Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-Term Administration of Artesunate Induces Reproductive Toxicity in Male Rats

Background Artesunate is commonly used in malaria therapy. Many antimalarial drugs have been associated with male reproductive dysfunction. The effect of artesunate on male reproductive activities was studied using in–vivo and in-vitro experimental models. Methods Adult male rats (n=6) were orally given artesunate (2.9 mg/kg body weight) on daily basis for five days. Artesunate (2.9 mg/kg body weight) was administered to another group of rats daily for six weeks, while there was a recovery group of rats too. The control animals received the vehicle only. At the end of the treatment, sperm characteristics, serum follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone and testosterone levels, testicular and epididymal histology and fertility were assessed. Cultured Sertoli cells were treated with 0.3 µM to 10 µM artesunate for five days after which Sertoli cell viability, double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (ds-DNA) integrity and genetic expression of Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and transferrin were assessed. The data were analyzed using Graphpad Instat Statistical software. A probability value of p <0.05 was considered significant. Results Artesunate did not cause any significant effects in short-term administration but significantly reduced the aforesaid parameters in long-term administration. There were visible lesions in the testicular and epididymal histological studies, although fertility was not significantly reduced. These changes were restored in the recovery experiment. In-vitro studies showed dose and duration dependent changes in Sertoli cell viability and ds-DNA integrity. However, transferrin and GDNF gene expressions were normal. Conclusion The results suggest that long-term administration of artesunate could induce reversible infertility in rats which may act via distortion of blood–testis barrier formed by Sertoli cells.
LIPID PROFILE IN ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE

Fifty three patients of alcohol dependence were studied for lipid profile at Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, A.I.I.M.S. Statistically significant differences were observed on most of lipid profile indicators when compared to control group. Ratio of Apo A-I & Apo B appeared to be better indicator than Apo A1 or Apo B. The findings of the study are discussed in context of other studies from India and other countries.
Carrier synchronization requirements for CDMA systems with frequency-domain orthogonal signature sequences

Block transmission CDMA (code division multiple access) schemes using FDOSS (frequency-domain orthogonal signature sequences) have recently been proposed for the uplink transmission of broadband wireless systems providing services with substantially different data rates. As with OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) schemes, a set of frequencies is assigned to each user and the different users' blocks remain orthogonal, even for severe time dispersive channels, provided that a perfect carrier synchronization is maintained between the BS (base station) and all MTs (mobile terminals). The impact of carrier synchronization errors on CDMA systems using FDOSS is studied. It is shown that the carrier synchronization requirements are similar to those of OFDMA schemes. Since the transmitted signals can have a very low envelope, these techniques present an interesting alternative to OFDMA.
MODELING THE ASIAN TSUNAMI EVOLUTION AND PROPAGATION WITH A NEW GENERATION MECHANISM AND A NON-LINEAR DISPERSIVE WAVE MODEL

A common approach in modeling the generation and propagation of tsunami is based on the assumption of a kinematic vertical displacement of ocean water that is analogous to the ocean bottom displacement during a submarine earthquake and the use of a non-dispersive long-wave model to simulate its physical transformation as it radiates outward from the source region. In this study, a new generation mechanism and the use of a highly-dispersive wave model to simulate tsunami inception, propagation and transformation are proposed. The new generation model assumes that transient ground motion during the earthquake can accelerate horizontal currents with opposing directions near the fault line whose successive convergence and divergence generate a series of potentially destructive oceanic waves. The new dynamic model incorporates the effects of earthquake moment magnitude, ocean compressibility through the buoyancy frequency, the effects of focal and water depths, and the orientation of ruptured fault line in the tsunami magnitude and directivity. For tsunami wave simulation, the nonlinear momentum-based wave model includes important wave propagation and transformation mechanisms such as refraction, diffraction, shoaling, partial reflection and transmission, back-scattering, frequency dispersion, and resonant wave-wave interaction. Using this model and a coarse-resolution bathymetry, the new mechanism is tested for the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. A new flooding and drying algorithm that consider waves coming from every direction is also proposed for simulation of inundation of low-lying coastal regions. It is shown in the present study that with the proposed generation model, the observed features of the Asian tsunami such as the initial drying of areas east of the source region and the initial flooding of western coasts are correctly simulated. The formation of a series of tsunami waves with periods and lengths comparable to observations are also well simulated with the new generation model. Furthermore, the shoaling behavior of the tsunami waves during flooding of dry land was also simulated by the new run-up algorithm. Finally, the new generation and propagation models can explain the combined and independent effects of various factors in tsunami generation and transformation taking into consideration the properties of the ocean and the geologic disturbance.
Counteracting Climate Science Politicization With Effective Frames and Imagery

