Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aqueous Extract of Brazilian Green Propolis: Primary Components, Evaluation of Inflammation and Wound Healing by Using Subcutaneous Implanted Sponges

Propolis is a chemically complex resinous bee product which has gained worldwide popularity as a means to improve health condition and prevent diseases. The main constituents of an aqueous extract of a sample of green propolis from Southeast Brazil were shown by high performance liquid chromatography/mass spectroscopy/mass spectroscopy to be mono- and di-O-caffeoylquinic acids; phenylpropanoids known as important constituents of alcohol extracts of green propolis, such as artepillin C and drupanin were also detected in low amounts in the aqueous extract. The anti-inflammatory activity of this extract was evaluated by determination of wound healing parameters. Female Swiss mice were implanted subcutaneously with polyesther-polyurethane sponge discs to induce wound healing responses, and administered orally with green propolis (500 mg kg−1). At 4, 7 and 14 days post-implantation, the fibrovascular stroma and deposition of extracellular matrix were evaluated by histopathologic and morphometric analyses. In the propolis-treated group at Days 4 and 7 the inflammatory process in the sponge was reduced in comparison with control. A progressive increase in cell influx and collagen deposition was observed in control and propolis-treated groups during the whole period. However, these effects were attenuated in the propolis-treated group at Days 4 and 7, indicating that key factors of the wound healing process are modulated by propolis constituents.
Envelope Tracking of an RF High Power Amplifier With an 8-Level Digitally Controlled GaN-on-Si Supply Modulator

This paper presents an envelope tracking (ET) transmitter architecture based on the combination of a novel 3-bit (N = 3) supply modulator and digital predistortion (DPD). The proposed power converter is based on a direct digital-to-analog conversion architecture that implements the binary-coded sum of N isolated dc voltages, allowing the synthesis of an output waveform with L = 2N voltage levels, with a binary distribution in the range ΔV = VM - VO (maximum voltage VM, offset voltage Vo). This solution provides a better voltage resolution VS = ΔV/(2N-1) with respect to typical multilevel switched-sources topologies (VS = ΔV/N). The improved voltage resolution enables the correction of the residual discretization error in the ET transmitter by means of DPD of the RF signal without the need of an auxiliary linear envelope amplifier. The proposed ET solution has been tested with an L-band 30-W lateral-diffused MOS RF high power amplifier (RF HPA) with 1.4- and 10-MHz long-term-evolution signals. In these conditions the converter demonstrated 92% and 83% efficiency, respectively, whereas the congregate efficiency of the transmitter are 38.3% and 23.9% at 5.5 and 1.9 W of average RF output power, respectively. These performances correspond to an improvement of 17.2 and 17.9 points for the power-added efficiency of the RF HPA and to 13.4 and 13 points of improvement for the efficiency of the entire transmitter with respect to fixed bias operation.
The Effect of Lycii Radicis Cortex Extract on Bone Formation in Vitro and in Vivo

Osteoporosis is a common skeletal disease caused by decreased bone mass; it enhances the risk of bone fracture. This study aimed to discover novel herbal extract(s) for the treatment of osteoporosis. We screened 64 ethanol extracts of edible plants native to Korea for their ability to increase the cellular proliferation and differentiation of two osteoblastic cell lines: C3H10T1/2 and MC3T3-E1. We selected a Lycii Radicis Cortex (LRC), Lycium Chinese root bark as the primary candidate. Treatment with LRC extract showed enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity and increased expression of bone metabolic markers Alpl, Runx2, and Bglap genes in both osteoblastic cell lines. There was no effect on the osteoclastic differentiation of primary-cultured monocytes from the mouse bone marrows. Furthermore, the study examined the effect of LRC extract in vivo in ovariectomizd (OVX) mice for 8 weeks and 16 weeks, respectively. Bone mineral density (BMD) was significantly higher in LRC extract-administered group than in the non-LRC-administered OVX control group. The results indicated that LRC extract prevented the OVX-induced BMD loss in mice via promoting the differentiation of osteoblast linage cells. These results suggest that LRC extract may be a good natural herbal medicine candidate for the treatment of osteoporosis.
Design, Synthesis, and Pharmacological Evaluation of Haloperidol Derivatives as Novel Potent Calcium Channel Blockers with Vasodilator Activity

Several haloperidol derivatives with a piperidine scaffold that was decorated at the nitrogen atom with different alkyl, benzyl, or substituted benzyl moieties were synthesized at our laboratory to establish a library of compounds with vasodilator activity. Compounds were screened for vasodilatory activity on isolated thoracic aorta rings from rats, and their quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSAR) were examined. Based on the result of QSAR, N-4-tert-butyl benzyl haloperidol chloride (16c) was synthesized and showed the most potent vasodilatory activity of all designed compounds. 16c dose-dependently inhibited the contraction caused by the influx of extracellular Ca2+ in isolated thoracic aorta rings from rats. It concentration-dependently attenuated the calcium channel current and extracellular Ca2+ influx, without affecting the intracellular Ca2+ mobilization, in vascular smooth muscle cells from rats. 16c, possessing the N-4-tert-butyl benzyl piperidine structure, as a novel calcium antagonist, may be effective as a calcium channel blocker in cardiovascular disease.
Decreasing of the turbo MAP decoding time using an iterations stopping criterion

