Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation and Properties of Electrospun Fibers of Titanium Dioxide-Loaded Polylactide/Polyvinylpyrrolidone Blends

Nanofibers of polylactide (PLA)/polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) blends loaded with titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles have been prepared by an electrospinning technique. TiO2 particles are formed by sol-gel mechanisms from titanium (IV) iso-propoxide (TTIP) precursor. Effect of TiO2 formation rate on properties of the fibers are examined by adding iso-propyl alcohol (iPOH) to slow down the TiO2 precipitation process. The use of iPOH produces fiber mats consisting of slightly bigger and smoother filaments, but smaller-sized embedded TiO2 particles. Both materials show a distinct UV absorption characteristic of TiO2 at λmax 300 nm, which can be applied in catalytic applications. Degradation behaviors of the materials in phosphate buffer solutions have also been investigated. The materials have high potential for use as epoxidation catalysts for conversion of vegetable oils to polymeric building blocks and plasticizers.
Occupational Status , Education , and Social Mobility in the Meritocracy 1

in the Meritocracy ABSTRACT Following a brief review of the concept of occupational status, we review trends in Next, we examine trends and differentials in the effects of family origins, measured social background, and schooling on occupational standing. Finally, using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY), we explore relationships among social background, measured mental ability, and occupational status in youth and adulthood. In this paper, we use indexes of the socioeconomic standing of occupations to measure trends and differentials in intergenerational social mobility and in the effects of social background, educational attainment, and measured mental ability on occupational standing. We begin with an overview of the measurement of occupational status. This concept may be unfamiliar to some readers, and comparability among later findings depends on some of the details of index construction. We turn next to an examination of trends in aggregate intergenerational mobility, trends in occupational social standing, and trends in the effects of social background and educational attainment on occupational standing. In these analyses, we use several sets of national survey data that contain appropriate measurements: Research Center (GSS). These surveys are each sufficiently large to permit some level of disaggregation by race, age, and sex, but only one of them, the GSS, contains even a crude, direct measure of mental ability. Thus, there is a tradeoff between national and temporal scope, on the one hand, and examination of the role of mental ability in the stratification process. Finally, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey (WLS), we focus on the role of measured mental ability in occupational standing. The NLSY is a high-quality national survey, but its population coverage is limited to cohorts aged 14 to 21 in 1979, who have been followed through 1993. The WLS is a regional sample of men and women who have been followed from their high school graduation in 1957 to ages 53 and 54 in 1992-93. Socioeconomic Status Socioeconomic status is typically used as a shorthand expression for variables that characterize the placement of persons, families, households, census tracts, or other aggregates with respect to the capacity to create or consume goods that are valued in our society. Thus, Hauser and Warren (1996) have comprehensively reviewed the history and methodology 2 of occupational status measurement in the U.S. 2 socioeconomic status may …
Advanced Oxidation Protein Products in Aged with Dementia

The role of increased oxidative stress in the development of oxidative protein damage in aging have been reported. There is an important role of oxidative stress on development of dementia. Advanced oxidation protein products (AOPPs) are novel markers of oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to compare AOPP levels in healthy aged person and aged person with dementia. AOPP levels were in the control group 83.36 Â± 35.51 I¼mol/L, and 178.78 Â± 110.50 I¼mol/L in the group with dementia. This elevation in the group with dementia was statistically significant (p
Increased mortality and morbidity due to acute myocardial infarction in a public hospital, in Feira de Santana, Bahia.

