Abstract: A NLRP3-inhibitory compound 7 (NIC7) and a potent derivative NIC7w are disclosed. NLRP3-inhibitory compound 7 (NIC7) and a potent derivative NIC7w are a novel small-molecule inhibitor for inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasomes are identified. These compounds inhibit main elements of the NLRP3 signaling pathway, primarily IL-1? and caspase 1, and improve cognitive behaviors of mice in Alzheimer disease mouse models. Compositions of NIC7 and NIC7w are suitable as a therapeutic agent in treating, preventing, or improving the conditions of Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract: Provided are parallel computational methods and their implementation on memory-distributed architectures for a peptide identification tool, called HiCOPS, that enables more than 100-fold improvement in speed over existing HPC proteome database search tools. HiCOPS empowers the supercomputing database search for comprehensive identification of peptides and all their modified forms within a reasonable timeframe. Searching Gigabytes of experimental mass spectrometry data against Terabytes of databases demonstrates peptide identification in minutes compared to days or weeks, providing multiple orders of magnitude improvements in processing times. Also provided is a theoretical framework for a novel overhead-avoiding strategy, resulting in superior performance evaluation results for key metrics including execution time, CPU utilization, and I/O efficiency.

Abstract: Methods and systems for compressing data, such as ion-mass information data in mass spectrometry spectra, to reduce index size are provided. Data in an index, such as fragment-ion data in a fragment-ion index, can be transformed for reduction of entropy and then encoded using a running counter technique to compress repetitive and redundant information in the index.

Abstract: Techniques for behavioral pairing model evaluation in a contact center system are disclosed. In one particular embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method for behavioral pairing model evaluation in a contact center system and communicatively coupled to the operating system comprising determining, by at least one computer processor configured to operate in the contact center system, contact data; partitioning, by the at least one computer processor, the contact data into a first plurality of types; determining, by the at least one computer processor, a first measure of the quality of the partitioning of the contact data into the first plurality of types; and outputting, by the at least one computer processor, a computer-processor generated behavioral pairing model based on the quality of the partitioning.