gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Assay of locus-specific genetic load implicates rare Toll-like receptor 4 mutations in meningococcal susceptibility (2003)

As the central component of the human endotoxin sensor, Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) functions in the early detection and response to Gram-negative infection. We therefore examined a large collection of patients with meningococcal sepsis, comparing the frequency of rare TLR4 coding changes to those in an ethnically matched control population. TLR2 sequences were also acquired and compared. Total nucleotide variation at TLR4 and TLR2 loci was assayed by using a novel computational method. A total of 3.01 megabases of coding sequence was captured at these loci from white subjects with or without meningococcal disease. Authentic mutations were found and high-quality, bidirectional coverage was measured across the coding region by using mutationseeker, a program specifically designed to assay locus-specific genetic load. Using a method that obviates the confounding effect of linkage disequilibrium, we observed that rare heterozygous missense mutations of TLR4 contribute to the development of systemic meningococcal disease among white populations of the southern United Kingdom (P = 0.02; odds ratio 8.2). When results from all white populations were pooled, an overwhelmingly significant excess of such mutations was observed among individuals with disease (P = 2 x 10(-6); odds ratio 27.0). The common white TLR4 variant (TLR4B), synonymous TLR4 substitutions, and variant TLR2 alleles were not significantly over-represented among patients with systemic meningococcal infections. No single variant of TLR4 was significantly over-represented in the meningococcal population. Collectively, however, rare TLR4 coding variants were markedly over-represented. Sensing via TLR4 probably contributes to the early containment of meningococcal infection, and sensing defects create increased risk of disease.
Numerical Simulation of Gasoline Stratified Charge Compression Ignition Using 3D-CFD Coupled with Detailed Chemistry (2008)

In this paper, the detailed chemical kinetics was coupled with the three-dimensional CFD code to study the combustion process in HCCI engines. A detailed hydrocarbon oxidation reaction mechanism (89 species, 413 reactions) for high octane fuel was constructed and then used to simulate the chemical process of the ignition, combustion and pollutant formation under HCCI conditions. The three-dimensional FIRE/CHEMKIN model was validated using the experimental data from a Rapid Compression Machine. The simulation results show good agreements with experiments. Finally, the improved three-dimensional CFD code was employed to simulate the intake, spray, combustion and pollutant formation process of the gasoline direct injection HCCI engine with two-stage injection strategy. The models account for intake flow structure, spray atomization, spray/wall interaction, droplet evaporation and gas phase chemistry in complex multi-dimensional geometries. The calculated results show the periphery of fuel-rich zone formed by the second injection which ignited first and worked as an initiation to ignite the surrounding lean mixture zone formed by the first injection. The results provide a detailed insight into the processes governing combustion and pollutant formation in the HCCI engine.
ELECTRON‐MICROSCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF IRON OXIDES IN SOME RED SOILS (1968)

Summary Electron‐microscope studies of the clay fractions of red soils have shown that free iron oxides are present as small (50–100 A diam) discrete particles frequently clustered to form larger irregular aggregates. Although no evidence of iron‐oxide coatings on clay minerals was found, an association of some of the oxide particles with the edges, but not the faces of kaolinite plates was observed.
Role of secreted proteins and gonadotrophins in promoting full maturation of porcine oocytes in vitro (1997)