BACKGROUND Factors related to socioeconomic status and health care quality and management may influence mortality and morbidity rates due to acute myocardial infarction (AMI). OBJECTIVE To compare mortality and morbidity in patients with AMI hospitalized in public and private hospitals. METHODS An observational study, with comparison groups. Clinical evaluation on admission, and recording of diagnostic, therapeutic and evolution data until discharge or death. Comparison of clinical characteristics by univariate analysis followed by bivariate analysis, evaluating the combination of predictors with death and morbidity (Killip> I), SPSS, version 13.0. RESULTS 150 patients were evaluated, 63 (42.0%) of private hospitals and 87 (58.0%) of public hospitals, with 63.1% and 62.1% of males, aged 61.1 +/- 13.8 and 60.0 +/- 11.6 years, respectively. The mortality from AMI was 19.5% in public hospitals vs 4.8% in private hospitals (p = 0.001), and morbidity (Killip class> I) was 34.3% in public hospitals vs 15.0% in private hospitals (p = 0.012). There was a significant difference between public and private patients, due to lower family income and education (70.1% with one to two salaries vs 19.0%, p 1 hour: 76.9% vs 48.6%, p = 0.003); and a longer period of time before being medicated (AMT > 15 minutes: 47.1% vs 8.0%; p <0.001); ICU for 8% of the patients in public hospitals vs 94% in private hospitals; and thrombolysis for 20.6% vs 54.0%, respectively (p <0.001). CONCLUSION Mortality and morbidity were greater among public patients, which presented more serious conditions, arrived later at the hospital and received lower quality treatment.
Financial and relationship satisfaction as a function of harsh start-up and shared goals and values

A path model was developed to test hypothesized associations among financial satisfaction, harsh start-up, shared goals and values, and relationship satisfaction. It was noted that a partner’s perceived financial satisfaction was directly associated with engaging less in harsh start-up discussions and sharing goals and values with the other partner. Harsh start-up discussions were directly associated with having fewer shared goals and values and decreased relationship satisfaction. The association between financial satisfaction and relationship satisfaction in the model was mediated by harsh start-up and shared goals and values. Implications for both practitioners and researchers are discussed.
News about VDAC1 in Hypoxia

The voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC) is the main interface between the cytosol and mitochondria of cells. It plays a crucial role in both mitochondrial metabolism and cell death. The main basic function of this channel is to mediate and gate the flux of small ions, metabolites, and adenosine triphosphate. Changes in its structure, and thus conformation, are expected to affect its activity and modulate the ability of cancer cells to expand. In this review, we describe a novel mechanism by which mitochondria of cells in hypoxia, a low level of oxygen, protects from apoptosis. In hypoxia, some mitochondria become enlarged due to hyperfusion. These mitochondria possess a truncated form of VDAC1 (VDAC1-ΔC), which is linked to the higher metabolic capacity and the greater resistance to cell death of hypoxic cells. However, not all of the VDAC1 protein is truncated, but the amount of the full-length form is diminished compared to the amount in normoxic cells. First, we describe how such a decrease effects cell proliferation, respiration, glycolysis, and other processes. Second, we report on a novel mitochondrial-endolysosomal crosstalk that leads to VDAC1 truncation. By pharmacological targeting of VDAC1-ΔC, the production of energy could be turned off and the sensitivity to cell death restored. This could counteract the favorable microenvironment that gives cancer cells a growth advantage and thereby disrupts the balance between life and death, which is controlled by VDAC1.
Secondary successional trajectories of structural and catabolic bacterial communities in oil‐polluted soil planted with hybrid poplar

Poplars have widely been used for rhizoremediation of a broad range of organic contaminants for the past two decades. Still, there is a knowledge gap regarding the rhizosphere‐associated bacterial communities of poplars and their dynamics during the remediation process. It is envisaged that a detailed understanding of rhizosphere‐associated microbial populations will greatly contribute to a better design and implementation of rhizoremediation. To investigate the long‐term succession of structural and catabolic bacterial communities in oil‐polluted soil planted with hybrid poplar, we carried out a 2‐year field study. Hybrid aspen (Populus tremula × Populus tremuloides) seedlings were planted in polluted soil excavated from an accidental oil‐spill site. Vegetated and un‐vegetated soil samples were collected for microbial community analyses at seven different time points during the course of 2 years and sampling time points were chosen to cover the seasonal variation in the boreal climate zone. Bacterial community structure was accessed by means of 16S rRNA gene amplicon pyrosequencing, whereas catabolic diversity was monitored by pyrosequencing of alkane hydroxylase and extradiol dioxygenase genes. We observed a clear succession of bacterial communities on both structural and functional levels from early to late‐phase communities. Sphingomonas type extradiol dioxygenases and alkane hydroxylase homologs of Rhodococcus clearly dominated the early‐phase communities. The high‐dominance/low‐diversity functional gene communities underwent a transition to low‐dominance/high‐diversity communities in the late phase. These results pointed towards increased catabolic capacities and a change from specialist to generalist strategy of bacterial communities during the course of secondary succession.
Investigation of Phenolic Components of Hungarian Wines

