gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Preparation and Characterization of Inhalable Ivermectin Powders as a Potential COVID-19 Therapy (2022)

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Ivermectin has received worldwide attention as a potential COVID-19 treatment after showing antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 <i>in vitro.</i> However, the pharmacokinetic limitations associated with oral administration have been postulated as limiting factors to its bioavailability and efficacy. These limitations can be overcome by targeted delivery to the lungs. In this study, inhalable dry powders of ivermectin and lactose crystals were prepared and characterized for the potential treatment of COVID-19. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Ivermectin was co-spray dried with lactose monohydrate crystals and conditioned by storage at two different relative humidity points (43% and 58% RH) for a week. The <i>in vitro</i> dispersion performance of the stored powders was examined using a medium-high resistance Osmohaler connecting to a next-generation impactor at 60 L/min flow rate. The solid-state characteristics including particle size distribution and morphology, crystallinity, and moisture sorption profiles of raw and spray-dried ivermectin samples were assessed by laser diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and dynamic vapor sorption. <b><i>Results:</i></b> All the freshly spray-dried formulation (T0) and the conditioned samples could achieve the anticipated therapeutic dose with fine particle dose of 300 μg, FPF<sub>recovered</sub> of 70%, and FPF<sub>emitted</sub> of 83%. In addition, the formulations showed a similar volume median diameter of 4.3 μm and span of 1.9. The spray-dried formulations were stable even after conditioning and exposing to different RH points as ivermectin remained amorphous with predominantly crystalline lactose. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> An inhalable and stable dry powder of ivermectin and lactose crystals was successfully formulated. This powder inhaler ivermectin candidate therapy appears to be able to deliver doses that could be safe and effective to treat the SARS-COV-2 infection. Further development of this therapy is warranted.
Screen content coding for HEVC using edge modes (2013)

In this work, a new coding tool called Edge Mode is proposed for HEVC intra coding, aimed at improving coding efficiency for screen content video. A set of edge modes that correspond to edge positions are identified based upon intra prediction directions. Then, a simplified scheme is developed to select the best edge mode. To avoid applying a transform over strong edges, directional 2D separable transforms are applied to blocks partitioned using these edge modes. Experimental results show that HEVC with edge modes (HEVC/EM) can achieve up to an 18% reduction in bit-rate as compared to unmodified HEVC, with an average reduction of 10.4% for screen content video sequences.
Long‐term suppression of methamphetamine‐induced c‐Fos expression in rat striatum by the injection of c‐fos antisense oligodeoxynucleotides absorbed in water‐absorbent polymer (2004)

The use of water-absorbent polymer (WAP) as a hydrogel carrier for the slow delivery of antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) in the brain, was recently developed. In this experiment, 15-mer phosphorothioate ODN, complementary to c-fos gene absorbed in WAP, was injected in the rat striatum. The expression of c-Fos-immunoreactivity induced by methamphetamine (6 mg/kg, intraperitoneally) around the injection site was suppressed until 5 days after injection. Using this method, it was observed that unilateral injection with c-fos antisense ODN into the rat striatum caused robust ipsilateral rotations after methamphetamine challenge 4 days post injection. This method is simple, and the biological and behavioral effects of antisense ODN in WAP can be maintained for several days even after a single injection into the brain.
CAD tool support for a multi-university SoC certificate program: The Digital Sandbox (2004)

The Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse is sponsoring an educational support program to facilitate student IC design projects and laboratories at Carnegie Mellon University, the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Pittsburgh. Students who have access to industry standard IC design tools that are integrated in a commercial design flow will be better prepared to enter the workforce. However, these capabilities are expensive to support and not generally available within Universities. The "Digital Sandbox" program described in this paper is facilitating education by providing and supporting modern VLSI/SoC CAD tools and industry standard design libraries.
The Impact of Islamic Values on Interpersonal Relationship Conflict Management in Egyptian Business Organizations “an Applied Study” (2014)

