Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of predisposing effect of coccidiosis to necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens.

________________________________________________________________________________________ SIVASEELAN, S. , S. VIJAYAKUMAR, S. MALMARUGAN, P. BALACHANDRAN, G. A. BALASUBRAMANIAM: Assessment of predisposing effect of coccidiosis to necrotic enteritis in experimentally induced broiler chicken. Vet. arhiv 83, 653-664, 2013. ABSTRACT In order to asses the predisposing effect of coccidiosis to Necrotic enteritis (NE), an experimental study was conducted in broiler chicken. In the fi rst trial (NE alone), symptoms were noticed from the 4th to 7th days post inoculation (DPI), but no mortality was recorded. In the second trial (NE primed with coccidiosis), 23 % mortality was recorded. Grossly, a maximum intestine lesions score of 2 was recorded on the 6th DPI in the fi rst trial. In the second trial, a maximum intestine lesions score of 3.67 was recorded on the 6th DPI. Microscopically, in the fi rst trial, the birds’ intestines from the 4th to the 7th DPI showed hyperplasia of the villi of the jejunal mucosa. In the second trial, the birds’ intestines from 2nd to 4th DPI showed severe hyperplasia of the villi, and the presence of E. necatrix schizonts within and outside the enterocytes. In the second trial, intestines from 5th to 7th DPI revealed shortening of the villi, diphtheritic pseudomembrane formation and the presence of C. perfringens organisms among the necrotic epithelium. It was concluded that intestinal damage characterised by destruction of crypts cells, as well as villi enterocytes and rupture of blood vessels by schizonts and merozoites of E. necatrix predisposed the chicken to a clinical form of NE to increase the mortality percentage.
Epidemiology of Neural Tube Defects

Summary: Neural tube defects (NTDs)—malformations secondary to abnormal neural tube closure between the third and fourth weeks of gestational age—have a complex and imperfectly understood etiology in which both genetic and environmental factors appear to be involved. A number of specific chromosomal or single‐gene disorders, presumably not affected by environmental influences, are associated with the development of NTDs, but such syndromal cases account for a small proportion of NTDs in live‐born infants. Analysis of recurrence patterns within families and of twin‐concordance data provides evidence of a genetic influence in nonsyndromal cases, but factors such as socioeconomic status and geographic area (independent of race or ethnicity) are also associated with variations in the incidence of NTDs. The prevalence at birth of both anencephaly and spina bifida has decreased, but the advent of antenatal diagnosis and elective termination of affected pregnancies has undermined the reliability of birth prevalence rate as an estimate of incidence. Some occupational and other exposures, including maternal use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), are associated with increased risk for NTDs. Among women who have had an NTD‐affected pregnancy, recurrence risk is markedly higher than the risk for a first NTD‐affected pregnancy in the general population. There is strong evidence, overall, for a protective effect of adequate folate consumption. In some high‐risk groups, however, such as women taking AEDs, folate supplementation has not been proven to reduce NTD risk.
Comparing link marker visualization techniques: changes in reading behavior

Links are one of the most important means for navigation in the World Wide Web. However, the visualization of and the interaction with Web links have been scarcely explored, although Links have severe implications on the appearance and usability of Web pages and the World Wide Web as such.This paper presents two studies giving first insights of the effects of link visualization techniques on reading habits and performance. The first user study compares different highlighting techniques for link markers and evaluates their effect on reading performance and user acceptance. The second study examines links-on-demand, links that appear when pressing a dedicated key, and discusses their possible effects on reading and browsing habits.The findings of the conducted studies imply that the standard appearance of link markers has seriously underestimated effects on the usability of Web pages. They can significantly reduce the readability of the text, and alternatives should be carefully considered for the design of future Web browsers.
Students' Acceptance of Using Smartphone in a Mobile Learning Context.