Ninety-two wines from the southernmost wine-producing region in Hungary (Villány) were analyzed for their polyphenolic content by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Our results show that wine variety or vintage year could not be distinguished based on polyphenol content, but winery origin could be. Resveratrol concentration is mainly dependent on variety and vintage year. The “human factor” (i.e., winemaking style and technology) seems to be more decisive for the polyphenolic composition of red wines than other factors, such as variety and vintage year.
Complex Event Processing in EPC Sensor Network Middleware for Both RFID and WSN

In an integration system of RFID and wireless sensor network (WSN), RFID is used to identify objects while WSN can provide context environment information of these objects. Thus, it increases system intelligent in pervasive computing. We propose the EPC sensor network (ESN) architecture as an integration system of RFID and WSN. This ESN architecture is based on EPCglobal architecture, the de facto international standard for RFID. The core of ESN is the middleware part which is also implemented in our work. In this paper, complex event processing (CEP) technology is used in our ESN middleware which can handle large volume of events from distributed RFID and sensor readers in real time. Through filtering, grouping, aggregating and constructing complex event, ESN middleware provides a more meaningful report for the clients and increases system automation.
Regulating the balance between the kynurenine and serotonin pathways of tryptophan metabolism

Tryptophan is metabolized along the kynurenine and serotonin pathways, resulting in formation of kynurenine metabolites, neuroactive serotonin and melatonin. Each pathway is critical for maintaining healthy homeostasis. However, the two pathways are extremely unequal in their ability to degrade tryptophan, and little is known about the mechanisms maintaining the balance between them. Here, we demonstrated that in PC12 cells, a change of expression of key genes of one pathway resulted in a change of expression of key genes of the other. Melatonin, the end product of the serotonin pathway, played an important role in tryptophan metabolism by affecting both key enzymes of the two pathways. Melatonin treatment induced the expression of indole‐2,3‐dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) and enhanced the activity of the IDO1 promoter while decreasing the expression of arylalkylamine N‐acetyl transferase. Melatonin treatment up‐regulated the expression of forkhead box protein O1 (FoxO1) and enhanced the binding of FoxO1 to the IDO1 promoter. FoxO1 was shown to be a new regulator for IDO1 expression. Melatonin treatment decreased the phosphorylation of FoxO1 by extracellular signal‐regulated kinases 1 and 2 and protein kinase B (Akt) and increased the phosphorylation of binding protein 14‐3‐3 by c‐Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK), and thus the complex of FoxO1–14‐3‐3 in the cytoplasm was disassembled and FoxO1 was relocated to the nucleus to induce IDO1 expression. The JNK signaling pathway played an important role in melatonin‐induced IDO1 up‐regulation. In conclusion, this study suggests a link between melatonin, JNK, FoxO1 and IDO1 that acts as a potential balance regulator of tryptophan metabolism, and offers a new approach to treat diseases related to dysregulation of tryptophan metabolism.
Non-commutative A-G mean inequality