– the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a number of Islamic values on interpersonal relationship conflict management in Egyptian Pharmaceutical Organizations, and to provide useful frameworks for diagnosing and managing conflict. – using a survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 597 managers representing all managerial levels of pharmaceutical industrial organizations operating in Alexandria, Egypt. Data were analysed using Correlation analysis, frequency distribution along with regression techniques that were used to test the frameworks that were introduced: The diagnostic framework for investigating the reasons and consequences of interpersonal conflict and the Management framework investigating the impact of the selected Islamic Values on the processes of conflict management including conflict prevention, resolution, and exploitation. – The reasons of conflict as represented by 2 major basic drives: Animalism (Materialism) drives and Angelism (Egoism) drives; both showed high levels of agreement among respondents. The proportions of agreement/high effect for Animalism drives (sub-factors) were ranked as follows: Materialism 84.9%, stupidity 57.8%, while Sexual Harassment was only 30.3%. Whereas the Angelism drives were ranked as follows: Superiority 87.1%, Prestige 84.3%, Position 81.6%, Eternity 80.6% and Domination 73.5%. The proportions of agreement/high effect for Lionism “Predatory Bullying” behaviours (sub- factors) as manifestations/consequences of conflict were ranked as follows: Gossip 77.4%, Driving Wedges Between People 76.7%, Backbiting 75.7%, Lying 72.2%, False Promise 71.9%, False Testimony 69.7%, Stealing 55.6%, Cursing 52.8%, Beating 41.5% and Sexual Harassment 34.0%. Proportions of agreement/high effect for Satanism “Emotional Anger” manifestations (sub-factors) as consequences of conflict were ranked as follows: Jealousy 81.6%, Envy 77.7%, Arrogance was 77.1%, Malice 76.5% and Rancor 71.5%. The overall results supported our hypotheses denoting the impact of the selected Islamic values on conflict management. Furthermore the results supported that the investigated reasons of interpersonal Conflict namely Animalism “Materialism” and Angelism “Egoism” have a significant impact on the investigated conflict consequences namely Lionism and Satanism that consequently affects productivity. – Based on findings specific implications related to work environment, were identified strengthening Islamic perspective of business management, and enhancing conflict management
A 19.5b dynamic range CMOS image sensor with 12b column-parallel cyclic A/D converters (2005)

A CMOS image sensor with 117 dB DR is demonstrated in a 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS technology through merging of multiple exposures. A 12b cyclic ADC with integrated noise canceling is implemented in the column of the image sensor and achieves a DNL of +0.4/-0.8 LSB.
Transport Protocol Support for Aeronautical Satellite Communications (2004)

We recommend suitable transport protocols for an aeronautical network supporting Internet and data services via satellite. We study the characteristics of an aeronautical satellite hybrid network and focus on the problems that cause dramatically degraded performance of the Transport Protocol. We discuss various extensions to standard TCP that alleviate some of these performance problems. Through simulation, we identify those TCP implementations that can be expected to perform reasonably well. Based on the observation that it is difficult for an end-to-end solution to solve these problems effectively, we propose a new TCP-splitting protocol, termed Aeronautical Transport Control Protocol (AeroTCP). The main idea of this protocol is to use a fixed window for flow control and one duplicated acknowledgement (ACK) for fast recovery. Our simulation results show that AeroTCP can maintain higher utilization for the satellite link than end-to-end TCP, especially in high BER environment.
Polystyrene nanocomposite materials—Preparation, mechanical, electrical and thermal properties, and morphology (2006)