Experiments were designed to identify the extent to which follicle cells and hormones contribute to the developmental competence of porcine oocytes matured in vitro. Oocyte-cumulus complexes were collected from ovaries by dissection and cultured in 2 ml of TCM199-based medium in 5% CO2 in humidified air at 38.5°C. This basic maturation system was supplemented, for either the first 24 hr only or for the 48-hr culture period, with 1) everted follicle shell alone, 2) gonadotrophic hormones alone, or 3) both follicle shells and hormones. The effect of these treatments was evaluated on 1) meiotic maturation rates, 2) the capacity of matured eggs to undergo activation and early cleavage, and 3) changes to the profile of proteins secreted into the culture medium. The results showed that 1) supplementation with either follicle shell or hormones alone increased the rates of meiotic maturation over the nonsupplemented control group, and 2) combined follicle shell and hormonal supplementation yielded the highest rates for maturation, activation, and cleavage but only when hormonal supplementation was removed after the first 24 hr of culture. Proteins of 30, 37, 45, and 46 kD, but of unknown function, were secreted during the first 24 hr into the culture medium in groups supplemented with follicle shells. The addition of hormones did not affect this pattern of secreted proteins. It is possible that some secreted proteins may act to facilitate full maturation of pig oocytes. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 47:191–199, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Population Dynamics of <i>Bifidobacterium</i> Species in Human Feces during Raffinose Administration Monitored by Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization-Flow Cytometry (2006)

The population dynamics of bifidobacteria in human feces during raffinose administration were investigated at the species level by using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) coupled with flow cytometry (FCM) analysis. Although double-staining FISH-FCM using both fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and indodicarbocyanine (Cy5) as labeling dyes for fecal samples has been reported, the analysis was interfered with by strong autofluorescence at the FITC fluorescence region because of the presence of autofluorescence particles/debris in the fecal samples. We circumvented this problem by using only Cy5 fluorescent dye in the FISH-FCM analysis. Thirteen subjects received 2 g of raffinose twice a day for 4 weeks. Fecal samples were collected, and the bifidobacterial populations were monitored using the established FISH-FCM method. The results showed an increase in bifidobacteria from about 12.5% of total bacteria in the prefeeding period to about 28.7 and 37.2% after the 2-week and 4-week feeding periods, respectively. Bifidobacterium adolescentis, the Bifidobacterium catenulatum group, and Bifidobacterium longum were the major species, in that order, at the prefeeding period, and these bacteria were found to increase nearly in parallel during the raffinose administration. During the feeding periods, indigenous bifidobacterial populations became more diverse, such that minor species in human adults, such as Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium dentium, and Bifidobacterium angulatum, proliferated. Four weeks after raffinose administration was stopped, the proportion of each major bifidobacterial species, as well as that of total bifidobacteria, returned to approximately the original values for the prefeeding period, whereas that of each minor species appeared to differ considerably from its original value. To the best of our knowledge, these results provide the first clear demonstration of the population dynamics of indigenous bifidobacteria at the species level in response to raffinose administration.
Tortoise parties (2013)

Abstract While these ‘parties’ can be good fun for owners and the practice there are sound reasons for examining patients before and after their hibernation. Laura Smith explains.
Selection of Wrought Martensitic Stainless Steels (1993)

Abstract This article describes general welding characteristics such as weld microstructure and weldability. The correlations of preheating and postweld heat treatment practices with carbon contents and welding characteristics of martensitic stainless steels are reviewed. The article contains a table that lists the electrodes and welding rods suitable for use as filler metals in the welding of martensitic stainless steels. It provides specific arc welding procedural recommendations for the commonly welded martensitic stainless steels. Martensitic stainless steel joining methods such as laser-and electron-beam welding, resistance welding, flash welding, and friction welding, are discussed.
Emerging issues of privatization and the public sector (1988)

Pressure to move toward privatization has mounted in the face of severe economic crises both in the developed and developing world. To date, the pace of privatization in the developing world has been slow and its impact modest. This report accordingly discusses the issue of privatization in the context of developed and developing countries. In addition, it examines certain issues that occur with privatization such as the effect competition and ownership have on performance, the tension between multiple objectives and the proper balance between the enterprise's autonomy and the government's role in regulating market power. The report concludes that if these issues are neglected and not taken into account, the long term benefits of privatization will not materialize.
Influence of Different Dopants on the Piezoelectric Properties of the Na<sub>1/2</sub>Bi<sub>1/2</sub>TiO<sub>3</sub>-BaTiO<sub>3</sub>- Lead-Free Ceramics (2007)

