Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in the hepatic and renal structure and function after a growth promoter boldenone injection in rabbits

Boldenone is an androgenic steroid that improves the growth and food conversion in food producing animals. In most countries worldwide, this anabolic steroid is forbidden for meat production. Recently, it is used by bodybuilders in both off-season and pre-contest, where it is well known for increasing vascularity while preparing for a bodybuilding contest. Therefore, our study was designed to investigate the possible effect of using growth promoter boldenone undecylenate on the rabbit liver and kidney structure and functions. Thirty-two adult New Zealand rabbits were divided into four groups. Control group includes animals that injected intramuscularly with olive oil and dissected after 3 weeks. Three experimental groups include animals that receive one, two and three intramuscular injections of 5 mg/kg body weight boldenone, respectively and dissected after 3, 6 and 9 weeks respectively, where the interval of each dose of boldenone was three weeks. Intramuscular injection of rabbits with boldenone increased the serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), urea and creatinine compared with the control group. We also found significant increases in the total protein, total lipid, nitric oxide (NO), superoxide dismutase activity (SOD), glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in liver and kidney tissues compared with the control group. Intramuscular injection of rabbits with boldenone exhibited mild to severe histopathological lesions in liver tissue as hepatocellular vacuolation in the centrilobular region and sinusoids and in the kidney, the renal glomerulei had completely lost their typical shape with the appearance of some vacuoles of different shapes and sizes with markedly congested sinusoidal and dilated blood vessels. These findings suggest that misuse of growth promoter boldenone undecylenate may contribute to continuous damage of the hepatic and renal function and structure that may lead to a progressive hepatic and renal diseases, so people should be careful if they want to use such steroids to enhance their strength and endurance.
Your order, their labor: An exploration of algorithms and laboring on food delivery platforms in China

This study examines the use of “algorithms in everyday labor” to explore the labor conditions of three Chinese food delivery platforms: Baidu Deliveries, Eleme, and Meituan. In particular, it examines how delivery workers make sense of these algorithms through the parameters of temporality, affect, and gamification. The study also demonstrates that in working for food delivery platforms, couriers are not simply passive entities that are subjected to a digital “panopticon. ” Instead, they create their own “organic algorithms” to manage and, in some cases, even subvert the system. The results of the approach used in this study demonstrate that digital labor has become both more accessible and more precarious in contemporary China. Based on these results, the notion of “algorithmic making and remaking” is suggested as a topic in future research on technology and digital labor.
Distributed variance regularized Multitask Learning

Past research on Multitask Learning (MTL) has focused mainly on devising adequate regularizers and less on their scalability. In this paper, we present a method to scale up MTL methods which penalize the variance of the task weight vectors. The method builds upon the alternating direction method of multipliers to decouple the variance regularizer. It can be efficiently implemented by a distributed algorithm, in which the tasks are first independently solved and subsequently corrected to pool information from other tasks. We show that the method works well in practice and convergences in few distributed iterations. Furthermore, we empirically observe that the number of iterations is nearly independent of the number of tasks, yielding a computational gain of O(T) over standard solvers. We also present experiments on a large URL classification dataset, which is challenging both in terms of volume of data points and dimensionality. Our results confirm that MTL can obtain superior performance over either learning a common model or independent task learning.
Turbulent stresses as a function of shear rate in a local disk model

We present local numerical models of accretion disk turbulence driven by the magnetorotational instability with varying shear rate. The resulting turbulent stresses are compared with predictions of a closure model in which triple correlations are modelled in terms of quadratic correlations. This local model uses five nondimensional parameters to describe the properties of the flow. We attempt to determine these closure parameters for our simulations and find that the model does produce qualitatively correct behaviour. In addition, we present results concerning the shear rate dependency of the magnetic to kinetic energy ratio. We find both the turbulent stress ratio and the total stress to be strongly dependent on the shear rate (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Dietary Flaxseed Inhibits Human Breast Cancer Growth and Metastasis and Downregulates Expression of Insulin-Like Growth Factor and Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor

Recent studies indicate that diets rich in phytoestrogens and n-3 fatty acid have anticancer potential. This study determined the effect of flaxseed (FS), the richest source of lignans and α-linolenic acid, on growth and metastasis of established human breast cancer in a nude mice model. Estrogen receptor-negative human breast cancer cells, MDA-MB-435, were injected into the mammary fat pad of mice (Ncr nu/nu) fed a basal diet (BD). At Week 8, mice were randomized into two diet groups, such that the groups had similar tumor size and body weight. One continued on the BD, while the other was changed to BD supplemented with 10% FS, until sacrifice at Week 15. A significant reduction (P < 0.05) in tumor growth rate and a 45% reduction (P = 0.08) in total incidence of metastasis were observed in the FS group. Lung metastasis incidence was 55.6% in the BD group and 22.2% in the FS group, while the lymph node metastasis incidence was 88.9% in the BD group and 33.3% in the FS group (P < 0.05). Mean tumor number (tumor load) of total and lymph node metastasis was significantly lower in the FS than in the BD group (P < 0.05). Metastatic lung tumor number was reduced by 82%, and a significantly lower tumor trend (P < 0.01) was observed in the FS group. Lung weight, which also reflects metastatic tumor load, in the FS group was reduced by 20% (P < 0.05) compared with the BD group. Immunohistochemical study showed that Ki-67 labeling index and expression of insulin-like growth factor I and epithelial growth factor receptor in the primary tumor were lower in the FS (P < 0.05) than in the BD group. In conclusion, flaxseed inhibited the established human breast cancer growth and metastasis in a nude mice model, and this effect is partly due to its downregulation of insulin-like growth factor I and epidermal growth factor receptor expression.
Measurable 14 C in Fossilized Organic Materials: Confirming the Young Earth Creation-Flood Model

Given the short C half-life of 5730 years, organic materials purportedly older than 250,000 years, corresponding to 43.6 half-lives, should contain absolutely no detectable C. (One gram of modern carbon contains about 6 x 10 C atoms, and 43.6 half-lives should reduce that number by a factor of 7.3 x 10.) An astonishing discovery made over the past twenty years is that, almost without exception, when tested by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) methods, organic samples from every portion of the Phanerozoic record show detectable amounts of C! C/C ratios from all but the youngest Phanerozoic samples appear to be clustered in the range 0.1-0.5 pmc (percent modern carbon), regardless of geological ‘age. ’ A straightforward conclusion that can be drawn from these observations is that all but the very youngest Phanerozoic organic material was buried contemporaneously much less than 250,000 years ago. This is consistent with the Biblical account of a global Flood that destroyed most of the air-breathing life on the planet in a single brief cataclysm only a few thousand years ago.
Long lead statistical forecasts of area burned in western U.S. wildfires by ecosystem province

A statistical forecast methodology exploits large-scale patterns in monthly U.S. Climatological Division Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) values over a wide region and several seasons to predict area burned in western U.S. wildfires by ecosystem province a season in advance. The forecast model, which is based on canonical correlations, indicates that a few characteristic patterns determine predicted wildfire season area burned. Strong negative associations between anomalous soil moisture (inferred from PDSI) immediately prior to the fire season and area burned dominate in most higher elevation forested provinces, while strong positive associations between anomalous soil moisture a year prior to the fire season and area burned dominate in desert and shrub and grassland provinces. In much of the western U.S., above- and below-normal fire season forecasts were successful 57% of the time or better, as compared with a 33% skill for a random guess, and with a low probability of being surprised by a fire season at the opposite extreme of that forecast.
Learning Symbolic Prototypes Learning Symbolic Prototypes

We present an empirical analysis of symbolic prototype learners for synthetic and real domains. The prototypes are learned by modifying the minimum-distance classiier to solve problems with symbolic attributes, attribute weighting, and its inability to learn multiple prototypes for a class. These extensions are implemented in SNMC. In the second half of this paper, we provide empirical analysis, characterizing situations where symbolic prototypes have advantages over traditional methods such as decision trees and instance-based methods. Empirical analysis on real domains show that SNMC increases classiication accuracy by 10% over the original minimum-distance classiier and has a higher average generalization accuracy than both C4.5 and PEBLS on 20 domains from the UCI data repository. Finding multiple prototypes for classes results in the same or higher accuracy than learning a single prototype for classes. Submission statement: A portion of this paper overlaps another paper submitted to another conference. If both papers are accepted the overlap will be reduced by referencing the other paper and additional research will be added. The overlap was necessary to explain some of the ideas. Abstract: We present an empirical analysis of symbolic prototype learners for synthetic and real domains. The prototypes are learned by modifying the minimum-distance classiier to solve problems with symbolic attributes, attribute weighting, and its inability to learn multiple prototypes for a class. These extensions are implemented in SNMC. In the second half of this paper , we provide empirical analysis, characterizing situations where symbolic prototypes have advantages over traditional methods such as decision trees and instance-based methods. Empirical analysis on real domains show that SNMC increases classiication accuracy by 10% over the original minimum-distance classiier and has a higher average generalization accuracy than both C4.5 and PEBLS on 20 domains from the UCI data repository. Finding multiple prototypes for classes results in the same or higher accuracy than learning a single prototype for classes.
Pragmatics of Virtual Machines for High-Performance Computing : A Quantitative Study of Basic Overheads Cam Macdonell and

