Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Salivary TNF-alpha: A potential marker of periodontal destruction

Aims and Objectives: (1) To evaluate the effect of type 2 diabetes mellitus on salivary TNF-α level in chronic periodontitis. (2) To evaluate the effect of smoking on salivary TNF-α level in chronic periodontitis. (3) To compare and correlate TNF-α level with the healthy individuals. Materials and Methods: Subjects aged 30-35 years were included for the study and divided into four groups as a group of 20 systemically and periodontally healthy individuals (group I), a group of 20 subjects with pocket probing depth (PPD) ≥5 mm and clinical attachment loss (CAL) of ≥2 mm (group II), a group of 20 diabetic subjects (of more than 5 years) with periodontal parameters as of group II as (group III) and a group of 20 subjects smoking (≥10 cigarettes a day) with periodontal parameters of group II as (group IV). Periodontal parameters of PPD, CAL, gingival index (GI), and plaque index (PI) were measured using standard indices and criteria. Three milliliter of unstimulated saliva was taken and salivary TNF-α determined by using ELISA technique (Quantikine Human total TNF-A immunoassay kit). Results: Data revealed highest mean TNF-α in group III followed by group IV, group II, and group I. Mean TNF-α of both group III (76.1%) and group IV (48.8%) was significantly higher as compared to group I (P < 0.001). Mean TNF-α of group III was also found to be significantly different and higher (68.1%) as compared to group II (P < 0.001). Although higher mean TNF-α (31.5%) was found in group IV in comparison to group II, the difference was not statistically significant. Besides above, TNF-α also showed a direct positive correlation with PPD in group II (r = 0.30, P > 0.05) and a significant negative correlation was observed between CAL and TNF-α in group IV. Conclusion: Our study clearly underlines a profound impact of diabetes and smoking on salivary TNF-α in chronic periodontitis subjects in comparison to healthy subjects. Moreover, diabetes status increased TNF-α significantly in comparison to smoking in chronic periodontitis patients.
Sex, Socioeconomic Status, Access to Cardiac Catheterization, and Outcomes for Acute Coronary Syndromes in the Context of Universal Healthcare Coverage

Background—Sex and neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES) may independently affect the care and outcomes of acute coronary syndrome, partly through barriers in timely access to cardiac catheterization. We sought to determine whether sex modifies the association between nSES and the receipt of cardiac catheterization and mortality after an acute coronary syndrome in a universal healthcare system. Methods and Results—We studied 14 012 patients with acute coronary syndrome admitted to cardiology services between April 18, 2004, and December 31, 2011, in Southern Alberta, Canada. We used multivariable logistic regression to compare the odds of cardiac catheterization within 2 and 30 days of admission and the odds of 30-day and 1-year mortality for men and women by quintile of neighborhood median household income. Significant relationships between nSES and the receipt of cardiac catheterization and mortality after acute coronary syndrome were detected for women but not men. When examined by nSES, each incremental decrease in neighborhood income quintile for women was associated with a 6% lower odds of receiving cardiac catheterization within 30 days (P=0.01) and a 14% higher odds of 30-day mortality (P=0.03). For men, each decrease in neighborhood income quintile was associated with a 2% lower odds of receiving catheterization within 30 days (P=0.10) and a 5% higher odds of 30-day mortality (P=0.36). Conclusions—Associations between nSES and receipt of cardiac catheterization and 30-day mortality were noted for women but not men in a universal healthcare system. Care protocols designed to improve equity of access to care and outcomes are required, especially for low-income women.
Growth and yield of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) under varying levels of gypsum and zinc application in Iran