Politicization of science occurs when the inherent uncertainty of science is emphasized to cast doubt on scientific consensus. Climate change has become particularly susceptible to this kind of politicization. In this article, we report the results of a survey experiment in which we manipulated text frames and visual imagery associated with two types of environmental hazards linked to climate change—sea level rise with associated flooding and increased heat levels with associated drought and wildfires. We present evidence that the use of visual imagery can counter the effects that science politicization has on climate change beliefs and behaviors.
CLASSIFICATION OF MUSIC SIGNALS IN THE VISUAL DOMAIN

With the huge increase in the availability of digital music, it has become more important to automate the task of querying a database of musical pieces. At the same time, a computational solution of this task might give us an insight into how humans perceive and classify music. In this paper, we discuss our attempts to classify music into three broad categories: rock, classical and jazz. We discuss the feature extraction process and the particular choice of features that we used- spectrograms and mel scaled cepstral coefficients (MFCC). We use the texture-of- texture models to generate feature vectors out of these. Together, these features are capable of capturing the frequency-power profile of the sound as the song proceeds. Finally, we attempt to classify the generated data using a variety of classifiers. we discuss our results and the inferences that can be drawn from them.
Uncertainty-Based Credibility and its Application to Excess-of-Loss Reinsurance

________________________________________________________________________ Abstract This paper proposes a methodology to calculate the credibility risk premium based on the uncertainty on the risk premium, as estimated by the standard deviation of the risk premium estimator. An optimal estimator based on the uncertainties involved in the pricing process is constructed. The methodology is then applied to pricing layers of excess-of-loss reinsurance, and the behaviour of the credibility factor as a function of layer excess is analysed. Results are obtained for both the general case and the significant special case where the severity distribution is the same for all clients, for which it is proved that credibility is broadly constant across the reinsurance layers. A real-world application to pricing motor reinsurance is also discussed.
Remittances, Trade Liberalisation, and Poverty in Pakistan: The Role of Excluded Variables in Poverty Change Analysis

This paper explores the impact of two shocks, trade liberalisation policies and decline in remittances, on welfare and poverty in Pakistan. It begins by reviewing the economy, which reveals that during the Nineties although import tariffs were reduced by 55 percent, poverty however remained higher in this period than in the Eighties. At the same time, Pakistan has experienced a slow down in the inflow of remittances, which reduces the incomes of households and puts pressure on the exchange rate resulting in reduction in the inflow of imports despite a reduction in import duties. Thus, in the absence of the effects of decline in remittances, the analysis of the impact of trade liberalisation policies may render biased results. This study overcomes this constriction and analyses the impact of trade liberalisation policies in the absence and presence of decline in remittances in a CGE framework with all the features necessary for trade policy analysis with poverty and remittances linkages. The simulation results show that a decline in remittances reduces the gains from trade liberalisation. The negative impact of remittance decline dominates the positive impact of trade liberalisation in urban areas. But, the positive impact of trade liberalisation dominates the negative impact of a decline in remittances in the case of rural areas. Poverty rises in Pakistan as a whole. It shows that the decline in remittance inflows is a major contributory factor in explaining the increase in poverty in Pakistan during the Nineties.
Unexpected Rearrangement and Expression of the Immunoglobulin λ1 Locus in Scid Mice