Development of mobile phones provides the students a different learning choice compared to studying in a traditional classroom. This study investigated undergraduate students’ experiences with using their smartphones to receive learning contents for the improvement of their computer literacy. Through a survey and a pretest and posttest, the findings showed mobile learners expressed positive perceptions after their experience with the m-learning and the scores on the posttest were significantly higher than the scores on the pretest. Key words: M-learning, SMS message, computer literacy, undergraduate students.
The Bcl-2/Bcl-XL Family Inhibitor ABT-737 Sensitizes Ovarian Cancer Cells to Carboplatin

Purpose: The effective treatment of ovarian cancer is hampered by the development of drug resistance, which may be mediated by members of the Bcl-2 family of apoptosis regulators. ABT-737 is a recently described inhibitor of members of this family. We investigated whether this compound could sensitize ovarian cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents. Experimental Design: The sensitivity of ovarian cancer cell lines to ABT-737 in combination with either carboplatin or paclitaxel was tested either in vitro by assessing cell growth/survival and apoptosis or in xenograft studies. Results: As a single agent, ABT-737 inhibited the growth of eight ovarian cancer cell lines, although with relatively poor potency. However, ABT-737, but not a less active enantiomer, increased the sensitivity of several cell lines to carboplatin. The increased sensitivity to carboplatin was accompanied by a decrease in time at which apoptosis was observed when assessed according to the number of attached cells, PARP cleavage, and nucleosome formation. ABT-737 was more effective at sensitizing IGROV-1 cells when ABT-737 was administered after carboplatin. In addition, ABT-737 significantly enhanced the activity of carboplatin in one of three primary cultures derived directly from ascitic tumor cells in patients recently treated with chemotherapy. Small interfering RNA directed to Bcl-XL also increased the sensitivity of ovarian cancer cell lines to carboplatin. ABT-737 was also able to augment the inhibition of IGROV-1 tumor xenograft growth beyond that obtained with carboplatin alone. Conclusions: These data suggest that ABT-737, in combination with carboplatin, may find utility in the treatment of patients with ovarian cancer.
Export versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms

This paper builds a multi-country, multi-sector general equilibrium model that explains the decision of heterogeneous ﬁ rms to serve foreign markets either through exports or local subsidiary sales (FDI). These modes of market access involve di ﬀ erent relative costs, some of which are sunk while others vary with sales volume (such as transport costs and tari ﬀ s). Relative to investment in a subsidiary, exporting involves lower sunk costs but higher per-unit costs. In equilibrium, only the more productive ﬁ rms choose to serve the foreign markets and the most productive among this group will further choose to serve the overseas market via FDI. The paper then explores several implications of the individual ﬁ rms’ decisions for aggregate export and FDI sales relative to the domestic and foreign market sizes. In particular, it is shown that ﬁ rm level heterogeneity is an important determinant of relative export and FDI ﬂ ows. We use the model to derive testable empirical predictions on the relative aggregate export and FDI sales in a given country for a given sector based both on relative costs and the extent of ﬁ rm level heterogeneity in that sector. These predictions are tested on data of US a ﬃ liate sales and US exports in 38 di ﬀ erent countries and 52 sectors. The comparative statics based on relative costs are very similar to those tested by Brainard (AER 1997) and are con ﬁ rmed in our data: sector/country speci ﬁ c transport costs and tari ﬀ s have a strong negative e ﬀ ect on export sales relative to FDI. More importantly, our new predictions for the e ﬀ ects of ﬁ rm-level heterogeneity on the relative export and FDI sales are also strongly supported by the data: more heterogeneity leads to signi ﬁ cantly more FDI sales relative to export sales.
From Brand Loyalty to E-Loyalty: A Conceptual Framework

With the rapid growth of E -commerce and on-line consumer shopping trends, the importance of building and maintaining customer loyalty in electronic marketplaces has come into sharper focus in marketing theory and practice. This paper integrates previous research in the field of brand loyalty to present a conceptial framework of "e-loyalty" and its underlying drivers. Implications for e- marketing practice and future research directions are also presented.
ISOMAP based metrics for clustering