A field study was carried out during spring season of 2021 and 2022 at Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh, Guilan, (Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran) northern Iran to study the effect of natural gypsum (NG) and zinc (Zn) foliar application on peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) yield and quality. NG was applied at 4 levels [0 (NG0); 10 (NG10); 20 (NG20); and 30 (NG30) g/m2] and Zn nano-chelates were applied at 3 levels [0 (Zn0); 1 (Zn1); and 2 (Zn2) g/L)] as foliar application. The results showed that the interaction of NG × Zn was significant for leaf chlorophyll, kernel and pod number per plant, kernel protein, oil content and and kernel yield during both the years. The interaction of NG × Zn was also significant on the P, S and Fe of kernels. Leaf K and Fe contents were significantly influenced only by NG. The comparison between mean revealed that the highest kernel yield (5839 kg/ha), kernel number (93.5 kernels/plant), pod number (66.3 pods/plant) and kernel S (0.384%) were recorded from the plots applied with NG20 + Zn2. The highest leaf chlorophyll (3.83 mg/kg FW) and oil content (46.09%) were related to the treatment NG20 + Zn1. The plots applied with NG10 + Zn2 exhibited the highest kernel protein (17.92%). Based on the results, it can be stated that the NG and Zn as soil application and foliar spray respectively, improved peanut yield and qualitative traits hence can be recommended for similar climatic conditions.
A Look At Three Different Scenarios for Bulge Formation

In this paper we present three qualitatively different scenarios for bulge formation: a secular evolution model in which bulges form after disks and undergo several central starbursts, a primordial collapse model in which bulges and disks form simultaneously, and an early bulge formation model in which bulges form prior to disks. We normalize our models to the local z=0 observations of de Jong & van der Kruit and Peletier & Balcells and make comparisons with high-redshift observations. We consider model predictions relating directly to bulge-to-disk properties. As expected, smaller bulge-to-disk ratios and bluer bulge colors are predicted by the secular evolution model at all redshifts, although uncertainties in the data are currently too large to differentiate strongly between the models.
Modelling Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) Outbreak Using Poisson and Negative Binomial Model

Dengue fever has become a major concern for health authorities all over the world particularly in the tropical countries. These countries, in particular are experiencing the most worrying outbreak of dengue fever (DF) and dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF). The DF and DHF epidemics, thus, have become the main causes of hospital admissions and deaths in Malaysia. This paper, therefore, attempts to examine the environmental factors that may influence the recent dengue outbreak. The aim of this study is twofold, firstly is to establish a statistical model to describe the relationship between the number of dengue cases and a range of explanatory variables and secondly, to identify the lag operator for explanatory variables which affect the dengue incidence the most. The explanatory variables involved include the level of cloud cover, percentage of relative humidity, amount of rainfall, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and wind speed. The Poisson and Negative Binomial regression analyses were used in this study. The results of the analyses on the 915 observations (daily data taken from July 2006 to Dec 2008), reveal that the climatic factors comprising of daily temperature and wind speed were found to significantly influence the incidence of dengue fever after 2 and 3 weeks of their occurrences. The effect of humidity, on the other hand, appears to be significant only after 2 weeks. Keywords—Dengue Fever, Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, Negative Binomial Regression model, Poisson Regression model.
15-Deoxy-Δ12,14 Prostaglandin J2 Reduces the Formation of Atherosclerotic Lesions in Apolipoprotein E Knockout Mice

Aim 15-Deoxy-Δ12,14 Prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2) is a ligand of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) having diverse effects such as the differentiation of adipocytes and atherosclerotic lesion formation. 15d-PGJ2 can also regulate the expression of inflammatory mediators on immune cells independent of PPARγ. We investigated the antiatherogenic effect of 15d-PGJ2. Methods We fed apolipoprotein (apo) E-deficient female mice a Western-type diet from 8 to 16 wk of age and administered 1 mg/kg/day 15d-PGJ2 intraperitoneally. We measured atherosclerotic lesions at the aortic root, and examined the expression of macrophage and inflammatory atherosclerotic molecules by immunohistochemical and real-time PCR in the lesion. Results Atherosclerotic lesion formation was reduced in apo E-null mice treated with 15d-PGJ2, as compared to in the controls. Immunohistochemical and real-time PCR analyses showed that the expression of MCP-1, TNF-α, and MMP-9 in atherosclerotic lesions was significantly decreased in 15d-PGJ2 treated mice. The 15d-PGJ2 also reduced the expression of macrophages and RelA mRNA in atherosclerotic lesions. Conclusion This is the first report 15d-PGJ2, a natural PPARγ agonist, can improve atherosclerotic lesions in vivo. 15d-PGJ2 may be a beneficial therapeutic agent for atherosclerosis.
“Optical Patch-clamping”