This DOI is not currently attached to any metadata records. DOIs can’t actually ever be deleted (they’re persistent), but sometimes our members create DOIs in error. We do have a process to approximate deletion which we follow only in rare cases where the DOI has been genuinely created in error, and most crucially, if the DOI has never been published anywhere online or in print and never otherwise distributed to or communicated with anyone (authors, readers, reviewers, etc.
Transcriptomic analysis of Lactococcus chungangensis sp. nov. and its potential in cheese making (2014)

Lactococcus lactis has a played a prominent role in food industry from traditional milk fermentations to industrial scale processes. Extensive studies on the biochemical, physiological, and genetic aspects of L. lactis are evident from published literature. Recently, another novel species, Lactococcus chungangensis, was isolated from activated sludge as the sixth member of the genus to be discovered. To date, no study has been conducted to explore the functional aspects of L. chungangensis to identify features similar to those in L. lactis that are relevant to the dairy industry. Hence, the present study was undertaken to identify functional genes relevant to dairy application through comparative transcriptomic analysis of L. chungangensis with L. lactis. In expression microarray data, 415 genes were upregulated and 1,500 were downregulated of the total 1,915 probes analyzed. Interesting findings from this study were the identification of functional genes such as aminohydrolase and S-adenosylmethionine in L. chungangensis, which are useful in flavor production in cheese making. Probing these genes by PCR and analyzing the sequence confirmed the presence of these genes. Phenotypic analysis of these genes was also investigated by growing the strain in different concentrations of skim milk media to confirm the ability of L. chungangensis to degrade casein in milk, which is the major precursor for flavor enhancing compounds. Other adaptive and stress-response genes such as cold shock and heat shock proteins were also revealed. All experimental investigations at the functional level suggest that L. chungangensis possesses some interesting genes which are of commercial significance, especially in cheese production.
Evidence of a Novel Cell Signaling Role for Extracellular Adenosine Triphosphates and Diphosphates in Arabidopsis (2004)

Extracellular ATP is a known receptor agonist in animals and was previously shown to alter plant growth, and so we investigated whether ATP derivatives could function outside plant cells as signaling agents. Signaling responses induced by exogenous nucleotides in animal cells typically include increases in free cytoplasmic calcium concentration ([Ca(2+)](cyt)). We have evaluated the ability of exogenously applied adenosine 5'-[gamma-thio]triphosphate (ATPgammaS), adenosine 5'-[beta-thio]diphosphate (ADPbetaS), and adenosine 5'-O-thiomonophosphate to alter [Ca(2+)](cyt) in intact apoaequorin transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. ATPgammaS and ADPbetaS increase [Ca(2+)](cyt), and this increase is enhanced further when the nucleotides are added with the elicitor oligogalacturonic acid. Exogenous treatment with ATP also increases the level of transcripts encoding mitogen-activated protein kinases and proteins involved in ethylene biosynthesis and signal transduction. The increase in [Ca(2+)](cyt) induced by nucleotide derivatives can be ablated by Ca(2+)-channel blocking agents and by the calcium chelator 1,2-bis(o-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA), and the changes in gene expression can be partially blocked by these agents. These observations suggest that extracellular ATP can activate calcium-mediated cell-signaling pathways in plants, potentially playing a physiological role in transducing stress and wound responses.
Herstellung von Methylestern durch Umesterung funktionalisierter Substrate mit Titalsäureestern als Katalysatoren (1982)

Synthesis of Methyl Esters by Titanate‐catalyzed Transesterifications The low solubility of tetramethyl titanate has so far prevented the laboratory use of titanate‐catalyzed transesterifications with formation of methyl esters. Two procedures are described here, which allow the application of this exceedingly mild method to the synthesis of methyl esters: one uses methyl propionate/Ti(OEt) 4 , the other one uses methanol/ Gly‐Ti , a new type of catalyst, prepared from Ti(OEt) 4 /ethylene glycol 2:1.
Name space models for locating services (1991)

