gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Inborn errors of OAS–RNase L in SARS-CoV-2–related multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (2022)

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a rare and severe condition that follows benign COVID-19. We report autosomal recessive deficiencies of <i>OAS1</i>, <i>OAS2</i>, or <i>RNASEL</i> in five unrelated children with MIS-C. The cytosolic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-sensing OAS1 and OAS2 generate 2'-5'-linked oligoadenylates (2-5A) that activate the single-stranded RNA-degrading ribonuclease L (RNase L). Monocytic cell lines and primary myeloid cells with OAS1, OAS2, or RNase L deficiencies produce excessive amounts of inflammatory cytokines upon dsRNA or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) stimulation. Exogenous 2-5A suppresses cytokine production in OAS1-deficient but not RNase L-deficient cells. Cytokine production in RNase L-deficient cells is impaired by MDA5 or RIG-I deficiency and abolished by mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein (MAVS) deficiency. Recessive OAS-RNase L deficiencies in these patients unleash the production of SARS-CoV-2-triggered, MAVS-mediated inflammatory cytokines by mononuclear phagocytes, thereby underlying MIS-C.
Two-Dimensional Mineral [Pb2BiS3][AuTe2]: High-Mobility Charge Carriers in Single-Atom-Thick Layers (2015)

Two-dimensional (2D) electronic systems are of wide interest due to their richness in chemical and physical phenomena and potential for technological applications. Here we report that [Pb2BiS3][AuTe2], known as the naturally occurring mineral buckhornite, hosts 2D carriers in single-atom-thick layers. The structure is composed of stacking layers of weakly coupled [Pb2BiS3] and [AuTe2] sheets. The insulating [Pb2BiS3] sheet inhibits interlayer charge hopping and confines the carriers in the basal plane of the single-atom-thick [AuTe2] layer. Magneto-transport measurements on synthesized samples and theoretical calculations show that [Pb2BiS3][AuTe2] is a multiband semimetal with a compensated density of electrons and holes, which exhibits a high hole carrier mobility of ∼1360 cm(2)/(V s). This material possesses an extremely large anisotropy, Γ = ρ(c)/ρ(ab) ≈ 10(4), comparable to those of the benchmark 2D materials graphite and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(6+δ). The electronic structure features linear band dispersion at the Fermi level and ultrahigh Fermi velocities of 10(6) m/s, which are virtually identical to those of graphene. The weak interlayer coupling gives rise to the highly cleavable property of the single crystal specimens. Our results provide a novel candidate for a monolayer platform to investigate emerging electronic properties.
Failure strength of lumbar spinous processes loaded in a tension band model (2012)

Across specimens with a wide range of BMDs, midline-sparing decompression was not found to decrease the mean failure strength of the L-4 and L-5 spinous processes (453 and 517 N, respectively), whereas midline surgical decompression decreased the failure strength of these processes (264 and 269 N, respectively) in a biomechanical model of tension band loading relevant to the design of a tension band device.
Etude clinique et biologique de la fonction hypophyso-gonanique dans les prolactinomes. (1985)

peer reviewed
Space-Time Parameter Estimation in Radar Array Processing (2003)