We describe an optical technique using total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy to obtain simultaneous and independent recordings from numerous ion channels via imaging of single-channel Ca2+ flux. Muscle nicotinic acetylcholine (ACh) receptors made up of αβγδ subunits were expressed in Xenopus oocytes, and single channel Ca2+ fluorescence transients (SCCaFTs) were imaged using a fast (500 fps) electron-multiplied c.c. d. camera with fluo-4 as the indicator. Consistent with their arising through openings of individual nicotinic channels, SCCaFTs were seen only when a nicotinic agonist was present in the bathing solution, were blocked by curare, and increased in frequency as roughly the second power of [ACh]. Their fluorescence amplitudes varied linearly with membrane potential and extrapolated to zero at about +60 mV. The rise and fall times of fluorescence were as fast as 2 ms, providing a kinetic resolution adequate to characterize channel gating kinetics; which showed mean open times of 7.9 and 15.8 ms when activated, respectively, by ACh or suberyldicholine. Simultaneous records were obtained from >400 channels in the imaging field, and we devised a novel “channel chip” representation to depict the resultant large dataset as a single image. The positions of SCCaFTs remained fixed (<100 nm displacement) over tens of seconds, indicating that the nicotinic receptor/channels are anchored in the oocyte membrane; and the spatial distribution of channels appeared random without evidence of clustering. Our results extend single-channel TIRFM imaging to ligand-gated channels that display only partial permeability to Ca2+, and demonstrate an order-of-magnitude improvement in kinetic resolution. We believe that functional single-channel imaging opens a new approach to ion channel study, having particular advantages over patch-clamp recording in that it is massively parallel, and provides high-resolution spatial information that is inaccessible by electrophysiological techniques.
OpenCL-Based FPGA-Platform for Stencil Computation and Its Optimization Methodology

Stencil computation is widely used in scientific computations and many accelerators based on multicore CPUs and GPUs have been proposed. Stencil computation has a small operational intensity so that a large external memory bandwidth is usually required for high performance. FPGAs have the potential to solve this problem by utilizing large internal memory efficiently. However, a very large design, testing and debugging time is required to implement an FPGA architecture successfully. To solve this problem, we propose an FPGA-platform using C-like programming language called open computing language (OpenCL). We also propose an optimization methodology to find the optimal architecture for a given application using the proposed FPFA-platform. According to the experimental results, we achieved 119 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="waidyasooriya-ieq1-2614981.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> 237 Gflop/s of processing power and higher processing speed compared to conventional GPU and multicore CPU implementations.
ADAPTIVE DEADBEAT CONTROLLERS FOR BRUSHLESS DC DRIVES USING PSO AND ANFIS TECHNIQUES

The paper presents a tuning methodology for the parameters of adaptive current and speed controllers in a permanentmagnet brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive system. The parameters of both inner-loop and outer-loop PI controllers, which vary with the operating conditions of the system, are adapted in order to maintain deadbeat response for current and speed. Evenly distributed operating points are selected within preset regions of system loading. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed in order to obtain the controller parameters assuring deadbeat response at each selected load. The resulting data from PSO are used to train adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) that could deduce the controller parameters at any other loading condition within the same region of operation. The ANFIS agents are tested at numerous operating conditions indicating deadbeat response at all cases. The response of the developed controllers is compared to that of classical controllers whose parameters are tuned using the well-known Ziegler-Nichols method. Results signify the superiority of the proposed technique over the classical method. K e y w o r d s: brushless DC motors, adaptive control, deadbeat response, particle swarm optimization, neuro-fuzzy systems.
A Novel Approach to Decentralized Workflow Enactment