In severe combined immunodeficient (scid) mice, V(D)J recombination is severely impaired due to a recessive mutation (scid). Thus, we were surprised to find in this study that Vλ1–Jλ1 rearrangement is routinely detectable in scid fetal liver, adult bone marrow, and spleen in the apparent absence of completed VH–DJH and Vκ–Jκ rearrangements. Particularly surprising, we found the level of Vλ1–Jλ1 rearrangement in scid fetal liver to be comparable to that in fetal liver of wild-type mice. The majority of scid Vλ1–Jλ1 rearrangements contained abnormal deletions at the VJ junction, consistent with the known effect of scid. However, ∼15% of Vλ1–Jλ1 rearrangements lacked abnormal deletions. Productive λ1 transcripts resulting from in-frame rearrangements were readily detectable in scid adult bone marrow and spleen, consistent with our ability to detect λ1-expressing cells by flow cytometry in the spleens of bcl-2–transgenic scid mice. Strikingly, λ1 transcripts from individual scid mice often showed VJ junctional sequences with the same recurring palindromic (P) additions of three, four, or five nucleotides. To account for these findings, we suggest that (a) nonhomologous end joining of Vλ1 and Jλ1 coding ends in fetal B lineage cells may not be (severely) impaired by scid; (b) recurring P additions in scid λ1 transcripts may reflect certain molecular constraints imposed by scid on the resolution of Vλ1 and Jλ1 hairpin coding ends; and (c), scid lymphocytes with productively rearranged Vλ1 and Jλ1 elements may differentiate into recombinase-inactive cells and emigrate from bone marrow to spleen.
The Na+ Binding Site of Thrombin (*)

Thrombin is an allosteric serine protease existing in two forms, slow and fast, targeted toward anticoagulant and procoagulant activities. The slow → fast transition is induced by Na+ binding to a site contained within a cylindrical cavity formed by three antiparallel β-strands of the B-chain (Met-Tyr, Lys-Tyr, and Val-Gly) diagonally crossed by the Glu-Glu strand. The site is shaped further by the loop connecting the last two β-strands and is located more than 15 Å away from the catalytic triad. The cavity traverses through thrombin from the active site to the opposite surface and contains Asp of the primary specificity site near its midpoint. The bound Na+ is coordinated octahedrally by the carbonyl oxygen atoms of Tyr, Arg, and Lys, and by three highly conserved water molecules in the D-Phe-Pro-Arg chloromethylketone thrombin. The sequence in the Na+ binding loop is highly conserved in thrombin from 11 different species and is homologous to that found in other serine proteases involved in blood coagulation. Mutation of two Asp residues flanking Arg (D221A/D222K) almost abolishes the allosteric properties of thrombin and shows that the Na+ binding loop is also involved in direct recognition of protein C and antithrombin.
Antimicrobial susceptibility and serovars of Salmonella from chickens and humans in Ibadan, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND This study determines the prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella serovars from humans and chickens in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 2004-2007. METHODOLOGY A total of 991 blood samples were collected from patients in 2004 to 2005 and 641 fecal samples were collected from poultry farms in 2007. All Salmonella isolates were serotyped and tested for antimicrobial susceptibility. RESULTS Thirty-nine (4%) Salmonella isolates were obtained from human blood and 70 (11%) from chicken fecal samples. The human isolates revealed nine different serovars; 82% were non-typhoidal Salmonella and 18% were (S. Typhi). The majority of serovars from humans were S. Enteritidis (33%), S. Dublin (18%), and S. Typhimurium (18%). Resistance to chloramphenicol, sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim, and ampicillin ranged from 36% to 59% for the human isolates. Eight different serovars were obtained from chickens; S. Virchow (71%) predominated. A high frequency (87%) of reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin was observed among the chicken isolates. A high frequency of resistance to tetracycline (93%), nalidixic acid (81%), and sulfamethoxazole (87%) was observed. Rare serovars such as S. Apapa, S. Mouschaui, S. Jukestown, S. Oritamerin, and S. Onireke were isolated from both humans and chickens. Identical serovars were not found among human and chicken isolates. CONCLUSIONS This study indicates that chickens are not a reservoir of Salmonella causing bacteraemia among humans in Ibadan, Nigeria. Studies locating the reservoirs responsible for invasive salmonellosis in humans are needed. Controls and targeted interventions against S. Virchow and the frequent occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in chickens should be initiated to prevent the spread of this serovar.
Association of fibroblast growth factor-23 with arterial stiffness in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND Serum fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF-23) is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), yet the mechanisms remain uncertain. Our objective was to determine whether higher FGF-23 concentrations are associated with arterial stiffness. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, serum FGF-23 concentrations were measured in 5977 participants without known CVD in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. The primary outcomes of interest were large (LAE) and small artery elasticity (SAE), pulse pressure and ankle-brachial index (ABI) > 1.30. LAE and SAE were measured by pulse contour analysis of the radial artery. Pulse pressure was measured with an automated sphygmomanometer using the average of two resting blood pressure measurements. ABI was calculated as the ratio of the ankle and brachial systolic blood pressures. RESULTS Serum FGF-23 concentrations were not significantly associated with LAE [relative difference (RD) per doubling: 0%; 95% confidence interval (CI): -2-1%], SAE (RD per doubling: 0%; 95% CI: -3-2%), pulse pressure (β per doubling: 0.44; 95% CI: -0.31-1.19), or a high ABI (odds ratio per doubling: 1.14; 95% CI: 0.84-1.55). Findings were similar irrespective of chronic kidney disease status. CONCLUSIONS Higher serum FGF-23 concentrations are not associated with arterial stiffness, as measured by pulse pressure, LAE, SAE or high ABI, in a community-based population without CVD.
Umbilic lines in orientational order