Abstract This work prepared polystyrene resin nanocomposites with antistatic properties, by melt‐blending polystyrene with nanoscale zinc oxide. The effect of nanoscale zinc oxide on the electrical and physical characteristics of polystyrene nanocomposites was investigated. Two kinds of nanoscale powders, spherical zinc oxide (s‐ZnO) and zinc oxide whisker (w‐ZnO), were selected. The coupling agents, vinyltriethoxysilane and phenyltriethoxysilane, were utilized to improve the compatibility between nanopowders and polystyrene resin. Adding spherical zinc oxide and zinc oxide whisker improved the antistatic characteristic of materials. The surface resistivities of s‐ZnO and w‐ZnO nanocomposite were significantly reduced, by modification with vinyltriethoxysilane and phenyltriethoxysilane. Adding zinc oxide nanopowder increased the flexural modulus and reduces flexural strength. Silane coupling agent improved the flexural properties of nanocomposite. The glass transition temperature and thermal degradation temperature of zinc oxide/polystyrene nanocomposite increased with ZnO content. Treatment with silane increased the glass transition temperature and thermal degradation temperature of composite. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 508–515, 2006
Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone-Dependent Regulation of Gonadotropin Subunit Messenger Ribonucleic Acid Levels in the Rat* (1989)

The Nal-Glu GnRH antagonist (GnRHA) was given to castrate male and female rats 7 days after gonadectomy to assess the impact of selective GnRH inhibition on the steady state mRNA levels of FSH beta, LH beta, and alpha-subunit and serum levels of FSH and LH. A low dose of GnRHA (125 micrograms/kg.day) given to female rats for 1, 3, or 7 days resulted in suppression of serum FSH and LH levels by 7 days to 50% and 40%, respectively, of ovariectomized control values. LH beta mRNA levels decreased in a time-dependent manner, so that by 7 days, LH beta mRNA levels were less than those in intact controls. There were significant but less dramatic declines in alpha and FSH beta mRNA levels. A higher dose of GnRHA (500 micrograms/kg.day) for 7 or 14 days administered to castrate male or female rats resulted in inhibition of serum LH and FSH to or below levels in intact controls. At this dose, all three gonadotropin subunit mRNA levels fell from castrate values toward or below those in intact controls. Thus, although low dose GnRHA administration suppressed LH beta mRNA more than FSH beta mRNA levels, high dose GnRHA treatment resulted in equal suppression of all three gonadotropin subunits. No stimulatory effects on alpha-subunit mRNA levels were observed with either dose of GnRHA. We conclude that the pretranslational control of gonadotropin subunit biosynthesis is GnRH dependent. Adequate dose and length of administration of the potent Nal-Glu GnRHA results in suppression of both the serum gonadotropins FSH and LH and the mRNAs for FSH beta, LH beta, and alpha-subunit in female and male rats.
Commitment of Individual Th1-Like Lymphocytes to Expression of IFN-γ Versus IL-4 and IL-10: Selective Induction of IL-10 by Sequential Stimulation of Naive Th Cells with IL-12 and IL-4 (1998)

Abstract Commitment of Th lymphocytes to the Th1 phenotype, as characterized by the expression of the major proinflammatory cytokine IFN-γ, may be critically involved in the establishment of chronic inflammation and inflammatory autoimmune disease. To date, it has been shown that in IL-12-stimulated murine Th cell lines containing a major fraction of Th1 cells, Th2 cells can be induced by IL-4 until about 2 wk after initial activation, but not later. Here we analyze, based on the magnetic isolation of viable Th1 cells according to their specific expression of IFN-γ, the cytokine commitment of individual Th1 cells. After activation of naive Th cells with Ag and IL-12 for up to 5 wk, isolated IFN-γ-producing cells were restimulated with Ag and IL-4. Within the first 3 to 4 wk of IL-12 stimulation, some IFN-γ+ cells stopped expression of IFN-γ when restimulated with IL-4. However, within only 1 to 2 wk of IL-12 stimulation, few IFN-γ+ cells could be converted to produce IL-4. Others continued to express IFN-γ and thus were already committed to a proinflammatory, Th1-like phenotype. Surprisingly, within 3 wk of IL-12 stimulation, many of the IFN-γ-producing cells responded to IL-4 restimulation by expression of IL-10, but neither IFN-γ nor IL-4, i.e., by conversion to a suppressive, anti-inflammatory phenotype.
On-Demand Digital Print Services: A New Commercial Print Paradigm as an IT Service Vertical (2011)