This thesis is about estimating parameters using an array of spatially distributed sensors. The material is presented in the context of radar array processing, but the analysis could be of interest in a wide range of applications such as communications, sonar, radio astronomy, seismology, and medical diagnosis. The main theme of the thesis is to analyze the fundamental limitations on estimation performance in sensor array signal processing. To this end, lower bounds on the estimation accuracy as well as the performance of the maximum likelihood (ML) and weighted least-squares (WLS) estimators are studied. The focus in the first part of the thesis is on asymptotic analyses. It deals with the problem of estimating the directions of arrival (DOAs) and Doppler frequencies with a sensor array. This problem can also be viewed as a two-dimensional (2-D) frequency estimation problem. The ML and WLS estimators for this problem amount to multidimensional, highly non-linear optimization problems which would be expensive to solve in real-time in a radar system. Therefore, simplifications of this problem are of great interest. It is shown in this thesis that, under some circumstances, the 2-D problem decouples into 1-D problems. This means a dramatic reduction in computational complexity with insignificant loss of accuracy. The second part contains a performance analysis of the ML DOA estimator under conditions of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and a small number of data samples. It is well known that the ML estimator exhibits a threshold effect, i.e. a rapid deterioration of estimation accuracy below a certain SNR. This effect is caused by outliers and is not captured by standard analysis tools. In this thesis, approximations to the mean square estimation error and probability of outlier are derived that can be used to predict the threshold region performance of the ML estimator with high accuracy. Moreover, these approximations alleviate the need for time-consuming computer simulations when evaluating the ML performance.
Shifts in the Active Rhizobiome Paralleling Low Meloidogyne chitwoodi Densities in Fields Under Prolonged Organic Soil Management (2020)

Plants manipulate their rhizosphere community in a species and even a plant life stage-dependent manner. In essence plants select, promote and (de)activate directly the local bacterial and fungal community, and indirectly representatives of the next trophic level, protists and nematodes. By doing so, plants enlarge the pool of bioavailable nutrients and maximize local disease suppressiveness within the boundaries set by the nature of the local microbial community. MiSeq sequencing of specific variable regions of the 16S or 18S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) is widely used to map microbial shifts. As current RNA extraction procedures are time-consuming and expensive, the rRNA-based characterization of the active microbial community is taken along less frequently. Recently, we developed a relatively fast and affordable protocol for the simultaneous extraction of rDNA and rRNA from soil. Here, we investigated the long-term impact of three type of soil management, two conventional and an organic regime, on soil biota in fields naturally infested with the Columbian root-knot nematode <i>Meloidogyne chitwoodi</i> with pea (<i>Pisum sativum</i>) as the main crop. For all soil samples, large differences were observed between resident (rDNA) and active (rRNA) microbial communities. Among the four organismal group under investigation, the bacterial community was most affected by the main crop, and unweighted and weighted UniFrac analyses (explaining respectively 16.4% and 51.3% of the observed variation) pointed at a quantitative rather than a qualitative shift. LEfSe analyses were employed for each of the four organismal groups to taxonomically pinpoint the effects of soil management. Concentrating on the bacterial community in the pea rhizosphere, organic soil management resulted in a remarkable activation of members of the Burkholderiaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Pseudomonadaceae. Prolonged organic soil management was also accompanied by significantly higher densities of bacterivorous nematodes, whereas levels of <i>M. chitwoodi</i> had dropped drastically. Though present and active in the fields under investigation Orbiliaceae, a family harboring numerous nematophagous fungi, was not associated with the <i>M. chitwoodi</i> decline. A closer look revealed that a local accumulation and activation of <i>Pseudomonas,</i> a genus that includes a number of nematode-suppressive species, paralleled the lower <i>M. chitwoodi</i> densities. This study underlines the relevance of taking along both resident and active fractions of multiple organismal groups while mapping the impact of <i>e.g.</i> crops and soil management regimes.
1D-FDTD Simulation of Microwave Generation Using Ferrite Electromagnetic Shock Lines (2020)

Ferrite-charged nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) have been used as electromagnetic shock lines in applications that require pulses with extremely fast rise times. Subject to an intense external magnetic field (20-40 kA/m), these lines can generate microwave radiation generally in L-band (1-2 GHz) and are known in this case as nonlinear gyromagnetic lines. Due to its wide applicability in the RF area, such as electronic warfare (in defense) or high power beam modulators (in industry), there is growing interest in the study of these lines, especially using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations to predict some important line parameters, such as the rise time of the output pulse and the frequency generated. The FDTD method is based on the nonlinear behavior of the magnetic material that fills the line as the current pulse propagates, inducing RF oscillations due to the precession of the ferrite's magnetic moments, described mathematically by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation (LLG). Thus, this work presents a one-dimensional numerical modeling and simulation (1D) study to describe the behavior of these lines, which operate in the TEM mode. The numerical simulations were obtained using the joint solution of the transmission line equations and the gyromagnetic LLG equation in the publicly available software OCTAVE.
Method of recognition and pose estimation of multiple occurrences of multiple objects in visual images (2011)

