gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Antisense RNA foci in the motor neurons of C9ORF72-ALS patients are associated with TDP-43 proteinopathy (2015)

GGGGCC repeat expansions of C9ORF72 represent the most common genetic variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia. We and others have proposed that RNA transcribed from the repeat sequence is toxic via sequestration of RNA-binding factors. Both GGGGCC-repeat (sense) and CCCCGG-repeat (antisense) molecules are detectable by fluorescence in situ hybridisation as RNA foci, but their relative expression pattern within the CNS and contribution to disease has not been determined. Blinded examination of CNS biosamples from ALS patients with a repeat expansion of C9ORF72 showed that antisense foci are present at a significantly higher frequency in cerebellar Purkinje neurons and motor neurons, whereas sense foci are present at a significantly higher frequency in cerebellar granule neurons. Consistent with this, inclusions containing sense or antisense derived dipeptide repeat proteins were present at significantly higher frequency in cerebellar granule neurons or motor neurons, respectively. Immunohistochemistry and UV-crosslinking studies showed that sense and antisense RNA molecules share similar interactions with SRSF2, hnRNP K, hnRNP A1, ALYREF, and hnRNP H/F. Together these data suggest that, although sense and antisense RNA molecules might be expected to be equally toxic via their shared protein binding partners, distinct patterns of expression in various CNS neuronal populations could lead to relative differences in their contribution to the pathogenesis of neuronal injury. Moreover in motor neurons, which are the primary target of pathology in ALS, the presence of antisense foci (χ (2), p < 0.00001) but not sense foci (χ (2), p = 0.75) correlated with mislocalisation of TDP-43, which is the hallmark of ALS neurodegeneration. This has implications for translational approaches to C9ORF72 disease, and furthermore interacting RNA-processing factors and transcriptional activators responsible for antisense versus sense transcription might represent novel therapeutic targets.
Crystallization Induced by Laser Irradiation in Ba-Y-Cu-O Superconducting Films Prepared by Laser Ablation (1989)

Ba 2 YCu 3 O x superconducting films were prepared by laser ablation with some newly developed laser processing techniques. First, we revealed that a rapid postannealing by laser irradiation converts an amorphous film to a crystallized superconducting one. Second, we tried the in situ preparation without a high-temperature postannealing. To reduce the substrate temperatures T s for the film preparation, we examined the effect of the laser irradiation on the growing film surface. We found that in situ excimer laser irradiation of the growing film surface improves the superconducting properties and the surface morphology of the films prepared at a relatively low T s . This improvement is brought about mainly by the enhancement of the film crystallization, rather than by providing additional oxygen atoms to the film.
Computation of the binding affinities of catechol‐<i>O</i>‐methyltransferase inhibitors: Multisubstate relative free energy calculations (2012)

Alchemical free energy simulations are amongst the most accurate techniques for the computation of the free energy changes associated with noncovalent protein-ligand interactions. A procedure is presented to estimate the relative binding free energies of several ligands to the same protein target where multiple, low-energy configurational substates might coexist, as opposed to one unique structure. The contributions of all individual substates were estimated, explicitly, with the free energy perturbation method, and combined in a rigorous fashion to compute the overall relative binding free energies and dissociation constants. It is shown that, unless the most stable bound forms are known a priori, inaccurate results may be obtained if the contributions of multiple substates are ignored. The method was applied to study the complex formed between human catechol-O-methyltransferase and BIA 9-1067, a newly developed tight-binding inhibitor that is currently under clinical evaluation for the therapy of Parkinson's disease. Our results reveal an exceptionally high-binding affinity (K(d) in subpicomolar range) and provide insightful clues on the interactions and mechanism of inhibition. The inhibitor is, itself, a slowly reacting substrate of the target enzyme and is released from the complex in the form of O-methylated product. By comparing the experimental catalytic rate (k(cat)) and the estimated dissociation rate (k(off)) constants of the enzyme-inhibitor complex, one can conclude that the observed inhibition potency (K(i)) is primarily dependent on the catalytic rate constant of the inhibitor's O-methylation, rather than the rate constant of dissociation of the complex.
<title>VLSI implementation of a buffer, universal quantizer, and frame-rate-control processor</title> (1991)