On-demand digital print service is a form of personalized manufacturing service. Key to commercial print value-creation chain is the service engagement and fulfillment between the content suppliers and the print service providers (PSP). Content suppliers are the service clients, they request print services and supply content for print. PSPs provide the fulfillment services to the content suppliers in exchange for payment: converting the supplied content into printed products and shipping them to the end-customer. In this paper, we will describe on-demand digital print service, and the application of service-oriented architecture (SOA) as platform to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into the end-to-end print service fulfillment process to enable digital print automation, and the SOA implementation assisted by process modeling. We also extend the SOA framework to include the order negotiation process and envisage a coupled demand-fulfillment paradigm. SOA-based digital print automation leverages from the integration of ICT into the print manufacturing operations management, it is an IT service vertical.
Deciphering the Mesodermal Potency of Porcine Skin-Derived Progenitors (SKP) by Microarray Analysis (2010)

Skin stem cells have an essential role in maintaining tissue homeostasis by dynamically replenishing those constantly lost during tissue turnover or following injury. Multipotent skin derived progenitors (SKP) can generate both neural and mesodermal progeny, representing neural crest-derived progenitors during embryogenesis through adulthood. SKP cells develop into spheres in suspension and can differentiate into fibroblast-like cells (SFC) in adhesive culture with serum. Concomitantly they gradually lose the neural potential but retain certain mesodermal potential. However, little is known about the molecular mechanism of the transition of SKP spheres into SFC in vitro. Here we characterized the transcriptional profiles of porcine SKP spheres and SFC by microarray analysis. We found 305 upregulated and 96 downregulated genes, respectively. The downregulated genes are mostly involved in intrinsic programs like the Dicer pathway and asymmetric cell division, whereas upregulated genes are likely to participate in extrinsic signaling pathways such as ErbB signaling, MAPK signaling, ECM-receptor reaction, Wnt signaling, cell communication, and tumor growth factor (TGF)-β signaling pathways. These intrinsic programs and extrinsic signaling pathways collaborate to mediate the transcription-state transition between SKP spheres and SFC. We speculate that these potential signaling pathways may play an important role in regulating the cell fate transition between SKP spheres and SFC in vitro.
Increasing the safety and precision of medical tissue puncture (2014)

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2014.
Application Sensitive Energy Management Framework for Storage Systems (2015)

Rapidly escalating energy and cooling costs, especially those related to the energy consumption of storage systems, have become a concern for data centers, primarily because the amount of digital data that needs storage is increasing daily. In response, a multitude of energy saving approaches that take into account storage-device-level input/output (I/O) behaviors have been proposed. The trouble is that numerous critical applications such as database systems or web commerce applications are in constant operation at data centers, and the conventional approaches that only utilize storage-device-level I/O behaviors do not produce sufficient energy savings. It may be possible to dramatically reduce storage-related energy consumption without degrading application performance levels by utilizing application-level I/O behaviors. However, such behaviors differ from one application to another, and it would be too expensive to tailor methods to individual applications. As a way of solving this problem, we propose a universal storage energy management framework for runtime storage energy savings that can be applied to any type of application. The results of evaluations show that the use of this framework results in substantive energy savings compared with the traditional approaches that are used while applications are running.
Understanding Video Management Planes (2018)

While Internet video control and data planes have received much research attention, little is known about the video management plane. In this paper, using data from more than a hundred video publishers spanning two years, we characterize the video management plane and its evolution. The management plane shows significant diversity with respect to video packaging, playback device support, and CDN use, and current trends suggest increasing diversity in some of these dimensions. This diversity adds complexity to management, and we show that the complexity of many management tasks is sub-linearly correlated with the number of hours a publisher's content is viewed. Moreover, today each publisher runs an independent management plane, and this practice can lead to sub-optimal outcomes for syndicated content, such as redundancies in CDN storage and loss of control for content owners over delivery quality.
Relay-Assisted Interference Network: Degrees of Freedom (2012)