Three-dimensional orientational order in systems whose ground states possess nonzero gradients typically exhibits linelike structures or defects: λ lines in cholesterics or Skyrmion tubes in ferromagnets, for example. Here, we show that such lines can be identified as a set of natural geometric singularities in a unit vector field, the generalization of the umbilic points of a surface. We characterize these lines in terms of the natural vector bundles that the order defines and show that they give a way to localize and identify Skyrmion distortions in chiral materials—in particular, that they supply a natural representative of the Poincare dual of the cocycle describing the topology. Their global structure leads to the definition of a self-linking number and helicity integral which relates the linking of umbilic lines to the Hopf invariant of the texture.
GmAGL1, a MADS-Box Gene from Soybean, Is Involved in Floral Organ Identity and Fruit Dehiscence

MADS-domain proteins are important transcription factors involved in many aspects of plant reproductive development. In this study, a MADS-box gene, Glycine max AGAMOUS-LIKE1 (GmAGL1), was isolated from soybean flower. The transcript of GmAGL1 was expressed in flowers and pods of different stages in soybean and was highly expressed in carpels. GmAGL1 is a nucleus-localized transcription factor and can interact directly with SEP-like proteins in soybean flowers. Ectopic overexpression of GmAGL1 resulted in the absence of petals in Arabidopsis. Moreover, morphological changes in the valves were observed in 35S:GmAGL1 Arabidopsis fruits that dehisced before the seeds reached full maturity. GmAGL1 was found to be sufficient to activate the expression of Arabidopsis ALC, IND, STK, SEP1, and SEP3. Therefore, our data suggest that GmAGL1 may play important roles in both floral organ identity and fruit dehiscence.
Neuroenergetics Original Research Article Deciphering Neuron-glia Compartmentalization in Cortical Energy Metabolism