The CCITT Recommendation H.261 [1] describes the video coding and decoding method for the moving picture component of audiovisual services at the rates of px64 kbit/s, where p is in the range 1 to 30. Accordingly, several chip sets realizing these methods have been announced[3,4,5,6]. In this paper, a new architecture and implementation of an adaptive coding controller chip is reported. The main features of the chip include: (A) Adaptive Weighted Image Quality Control Capability, (B) High Speed Operation and (C) External Control Capability for Coding Control. The chip is implemented with CMOS standard cells and contains approximately 38,000 gates.
Network slicing via function decomposition and flexible network design (2017)

We argue for flexible network design as an architecture prototype for next generation networks. Such flexible design is developed by capitalizing on the concept of network function decomposition in conjunction with with its relation to network slicing. A detailed view of the proposed functional architecture is put forward, where the role of network function blocks for forming network slices with given requirements is underlined. We further highlight the impact of common architecture over multiple tenants and elaborate on the emerging multi-tenancy business models along with the resulting implications on security.
An Analysis of Load Imbalance in Scale-out Data Serving (2016)

Despite the natural parallelism across lookups, performance of distributed key-value stores is often limited due to load imbalance induced by heavy skew in the popularity distribution of the dataset. To avoid violating service level objectives expressed in terms of tail latency, systems tend to keep server utilization low and organize the data in micro-shards, which in turn provides units of migration and replication for the purpose of load balancing. These techniques reduce the skew, but incur additional monitoring, data replication and consistency maintenance overheads. This work shows that the trend towards extreme scale-out will further exacerbate the skew-induced load imbalance, and hence the overhead of migration and replication.
Relationship Among the Severity of Sleep Apnea Syndrome, Cardiac Arrhythmias, and Autonomic Imbalance (2003)

The relationship between obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), cardiac arrhythmias, and conduction disturbances in adults remains controversial. Early studies showed a higher prevalence than more recent and designed epidemiological studies. To clarify the actual prevalence of cardiac arrhythmias and conduction disturbances in patients referred for assessment of OSAS, a prospective cohort study was conducted: 147 consecutive patients (103 men; mean age of 54.5 +/- 10.7 years) underwent time-synchronized polysomnography and ECG Holter monitoring. OSAS was diagnosed in 66 (44.9%) of them based on an apnea hypopnea index (AHI) > or = 10. Prevalence of heart failure, of prior myocardial infarction, of hypertension, and of ventricular arrhythmias were similar in patients with or without OSAS. Nocturnal paroxysmal asystole was significantly more prevalent in OSAS patients (10.6 vs 1.2%; P < 0.02) and the number of episodes of bradycardia and pauses increased with the severity of the syndrome. Almost all bradycardic events occurred in patients with severe OSAS (AHI > 30), prolonged periods of arterial oxyhemoglobin desaturation, and low diurnal awake PaO2. Moreover, using heart rate variability analysis, nocturnal sinusal dysfunction contrasted with a blunted diurnal parasympathetic modulation of the sinus node. Frequent nocturnal nonsustained supraventricular tachycardias were predominantly found in patients with severe sleep related breathing disorders; however, an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias was not found. Under continuous positive airway pressure treatment, the 1-year follow-up of OSAS patients with nocturnal pauses did not reveal any arrhythmic event justifying a specific intervention.
An EXAFS and XRD study of the structure of nanocrystalline Ti - B - N thin films (1997)