This paper investigates the degrees of freedom of the interference channel in the presence of a dedicated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay. The relay is used to manage the interference at the receivers. It is assumed that all nodes including the relay have channel state information only for their own links and that the relay has <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">M</i> ≥ <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> antennas in a <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> -user network. We pose the question: what is the benefit of exploiting the direct links from the source to destinations compared to a simpler two-hop strategy. To answer this question, we first establish the degrees of freedom of the interference channel with an MIMO relay, showing that a <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> -pair network with an MIMO relay has [( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> )/2] degrees of freedom. Thus, appropriate signaling in a two-hop scenario captures the degrees of freedom without the need for the direct links. We then consider more sophisticated encoding strategies in search of other ways to exploit the direct links. Using a number of hybrid encoding strategies, we obtain nonasymptotic achievable sum rates. We investigate the case where the relay (unlike other nodes) has access to abundant power, showing that when sources have power <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">P</i> and the relay is allowed power proportional to <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">O</i> ( <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">P</i> <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) , the full degrees of freedom <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">K</i> are available to the network.
Message routing in an injured hypercube (1988)

A connected hypercube containing faulty components (nodes or links) is called an injured hypercube. To enable non-faulty nodes to communicate with each other in an injured hypercube, the information of component failures must be made available to those non-faulty nodes for them to route messages around the faulty components.
On Dynamic Reconfiguration of a Large-Scale Battery System (2009)

Electric vehicles powered with large-scale battery packs are gaining popularity as gasoline price soars. Large-scale battery packs usually consist of an estimated 12,000 battery cells connected in series and parallel, which are susceptible to battery-cell failures. Unfortunately, current battery-management systems are unable to handle the inevitable battery-cell failures very well. To address this problem, we propose a dynamic reconfiguration framework that monitors, reconfigures, and controls large-scale battery packs online. The framework is built upon a syntactic bypassing mechanism that provides a set of rules for changing the battery-pack configuration, and a semantic bypassing mechanism by which the battery-cell connectivity is reconfigured to recover from a battery-cell failure. In particular, the semantic bypassing mechanism is dictated by constant-voltage-keeping and dynamic-voltage-allowing policies. The former policy is effective in preventing unavoidable voltage drops during the battery discharge, while the latter policy is effective in supplying different amounts of power to meet a wide-range of application requirements. Our experimental evaluation has shown the proposed framework to enable the battery packs to be 9 times as fault-tolerant as a legacy scheme.
Effect of Recombinant Bovine Interleukin-1β in Normal Calves and in Calves Infected with Bovine Herpesvirus Type 1 (1996)

Bovine herpesvirus-1 (BHV-1) is an important pathogen of respiratory infections in cattle. Its continuing importance lies in its ability to predispose infected hosts to bacterial infections. In this present study, we determined whether the immunoregulatory effects induced by interleukin-1 (IL-1) could stimulate appropriate host defense mechanisms to influence the course of BHV-1 infection in cattle. We first evaluated the effect of different doses (10-1000 ng/kg) of IL-1 in normal cattle. A single administration of IL-1 was able to induce a dose-dependent increase in polymorphonuclear (PMN) cells as well as monocytes in peripheral blood. The number of CD3+ lymphocytes and gamma/delta T cells in peripheral circulation decreased transiently in a dose-dependent manner. In the disease model, the effect of IL-1 administration (300 ng/kg) 24 h before, at the time of, and 24 h after the BHV-1 challenge was assessed. As a single therapeutic modality, IL-1 did not significantly reduce the establishment or progression of BHV-1-induced disease. Nevertheless, our results demonstrated that the significant modulation of diverse immune parameters did not exacerbate disease. Thus, the use of IL-1 as an adjunct therapy or as a vaccine adjuvant in cattle can be safely considered in situations where BHV-1 infection is likely to occur.