This paper describes a system for multiple-object recognition and segmentation that (1) correctly identifies objects in a natural scene and provides a boundary for each object, (2) can identify multiple occurrences of the same object (e.g., two identical objects, side-by-side) in the scene from different training views. The algorithm is novel in that it employs statistical modeling to efficiently prune features from an identified object from the scene without disturbing similar features elsewhere in the scene. The originality of the approach allows one to analyze complex scenes that occur in nature contain multiple instances of the same object.
Design of an energy detector for heartbeat localization in ECG signals (2016)

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) causes as many deaths as cancer in Europe. A method to detect them consists in tracking the heartbeat rate from ECG signal. In this case, QRS complexes have to be localized and it is proposed here to use an energy detector to enable this. It can be integrated in an analog circuit and can also address low power and low cost applications such as consumer embedded electronics. Using a 0.35μm CMOS technology from AMS, the design of the analog multiplier cell required by the energy detector is presented here. It shows a voltage gain upper than 18 with a sufficient linearity for the targeted applications. Preliminary results of the full energy detector which mix Matlab computations and Eldo post-layout simulations show a detection rate about 98.8% for SNR upper than 0dB.
A novel scheduling framework for QoS-aware OFDMA resource allocation in a network with small relay cells and macro users (2012)

Relaying is a convenient way to provide full coverage in cellular networks. In particular, small relay cells can be used as a cost-effective solution for indoor coverage in MIMO–OFDM systems. The small relay cells would need to cater for indoor users’ quality of service (QoS) expectations. One key QoS objective is delivering stable data rates for multimedia applications, which we refer to as guaranteed data rates. In this article, we consider optimization for delivering guaranteed data rates in a network with multiple relays and a macro base station, in a scenario when there are both macro users and relay users to be served. A novel scheme called cell-guaranteed bit rate by relay scheduling is proposed, with both optimal and heuristic scheduling methods. To perform the optimization we exploit resource block allocation, and parameters such as relaying duration and relay bandwidth allocation. Interference between relays and macro is avoided through time domain orthogonalization. Another key aspect of the scheme is inter-frame scheduling, wherein relay feeder links can be flexibly scheduled in any time slot along with macro users. Performance evaluation is presented using real-time indoor measurement channels and a sample test scenario. Results show the heuristic method can improve performance by 89.47% as compared to round-robin scheduling at relays and is within a 5% gap to optimal scheduling.
Analysis of bus width and delay on a fully digital signum nonlinearity chaotic oscillator (2011)

This paper introduces the first fully digital implementation of a 3rd order ODE-based chaotic oscillator with signum nonlinearity. A threshold bus width of 12-bits for reliable chaotic behavior is observed, below which the system output becomes periodic. Beyond this threshold, the maximum Lyapunov exponent (MLE) is shown to improve up to a peak value at 16-bits and subsequently decrease with increasing bus width. The MLE is also shown to gradually increase with number of introduced internal delay cycles until a peak value at 14 cycles, after which the system loses chaotic properties. Introduced external delay cycles are shown to rotate the attractors in 3-D phase space. Bus width and delay elements can be independently modulated to optimize the system to suit specifications. The experimental results of the system show low area and high performance on a Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGA with throughput of 13.35 Gbits/s for a 32-bit implementation.
3D Object Detection and Pose Estimation of Unseen Objects in Color\n Images with Local Surface Embeddings (2020)

