Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lipoxygenase inhibitory tetraketones: potential remedial source for inflammation and asthma.

OBJECTIVE A series of tetraketones has been synthesized by way of a one pot synthesis and screened for inhibitory activity against the enzyme lipoxygenase. METHOD An efficient and high yielding one pot synthesis to tetraketones [2-22] has been developed by way of tetraethyl ammonium bromide (Et4N+Br-) mediated condensation of cyclohexane-1, 3-dione [1] with a variety of aldehydes. Lipoxygenase enzyme solution was prepared so that enzyme concentration in reaction mixture was adjusted to give rates of 0.05 absorbance/minute. The test compounds were prepared in methanol of concentrations 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25 and 3.125 microM. The reaction mixture contained 160 microL (100 mM) sodium phosphate buffer (pH 8.0), 10 microL of test-compound solution and 20 microL of lipoxygenase solution. The contents were mixed and incubated for 10 minutes at 25 degrees C. The reaction was then initiated by the addition of 10 microL substrate solution (linoleic acid, 0.5 mM, 0.12% w/v tween 20 in the ratio of 1:2), with the formation of (9Z, 11E)-(13S)-13-hydroperoxyoctadeca-9,11-dienoate, the change of absorbance at 234 nm was followed for 6 minutes. The concentrations of the test compounds that inhibited the lipoxygenase activity by 50% (IC50) were determined by monitoring the effect of increasing concentrations of these compounds in the assays on the degree of inhibition. The IC50 values were calculated by means of the EZ-Fit Enzyme-Kinetics Program (Perrella Scientific Inc., Amherst, U.S.A.). RESULT The tetraketones [2-22] were synthesized in high yields (91-98%) using mild reaction conditions. Most of these compounds showed significant inhibitory activity against the enzyme lipoxygenase. It was found that the presence of substituents which increase delocalization of electrons enhances the inhibitory activity. CONCLUSION It is concluded that the study is likely to lead to the discovery of therapeutically efficient agents against important disorders such as inflammation and asthma.
Retrospective assessment of the association between drinking and condom use.

OBJECTIVE Retrospective reports of the association between drinking and high-risk sexual behavior can be biased by implicit theories of the effects of drinking or may represent post hoc justifications instead of accurate reports of behavior. Using data from a daily diary study, we compared daily reports of condom use when drinking and not drinking with the same participants' reports of these behaviors from a retrospective questionnaire administered after diary collection was complete. METHOD Participants included adolescents (n=145), adult sexually transmitted disease clinic clients (n=167), college students (n=145), and men who have sex with men (n=147). All participants reported their alcohol consumption and sexual activity daily for 8 weeks and then completed a retrospective questionnaire about their behavior over the diary period. RESULTS Participants' retrospective judgments about whether they used condoms more or less when drinking were not significantly related to their behavior as reported in the diary. Fewer than two thirds of the participants were accurate in their recollection of the association of condom use and drinking. Teenagers and men who have sex with men were more likely to retrospectively overestimate the negative effect of alcohol on condom use. CONCLUSIONS Retrospective questions about the association between drinking and condom use were consistent with actual behavior only among people who consistently either never or always used condoms. These individuals correctly reported that drinking had no effect on their condom use. For people whose condom use varies, questions about associations between drinking and sex may be difficult to answer, owing to their conditional nature, and may lead to error.
Short Consensus Repeat Domain 1 of Decay-Accelerating Factor Is Required for Enterovirus 70 Binding

ABSTRACT Enterovirus 70 (EV70), like several other human enteroviruses, can utilize decay-accelerating factor (DAF [CD55]) as an attachment protein. Using chimeric molecules composed of different combinations of the short consensus repeat domains (SCRs) of DAF and membrane cofactor protein (CD46), we show that sequences in SCR1 of DAF are essential for EV70 binding. Of the human enteroviruses that can bind to DAF, only EV70 and coxsackievirus A21 require sequences in SCR1 for this interaction.
Phosphorylation of Shox2 Is Required for Its Function to Control Sinoatrial Node Formation