Much of recent work on computer systems has focused on providing transparent resource-sharing in a distributed computing environment. Many of these systems use the server-client model to provide access to data and services. As more distributed services are offered and the demand for sharing increases in these environments, efficient management and accessing schemes become crucial. Locating services makes name service a critical part of access management.This report describes some of the work in progress as part of the Universal Name Semantics (UNS) project at the University of Michigan. UNS was intended to explore issues involved in providing client programs with seamless naming of objects across heterogeneous name spaces. UNS is distinguished from other heterogeneous naming systems in its attempt to partially automate the translation process by exploiting abstract similarity between name spaces.
Unsupervised statistical adaptive segmentation of brain MR images using the MDL principle (2002)

We present a novel statistical adaptive method using the minimum description length (MDL) principle for unsupervised segmentation of magnetic resonance (MR) images. In the method, random noise is accounted for by modeling tissue regions by a Markov random field (MRF). In order to account for magnetic field inhomogeneities and biological variations of tissues, intensity measurements of local regions defined by windows are modeled by a finite Gaussian mixture. The segmentation algorithm is based on iterative conditional modes (ICM) algorithm. The algorithm approximately finds the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation of the segmentation and estimates the model parameters from the local region. The window size for parameter estimation and segmentation is estimated from the image using the MDL principle. The technique shows better results than conventional methods in segmentation of MR images with inhomogeneities.
A protocol for transformation and regeneration of <i>Antirrhinum majus</i> (1998)

A transformation and regeneration protocol for Antirrhinum majus that allows recovery of transgenic plants within seven months is described. Four different lines transformed with three different constructs have been tested for transformation frequency and regeneration capacity. Regenerated plants were phenotypically indistinguishable from wild-type plants and a GUS reporter gene under the control of the CaMV 35S promoter could be expressed in all tested organs of the plant, including leaves, roots and floral organs. The transgene was heritable through both male and female gametes.
Automated clustering-based workload characterization (1996)

The demands placed on the mass storage systems at various federal agencies and national laboratories are continuously increasing in intensity. This forces system managers to constantly monitor the system, evaluate the demand placed on it, and tune it appropriately using either heuristics based on experience or analytic models. Performance models require an accurate workload characterization. This can be a laborious and time consuming process. It became evident from our experience that a tool is necessary to automate the workload characterization process. This paper presents the design and discusses the implementation of a tool for workload characterization of mass storage systems. The main features of the tool discussed here are: (1)Automatic support for peak-period determination. Histograms of system activity are generated and presented to the user for peak-period determination; (2) Automatic clustering analysis. The data collected from the mass storage system logs is clustered using clustering algorithms and tightness measures to limit the number of generated clusters; (3) Reporting of varied file statistics. The tool computes several statistics on file sizes such as average, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, frequency, as well as average transfer time. These statistics are given on a per cluster basis; (4) Portability. The tool can easily be used to characterize the workload in mass storage systems of different vendors. The user needs to specify through a simple log description language how the a specific log should be interpreted. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section two presents basic concepts in workload characterization as they apply to mass storage systems. Section three describes clustering algorithms and tightness measures. The following section presents the architecture of the tool. Section five presents some results of workload characterization using the tool.Finally, section six presents some concluding remarks.
Guest Editors' Introduction: Artificial Intelligence for Homeland Security (2005)

In the post-9/11 world, information technology is an indispensable part of making our nation safer. Critical national security missions in the context of various data and technical domain challenges could benefit from establishing an intelligence and security informatics research discipline. Just as biomedical informatics addresses information management issues in biological and medical applications, ISI would address such issues for intelligence and security applications.The knowledge discovery from databases methodology shows promise in addressing unique ISI challenges. KDD has already proved successful in other information-intensive, knowledge-critical domains including business, engineering, biology, and medicine.This article is part of a special issue on Homeland Security.
Magnesium content of mononuclear blood cells in newborn infants and its correlation with maternal magnesium status. (1992)

