Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ethanol Extract of Fructus Schisandrae Decreases Hepatic Triglyceride Level in Mice Fed with a High Fat/Cholesterol Diet, with Attention to Acute Toxicity

Effects of the ethanol extract of Fructus Schisandrae (EtFSC) on serum and liver lipid contents were investigated in mice fed with high fat/cholesterol (HFC) diet for 8 or 15 days. The induction of hypercholesterolemia by HFC diet caused significant increases in serum and hepatic total cholesterol (TC) levels (up to 62% and 165%, resp.) and hepatic triglyceride (TG) levels (up to 528%) in mice. EtFSC treatment (1 or 5 g/kg/day for 7 days; from Day 1 to 7 or from Day 8 to 14, i.g.) significantly decreased the hepatic TG level (down to 35%) and slightly increased the hepatic index (by 8%) in hypercholesterolemic mice. Whereas fenofibrate treatment (0.1 g/kg/day for 7 days, i.g.) significantly lowered the hepatic TG level (by 61%), it elevated the hepatic index (by 77%) in hypercholesterolemic mice. Acute toxicity test showed that EtFSC was relatively non-toxic, with an LD50 value of 35.63 ± 6.46 g/kg in mice. The results indicate that EtFSC treatment can invariably decrease hepatic TG in hypercholesterolemic mice, as assessed by both preventive and therapeutic protocols, suggesting its potential use for fatty liver treatment.
Rapid Communication Poor Oral Health and Coronary Heart Disease

A few recent studies have shown associations between poor oral health and coronary heart disease (CHD). The objective of this study was to examine the incidence of CHD in relation to number of teeth present and periodontal disease, and to explore potential mediators of this association, in a prospective cohort study. This study is a part of the ongoing Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS). Participants included a US national sample of 44,119 male health professionals (58% of whom were dentists), from 40 to 75 years of age, who reported no diagnosed CHD, cancer, or diabetes at baseline. We recorded 757 incident cases of CHD, including fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarction and sudden death, in six years of follow-up. Among men who reported pre-existing periodontal disease, those with 10 or fewer teeth were at increased risk of CHD compared with men with 25 or more teeth (relative risk = 1.67; 95% confidence interval, 1.03 to 2.71), after adjustment for standard CHD risk factors. Among men without pre-existing periodontal disease, no relationship was found (relative risk = 1.11; 95% confidence interval, 0.74 to 1.68). The associations were only slightly attenuated after we controlled for dietary factors. No overall associations were found between periodontal disease and coronary heart disease. Tooth loss may be associated with increased risk of CHD, primarily among those with a positive periodontal disease history; diet was only a small mediator of this association.
Perspective cursor: perspective-based interaction for multi-display environments

Multi-display environments and smart meeting rooms are now becoming more common. These environments build a shared display space from variety of devices: tablets, projected surfaces, tabletops, and traditional monitors. Since the different display surfaces are usually not organized in a single plane, traditional schemes for stitching the displays together can cause problems for interaction. However, there is a more natural way to compose display space -- using perspective. In this paper, we develop interaction techniques for multi-display environments that are based on the user's perspective on the room. We designed the Perspective Cursor, a mapping of cursor to display space that appears natural and logical from wherever the user is located. We conducted an experiment to compare two perspective-based techniques, the Perspective Cursor and a beam-based technique, with traditional stitched displays. We found that both perspective techniques were significantly faster for targeting tasks than the traditional technique, and that Perspective Cursor was the most preferred method. Our results show that integrating perspective into the design of multi-display environments can substantially improve performance.
Genre and game studies: Toward a critical approach to video game genres

This article examines the notion of genre in video games. The main argument is that the market-based categories of genre that have been developed in the context of video games obscure the new medium's crucial defining feature, by dividing them into categories (loosely) organized by their similarities to prior forms of mediation. The article explores the inherent tension between the conception of video games as a unified new media form, and the current fragmented genre-based approach that explicitly or implicitly concatenates video games with prior media forms. This tension reflects the current debate, within the fledgling discipline of Game Studies, between those who advocate narrative as the primary tool for understanding video games, “narratologists,” and those that oppose this notion, “ludologists. ” In reference to this tension, the article argues that video game genres be examined in order to assess what kind of assumptions stem from the uncritical acceptance of genre as a descriptive category. Through a critical examination of the key game genres, this article will demonstrate how the clearly defined genre boundaries collapse to reveal structural similarities between the genres that exist within the current genre system, defined within the context of visual aesthetic or narrative structure. The inability of the current genre descriptions to locate and highlight these particular features suggests that to privilege the categories of the visual and narrative is a failure to understand the medium. The article concludes by suggesting that the tension between “ludology” and “narratology” can be more constructively engaged by conceptualizing video games as operating in the interplay between these two taxonomies of genre.
Atomic Scale Study on Growth and Heteroepitaxy of ZnO Monolayer on Graphene