Background Inactivation of Shox2, a member of the short‐stature homeobox gene family, leads to defective development of multiple organs and embryonic lethality as a result of cardiovascular defects, including bradycardia and severe hypoplastic sinoatrial node (SAN) and sinus valves, in mice. It has been demonstrated that Shox2 regulates a genetic network through the repression of Nkx2.5 to maintain the fate of the SAN cells. However, the functional mechanism of Shox2 protein as a transcriptional repressor on Nkx2.5 expression remains completely unknown. Methods and Results A specific interaction between the B56δ regulatory subunit of PP2A and Shox2a, the isoform that is expressed in the developing heart, was demonstrated by yeast 2‐hybrid screen and coimmunoprecipitation. Western blotting and immunohistochemical assays further confirmed the presence of phosphorylated Shox2a (p‐Shox2a) in cell culture as well as in the developing mouse and human SAN. Site‐directed mutagenesis and in vitro kinase assays identified Ser92 and Ser110 as true phosphorylation sites and substrates of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1 and 2. Despite that Shox2a and its phosphorylation mutants possessed similar transcriptional repressive activities in cell cultures when fused with Gal4 protein, the mutant forms exhibited a compromised repressive effect on the activity of the mouse Nkx2.5 promoter in cell cultures, indicating that phosphorylation is required for Shox2a to repress Nkx2.5 expression specifically. Transgenic expression of Shox2a, but not Shox2a‐S92AS110A, mutant in the developing heart resulted in down‐regulation of Nkx2.5 in wild‐type mice and rescued the SAN defects in the Shox2 mutant background. Last, we demonstrated that elimination of both phosphorylation sites on Shox2a did not alter its nuclear location and dimerization, but depleted its capability to bind to the consensus sequences within the Nkx2.5 promoter region. Conclusions Our studies reveal that phosphorylation is essential for Shox2a to repress Nkx2.5 expression during SAN development and differentiation.
Fast and Scalable Distributed Set Similarity Joins for Big Data Analytics

Set similarity join is an essential operation in big data analytics, e.g., data integration and data cleaning, that finds similar pairs from two collections of sets. To cope with the increasing scale of the data, distributed algorithms are called for to support large-scale set similarity joins. Multiple techniques have been proposed to perform similarity joins using MapReduce in recent years. These techniques, however, usually produce huge amounts of duplicates in order to perform parallel processing successfully as MapReduce is a shared-nothing framework. The large number of duplicates incurs on both large shuffle cost and unnecessary computation cost, which significantly decrease the performance. Moreover, these approaches do not provide a load balancing guarantee, which results in a skewness problem and negatively affects the scalability properties of these techniques. To address these problems, in this paper, we propose a duplicatefree framework, called FS-Join, to perform set similarity joins efficiently by utilizing an innovative vertical partitioning technique. FS-Join employs three powerful filtering methods to prune dissimilar string pairs without computing their similarity scores. To further improve the performance and scalability, FS-Join integrates horizontal partitioning. Experimental results on three real datasets show that FS-Join outperforms the state-of-theart methods by one order of magnitude on average, which demonstrates the good scalability and performance qualities of the proposed technique.
HUBUNGAN MOTIVASI BERPRESTASI DENGAN MINAT MEMBACA PADA ANAK