In this paper, an iterations stopping criterion in iterative turbo decoding based on the LLR of the decoded bit, using a comparison with a threshold, is proposed. We present the performances of a turbo code, both in the case of a fixed number of iterations and in the case in which the stopping criterion is used. We compare the decoding times. An analysis of the influence of the threshold on the turbo code bit error rate (BER) performance, using the iterations stopping criterion, is presented.
[Nonpeptide angiotensin II receptor antagonists].

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is known to play a very important role in cardiovascular diseases. The present state of the research on orally active nonpeptide angiotensin II (A II)-receptor antagonists and their pharmacological characterization will be reviewed. In the late 1970s, the first nonpeptide A II-receptor antagonists were discovered among some derivatives of imidazoleacetic acid, and this was followed by the development of losartan in 1989. TCV-116, synthesized in our laboratories, is a prodrug that is converted in vivo to the active form CV-11974. TCV-116 and CV-11974 were demonstrated to be effective antagonists for many A II-induced cardiovascular actions and are effective antihypertensive agents in several animal models of hypertension. TCV-116 also demonstrated secondary benefits in treating congestive heart failure (CHF), preventing stroke, delaying the progression of renal disease and preventing the intimal thickening of vascular injury in animal models. Clinical studies confirmed the efficacy of TCV-116 in the treatment of essential hypertension. The utility of A II antagonist may extend beyond that of hypertension and CHF, as suggested by the potential usefulness of ACE inhibitors in the treatment or prevention of many other cardiovascular diseases. The A II antagonists will help to determine the role of the RAS in the physiologic regulation and in the pathophysiology of various cardiovascular diseases.
Microinjection of Cis-flupenthixol, a Dopamine Antagonist, into the Medial Preoptic Area Impairs Sexual Behavior of Male Rats

Systemically administered dopamine agonists have been shown to facilitate copulation in male rats. Microinjection of the dopamine agonist apomorphine into Ihe medial preoptic area has also been reported to facilitate sexual behavior. The present experiments investigated the effects of medial preoptic microinjections of the dopamine antagonist cis-flupenthixol, on male rat copulatory behavior. Fewer males initiated copulation and fewer ejaculated following flupenthixol administration. Those males that did ejactdate following flupenthixoi injections had fewer ejaculations and longer interintromission intervals. Fiupenthixol also antagonized the facilitative effects of apomorphine injections into the medial preoptic area. Flupenthixol and apomorphine produced only minor alterations in non-copulatory behaviors. The results suggest that dopamine receptors within the medial preoptic area are important in the regulation of masculine sexual behavior in the rat.
YFilter: efficient and scalable filtering of XML documents

Much of the data exchanged over the Internet will soon be encoded in XML, allowing for sophisticated filtering and content-based routing. We have built a filtering engine called YFilter, which filters streaming XML documents according to XQuery or XPath queries that involve both path expressions and predicates. Unlike previous work, YFilter uses a novel NFA-based execution model. We present the structures and algorithms underlying YFilter, and show its efficiency and scalability under various workloads.
Alu and B1 Repeats Have Been Selectively Retained in the Upstream and Intronic Regions of Genes of Specific Functional Classes

Alu and B1 repeats are mobile elements that originated in an initial duplication of the 7SL RNA gene prior to the primate-rodent split about 80 million years ago and currently account for a substantial fraction of the human and mouse genome, respectively. Following the primate-rodent split, Alu and B1 elements spread independently in each of the two genomes in a seemingly random manner, and, according to the prevailing hypothesis, negative selection shaped their final distribution in each genome by forcing the selective loss of certain Alu and B1 copies. In this paper, contrary to the prevailing hypothesis, we present evidence that Alu and B1 elements have been selectively retained in the upstream and intronic regions of genes belonging to specific functional classes. At the same time, we found no evidence for selective loss of these elements in any functional class. A subset of the functional links we discovered corresponds to functions where Alu involvement has actually been experimentally validated, whereas the majority of the functional links we report are novel. Finally, the unexpected finding that Alu and B1 elements show similar biases in their distribution across functional classes, despite having spread independently in their respective genomes, further supports our claim that the extant instances of Alu and B1 elements are the result of positive selection.
The Gut Bacterial Community of Mammals from Marine and Terrestrial Habitats