Atomically thin semiconducting oxide on graphene carries a unique combination of wide band gap, high charge carrier mobility, and optical transparency, which can be widely applied for optoelectronics. However, study on the epitaxial formation and properties of oxide monolayer on graphene remains unexplored due to hydrophobic graphene surface and limits of conventional bulk deposition technique. Here, we report atomic scale study of heteroepitaxial growth and relationship of a single-atom-thick ZnO layer on graphene using atomic layer deposition. We demonstrate atom-by-atom growth of zinc and oxygen at the preferential zigzag edge of a ZnO monolayer on graphene through in situ observation. We experimentally determine that the thinnest ZnO monolayer has a wide band gap (up to 4.0 eV), due to quantum confinement and graphene-like structure, and high optical transparency. This study can lead to a new class of atomically thin two-dimensional heterostructures of semiconducting oxides formed by highly controlled epitaxial growth.
Anatomical Study on Meckel Cave with Endoscopic Endonasal, Endo-Maxillary Sinus, and Endo-Pterygoid Process Approaches

Objective To study anatomical structures related to Meckel cave with endonasal endoscopic approach and to provide an anatomical basis for endoscopic surgery in Meckel cave. Methods Meckel cave of 5 adult skulls (10 sides) were fixed with 10% formalin. The anatomical structures of Meckel cave and the related zones adjacent to Meckel cave were observed and measured with endoscopic endonasal approach. Results Endoscopic endonasal, endo-maxillary sinus, and endo-pterygoid process approaches were successfully applied in observation of the anatomical structures of meckel cave and the rerated zones adjacent to Meckel cave and in measurement of distances between related anatomical structures for each case of samples. The relevant data were obtained. The distance between the front mouth of palatovaginal canal and vidian canal was 21.4±7 mm, the distance between opening of sphenoid sinus to the upper margin of the choana was 22.3±2.8 mm, the distance between the opening of vidian and foramen rotundum was 7.57±0.7 mm and the length of the pterygoid canal was 13.3±1.2 mm. Based on these data, the positions of the related important structures can be roughly located during surgical operation and various important structures in Meckel cave and its adjacent zones can be found out in a convenient and safe way. Conclusion 1) It is feasible to use endonasal endoscopic approach to perform surgical operation in Meckel cave; 2) Use of endonasal endoscopic approach can protect and fully take the advantage of the vidian nerve to locate the position of foramina lacerum of the internal carotid artery during surgical operation; and 3) the observational and experimental data obtained with this approach can provide the rational basis for clinical operation procedures.
Transgressive learning in times of global systemic dysfunction: interview with Arjen Wals

Arjen Wals is Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University. He also holds the UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development. Furthermore he is the Carl Bennet Guest Professor in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at Gothenburg University in Sweden. He obtained his PhD in 1991 with a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His dissertation tackled the interface of environmental psychology and environmental and sustainability education. His recent work focuses on transformative social learning in vital coalitions of multiple stakeholders at the interface of science and society. His teaching and research focus on designing learning processes and learning spaces that enable people to contribute meaningfully sustainability. A central question in his work is: how to create conditions that support (new) forms of learning which take full advantage of the diversity, creativity and resourcefulness that is all around us, but so far remain largely untapped in our search for a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect? In 2014 he was the lead author of an article published in Science Magazine on the role of citizen science in bridging science education, environmental education and sustainability. He is editor and co-editor of a number of popular books including: Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability (Kluwer Academic, 2004), Creating Sustainable Environments in our Schools (Trentham, 2006), Social Learning towards a Sustainable World with foreword by Fritjof Capra and an afterword by Michael Apple (Wageningen Academic, 2007), Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change (2012), and of Routledge’s International Handbook on Environmental Education Research (2013). He has (co)authored over 250 publications in multiple languages. Wals is a co-founder of Caretakers of the Environment/International and a recipient of the environmental education research award of the North American Association for Environmental Education, and former president of the Special Interest Group on Environmental & Ecological Education of the AERA. He writes a regular research blog that signals developments in the emerging field of sustainability education: www.transformativelearning. nl
Tools for dynamics simulation of robots: a survey based on user feedback

The number of tools for dynamics simulation has grown in the last years. It is necessary for the robotics community to have elements to ponder which of the available tools is the best for their research. As a complement to an objective and quantitative comparison, difficult to obtain since not all the tools are open-source, an element of evaluation is user feedback. With this goal in mind, we created an online survey about the use of dynamical simulation in robotics. This paper reports the analysis of the participants' answers and a descriptive information fiche for the most relevant tools. We believe this report will be helpful for roboticists to choose the best simulation tool for their researches.
Does Frailty Predict Health Care Utilization in Community-Living Older Romanians?

