond the point of cell-cell contact. Since the region of cell-cell contact is also the site where junctions form and where vesicles containing apical membranes fuse during the development of polarity, we postulate a role for global and local changes in intracellular Ca2+ in these events.
Polymerized ionic liquid diblock copolymers: impact of water/ion clustering on ion conductivity (2015)

Herein, we examine the synergistic impact of both ion clustering and block copolymer morphology on ion conductivity in two polymerized ionic liquid (PIL) diblock copolymers with similar chemistries but different side alkyl spacer chain lengths (ethyl versus undecyl). When saturated in liquid water, water/ion clusters were observed only in the PIL block copolymer with longer alkyl side chains (undecyl) as evidenced by both small-angle neutron scattering and intermediate-angle X-ray scattering, i.e., water/ion clusters form within the PIL microdomain under these conditions. The resulting bromide ion conductivity in the undecyl sample was higher than the ethyl sample (14.0 mS cm(-1)versus 6.1 mS cm(-1) at 50 °C in liquid water) even though both samples had the same block copolymer morphology (lamellar) and the undecyl sample had a lower ion exchange capacity (0.9 meq g(-1)versus 1.4 meq g(-1)). No water/ion clusters were observed in either sample under high humidity or dry conditions. The resulting ion conductivity in the undecyl sample with lamellar morphology was significantly higher in the liquid water saturated state compared to the high humidity state (14.0 mS cm(-1)versus 4.2 mS cm(-1)), whereas there was no difference in ion conductivity in the ethyl sample when comparing these two states. These results show that small chemical changes to ion-containing block copolymers can induce water/ion clusters within block copolymer microdomains and this can subsequently have a significant effect on ion transport.
Photonically Encoded Silicone Lenses For Smartphone-Based Microscopy And Imaging In Biology And Nanomedicine (2020)

In this work [1], we describe the moldless preparation of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) lens embedding nanostructured porous silicon (PSi) optical components. Casting of uncured PDMS onto a PSi surface shapes a droplet with contact angle easily controllable by tuning of the nanostructure features (i.e., thickness and porosity of PSi). Design of the PSi layer as an optical component (e.g., distributed Bragg reflector, rugate filter, resonant cavity) allows the preparation of lightweight, freestanding PDMS lenses (10 mg mass and 4.7 mm focal length) with embedded optical elements. The fabrication process of the PDMS lens shows high reliability (yield &gt;95%), low-cost (0.01 $), and good flexibility for a wide range of applications. For instance, using a single monolithic lens/filter element self-adhered to a commercial smartphone camera, we demonstrate: the fluorescence imaging and counting of live/dead isolated human cancer cells with high magnification and rejection of the excitation light; the selection of a narrow wavelength band from a fluorescent emission; and the tuning of the color of a white light emitting diode (from red to blue) through shaping of the emission spectrum. [1] S. Mariani et al., Adv. Funct. Mater.2019, 1906836
28pm1-E-5 Quantification Method of Tactile Evaluation for Fabrics by Hierarchically Classifying Tactile Sensation based on Human Tactile Perception (2015)

This research proposes a quantification method for tactile evaluation by hierarchically classify tactile sensations into three groups named low-order of tactile sensation (LTS), high-order of tactile sensation (HTS) and desired tactile sensation (DTS). A sensory evaluation was conducted and factor analysis was performed to extract the common potential factors in each group. Next, multiple regression analysis was used to determine and examine the relationship between LTS-HTS, and HTS-DTS. Then, multiple physical quantities for quantification were measured. After that, the LTS factors were quantified by using the measured physical quantities. As a result, DTS adjectives were also quantified. Lastly, a verification test was conducted and the result showed that the proposed method may possibly evaluate unknown samples' tactile sensation from measured physical quantities.
Widely tunable, high-Q, evanescent-mode cavity filters: Fabrication, control, and reconfigurability (2010)