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan motivasi berprestasi dengan minat membaca yang ada pada anak kelas V di SD Negeri 1 Doplang. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif korelasional. Subyek penelitian ini berjumlah 32 siswa. Teknik sampling yang digunakan adalah purposive sampling. Data penelitian diambil menggunakan angket motivasi berprestasi dan angket minat membaca. Skala motivasi berprestasi terdiri dari 31 aitem valid dengan koefisien validitas aitem antara 0,380 sampai dengan 0,756 dan koefisien reliabilitas sebesar 0,953. Skala minat membaca pada anak terdiri dari 31 aitem valid dengan koefisien validitas aitem antara 0,364 sampai dengan 0,745 dan dan koefisien reliabilitas sebesar 0,947. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan nilai signifikansi atau p = 0,000 dengan koefisien korelasi r = 0,895 menunjukkan ada hubungan positif yang signifikan antara motivasi berprestasi dengan minat membaca pada anak kelas V SD Negeri 1 Doplang. Tingginya motivasi berprestasi siswa diikuti dengan tingginya minat membaca pada anak tersebut dan sebaliknya. Tingkat motivasi berprestasi siswa berada pada kriteria rendah yaitu sebesar 53,1% dan indikator yang paling berpengaruh dalam motivasi berprestasi yaitu perilaku yang timbul dan terarah. Tingkat minat membaca pada subyek berada dalam kriteria rendah, yaitu sebesar 56,2% dan indikator yang paling berpengaruh dalam minat membaca yaitu kesadaran akan manfaat membaca. This study aims to determine the relationship of achievement motivation and interest in reading that of the children in class V SD Negeri 1 Doplang. This study is a quantitative correlation. The subjects of this study are 32 students. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling. The data were taken using a questionnaire of achievement motivation and interest in reading the questionnaire. Achievement motivation scale consists of 31 valid item to item validity coefficients between 0.380 to 0.756 and a reliability coefficient of 0.953. Child's interest in reading the scale consists of 31 valid item with item validity coefficients between 0.364 to 0.745 and 0.947 and a reliability coefficient of. The results show the significance or value of p = 0.000 with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.895 shows a significant positive relationship between achievement motivation and interest in reading in children fifth grade SD Negeri 1 Doplang. The high student achievement motivation followed by high interest reading on the child and vice versa. The level of student achievement motivation is at a low criterion is equal to 53.1% and the most influential indicator in the achievement motivation and purposeful behavior arises. The level of interest in reading on the subject is in the low criterion, ie by 56.2% and the most influential indicator in the interest of reading the awareness of the benefits of reading.
The role of reflective functioning in mediating the relationship between attachment style and psychopathology

This thesis focuses on the association between attachment style and mentalizing ability and the extent to which the two are predictive of psychopathology. It is a joint thesis with Dissociative symptoms and the quality of structural integration in BPD (Sole, 2014). Part 1, the literature review, examines the evidence for an association between attachment style and mentalizing ability. Twelve studies represent a small but compelling body of research evidencing a robust link between parents’ ability to mentalize and infant attachment style. However, the evidence varies greatly due to differences in how variables, particularly those relating to mentalizing, have been operationalised, e.g. through direct observation of infant-caregiver behaviour or by recording caregivers' representations of their mentalizing abilities. Moreover, mentalizing alone does not fully account for the intergenerational transmission of attachment. Part 2, the empirical paper, describes a study investigating the role of reflective functioning in mediating the association between attachment style and psychopathology, and examining the scale reliability and criterion validity of a new measure of structural integration, the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis Structure Questionnaire (OPD-SQ). A group of participants with a diagnosis of personality disorder (N = 80) were compared to a group of healthy controls (N = 85) on attachment style, reflective functioning, structural integration and psychopathology. Group comparisons showed unexpected findings for reflective functioning and attachment style. Reflective functioning was shown to mediate attachment-related differences in psychopathology in the total and non-clinical samples only. Part 3, the critical appraisal, reflects on the process and impact on the researcher of conducting the research. It comprises a discussion of my motivation for conducting research in this area, my reflection on the current state of research into the relationship between attachment and mentalizing, methodological issues relating to the operationalisation of the mentalizing construct, and ethical considerations relating to the interviewing of participants.
[Nurses leadership evaluation by nursing aides and technicians according to the 360-degree feedback method].