Measurements of extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) have been used in conjunction with glancing-angle x-ray diffraction (XRD) to study the structure of sputter-deposited nanocrystalline Ti - B - N thin films of various compositions. The chemical composition of the films was established by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the equilibrium phase composition was calculated from an established phase diagram for the bulk Ti - B - N system. For the Ti - B - N layers low in nitrogen content a nanocrystalline -type structure in accordance with the predictions of the phase diagram was found. However, for a nitrogen-rich layer with the composition the expected Ti-containing phases, principally TiN, did not appear to be well formed. For this layer, the local structure around the central Ti atoms as deduced from EXAFS showed the Ti atoms mainly to be situated in disordered regions, possibly extremely small Ti - B or Ti - N clusters with no long-range crystalline order. The study has illustrated how the EXAFS technique can help one to understand the structure of poorly crystallized materials, especially in situations in which XRD measurements cannot be unambiguously interpreted.
A Critical Function for β-Amyloid Precursor Protein in Neuronal Migration Revealed by <i>In Utero</i> RNA Interference (2007)

Physiological processing of the beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) generates amyloid beta-protein, which can assemble into oligomers that mediate synaptic failure in Alzheimer's disease. Two decades of research have led to human trials of compounds that chronically target this processing, and yet the normal function of APP in vivo remains unclear. We used the method of in utero electroporation of shRNA constructs into the developing cortex to acutely knock down APP in rodents. This approach revealed that neuronal precursor cells in embryonic cortex require APP to migrate correctly into the nascent cortical plate. cDNAs encoding human APP or its homologues, amyloid precursor-like protein 1 (APLP1) or APLP2, fully rescued the shRNA-mediated migration defect. Analysis of an array of mutations and deletions in APP revealed that both the extracellular and cytoplasmic domains of APP are required for efficient rescue. Whereas knock-down of APP inhibited cortical plate entry, overexpression of APP caused accelerated migration of cells past the cortical plate boundary, confirming that normal APP levels are required for correct neuronal migration. In addition, we found that Disabled-1 (Dab1), an adaptor protein with a well established role in cortical cell migration, acts downstream of APP for this function in cortical plate entry. We conclude that full-length APP functions as an important factor for proper migration of neuronal precursors into the cortical plate during the development of the mammalian brain.
Understanding plasma catalysis through modelling and simulation—a review (2014)

Plasma catalysis holds great promise for environmental applications, provided that the process viability can be maximized in terms of energy efficiency and product selectivity. This requires a fundamental understanding of the various processes taking place and especially the mutual interactions between plasma and catalyst. In this review, we therefore first examine the various effects of the plasma on the catalyst and of the catalyst on the plasma that have been described in the literature. Most of these studies are purely experimental. The urgently needed fundamental understanding of the mechanisms underpinning plasma catalysis, however, may also be obtained through modelling and simulation. Therefore, we also provide here an overview of the modelling efforts that have been developed already, on both the atomistic and the macroscale, and we identify the data that can be obtained with these models to illustrate how modelling and simulation may contribute to this field. Last but not least, we also identify future modelling opportunities to obtain a more complete understanding of the various underlying plasma catalytic effects, which is needed to provide a comprehensive picture of plasma catalysis.
Helium ion microscope: A new tool for nanoscale microscopy and metrology (2006)

ALIS Corporation has developed a new helium ion microscope which has many advantages over both traditional scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and focused ion beams (FIBs). This new technology is expected to produce an ultimate focused spot size of 0.25nm. This high resolution is attributed to the high source brightness (B&gt;4×109A∕cm2sr), low energy spread (ΔE∕E∼2×10−5), and small diffraction effects (λ∼80fm). The interaction of helium ions with matter offers several valuable contrast mechanisms and a surface interaction volume which is much smaller than a SEM or conventional FIB.
Reduced Myocardial Nerve Growth Factor Expression in Human and Experimental Heart Failure (2000)