After birth, mammals acquire a community of bacteria in their gastro-intestinal tract, which harvests energy and provides nutrients for the host. Comparative studies of numerous terrestrial mammal hosts have identified host phylogeny, diet and gut morphology as primary drivers of the gut bacterial community composition. To date, marine mammals have been excluded from these comparative studies, yet they represent distinct examples of evolutionary history, diet and lifestyle traits. To provide an updated understanding of the gut bacterial community of mammals, we compared bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequence data generated from faecal material of 151 marine and terrestrial mammal hosts. This included 42 hosts from a marine habitat. When compared to terrestrial mammals, marine mammals clustered separately and displayed a significantly greater average relative abundance of the phylum Fusobacteria. The marine carnivores (Antarctic and Arctic seals) and the marine herbivore (dugong) possessed significantly richer gut bacterial community than terrestrial carnivores and terrestrial herbivores, respectively. This suggests that evolutionary history and dietary items specific to the marine environment may have resulted in a gut bacterial community distinct to that identified in terrestrial mammals. Finally we hypothesize that reduced marine trophic webs, whereby marine carnivores (and herbivores) feed directly on lower trophic levels, may expose this group to high levels of secondary metabolites and influence gut microbial community richness.
Stationary urban environment modeling using multi-layer-grids

Future advanced driver assistant systems and autonomous driving put high demands on the environmental perception especially in urban environments. Today's on-board sensors and on-board algorithms still do not reach a satisfying level of robustness and availability. In this paper we focus on the perception of the stationary environment which mainly consists of raised obstacles and lane-markings. We propose to fuse both the raised obstacles as well as the markings in a grid-based representation for a higher robustness against partial occlusion and false detections. The algorithms are designed to work with both research and close-to-production sensors. The algorithms run in real-time on a standard PC and are evaluated with real sensor data.
The Prevalence, Incidence and Etiology of Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a neuronal disorder that is observed globally but still it is not explored very well in most parts of the world. This disease is linked to different provocative causes and affects almost all generation, ethnicity and age population. Therefore, the aim of this article is to systemically review the literature about the prevalence, incidence and etiology of epilepsy to find possible approaches to control epilepsy. The worldwide prevalence of epilepsy is variable and varied among countries. High prevalence is found in adolescent and early age group population. In North America, Central and South America high prevalence is found in male except in New York, Bolivia, Honduras and Argentina where prevalence is high in female. In Asian countries such as China, India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia the prevalence is high in Male except in Pakistan here prevalence is high in female similarly to European countries where also prevalence is high in female. The prevalence of epilepsy in male and female is variable in African countries. Generalized seizure is high in America, Asia, Europe, and Africa than the other types of epilepsies. Very limited data is available about the incidence of epilepsy especially from low and lower middle income countries. The incidence rate of epilepsy is higher in the developing countries than the industrialized countries. Similarly, the incidence is also higher in male than female. Head injury, birth trauma, cerebrovascular disease, and intracranial infections (neurocysticercosis or meningoencephalitis) and genetic factors are the main causes of epilepsy.
Hybrid packet/fluid flow network simulation

Packet level discrete event network simulators use an event to model the movement of each packet in the network. This results in accurate models, but requires that many events are executed to simulate large, high bandwidth networks. Fluid-based network simulators abstract the model to consider only changes in rates of traffic flows. This can result in large performance advantages, though information about the individual packets is lost making this approach inappropriate for many simulation and emulation studies. We present a hybrid model in which packet flows and fluid flows coexist and interact. This enables studies to be performed with background traffic modelled using fluid flows and foreground traffic modelled at the packet level. Results presented show up to 20 times speedup using this technique. Accuracy is within 4% for latency and 15% for jitter in many cases.
Studies of leptomeningeal collateral circulation in Macacus rhesus

In previous experiments on dogs (Symon, 1960), it was shown that, within a few minutes of occlusion of a major cerebral vessel, free flow of blood occurred within the area of supply of the occluded vessel, borne via leptomeningeal anastomoses from the vascular fields of adjacent vessels. Since it has been established anatomically (Vander Eecken, 1959) that the number and size of collateral vessels within the pial circulation decreases with increasing convolution of the cortex in higher animals, it became of interest to find out whether such prompt collateral flow could be demonstrated in these animals as well. Similar experiments were therefore carried out in the primate Macacus rhesus.
Lowering Inferred Cluster Magnetic Field Strengths: The Radio Galaxy Contributions