OBJECTIVE to assess the leadership of nurses of a maternity hospital according to the nursing aides and technicians and the 360-degree feedback method. METHOD a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The population was 19 nurses and 96 nursing aides and assistants. Data were collected from May 2010 to July 2011 using a questionnaire based on the 360-degree method. RESULTS the nurses mentioned having a favourable performance in the four studied categories. The nursing aides and technicians disagreed with the recorded leadership performance of the nurses in the category "Communication" and "Support environment. " The responses for the category "Role Model" were favourable in all items, especially PAPEL18. In "Management Style", the highest favourable rating was 79% for GESTAO16. CONCLUSION the categories "Communication" and "Support Environment" revealed a greater fragility of the nurses in comparison to the categories "Role Model" and "Management Style".
Anonymous Cardinality Estimation in RFID Systems with Multiple Readers

In this paper, we study the anonymous cardinality estimation problem in radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. To preserve privacy and anonymity, each tag only transmits a portion of its ID to the reader when it is being queried. To achieve complete system coverage and increase the accuracy of measurement, multiple readers with overlapping interrogation zones are deployed. The cardinality estimation problem is to estimate the total number of tags (or the tag population) in an RFID system. We first propose an exclusive estimator to estimate the number of tags that are exclusively located in the interrogation zone of a selected reader. We then present a multiple-reader tag estimation (MRTE) algorithm that can accurately estimate the tag population using the measurement from different readers and the exclusive estimator. The accuracy of our proposed algorithm and the approximation are validated via simulations. We compare our proposed MRTE algorithm with the enhanced zero-based (EZB) and maximum a posteriori tag estimation (MPTE) algorithms. Although the mean of the estimation error for all three algorithms approaches zero under certain circumstances, the variance of the estimation error for MRTE algorithm increases linearly with the number of readers while it increases exponentially for EZB and MPTE algorithms.
Entorhinal cortex volume in older adults: Reliability and validity considerations for three published measurement protocols

Abstract Measuring the entorhinal cortex (ERC) is challenging due to lateral border discrimination from the perirhinal cortex. From a sample of 39 nondemented older adults who completed volumetric image scans and verbal memory indices, we examined reliability and validity concerns for three ERC protocols with different lateral boundary guidelines (i.e., Goncharova, Dickerson, Stoub, & deToledo-Morrell, 2001; Honeycutt et al., 1998; Insausti et al., 1998). We used three novice raters to assess inter-rater reliability on a subset of scans (216 total ERCs), with the entire dataset measured by one rater with strong intra-rater reliability on each technique (234 total ERCs). We found moderate to strong inter-rater reliability for two techniques with consistent ERC lateral boundary endpoints (Goncharova, Honeycutt), with negligible to moderate reliability for the technique requiring consideration of collateral sulcal depth (Insausti). Left ERC and story memory associations were moderate and positive for two techniques designed to exclude the perirhinal cortex (Insausti, Goncharova), with the Insausti technique continuing to explain 10% of memory score variance after additionally controlling for depression symptom severity. Right ERC-story memory associations were nonexistent after excluding an outlier. Researchers are encouraged to consider challenges of rater training for ERC techniques and how lateral boundary endpoints may impact structure-function associations. (JINS, 2010, 16, 846–855.)
Growth of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma The Role of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase in the Updated