The recent trend in wireless and radio frequency (RF) components and systems has been towards tighter integration and increased functionality without sacrificing quality. Important components for the front-end of such systems includes: antennas, low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), and filters. High quality factor (Q) band pass filters allow for very narrow bandwidths which can be used for band pre-selection and even direct channel selection without having outrageous losses that will degrade vital system performance metrics such as: noise figure, dynamic range, quality of service, and data rate. This work addresses the tighter integration issue by creating high-Q filters out of three-dimensional polymer evanescent-mode cavities. These filters are then integrated with a CMOS RFIC receiver embedded in a functional silicon carrier wafer to demonstrate a full front-end receiver, showing the potential of heterogeneous integration of three different technologies. The polymer evanescent-mode filter work led to the development of tunable band pass filters which is the second part of the work presented here. The high frequency sensitivity of the evanescent-mode cavity structure allows for very wide frequency tuning with a small dimensional change that can be realized using commercially available piezoelectric actuators. The initial targeted filter performance is: tuning from 3 to 6 GHz with an insertion loss less than 4 dB while keeping the bandwidth less than 25 MHz. A novel integration of the evanescent-mode cavity filter into a double sided printed circuit board is introduced and the electrical specifications made more stringent: tuning from 0.8 to 6 GHz with loss ranging from 2.5 to 3.5 dB with a fixed absolute bandwidth of 25 MHz. The integrated cavity filter approach is used to realize tunable multiplexers that show promise for multi-band communications. Arrays of reconfigurable evanescent-mode cavities are also used to form unprecedented filter functions with a path towards an arbitrary shape, reconfigurable filtering block. This concept is demonstrated by a reconfigurable order filter that can be electronically modified to have 2nd or 4th order filter characteristics. An important aspect of this work is to create a feedback mechanism to control the center frequency of the filters. This is critical component to make this technology ready for commercial use due to the high frequency sensitivity of the filters as well as the non-linear and non-repeatable behavior of the actuators.
On-the-fly active learning of interpretable Bayesian force fields for atomistic rare events (2020)

Abstract Machine learned force fields typically require manual construction of training sets consisting of thousands of first principles calculations, which can result in low training efficiency and unpredictable errors when applied to structures not represented in the training set of the model. This severely limits the practical application of these models in systems with dynamics governed by important rare events, such as chemical reactions and diffusion. We present an adaptive Bayesian inference method for automating the training of interpretable, low-dimensional, and multi-element interatomic force fields using structures drawn on the fly from molecular dynamics simulations. Within an active learning framework, the internal uncertainty of a Gaussian process regression model is used to decide whether to accept the model prediction or to perform a first principles calculation to augment the training set of the model. The method is applied to a range of single- and multi-element systems and shown to achieve a favorable balance of accuracy and computational efficiency, while requiring a minimal amount of ab initio training data. We provide a fully open-source implementation of our method, as well as a procedure to map trained models to computationally efficient tabulated force fields.
ChemInform Abstract: Carbohydrates as Chiral Auxiliaries: Synthesis of 2‐Hydroxy‐β‐D‐ glucopyranosides. (1992)

Abstract ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.
A “Smart Tire” System for Tire/Road Friction Estimation (2008)

In this paper, we present the development of a tire deformation sensing system that can provide the critical information for estimation of tire/road interaction for mobile robots and vehicles. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)-based sensor is designed and fabricated to embed on the inner tread surface to measure the rubber tread deformation. Analytical models of the PVDF-based sensing system are presented to capture the tire/road contact information and friction characteristics. The sensed deformation measurements are integrated with the on-board control system through a wireless data transmission module. Experimental results on a skid-steered mobile robot are presented to show the feasibility of the developed sensing system.
The Mechanism behind Vibration Assisted Fluidization of Cohesive Micro-Silica (2023)

Vibro-assisted fluidization of cohesive micro-silica has been studied by means of X-ray imaging, pressure drop measurements, and off-line determination of the agglomerate size. Pressure drop and bed height development could be explained by observable phenomena taking place in the bed; slugging, channeling, fluidization or densification. It was observed that channeling is the main cause of poor fluidization of the micro-silica, resulting in poor gas-solid contact and little internal mixing. Improvement in fluidization upon starting the mechanical vibration was achieved by disrupting the channels. Agglomerate sizes were found to not significantly change during experiments.