We present an approach for detecting and estimating the 3D poses of objects\nin images that requires only an untextured CAD model and no training phase for\nnew objects. Our approach combines Deep Learning and 3D geometry: It relies on\nan embedding of local 3D geometry to match the CAD models to the input images.\nFor points at the surface of objects, this embedding can be computed directly\nfrom the CAD model; for image locations, we learn to predict it from the image\nitself. This establishes correspondences between 3D points on the CAD model and\n2D locations of the input images. However, many of these correspondences are\nambiguous as many points may have similar local geometries. We show that we can\nuse Mask-RCNN in a class-agnostic way to detect the new objects without\nretraining and thus drastically limit the number of possible correspondences.\nWe can then robustly estimate a 3D pose from these discriminative\ncorrespondences using a RANSAC- like algorithm. We demonstrate the performance\nof this approach on the T-LESS dataset, by using a small number of objects to\nlearn the embedding and testing it on the other objects. Our experiments show\nthat our method is on par or better than previous methods.\n
Functional Applications of Text Analytics Systems (2019)

Text analytics can provide a wide breadth of valuable information, including summarization, clustering, classification, and categorization to enable better functional interaction with the text. This includes improved search, translation, optimization, and learning. In this paper, we describe advanced analytical approaches used to enable improved utility of the text documents and information later. This adds value to the preservation of the information and provides new access points to the information. We emphasize the role of functional approaches to testing and configuration of these systems, with the view that the primary role of archiving is to make the content as re-usable, re-purposeable, and discoverable as possible.
A smart measurement system for reconstructing voltage rms value over long time interval (2005)

Determining the trend over long time interval of parameters characterizing electrical power systems usually requires high storage capacity. The authors have proposed a measurement technique, based on both a random sampling strategy and a statistical approach, which allows to reconstruct the trend of a given parameter by processing a very limited amount of data. In this paper, a smart system implementing such a technique is presented. It is a microcontroller-based device devoted to the acquisition of the rms values on low voltage systems. The results of some experimental tests showing the good performance of the implemented device are also presented and discussed.
Merits of Batch ALD (2014)

An overview of the merits and applications of batch ALD in a vertical furnace will be presented. We address new material and process developments and throughput enhancement which are key factors for future high-volume manufacturing applications. We present ALD SbO x as a new material on the batch platform. For the workhorse ALD Al 2 O 3 and TiN materials, experimental and simulation results demonstrate that a reduction in cycle time to &lt;21s does not significantly compromise uniformity, resistivity and step coverage. Moreover, batch ALD offers process flexibility in the mitigation of non-idealities, such as growth inhibition, as will be discussed for thermal ALD AlN. The very low non-uniformities &lt; 1% (1σ) for the latter process demonstrate the competitive film properties that can be achieved by batch ALD. With applications as diverse as metal gates in logic, trench capacitor electrodes, capacitor dielectrics, barrier layers and passivation films, batch ALD has firmly established itself at device manufacturers and foundry sites with significant prospects for emerging markets.
Elevated CSF histamine levels in multiple sclerosis patients (2013)

Histamine may be an important factor for both the initiation and maintenance of chronic inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. Our observation encourages a deeper investigation of the role of histamine in MS.
[2010] Energy Efficiency Using Loop Buffer based Instruction Memory Organizations (2010)

Energy consumption in embedded systems is strongly dominated by instruction memory organizations. Based on this, any architectural enhancement introduced in this component will produce a significant reduction of the total energy bud-get of the system. Loop buffering is an effective scheme to reduce the energy consumption of the instruction memory organization.In this paper, a novel classification of architectural enhancements based on the use of loop buffer concept is presented. Using this classification, an energy design space exploration is performed to show the impact in the energy consumption on different application scenarios. From gate-level simulations, the energy analysis demonstrates that the instruction level parallelism of the system brings not only improvements in performance, but also improvements in the energy consumption of the system.The increase in instruction level parallelism makes easy the adaptation of the sizes of the loop buffers to the sizes of the loops that form the application, because gives more freedom to combine the execution of the loops that form the application.
Cotransplantation of Ex Vivo Expanded and Unexpanded Cord Blood Units in Immunodeficient Mice Using Insulin Growth Factor Binding Protein-2–Augmented Mesenchymal Cell Cocultures (2012)