Chronic pancreatitis, K-ras oncogene mutations, and the subsequent generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) appear to be linked to pancreatic cancer. ROS have also been suggested to be mitogenic and capable of stimulating cell proliferation. Cells contain antioxidant enzymes to regulate steady state levels of ROS produced by products of metabolism. The aims of our study were to determine antioxidant enzyme activity in pancreatic cancer cells and correlate enzyme activity with tumor growth, as well as determine whether tumor cell growth could be altered with antioxidant gene transfection. Western blots, enzyme activity, and enzyme activity gels were performed for manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), copper/zinc, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase in normal human pancreas and in the human pancreatic cancer cell lines BxPC-3, Capan-1, MIA PaCa-2, and AsPC-1. Cell population doubling times were determined and correlated with antioxidant enzyme activity. MnSOD was overexpressed in MIA PaCa-2 using an adenoviral vector, and the effect on cell growth was determined. The cell pancreatic cancer lines BxPC-3, MIA PaCa-2, and AsPC-1 had decreased levels of MnSOD immunoreactive protein as well as activity and decreases in MnSOD levels correlated well with increased rates of tumor cell proliferation as determined by cell doubling time. No correlation could be found between cell growth and levels of copper/zinc superoxide dismutase, catalase, or glutathione peroxidase. Enforced expression of MnSOD by adenovirus transfection in the rapid growing cell line MIA PaCa-2 increased MnSOD immunoreactivity and MnSOD activity and decreased growth rate. Overexpression of MnSOD may be effective in growth suppression of pancreatic cancer.
Distances between power spectral densities

Author(s): Georgiou, Tryphon T | Abstract: We present several natural notions of distance between spectral density functions of (discrete-time) random processes. They are motivated by certain filtering problems. First we quantify the degradation of performance of a predictor which is designed for a particular spectral density function and then it is used to predict the values of a random process having a different spectral density. The logarithm of the ratio between the variance of the error, over the corresponding minimal (optimal) variance, produces a measure of distance between the two power spectra with several desirable properties. Analogous quantities based on smoothing problems produce alternative distances and suggest a class of measures based on fractions of generalized means of ratios of power spectral densities. These distance measures endow the manifold of spectral density functions with a (pseudo) Riemannian metric. We pursue one of the possible options for a distance measure, characterize the relevant geodesics, and compute corresponding distances.
Relationship between bond valence and bond softness of alkali halides and chalcogenides.

Established bond-valence parameter tables rely on the assumption that the bond-valence sum of a central atom is fully determined by interactions to atoms in its first coordination shell. In this work the influence of higher coordination shells is tested in detail for bonds between lithium and oxygen. It is demonstrated that the sum of the weak interactions with atoms of the second coordination shells significantly contributes to the valence sum and should therefore not be neglected. Since the independent refinement of the two parameters R(0) and b is hardly possible from the limited range of bond lengths occurring in the first coordination shell, the restriction of bond-valence sums to contributions from nearest neighbours implicated another far-reaching simplification: the postulation of a universally fixed value of the bond-valence parameter b which characterizes the shape of the bond-valence pseudopotential for the respective atom pair. However, recent more sophisticated applications of the bond-valence concept, e.g. to model ion-transport pathways in solid electrolytes, demand sensible estimates of the bond-valence sums for mobile ions not only at their equilibrium sites but also at interstitial sites and bottle-necks of transport pathways. Calculations of bond valences at these non-equilibrium sites require the knowledge of the actual shape of the bond-valence pseudopotential. A systematic route to a more realistic estimate of b for alkali halides and chalcogenides is developed in this work from an empirical correlation between b and the absolute softnesses of the interacting particles.
Microbiological characterisation of southern African medicinal and cosmetic clays

The effects of traditionally used medicinal and cosmetic clays in southern Africa on selected microorganisms were studied using microbiological media. The clay pH, microchemical composition, kind of associated microorganisms and antimicrobial activity of clays against test microorganisms were determined. The clays contained varying numbers of microorganisms which ranged from 0 up to 105 CFU/g. Clay pH ranged from 2.3–8.9. Neither Escherichia coli, nor other faecal coliforms were detected. Clays of pH value of <4 displayed antimicrobial activities. Clays which were active against test microorganisms had Na2O, Al2O3, SiO2, SO3, CuO or Cl2O as major components. Microbial activity of clays was attributed mainly to low pH but cations such as Cu, Al, S or Cl and various anions might have contributed to the microbicidal effects. No antimicrobial activity was established for many of the clays commonly used in the treatment of common ailments of microbial origin.