Background. The predictive value of frailty assessment is still debated. We analyzed the predictive value of frailty of independent living elderly. The outcomes variables were visits to the general practitioner, hospital admission, and occurrence of new health problems. Methods. A one-year follow-up study was executed among 215 community-living old Romanians. General practitioners reported the outcome variables of patients, whose frailty was assessed one year before, using the Groningen Frailty Indicator. The predictive validity is analyzed by descriptive and regression analysis. Results. Three-quarters of all participants visited their general practitioner three times more last year and one-third were at least once admitted to a hospital. Patients who scored frail one year before were more often admitted to a hospital. Visits to the general practitioner and occurrence of new health problems were not statistically significant related to frailty scores. The frailty items polypharmacy, social support, and activities in daily living were associated with adverse outcomes. Conclusions. The predictive value of frailty instruments as the Groningen Frailty Indicator is still limited. More research is needed to predict health outcomes, health care utilization, and quality of life of frailty self-assessment instruments. Validation research on frailty in different “environments” is recommended to answer the question to what extent contextual characteristics influence the predictive value.
A Framework for Higher-Order Functions in C++

C and C++ allow passing functions as arguments to other functions in the form of function pointers. However, since function pointers can refer only to existing functions declared at global or file scope, these function arguments cannot capture local environments. This leads to the common misconception that C and C++ do not support function closures. In fact, function closures can be modeled directly in C++ by enclosing a function inside an object such that the local environment is captured by data members of the object. This idiom is described in advanced C++ texts and is used, for example, to implement callbacks. The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, we demonstrate how this idiom can be generalized to a type-safe framework of C++ class templates for higher-order functions that support composition and partial application. Second, we explore the expressiveness of the framework and compare it with that of existing functional programming languages. We illustrate by means of various examples that object-oriented and functional idioms can coexist productively and can be used to enhance the functionality of common classes, for example, of nonlinear collections such as trees. A C++ implementation of the framework is available on request.
Comparison of the Emotional Intelligence Levels of Students Receiving Education in Different Fields

Aim. This descriptive study was conducted to determine and compare the emotional intelligence levels of senior students receiving education in different fields of Ataturk University. Methods. The population of the study consisted of senior students receiving education in different fields of Ataturk University. The sample group of study consisted of 305 senior students receiving education in different fields (health, social, and natural) and they were selected by using the simple random sampling method. Three faculties from three different fields were selected. Data of the study were obtained by using the personal information form, which was prepared by researchers in the light of the literature and involved sociodemographic characteristics and the “Emotional Intelligence Evaluation Scale. ” Results. It was determined that while natural science students had the lowest total mean score of emotional intelligence scale, students of social sciences had the highest total mean score according to departments. Examining the difference between the mean scores of three different educational fields, it was determined that this difference was statistically significant. Conclusion. Consequently, the emotional intelligence level was determined to be lower in natural science students and moderate in students of health and social sciences.
Bleeding events associated with fibrinolytic therapy and primary percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with STEMI

AbstractFrom the year 1986 onwards, several studies have been published focusing on the comparison between fibrinolysis and primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) in patients with ST segment elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI). However, because antiplatelet and anticoagulating medications are used in approximation, before and during these procedures, bleeding events have been reported to be associated with both reperfusion therapies. This study aimed to compare the bleeding events associated with fibrinolytic therapy and primary angioplasty in patients with STEMI. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing fibrinolysis and primary angioplasty in patients with STEMI were searched from Medline, PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane databases. Bleeding complications following 30 days from hospitalization were considered as the primary clinical endpoints in this study. Secondary endpoints included all-cause mortality, re-infarction, stroke, and shock. Antiplatelet and anticoagulating drugs used during these 2 different procedures were compared. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated and the pooled analyses were performed with RevMan 5.3 software. Twelve studies involving 10 RCTs consisting of a total number of 5561 patients (2784 patients from the fibrinolysis group and 2777 patients from the PPCI group) were included in this meta-analysis. Our results showed no significant difference in the overall bleeding complications during a 30-day period between these 2 reperfusion therapies with OR 1.02; 95% CI 0.89 to 1.17, P = 0.78. Nonintracranial bleeding was also not statistically significant with OR 0.85; 95% CI 0.70 to 1.04, P = 0.12. However, fibrinolytic therapy was associated with a significantly higher rate of intracranial bleeding with OR 0.17; 95% CI 0.06 to 0.50, P = 0.001 than PPCI. In addition, death, re-infarction, and stroke significantly favored primary angioplasty. According to the results of this study, even if the rate of nonintracranial bleeding was not statistically significant between these 2 reperfusion therapies, fibrinolytic therapy was associated with a significantly higher rate of intracranial bleeding than PPCI. In addition, PPCI was associated with a significantly lower rate of death, reinfarction, and stroke. Therefore, PPCI should be recommended in patients with STEMI, especially in PCI-capable hospitals.
Gas Kinematics and the Black Hole Mass at the Center of the Radio Galaxy NGC 4335