We present a detailed examination of the relationship between the magnetic field structures and the variations in Faraday rotation across PKS 1246-410, a radio source in the Centaurus cluster of galaxies, using data from Taylor, Fabian, & Allen. We find a significant relationship between the intrinsic position angle of the polarization and the local amount of Faraday rotation. The most plausible explanation is that most or all of the rotation is local to the source. We suggest that the rotations local to cluster radio galaxies may result either from thermal material mixed with the radio plasma, or from thin skins of warm, ionized gas in pressure balance with the observed galaxy or hot cluster atmospheres. We find that the contribution of any unrelated cluster rotation measure (RM) variations on scales of 2''-10'' are less than 25 rad m-2: the standard, although model-dependent, derivation of cluster fields would then lead to an upper limit of ≈0.4 μG on these scales. Inspection of the distributions of rotation measure, polarization angle, and total intensity in 3C 75, 3C 465, and Cygnus A also shows source-related Faraday effects in some locations. Many effects can mask the signatures of locally dominated RMs, so the detection of even isolated correlations can be important, although difficult to quantify statistically. In order to use radio sources such as those shown here to derive cluster-wide magnetic fields, as is commonly done, one must first remove the local contributions. This is not possible at present.
Evidence of Uncoupling between Renal Dysfunction and Injury in Cardiorenal Syndrome: Insights from the BIONICS Study

Objective The objective of the study was to assess urinary biomarkers of renal injury for their individual or collective ability to predict Worsening renal function (WRF) in patients with acutely decompensated heart failure (ADHF). Methods In a prospective, blinded international study, 87 emergency department (ED) patients with ADHF were evaluated with biomarkers of cardiac stretch (B type natriuretic peptide [BNP] and its amino terminal equivalent [NT-proBNP], ST2), biomarkers of renal function (creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR]) and biomarkers of renal injury (plasma neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin [pNGAL], urine kidney injury molecule-1 [KIM-1], urine N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase [NAG], urine Cystatin C, urine fibrinogen). The primary endpoint was WRF. Results 26% developed WRF; baseline characteristics of subjects who developed WRF were generally comparable to those who did not. Biomarkers of renal function and urine biomarkers of renal injury were not correlated, while urine biomarkers of renal injury correlated between each other. Biomarker concentrations were similar between patients with and without WRF except for baseline BNP. Although plasma NGAL was associated with the combined endpoint, none of the biomarker showed predictive accuracy for WRF. Conclusions In ED patients with ADHF, urine biomarkers of renal injury did not predict WRF. Our data suggest that a weak association exists between renal dysfunction and renal injury in this setting (Clinicaltrials.gov NCT#0150153).
Impaired Skeletal Muscle Blood Flow Control With Advancing Age in Humans: Attenuated ATP Release and Local Vasodilation During Erythrocyte Deoxygenation

Rationale: Skeletal muscle blood flow is coupled with the oxygenation state of hemoglobin in young adults, whereby the erythrocyte functions as an oxygen sensor and releases ATP during deoxygenation to evoke vasodilation. Whether this function is impaired in humans of advanced age is unknown. Objective: To test the hypothesis that older adults demonstrate impaired muscle blood flow and lower intravascular ATP during conditions of erythrocyte deoxygenation. Methods and Results: We showed impaired forearm blood flow responses during 2 conditions of erythrocyte deoxygenation (systemic hypoxia and graded handgrip exercise) with age, which was caused by reduced local vasodilation. In young adults, both hypoxia and exercise significantly increased venous [ATP] and ATP effluent (forearm blood flow×[ATP]) draining the skeletal muscle. In contrast, hypoxia and exercise did not increase venous [ATP] in older adults, and both venous [ATP] and ATP effluent were substantially reduced compared with young people despite similar levels of deoxygenation. Next, we demonstrated that this could not be explained by augmented extracellular ATP hydrolysis in whole blood with age. Finally, we found that deoxygenation-mediated ATP release from isolated erythrocytes was essentially nonexistent in older adults. Conclusions: Skeletal muscle blood flow during conditions of erythrocyte deoxygenation was markedly reduced in aging humans, and reductions in plasma ATP and erythrocyte-mediated ATP release may be a novel mechanism underlying impaired vasodilation and oxygen delivery during hypoxemia with advancing age. Because aging is associated with elevated risk for ischemic cardiovascular disease and exercise intolerance, interventions that target erythrocyte-mediated ATP release may offer therapeutic potential.
Human neocortical electrical activity recorded on nonpenetrating microwire arrays: applicability for neuroprostheses.

OBJECT The goal of this study was to determine whether a nonpenetrating, high-density microwire array could provide sufficient information to serve as the interface for decoding motor cortical signals. METHODS Arrays of nonpenetrating microwires were implanted over the human motor cortex in 2 patients. The patients performed directed stereotypical reaching movements in 2 directions. The resulting data were used to determine whether the reach direction could be distinguished through a frequency power analysis. RESULTS Correlation analysis revealed decreasing signal correlation with distance. The gamma-band power during motor planning allowed binary classification of gross directionality in the reaching movements. The degree of power change was correlated to the underlying gyral pattern. CONCLUSIONS The nonpenetrating microwire platform showed good potential for allowing differentiated signals to be recorded with high spatial fidelity without cortical penetration.