In this paper we consider non-commutative analogue for the arithmeticgeometric mean inequality $$a^{r}b^{1-r}+(r-1)b\geq ra$$ for two positive numbers $a,b$ and $r> 1$. We show that under some assumptions the non-commutative analogue for $a^{r}b^{1-r}$ which satisfies this inequality is unique and equal to $r$-mean. The case $0<r<1$ is also considered. In particular, we give a new characterization of the geometric mean.
Modeling Fuel Treatment Leverage: Encounter Rates, Risk Reduction, and Suppression Cost Impacts

The primary theme of this study is the cost-effectiveness of fuel treatments at multiple scales of investment. We focused on the nexus of fuel management and suppression response planning, designing spatial fuel treatment strategies to incorporate landscape features that provide control opportunities that are relevant to fire operations. Our analysis explored the frequency and magnitude of fire-treatment encounters, which are critical determinants of treatment efficacy. Additionally, we examined avoided area burned, avoided suppression costs, and avoided damages, and combined all three under the umbrella of leverage to explore multiple dimensions with which to characterize return on investment. We chose the Sierra National Forest, California, USA, as our study site, due to previous work providing relevant data and analytical products, and because it has the potential for large, long-duration fires and corresponding potential for high suppression expenditures. Modeling results generally confirmed that fire-treatment encounters are rare, such that median suppression cost savings are zero, but in extreme years, savings can more than offset upfront investments. Further, reductions in risk can expand areas where moderated suppression response would be appropriate, and these areas can be mapped in relation to fire control opportunities.
Variability of η Carinae – III

Spectra (1951–78) of the central object in η Car, taken by A. D. Thackeray, reveal three previously unrecorded epochs of low excitation. Since 1948, at least, these states have occurred regularly in the 2020-d cycle proposed by Damineli et al. They last about 10 per cent of each cycle. Early slit spectra (1899–1919) suggest that at that time the object was always in a low state. JHKL photometry is reported for the period 1994–2000. This shows that the secular increase in brightness found in 1972–94 has continued and its rate has increased at the shorter wavelengths. Modulation of the infrared brightness in a period near 2020 d continues. There is a dip in the JHKL light curves near 1998.0, coincident with a dip in the X-ray light curve. Evidence is given that this dip in the infrared repeats in the 2020-d cycle. As suggested by Whitelock & Laney, the dip is best interpreted as an eclipse phenomenon in an interacting binary system; the object eclipsed being a bright region (‘hotspot’), possibly on a circumstellar disc or produced by interacting stellar winds. The eclipse coincides in phase and duration with the state of low excitation. It is presumably caused by a plasma column and/or by one of the stars in the system.
Individual Entrepreneurial Behavior in Croatian IT Firms: The Contribution of Strategic Thinking Skills

This article addresses the contribution of strategic thinking skills in explaining individual entrepreneurial behavior in Croatian IT firms. Strategic thinking skills were assessed according to entrepreneurs’ use of systems thinking, reflecting, and reframing. Individual entrepreneurial behavior was measured by their inclination towards risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness. Our study of 136 IT entrepreneurs in Croatia confirmed that entrepreneurs with a more developed use of strategic thinking skills exhibit stronger entrepreneurial behaviors. In fact, proactiveness as an element of IEB had a strong relation to all components of strategic thinking skills. Systems thinking as an element of strategic thinking skills showed to be a predictor of all individual entrepreneurial behavior elements.
Quantitative Stereological Estimations of Structural Patterns of the Glandular Tree in Benign Hyperplasia of Prostate