We investigate the kinematics of the central gas disk of the radio-loud elliptical galaxy NGC 4335, derived from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) long-slit spectroscopic observations of Hα + [N II] along three parallel slit positions. The observed mean velocities are consistent with a rotating thin disk. We model the gas disk in the customary way, taking into account the combined potential of the galaxy and a putative black hole with mass M•, as well as the influence on the observed kinematics of the point-spread function and finite slit width. This sets a 3 σ upper limit of 108 M⊙ on M•. The velocity dispersion at r ≲ 0. ″5 is in excess of that predicted by the thin rotating disk model. This does not invalidate the model if the excess dispersion is caused by localized turbulent motion in addition to bulk circular rotation. However, if instead the dispersion is caused by the black hole (BH) potential then the thin disk model provides an underestimate of M•. A BH mass M• ∼ 6 × 108 M⊙ is inferred by modeling the central gas dispersion as due to an isotropic spherical distribution of collisionless gas cloudlets. The stellar kinematics for NGC 4335 are derived from a ground-based (William Herschel Telescope/ISIS) long-slit observation along the galaxy major axis. A two-integral model of the stellar dynamics yields M• ≳ 3 × 109 M⊙. However, there is reason to believe that this model overestimates M•. Reported correlations between black hole mass and inner stellar velocity dispersion σ predict M• to be ≥5.4 × 108 M⊙ in NGC 4335. If our standard thin disk modeling of the gas kinematics is valid, then NGC 4335 has an unusually low M• for its velocity dispersion. If, on the other hand, this approach is flawed and provides an underestimate of M•, then black hole masses for other galaxies derived from HST gas kinematics with the same assumptions should be treated with caution. In general, a precise determination of the M•-σ relation and its scatter will benefit from (1) joint measurements of M• from gas and stellar kinematics in the same galaxies and (2) a better understanding of the physical origin of the excess velocity dispersion commonly observed in nuclear gas disks of elliptical galaxies.
A SCALE ANALYSIS APPROACH TO THERMAL CONTACT RESISTANCE

A new analytical model is developed for predicting thermal contact resistance (TCR) of non-conforming rough contacts of bare solids in a vacuum. Instead of using probability relationships to model the size and number of microcontacts of Gaussian surfaces, a novel approach by employing the “scale analysis methods” is taken. It is shown that the mean size of the microcontacts is proportional to the surface roughness and inversely proportional to the surface asperity slope. A general relationship for determining TCR is derived by superposition of the macro and the effective micro thermal resistances. The present model allows TCR to be predicted over the entire range of nonconforming rough contacts from conforming rough to smooth Hertzian contacts. It is demonstrated that the geometry of heat sources on a half-space for microcontacts is justifiable and that the effective micro thermal resistance is not a function of surface curvature. A comparison of the present model with 604 experimental data points, collected by many researchers during the last forty years, shows good agreement for the entire range of TCR. The data covers a wide range of materials, mechanical and thermophysical properties, micro and macro contact geometries, and similar and dissimilar metal contacts. Nomenclature
Taurine suppresses the spread of cell death in electrically coupled RPE cells

Purpose To determine whether taurine exerts a protective effect on retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells exposed to a cytotoxic agent, cytochrome C (cyC), shown previously to induce apoptosis and produce cell death in electrically coupled neighboring cells. Methods Monolayer cultures of confluent human RPE (ARPE-19) cells, which express gap-junctional proteins, were incubated in culture medium with or without taurine. After scrape loading cyC into the cells, we assayed these cells for caspase 3 activity and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining to determine the spread of apoptosis. Results We found that cyC, too large a molecule to traverse gap junctional channels, produced apoptosis in cells injured by the scrape as well as those distant from the site of the scrape, presumably by the intercellular transmission of a toxic agent through the gap junctions that couple these cells. Incubation in taurine, or the gap-junction blocker, octanol, before application of cyC, reduced significantly the fraction of cells undergoing apoptosis. Voltage clamp recordings from electrically coupled Xenopus oocytes transfected with Cx43 showed that junctional communication was unaffected by taurine. Conclusions Our results indicate that taurine can serve to suppress cell death in RPE cells independent of any effect on gap junctions. We have considered various avenues by which taurine can exert its protective effect, but the precise mechanism involved under these experimental conditions has yet to be identified.