Many successful clustering techniques fail to handle data with a manifold structure, i.e. data that is not shaped in the form of compact point clouds, forming arbitrary shapes or paths through a high-dimensional space. In this paper we present a new method to evaluate distances in such spaces that naturally extend the application of many clustering algorithms to these cases. Our algorithm has two stages. Following ISOMAP, it searches for sets of locally-uniform manifolds, which could be disjoint. These manifolds are then connected using two slightly dierent strategies. We compare these strategies between them and with a state of the art algorithm using three artificial problems, obtaining encouraging result. Both new metrics allow diverse algorithms to easily find clusters of arbitrary shape.
Geodesic graphs on special 7-dimensional g.o. manifolds

In [3], the present authors and S. Nikcevic constructed the 2parameter family of invariant Riemannian metrics on the homogeneous manifolds M = [SO(5) × SO(2)]/U(2) and M = [SO(4, 1) × SO(2)]/U(2). They proved that, for the open dense subset of this family, the corresponding Riemannian manifolds are g.o. manifolds which are not naturally reductive. Now we are going to investigate the remaining metrics (in the compact case). 1. G.o. spaces and geodesic graphs LetG ⊂ I(M) be a connected Lie group which acts transitively on a Riemannian manifold M and let o ∈ M be a fixed point. If we denote by H the isotropy group at o, then M can be identified with the homogeneous manifold G/H . In general, there may exist more than one such group G ⊂ I(M). If, for example, we take a connected Lie group G such that G 6= G ⊂ I(M) and G also acts transitively on M , then there is another expression of M as G/H ′ (where H ′ is the new isotropy group). For any fixed choice M = G/H , G acts effectively on G/H from the left. The Riemannian metric g on M can be considered as a G-invariant metric on G/H . The pair (G/H, g) is then called a Riemannian homogeneous space. Such space is always a reductive homogeneous space in the following sense (cf. [5]): we denote by g and h the Lie algebras of G and H respectively and consider the adjoint representation Ad: H×g → g of H on g. There exists a direct sum decomposition (reductive decomposition) of the form g = m+ h where m ⊂ g is a vector subspace such that Ad(H)(m) ⊂ m. For a fixed reductive decomposition g = m + h there is a natural identification of m ⊂ g = TeG with the tangent space ToM via the projection π : G → G/H = M . Using this natural identification and the scalar product go on ToM we obtain a scalar product 〈 , 〉 on m. This scalar product is obviously Ad(H)-invariant. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 22E25, 53C30, 53C35, 53C40.
Bridging the Gap Between Features and Models

Software product lines refer to engineering techniques for creating a portfolio of similar software systems from a shared set of software assets in a controlled way. Managing variability is the key issue of software product line practice. Modelling variation points is largely addressed by a selection of linguistic constructs and modelling techniques (e.g., design pattern, macro, configuration files). New constraints and industrial requirements often result in the emergence of new variation points. The success of the evolution of a product line depends on its capability to absorb unanticipated variation points. This paper presents the classboxes programming construct to support unanticipated variation point in the software source code. Classboxes offer a visibility mechanism that controls the scope of an evolution step and limits it only to the part of a program that needs to be affected by this evolution. Benefits of classboxes are illustrated on an arcade game maker product line.
The Feudal Revolution and Europe ’ s Rise : Political Divergence of the Christian and Muslim Worlds before 1500 CE