In 25 full-term infants at birth and in their mothers, we determined plasma and mononuclear blood cell (MBC) Mg levels in order to investigate the relationship between maternal and fetal Mg status. MBC isolation for Mg analysis was carried out with a Ficoll-Isopaque gradient which is commercially available in disposable tubes. There was no difference in the plasma and MBC Mg levels between infants and their mothers. Neonatal MBC Mg content was significantly correlated with maternal plasma Mg concentration. The data demonstrate that MBC Mg content does not present any difference on the basis of age and emphasize that the constitution of fetal Mg reserve depends on maternal plasma Mg concentration.
PrP Genotype and Agent Effects in Scrapie: Change In Allelic Interaction With Different Isolates of Agent in Sheep, a Natural Host of Scrapie (1994)

Man and sheep are the two species in which spongiform encephalopathies occur naturally, and in which there are recognized genetic components that predispose an individual person or sheep to clinical disease. In both species mutations/polymorphisms in the PrP gene have been linked to the incidence of natural disease, but only in sheep is it possible to investigate by deliberate exposure to infection whether these polymorphisms are directly correlated with survival time. Cheviot sheep of different PrP genotypes were challenged with one of two isolates of scrapie or an isolate of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and the survival time and incidence of disease were monitored. Genotype analysis showed that dimorphisms in codons 136 and 171 of the ovine PrP gene correlated with control of disease incidence and modulation of incubation time. Crucially, the functional effects of these domains of PrP were shown to alternate depending on the isolate of infecting agent.
The effect of a garlic preparation on the composition of plasma lipoproteins and erythrocyte membranes in geriatric subjects. (1990)

This study evaluated the effect of a dried garlic powder preparation, standardised to 1.3% alliin, on the composition of plasma lipoproteins and erythrocyte membranes. Forty volunteers, aged 70 years and over, took 600 mg of garlic powder per day for three months. In participants with initially normal plasma cholesterol levels (CH less than 200 mg/dl; n = 11) after three months of garlic tablet administration, little or no change in CH values was registered, as for most of the other parameters. In contrast, in volunteers with initially elevated CH levels (CH greater than 200 mg/dl, n = 29), the CH levels were reduced by -7.7% (p less than 0.001). This reduction took place primarily in the esterified cholesterol fraction (-12%, p less than 0.001), whereas free cholesterol concentrations were not altered significantly. Triglycerides (-15.9%, p less than 0.05) and plasma choline phospholipids (-4.6%, p less than 0.01) were also reduced. No change of the plasma LDL-CH to HDL-CH ratio was observed in this group. Based on the weight of lyophilised, haemoglobin-free erythrocytes, the mean membrane concentration of phospholipids and cholesterol in the total cohort (n = 40) increased by 5.7% (p less than 0.001) and 6.1% (p less than 0.01), respectively. These increases were more pronounced the lower the body mass indices (kg/m2) were, and the longer the duration of garlic administration was. The molar ratio of membrane phospholipids to cholesterol remained unchanged. The results are discussed with regard to a possible role of the garlic-induced membrane effects in the plasma lipid-lowering potency of garlic and preparations made from it.
Dramatic enhancement of structure-borne wave energy harvesting using an elliptical acoustic mirror (2012)

Broadband structure-borne wave energy harvesting is reported by wave focusing using an elliptical acoustic mirror (EAM). The EAM is formed by an array of cylindrical stubs mounted along a semi-elliptical path on the surface of a plate. The array back-scatters incoming guided waves and focuses them at the focal location where a piezoelectric energy harvester is located. Multiple scattering simulations and experiments illustrate the broadband focusing characteristics of the EAM. More than an order of magnitude improvement in piezoelectric power generation is documented for an EAM-based energy harvester with respect to a free harvester over the 30–70 kHz frequency range.