Background: Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is the most common benign disease of human prostate. Currently BPH is associated with unregulated proliferation of connective tissue and glandular epithelium within the prostatic transition zone, and it has been described as relevant characteristic of BPH—the increase of the total number of cells, and not only an increase in cell size. To date, there are few studies on the quantitative morphology of glandular tree of BPH compared with normal prostate. The scarce investigations about this particular suggest that the glandular tree branches and expands as the hyperplastic transformation occurs in the prostate. Methods: To verify if this gland expansion and branching was similar to that occurs in the normal prostate, this study deals with the estimation of several stereological parameters as: labeling index for the proliferating cell nuclear antigen to quantify the rate of proliferation of prostate epithelium, average thickness of glandular epithelium, fraction of the volume occupied by the epithelium relative to the total prostate volume, connectivity density of prostate glands, to quantify the branching of prostate glands, and the average volume and the volume-weighted mean glandular volume of prostate acini to assess the mean size of the prostate acini and its variability. Results: All these estimates have been performed in prostate specific antigen immunostained sections from prostates of young men (controls) and in adenomectomy specimens from the adenofibromiomatous variety of BPH. Conclusion: We conclude that the epithelial proliferation is not the only factor intervening in the development of BPH. In addition, a more prolonged survival of epithelial population, together with some degree of hypertrophy of acini expressed by the increase of volume fraction and thickness of acinar epithelium, is relevant in order to the growth and expansion of the BPH glandular tree that shows more abundant and heterogeneous acinar sprouts than in normal prostate.
Finding alternative sources of identification in generalized selection models using principal stratification1

In this paper we consider two approaches for dealing with “endogenous selection” problems when estimating causal effects, namely selection models (SM) and principal stratification (PS). Our main goal is to highlight similarities and differences of the two approaches, by first investigating the different nature of their parametric hypotheses. In order to support our reasoning, we show their different performances by simulations under both approaches. We argue that principal stratification is able to suggest alternative identification strategies not always easily translated into assumptions of a selection model.
The Power of Sherali-Adams Relaxations for General-Valued CSPs

We give a precise algebraic characterization of the power of Sherali--Adams relaxations for solvability of valued constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) to optimality. The condition is that of bounded width, which has already been shown to capture the power of local consistency methods for decision CSPs and the power of semidefinite programming for robust approximation of CSPs. Our characterization has several algorithmic and complexity consequences. On the algorithmic side, we show that several novel and well-known valued constraint languages are tractable via the third level of the Sherali--Adams relaxation. For the known languages, this is a significantly simpler algorithm than those previously obtained. On the complexity side, we obtain a dichotomy theorem for valued constraint languages that can express an injective unary function. This implies a simple proof of the dichotomy theorem for conservative valued constraint languages established by Kolmogorov and Živný [J. ACM, 60 (2013), 10], and also a .
Prospective, multicenter randomized GITMO/IIL trial comparing intensive (R-HDS) versus conventional (CHOP-R) chemoimmunotherapy in high-risk follicular lymphoma at diagnosis: the superior disease control of R-HDS does not translate into an overall survival advantage.

In this randomized multicenter study of 136 patients, 6 courses of CHOP (cyclo-phosphamide/doxorubicin/vincristine/prednisone) followed by rituximab (CHOP-R) were compared with rituximab-supplemented high-dose sequential chemotherapy with autografting (R-HDS) to assess the value of intensified chemo-therapy as a first-line treatment for high-risk follicular lymphoma (FL) after the introduction of monoclonal antibodies. The analysis was intention to treat with event-free survival (EFS) as the primary endpoint. Complete remission (CR) was 62% with CHOP-R and 85% with R-HDS (P < .001). At a median follow-up (MFU) of 51 months, the 4-year EFS was 28% and 61%, respectively (P < .001), with no difference in overall survival (OS). Molecular remission (MR) was achieved in 44% of CHOP-R and 80% of R-HDS patients (P < .001), and was the strongest independent outcome predictor. Patients relapsing after CHOP-R underwent salvage R-HDS in 71% of cases. Salvage R-HDS had an 85% CR rate and a 68% 3-year EFS (MFU, 30 months). We conclude that (1) achieving MR is critical for effective disease control, regardless of which treatment is used; (2) R-HDS ensures superior disease control and molecular outcome than CHOP-R, but no OS improvement; and (3) CHOP-R failures have a good outcome after salvage R-HDS, suggesting that relapsed/refractory FL could be the most appropriate setting for R-HDS-like treatments. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials. gov as no. NCT00435955.