Ex vivo expansion of cord blood (CB) hematopoietic stem cells and cotransplantation of 2 CB units (CBUs) could enhance the applicability of CB transplantation in adult patients. We report an immunodeficient mouse model for cotransplantation of ex vivo expanded and unexpanded human CB, showing enhanced CB engraftment and provide proof of concept for this transplantation strategy as a means of overcoming the limiting cell numbers in each CBU. CBUs were expanded in serum-free medium supplemented with stem cell factor, Flt-3 ligand, thrombopoietin, and insulin growth factor binding protein-2 together with mesenchymal stromal cell coculture. Unexpanded and expanded CB cells were cotransplanted by tail vein injection into 45 sublethally irradiated nonobese diabetic SCID-IL2γ(-/-) (NSG) mice. Submandibular bleeding was performed monthly, and mice were sacrificed 4 months after transplantation to analyze for human hematopoietic engraftment. Expansion of non-CD34(+) selected CB cells yielded 40-fold expansion of CD34(+) cells and 3.1-fold expansion of hematopoietic stem cells based on limiting dilution analysis of NSG engraftment. Mice receiving expanded grafts exhibited 4.30% human cell repopulation, compared with 0.92% in mice receiving only unexpanded grafts at equivalent starting cell doses, even though the unexpanded graft predominated in long-term hematopoiesis (P = .07). Ex vivo expanded grafts with lower initiating cell doses also showed equivalent engraftment to unexpanded grafts with higher cell dose (8.0% versus 7.9%; P = .93). In conclusion, ex vivo expansion resulted in enhanced CB engraftment despite eventual rejection by the unexpanded CBU.
Integrated on-chip system for DNA purification, labelling and surface stretching (2018)

We report a simplified, integrated and more efficient way of preparing DNA for analysis. We have developed a microfluidic platform that can purify DNA and subsequently label and stretch it on a surface. We have successfully extracted DNA from a gel-filled microfluidic channel using electrophoresis and subsequently stretched the DNA linearly by absorption to either a hydrophobic or a positively-charged surface. To our knowledge, DNA has not previously been stretched on to a surface while being moved using an electric field in this way. We have also labelled DNA after stretching with intercalating dyes. The intention, following stretching and labelling, is to analyze the DNA with optical mapping.
Revision of the acetabular component without cement after total hip arthroplasty. Three to six-year follow-up. (1993)

One hundred and thirty-eight consecutive revisions of an acetabular component were performed in 132 patients between 1983 and 1986. The revision prosthesis was a hemispherical component that was coated with porous titanium mesh and was secured to the pelvis with a variable number of screws. There were seventy-five women and fifty-seven men, and the mean age at the time of the revision was fifty-two years (range, twenty to seventy-nine years). Due to defects in the acetabulum, 80 per cent of the hips were treated with bone grafts, usually a mixture of local autogenous graft and freeze-dried allograft. One hundred and twenty-four patients (129 hips) were available for follow-up, at a mean of forty-four months (range, thirty-six to eighty months). Seven hips (5 per cent) were revised again: four because of infection and three because of instability. There were no revisions for loosening without infection, and none of the components migrated in the absence of infection. Radiolucent lines were common and usually corresponded to regions in which allograft had been used. All bone grafts united by twelve months. Non-contained medial grafts underwent a phenomenon of resorption, consolidation, and remodeling to a sclerotic rim by twenty-four months. There were no complications related to placement of the screws. The results in this series were superior to results of revisions of acetabular components with the use of cement, which were associated with rates of failure of almost 10 per cent after a similar duration of follow-up. The technique of maximization of host-bone coverage and of packing of all defects with cancellous autogenous graft or allograft, or both, was successful for all classes of acetabular deficiencies.