Maintenance of cardiac performance is tightly controlled by the autonomic nervous system. In congestive heart failure (CHF), although the adverse pathophysiological effects of cardiac sympathetic overactivity are increasingly recognized, the paradoxical finding of reduced sympathetic innervation density in the failing heart remains unexplained. Given these observations, we tested the hypothesis that a reduction in the myocardial production of nerve growth factor (NGF), which is important for the maintenance of sympathetic neuronal survival, could explain the conflicting neurochemical and neuroanatomical profile of CHF. In healthy humans (n=11), there was a significantly greater transcardiac venoarterial plasma NGF gradient than in CHF patients (n=11, P<0.05). In a rat model of CHF, a 40% reduction (P<0.05) NGF mRNA expression was apparent in association with a 24% reduction in tissue NGF content (P<0.05). In conjunction, evidence of reduced sympathetic innervation in the failing heart was apparent, as measured histologically by catecholamine fluorescence and by expression of the neuronal NGF receptor trkA. Norepinephrine (10 micromol/L) exposure reduced both NGF mRNA and protein expression in isolated cardiomyocytes, suggesting that myocardial NGF downregulation may represent an adaptive response to sympathetic overactivity. These data indicate that NGF expression in the heart is dynamic and may be altered in cardiovascular disease states. In CHF, reduced NGF expression may account for alterations in sympathetic neuronal function and neuroanatomy. The full text of this article is available at http://www.circresaha.org.
Shadowing of lightly doped drain implants due to gate etch profiles and implanter configurations (1996)

Shadowing of lightly doped drain (LDD) implants at the gate edge can cause shifts in effective electrical channel length (Leff), drive current (Ids) and transistor asymmetry. Process integration of gate etch and LDD implant processing and equipment in Motorola has led to the discovery of a unique type of implant shadowing. The increased vertical profile of the gate etch on modern single wafer etch systems obviously increases the potential to shadow implants and some amount of shadowing is not detrimental to the devices. In LDD processes which both the N-type and P-type LDD implants are masked separately, the gate etch profile and implant angle and rotation will determine the amount of shadowing for each transistor orientation. In processes that use a blanket N-LDD and a masked P-LDD adjusted to compensate for the N-dopant in the P-channel devices, an interaction between different implanter rotations has been shown to drastically increase the shadowing affects and leave uncompensated N-LDD dopant. It is necessary to carefully match the implant angles and rotations for proper performance of these LDD structures.
A Controlled Trial of Diazepam Administered during Febrile Illnesses to Prevent Recurrence of Febrile Seizures (1993)

Oral diazepam, given only when fever is present, is safe and reduces the risk of recurrent febrile seizures.
Inter-Dot Distance Dependence of Photoluminescence Properties in CdSe Quantum Dot Systems (2010)

We studied inter-dot distance dependence of photoluminescence (PL) properties in CdSe quantum dot (QD) systems. It is found from PL lifetime measurements that there are two types of resonance energy transfer processes between different-sized QDs; one caused by Förster-type coupling in the shorter distance region and the other by retarded light-field coupling in the longer region. It is also found that the behavior of the PL intensity as a function of the inter-dot distance resembles that of the PL lifetime, which indicates that concentration quenching can be explained by a resonance phenomenon caused by dipole–dipole interaction between same-sized QDs.
Specific Self‐Assembly of Single Lipid Vesicles in Nanoplasmonic Apertures in Gold (2008)

A combination of material-specific surface chemistry, sequence-specific DNA hybridization, and size exclusion on the nanometer scale can be combined for high-precision self-assembly of lipid vesicles (see figure) to localized surface-plasmon-resonance-active nanoholes in thin Au films on SiO2. Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2089/2008/adma200701697_s.pdf or from the author. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
Immobilization of Enzymes on Nanoporous, Silica Composites (2004)