Web service orchestrations-expressed in the Web service business process execution language (WS-BPEL or BPEL for short)-are a manifestation of the two-level-programming paradigm where services, i.e. the business functions used by the composite application, are composed through BPEL's control flow constructs. BPEL processes Web service orchestrations, business functions therefore can be transparently accessed remotely, allowing to build composite applications that integrate business functions provided by different partners on different locations. As of today, execution of BPEL processes, i.e. the evaluation of the processes' control flow, is performed by a central workflow engine. In certain scenarios, such as complex collaborative cross-partner interactions, this approach of centralized workflow enactment leads to "un-natural" process models; process models that are not driven by the processes' original business goal but by infrastructural or organizational reasons. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach to enacting BPEL process control flow in a distributed, decentralized manner. We present the overall process lifecycle and give a detailed description of the underlying process model.
Accretion of stellar winds onto Sgr A*

Abstract We report a 3-dimensional numerical study of the accretion of stellar winds onto Sgr A*, the super-massive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy. Compared with previous investigations, we allow the stars to be on realistic orbits, include the recently discovered slow wind sources, and allow for optically thin radiative cooling. We first show the strong influence of the stellar dynamics on the accretion onto the central black hole. We then present more realistic simulations of Sgr A* accretion and find that the slow winds shock and rapidly cool, forming cold gas clumps and filaments that coexist with the hot X-ray emitting gas. The accretion rate in this case is highly variable on time-scales of tens to hundreds of years. Such variability can in principle lead to a strongly non-linear response through accretion flow physics not resolved here, making Sgr A* an important energy source for the Galactic centre.
Preliminary clinical trial and the physiologic disposition of 4(5)-(3,3-dimethyl-1-triazeno)imidazole-5(4)-carboxamide in man.

4(5)-(3,3-Dimethyl-1-triazeno) imidazole-5(4)-carboxamide (DIC, NSC 45388) was administered i.v. to 15 patients with malignant melanoma and to 17 patients with other tumors at a dosage of 4.5 mg/kg/day for 10 days. In the melanoma group, 5 patients responded to therapy. No responses were seen in the 17 patients with other tumors. Toxicity was manifested by nausea and vomiting, leukopenia, and thrombocytopenia. The plasma levels and urinary excretion patterns of DIC, administered to patients with cancer, were determined by a revised colorimetric assay. Rapid i.v. injection of 4.5 mg/kg of DIC resulted in initial plasma concentrations of 8.8 ± 1.8 (S.D.) µg/ml which fell to zero within 6 hr. About 30% of the dose was excreted in the urine as DIC 0–6 hr after administration. Plasma levels following multiple daily doses of i.v. therapy varied with dosage, and the amount excreted in the urine 0–6 hr after each dose was about 30%. Intravenous infusion of 4.5 mg/kg of DIC over a 24-hr period produced no detectable plasma levels, while infusion of the same dose over an 8-hr period resulted in a plasma level of nearly 1.0 µg/ml after 7 hr. In both cases, urinary excretion during the infusion period was about 30% of the dose. Following a single oral dose of 4.5 mg/kg, plasma DIC levels were highest [2.4 ± 0.9 (S.D.) µg/ml] 30 min after administration, and fell to zero within 6 hr. Peak plasma DIC levels following multiple daily oral doses of 1.5 mg/kg every 6 hr varied with each dose, but fell to zero before the next dose was given. Following either oral dosage schedule, 14–23% of the dose was excreted into the urine 0–6 hr after administration. The renal clearance of DIC exceeded the glomerular filtration rate. These data suggest that high and sustained plasma levels of DIC can be achieved by either i.v. or oral, multiple daily dose therapy, and that these may be worthy of consideration for clinical trial of this drug.
Program for Promoting Social Science Research Aimed at Solutions of Near-Future Problems Design of Interfirm Network to Achieve Sustainable Economic Growth The Structure and Evolution of Buyer-Supplier Networks