Energy demand is an important constraint on neural signaling. Several methods have been proposed to assess the energy budget of the brain based on a bottom-up approach in which the energy demand of individual biophysical processes are fi rst estimated independently and then summed up to compute the brain's total energy budget. Here, we address this question using a novel approach that makes use of published datasets that reported average cerebral glucose and oxygen utilization in humans and rodents during different activation states. Our approach allows us (1) to decipher neuron-glia compartmentalization in energy metabolism and (2) to compute a precise state-dependent energy budget for the brain. Under the assumption that the fraction of energy used for signaling is proportional to the cycling of neurotransmitters, we fi nd that in the activated state, most of the energy (∼80%) is oxidatively produced and consumed by neurons to support neuron-to-neuron signaling. Glial cells, while only contributing for a small fraction to energy production (∼6%), actually take up a signifi cant fraction of glucose (50% or more) from the blood and provide neurons with glucose-derived energy substrates. Our results suggest that glycolysis occurs for a signifi cant part in astrocytes whereas most of the oxygen is utilized in neurons. As a consequence, a transfer of glucose-derived metabolites from glial cells to neurons has to take place. Furthermore, we fi nd that the amplitude of this transfer is correlated to (1) the activity level of the brain; the larger the activity, the more metabolites are shuttled from glia to neurons and (2) the oxidative activity in astrocytes; with higher glial pyruvate metabolism, less metabolites are shuttled from glia to neurons. While some of the details of a bottom-up biophysical approach have to be simplifi ed, our method allows for a straightforward assessment of the brain's energy budget from macroscopic measurements with minimal underlying assumptions. Neuron-glia metabolic interactions have been the subject of several recent modeling studies (Aubert et al., 2005, 2007; Hyder et al., 2006). Most of these studies tend to support the presence of an activity-regulated lactate shuttle from astrocytes to neurons as originally proposed by Pellerin and Magistretti (1994). The presence of this shuttle has recently been reported in slices (Rouach et al., 2008). Similarly, several mathematical methods have been derived to assess the energy budget of the brain. These methods are traditionally based on a bottom-up approach in which the energy …
Bistable Forespore Engulfment in Bacillus subtilis by a Zipper Mechanism in Absence of the Cell Wall

To survive starvation, the bacterium Bacillus subtilis forms durable spores. The initial step of sporulation is asymmetric cell division, leading to a large mother-cell and a small forespore compartment. After division is completed and the dividing septum is thinned, the mother cell engulfs the forespore in a slow process based on cell-wall degradation and synthesis. However, recently a new cell-wall independent mechanism was shown to significantly contribute, which can even lead to fast engulfment in 60 of the cases when the cell wall is completely removed. In this backup mechanism, strong ligand-receptor binding between mother-cell protein SpoIIIAH and forespore-protein SpoIIQ leads to zipper-like engulfment, but quantitative understanding is missing. In our work, we combined fluorescence image analysis and stochastic Langevin simulations of the fluctuating membrane to investigate the origin of fast bistable engulfment in absence of the cell wall. Our cell morphologies compare favorably with experimental time-lapse microscopy, with engulfment sensitive to the number of SpoIIQ-SpoIIIAH bonds in a threshold-like manner. By systematic exploration of model parameters, we predict regions of osmotic pressure and membrane-surface tension that produce successful engulfment. Indeed, decreasing the medium osmolarity in experiments prevents engulfment in line with our predictions. Forespore engulfment may thus not only be an ideal model system to study decision-making in single cells, but its biophysical principles are likely applicable to engulfment in other cell types, e.g. during phagocytosis in eukaryotes.
Assess the clinical applicability of transthoracic echocardiography in laparotomy patients in a general intensive care unit

Background: Echocardiography is one of the diagnostic tools that can be applied at the bedside, along with avoiding transporting critically ill patients. This prospective observational study was designed to assess the clinical applicability of the transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) device by noncardiologist intensivists. Materials and Methods: Intensivists performed a limited TTE examination on critically ill patients admitted to the surgical intensive care unit (ICU). After initial cardiac clinical assessment in 85 critically ill adult patients, a limited TTE was performed by an intensivist to assess left ventricular (LV) function and LV volume status as well as valvular function and qualitative factors. Data were analyzed and presented in proportions using descriptive statistics. The setting was in surgical ICU of an academic medical center. Results: Valvular abnormalities (44.8%) as well as qualitative indices (68.3%) were the most frequently detected abnormalities. The ejection fraction was the only alteration, which was affected by the risk factors (P = 0.05, mean = 55.57). Conclusion: Transthoracic approach can provide useful information on cardiac anatomy and function in most ICU patients along with detecting severe previously unknown conditions in some patients.