In this work, the sol-gel process is used to produce a chemically surface modified gel (CSMG) with a high modification density. Sodium silicate, an inexpensive alternative to tetraethoxysilicate, is used as the silica source. The produced N-CSMG material is shown to have a high amino functional group loading of 3.6 mmol/g SiO2; significantly higher than commercially available matrices. One aspect of this work deals with retention of an open morphology to provide access of interior surface areas. Activation of N-CSMG, in the wet state, with glutaraldehyde produces GA-N-CSMG which is used for the immobilization of enzymes. Nitrogen adsorption (BET), SEM, and thermogravimetric analysis were used to study material properties. Invertase was used as a model enzyme to measure the immobilizing character of the GA-N-CSMG material. Using an optimized immobilization protocol, a very high loading of 700 mg invertase per gram GA-N-CSMG is obtained; significantly higher than other published results. The immobilized activity of 246,000 U/g GA-N-CSMG is also greater than any other in literature. Immobilized invertase showed almost 99% retention of free enzyme activity and no loss in catalytic efficiency. A major part of this work consists of a scale-up in production of low molecular weight protamine (LMWP), a peptide with possible pharmaceutical applications. Since LMWP is produced by the enzymatic hydrolysis of native protamine, the production of LMWP was improved upon through the immobilization of the enzyme thermolysin. The immobilized thermolysin proved to be quite robust and was integrated into a continuous flow-through system for LMWP production. The purification of LMWP was also improved upon by optimization of a heparin-affinity chromatographic process. Optimization allowed for a scale-up of LMWP production from 5 &#956;g/min to 167 &#956;g/min; a 33-fold increase in production with improved product purity and recovery. The last part of this work improves on the N-CSMG material by developing particles of controllable size and regular shape. Directions for further improvement of N-CSMG are discussed, including addition of the pH sensitive biopolymer chitosan. The improved surface coverage of mesoporous silica gels will provide significant benefits in the areas of catalysis, water treatment, sensors, drug delivery, and tissue engineering.
Resistive Switches and Memories from Silicon Oxide (2010)

Because of its excellent dielectric properties, silicon oxide (SiO(x)) has long been used and considered as a passive, insulating component in the construction of electronic devices. In contrast, here we demonstrate resistive switches and memories that use SiO(x) as the sole active material and can be implemented in entirely metal-free embodiments. Through cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, we determine that the switching takes place through the voltage-driven formation and modification of silicon (Si) nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in the SiO(x) matrix, with SiO(x) itself also serving as the source of the formation of this Si pathway. The small sizes of the Si NCs (d ∼ 5 nm) suggest that scaling to ultrasmall domains could be feasible. Meanwhile, the switch also shows robust nonvolatile properties, high ON/OFF ratios (>10(5)), fast switching (sub-100-ns), and good endurance (10(4) write-erase cycles). These properties in a SiO(x)-based material composition showcase its potentials in constructing memory or logic devices that are fully CMOS compatible.
Current status and future developments of endohedral metallofullerenes (2012)

Endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs), a new class of hybrid molecules formed by encapsulation of metallic species inside fullerene cages, exhibit unique properties that differ distinctly from those of empty fullerenes because of the presence of metals and their hybridization effects via electron transfer. This critical review provides a balanced but not an exhaustive summary regarding almost all aspects of EMFs, including the history, the classification, current progress in the synthesis, extraction, isolation, and characterization of EMFs, as well as their physiochemical properties and applications in fields such as electronics, photovoltaics, biomedicine, and materials science. Emphasis is assigned to experimentally obtained results, especially the X-ray crystallographic characterizations of EMFs and their derivatives, rather than theoretical calculations, although the latter has indeed enhanced our knowledge of metal-cage interactions. Finally, perspectives related to future developments and challenges in the research of EMFs are proposed. (381 references).
Aspherical Surfaces Engraved On Photoresist Coatings : Manufacture Of A Zonal Corrector Plate For An Aberrating Cassegrainian Telescope (1987)

We investigate how aspherical optical surfaces engraved in photoresist coatings avail against static wavefront aberrations up to 3 μ. The spherical aberration of a singlet lens is corrected for. The image given by a cassegrainian telescope of 143 mm diameter with a peak to valley 0,62 µ wavefront error and 7" slopes is improved by a 16 mm diameter intrafocal phase equalizer corrector plate. We then discuss extrapolations of our laboratory experiments.