This paper documents a divergence in the duration of rule for monarchs in Western Europe and the Islamic world beginning in the medieval period. While leadership tenures in the two regions were similar in 700 CE, Christian kings became increasingly long-lived compared to Muslim sultans. To better understand the roots of this divergence, we investigate the empirical relevance of an historical literature stressing Carolingian feudalism as critical for the emergence of European institutional exceptionalism. We argue that forms of executive constraint that emerged under feudal institutions were associated with increased political stability and find empirical support for this argument. While feudal institutions served as the basis for military recruitment by European monarchs, Muslim sultans relied on mamlukism – or the use of military slaves imported from non-Muslim lands. Dependence on mamluk armies limited the bargaining strength of local notables vis-à-vis the sultan, hindering the development of a productively adversarial relationship between ruler and local elites. We argue that Muslim societies’reliance on mamluks, rather than local elites, as the basis for military leadership, may explain why the Glorious Revolution occurred in England, not Egypt. ∗Department of Political Science, Stanford University †Department of Economics, Harvard University. We thank David Abernathy, Phillipe Aghion, Thomas Bisson, Carles Boix, Gary Cox, Scott Gehlbach, Avner Greif, Justin Grimmer, Allen Hicken, David Laitin, Jonathan Leibowitz, Anne McCants, Larry Neal, Nathan Nunn, Jim Robinson, Norman Schofield, Andrei Shleifer, David Stasavage, Peter Temin, Mike Tomz, Barry Weingast, Ali Yaycioglu and seminar participants at Harvard University, Iowa State University, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Sabanci University, Stanford University and Washington University in St. Louis for helpful conversations and comments. Any remaining errors are our own.
The Detection of Novelty Relies on Dopaminergic Signaling: Evidence from Apomorphine's Impact on the Novelty N2

Despite much research, it remains unclear if dopamine is directly involved in novelty detection or plays a role in orchestrating the subsequent cognitive response. This ambiguity stems in part from a reliance on experimental designs where novelty is manipulated and dopaminergic activity is subsequently observed. Here we adopt the alternative approach: we manipulate dopamine activity using apomorphine (D1/D2 agonist) and measure the change in neurological indices of novelty processing. In separate drug and placebo sessions, participants completed a von Restorff task. Apomorphine speeded and potentiated the novelty-elicited N2, an Event-Related Potential (ERP) component thought to index early aspects of novelty detection, and caused novel-font words to be better recalled. Apomorphine also decreased the amplitude of the novelty-P3a. An increase in D1/D2 receptor activation thus appears to potentiate neural sensitivity to novel stimuli, causing this content to be better encoded.
Exploring Affordances of Email for Team Learning Over Time

Scant research has examined the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for team learning across time. Drawing on theories of team learning, group development, and technological affordances, we provide a multi-method case analysis of emails and interviews that explores how and when team learning occurs. We analyze 468 emails and 20 interviews collected from a team in a large Swedish insurance company over the course of a 44-week project, from start to completion. The analysis reveals that the affordances of email (asynchronicity, editability, persistence, and replicability) and perceptions of time (time for face-to-face interaction [FtF] and time management) drive three nonlinear cycles of knowledge sharing, co-construction, and constructive conflict across the 44-week life span of the project. The findings challenge existing framings of team learning grounded in FtF contexts and highlight the increasing importance of team learning through ICTs.
Causal structures and holography

We explore the description of bulk causal structure in a dual field theory. We observe that in the spacetime dual to a spacelike non-commutative field theory, the causal structure in the boundary directions is modified asymptotically. We propose that this modification is described in the dual theory by a modification of the micro-causal light cone. Previous studies of this micro-causal light cone for spacelike non-commutativite field theories agree with the expectations from the bulk spacetime. We describe the spacetime dual to field theories with lightlike non-commutativity, and show that they generically have a drastic modification of the light cone in the bulk: the spacetime is non-distinguishing. This means that the spacetime while being devoid of closed timelike or null curves, has causal curves that are ``almost closed''. We go on to show that the micro-causal light cone in the field theory agrees with this prediction from the bulk.
Molecular Detection of Antibiotic Resistance in South African Isolates of Helicobacter pylori