Heterogeneous administrative domains, operating systems (OS), and libraries make it difficult for computational scientists to fully utilize metacomputers and grids. Dealing with the presence or absence of features on, say, different clusters, adds complexity. How can a user or high-performance computing (HPC) application abstract out the heterogeneity? One possible solution is to use a virtual machine (VM) environment that supports guest operating systems and virtual disks. But, over the decades, VMs have sometimes suffered from performance overheads and limited platforms on which they can run. Through a simple quantitative study, we show that recent improvements in software and hardware support reduces the overheads for HPC applications (e.g., GROMACS, BLAST, HMMer) to under 6% for compute-intensive jobs, but 9.7% or higher for more I/O-intensive jobs, on our x86-based platform. We also argue for qualitative and pragmatic benefits of using VMs for HPC, including ease of deployment, improved functionality, and the ability to run jobs on more systems than would normally be accessible. While not perfect, VMs are emerging as a pragmatic tool in HPC. Keywords—metacomputing, grid computing, virtual machine (VM), bioinformatics, GROMACS (molecular dynamics simulation), benchmarking, file systems
How does serum brain natriuretic peptide level change under nasal continuous positive airway pressure in obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome?

Background Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, which can be improved by using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy. However, the pathophysiological links between the two kinds of disease and the mechanism of the CPAP effect remain incompletely understood. We aimed to inquire into the myocardial involvement in this relationship. We suggested that serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is sensitive enough to detect myocardial stress caused by OSAHS. Design and methods Sixty-four subjects without cardiovascular disease (21 controls, 24 normotensive OSAHS patients, and 19 hypertensive OSAHS patients) were analyzed for serum BNP at baseline and serially over 6 months. CPAP was applied to 23 patients with severe OSAHS. Results At baseline, the serum BNP levels were significantly higher (p=0.0001) in the OSAHS group (22.3±14.79 pg/ml) than in the control group (9.2±6.75 pg/ml). Increased serum BNP levels were significantly associated with mean transcutaneous oxygen saturation (SpO2) (p<0.0001), minimal SpO2 (p=0.002), oxygen desaturation index (p=0.001), and total sleep time spent with SpO2 lower than 90% (p=0.002). All patients with elevated BNP levels (≥37 pg/ml) had moderate or severe OSAHS (11/43 OSAHS patients). The more severe the OSAHS, the higher the BNP levels were. However, only the difference between severe and mild OSAHS was statistically significant (p=0.029). Hypertensive OSAHS patients had the highest baseline BNP levels (27.7±16.74 pg/ml). They were significantly higher (p=0.001) than in normotensive OSAHS patients (18±11.72 pg/ml) (p=0.039) and the controls (9.2±6.75 pg/ml). As compared with baseline, treatment with CPAP significantly decreased BNP levels in both hypertensive and normotensive OSAHS patients (respectively, from 36±16.10 to 29.7±14.29 pg/ml, p<0.001, and from 20±10.09 to 16±8.98 pg/ml, p<0.001). In contrast, the BNP levels slightly increased in the controls (from 9.2±6.75 to 9.5±7.02 pg/ml, p=0.029), but there was no statistically significant difference in comparison with the baseline value. The effect of CPAP on BNP levels was more marked in patients with higher baseline BNP levels and those with the most prolonged nocturnal desaturation (p=0.001, r=0.65). It was also more marked in hypertensive OSHAS patients (p=0.015, r=0.72) in comparison with normotensive OSAHS patients (p=0.03, r=0.62). Conclusion BNP seems to be sensitive enough to detect myocardial stress caused by OSAHS. As such, it is a potential marker for screening of preclinical cardiovascular damage in patients with untreated OSAHS. Application of CPAP decreases levels significantly in normotensive and particularly in hypertensive OSAHS. These findings are consistent with previous results suggesting the potential benefits of CPAP on cardiovascular outcome in OSAHS patients.
Broader health coverage is good for the nation's health: evidence from country level panel data