In this paper, we investigate the structure and evolution of customer-supplier networks in Japan using a unique dataset that contains information on customer and supplier linkages for more than 500,000 incorporated non-financial firms for the five years from 2008 to 2012. We find, first, that the number of customer links is unequal across firms; the customer link distribution has a power-law tail with an exponent of unity (i.e., it follows Zipf’s law). We interpret this as implying that competition among firms to acquire new customers yields winners with a large number of customers, as well as losers with fewer customers. We also show that the shortest path length for any pair of firms is, on average, 4.3 links. Second, we find that link switching is relatively rare. Our estimates indicate that the survival rate per year for customer links is 92 percent and for supplier links 93 percent. Third and finally, we find that firm growth rates tend to be more highly correlated the closer two firms are to each other in a customer-supplier network (i.e., the smaller is the shortest path length for the two firms). This suggests that a non-negligible portion of fluctuations in firm growth stems from the propagation of microeconomic shocks – shocks affecting only a particular firm – through customer-supplier chains. JEL Classification Number : L11; L14; C67
Cost-Effective Frame-Layer H.264 Rate Control for Low Bit Rate Video

The rate control is important to allocate bits efficiently for getting better performance, such as high quality, low fluctuation of quality and low mismatch between a target bit rate and an encoded bit rate. In this paper, we present an improved frame-layer H.264/AVC rate control scheme using enhanced complexity measure, scene-change detection, and quantization parameter adjustment for low bit rate video. Especially, our complexity measure contains not only the residual information but also the motion information. We use the motion vector difference encoded previously as motion information for low computation-load encoder. Experimental results show that Y-PSNR and bit-rate mismatch are remarkably improved and the fluctuation of Y-PSNR is similar as compared with the conventional H.264/AVC rate control scheme (JVT-G012)
Endogenous, Tissue-Specific Short Interfering RNAs Silence the Chalcone Synthase Gene Family in Glycine max Seed Coats[W][OA]

Two dominant alleles of the I locus in Glycine max silence nine chalcone synthase (CHS) genes to inhibit function of the flavonoid pathway in the seed coat. We describe here the intricacies of this naturally occurring silencing mechanism based on results from small RNA gel blots and high-throughput sequencing of small RNA populations. The two dominant alleles of the I locus encompass a 27-kb region containing two perfectly repeated and inverted clusters of three chalcone synthase genes (CHS1, CHS3, and CHS4). This structure silences the expression of all CHS genes, including CHS7 and CHS8, located on other chromosomes. The CHS short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) sequenced support a mechanism by which RNAs transcribed from the CHS inverted repeat form aberrant double-stranded RNAs that become substrates for dicer-like ribonuclease. The resulting primary siRNAs become guides that target the mRNAs of the nonlinked, highly expressed CHS7 and CHS8 genes, followed by subsequent amplification of CHS7 and CHS8 secondary siRNAs by RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Most remarkably, this silencing mechanism occurs only in one tissue, the seed coat, as shown by the lack of CHS siRNAs in cotyledons and vegetative tissues. Thus, production of the trigger double-stranded RNA that initiates the process occurs in a specific tissue and represents an example of naturally occurring inhibition of a metabolic pathway by siRNAs in one tissue while allowing expression of the pathway and synthesis of valuable secondary metabolites in all other organs/tissues of the plant.
Adaptive estimation in regression , using soft thresholding type penalties

Abstract We show that various robust nonparametric regression estimators, such as the least absolute deviations estimator, can be made adaptive (up to logarithmic factors), by adding a soft thresholding type penalty to the loss function. As an example, we consider the situation where the roughness of the regression function is described by a single parameter ρ. The theory is complemented with a simulation study.