Rapid diagnosis and treatment of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) presents a challenge. We aimed at investigating the presence of H. pylori, susceptibility profile, and associated mutations in an effort to validate the effectiveness of GenoType HelicoDR assay in H. pylori typing in our environment. Two hundred and fifty-four biopsy specimens were cultured and DNA extracted from seventy-eight positive cultures using the Qiagen DNA extraction kit. The GenoType Helico DR which employs reverse hybridisation was used to confirm the presence of H. pylori, determination of its susceptibility to antimicrobials, and detection of mutations conferring resistance to clarithromycin and fluoroquinolones. The organism was isolated from 168/254 (66.1 %) of the specimens by culture. Of the 78 strains used for further investigation, 12/78 (15.38%) were resistant to clarithromycin while 66/78 (84.61%) were susceptible. For fluoroquinolone, 70/78 (89.74%) strains were susceptible while 8 (10.26%) were resistant. Mutations were observed in 17 strains with A2147G being the most prevalent; A2146C and D91N were the least. The reverse hybridisation assay is an easy and fast technique in confirming the presence of H. pylori, its antimicrobial profile, and associated mutations. Analysis regarding the suitability of this assay for H. pylori typing is warranted in other regions.
Safety evaluation of saffron stigma (Crocus sativus L.) aqueous extract and crocin in patients with schizophrenia

Objectives: Saffron is the stigma of Crocus sativus L. , which has the potentials to play a role in the treatment of many diseases. Although many researches are now going on this precious spice, there are few data on saffron safety in human, especially in patients with chronic mental illnesses. This study aimed to evaluate the short-term safety and tolerability of both saffron and crocin (its major constituent) in adult patients with schizophrenia. Materials and Methods: The capsules of saffron aqueous extract (SAE) and crocin were used to evaluate short-term safety and tolerability in patients with schizophrenia. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed on patients with schizophrenia. The patients were all male and were divided into three 22-patient groups. While receiving their normal treatment, they also received a 12 week treatment with SAE (15 mg twice daily), crocin (15 mg twice daily) or placebo. Results: A total of 61 patients completed the trial; none of them reported a serious side effect. WBC count increased significantly in patients receiving saffron aqua extract (SAE), but it was within the normal range and had no clinical significance. Other hematologic components, markers of thyroid, liver and kidney or inflammation markers had no statistically significant difference among the groups. Conclusion: This study showed that SAE and crocin in doses of 15 mg twice daily were safely tolerated in patients with schizophrenia.
Are patients with schizophrenia impaired in processing non-emotional features of human faces?

It is known that individuals with schizophrenia exhibit signs of impaired face processing, however, the exact perceptual and cognitive mechanisms underlying these deficits are yet to be elucidated. One possible source of confusion in the current literature is the methodological and conceptual inconsistencies that can arise from the varied treatment of different aspects of face processing relating to emotional and non-emotional aspects of face perception. This review aims to disentangle the literature by focusing on the performance of patients with schizophrenia in a range of tasks that required processing of non-emotional features of face stimuli (e.g., identity or gender). We also consider the performance of patients on non-face stimuli that share common elements such as familiarity (e.g., cars) and social relevance (e.g., gait). We conclude by exploring whether observed deficits are best considered as “face-specific” and note that further investigation is required to properly assess the potential contribution of more generalized attentional or perceptual impairments.
Teacher agency and professional learning communities; what can Learning Rounds in Scotland teach us?

Recently there has been growth in researching teacher agency. Some research has considered the relationship between teacher agency and professional learning. Similarly, there has been growing interest in professional learning communities as resources for professional learning. Connections have been made between professional learning communities and teacher agency, with professional learning communities seen as an affordance for the exercise of teacher agency. However, it has also been argued that there is little detailed evidence of what happens inside professional learning communities or of teacher agency in action. The research reported here focuses on a form of professional learning community from Scotland: Learning Rounds. It uses data from transcripts of post-classroom observation conversations to consider the extent to which Learning Rounds provide an affordance for teacher agency and the extent to which that affordance is utilised. This research makes a contribution in three ways: adding to an empirical understanding of what happens in professional learning communities; understanding how teacher agency is (or is not) exercised in practice; and considering what factors might affect the utilisation (or otherwise) of affordances for teacher agency. The article concludes with several recommendations for developing effective professional learning communities as an affordance for teacher agency.