Progress towards universal health coverage involves providing people with access to needed health services without entailing financial hardship and is often advocated on the grounds that it improves population health. The paper offers econometric evidence on the effects of health coverage on mortality outcomes at the national level. We use a large panel data set of countries, examined by using instrumental variable specifications that explicitly allow for potential reverse causality and unobserved country‐specific characteristics. We employ various proxies for the coverage level in a health system. Our results indicate that expanded health coverage, particularly through higher levels of publicly funded health spending, results in lower child and adult mortality, with the beneficial effect on child mortality being larger in poorer countries.
Married to the Firm? Family Ownership, Performance, and Financing in Private Firms

We show that family ownership is associated with more stable and liquid, but slower growing, young …rms. Using a large sample of private …rms across Europe, we …nd that family-owned …rms have higher pro…t margins, returns on assets, and survival rates compared to non-family-owned …rms. However, family-owned …rms also hold greater reserves of cash, rely less on external debt, and invest and grow
TERRA Promotes Telomere Shortening through Exonuclease 1–Mediated Resection of Chromosome Ends

The long noncoding telomeric repeat containing RNA (TERRA) is expressed at chromosome ends. TERRA upregulation upon experimental manipulation or in ICF (immunodeficiency, centromeric instability, facial anomalies) patients correlates with short telomeres. To study the mechanism of telomere length control by TERRA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we mapped the transcriptional start site of TERRA at telomere 1L and inserted a doxycycline regulatable promoter upstream. Induction of TERRA transcription led to telomere shortening of 1L but not of other chromosome ends. TERRA interacts with the Exo1-inhibiting Ku70/80 complex, and deletion of EXO1 but not MRE11 fully suppressed the TERRA–mediated short telomere phenotype in presence and absence of telomerase. Thus TERRA transcription facilitates the 5′-3′ nuclease activity of Exo1 at chromosome ends, providing a means to regulate the telomere shortening rate. Thereby, telomere transcription can regulate cellular lifespan through modulation of chromosome end processing activities.
Non-Kähler attracting manifolds

We observe that the new attractor mechanism describing IIB flux vacua for Calabi-Yau compactifications has a possible extension to the landscape of non-Kahler vacua that emerge in heterotic compactifications with fluxes. We focus on the effective theories coming from compactifications on generalized half-flat manifolds, showing that the Minkowski ``attractor points'' for 3-form fluxes are special-hermitian manifolds.
Investigation of functional brain network reconfiguration during vocal emotional processing using graph-theoretical analysis

Abstract Vocal expression is essential for conveying the emotion during social interaction. Although vocal emotion has been explored in previous studies, little is known about how perception of different vocal emotional expressions modulates the functional brain network topology. In this study, we aimed to investigate the functional brain networks under different attributes of vocal emotion by graph-theoretical network analysis. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments were performed on 36 healthy participants. We utilized the Power-264 functional brain atlas to calculate the interregional functional connectivity (FC) from fMRI data under resting state and vocal stimuli at different arousal and valence levels. The orthogonal minimal spanning trees method was used for topological filtering. The paired-sample t-test with Bonferroni correction across all regions and arousal–valence levels were used for statistical comparisons. Our results show that brain network exhibits significantly altered network attributes at FC, nodal and global levels, especially under high-arousal or negative-valence vocal emotional stimuli. The alterations within/between well-known large-scale functional networks were also investigated. Through the present study, we have gained more insights into how comprehending emotional speech modulates brain networks. These findings may shed light on how the human brain processes emotional speech and how it distinguishes different emotional conditions.
GENOMIC REGIONS WITH A HISTORY OF DIVERGENT SELECTION AFFECT FITNESS OF HYBRIDS BETWEEN TWO BUTTERFLY SPECIES

Speciation is the process by which reproductively isolated lineages arise, and is one of the fundamental means by which the diversity of life increases. Whereas numerous studies have documented an association between ecological divergence and reproductive isolation, relatively little is known about the role of natural selection in genome divergence during the process of speciation. Here, we use genome‐wide DNA sequences and Bayesian models to test the hypothesis that loci under divergent selection between two butterfly species (Lycaeides idas and L. melissa) also affect fitness in an admixed population. Locus‐specific measures of genetic differentiation between L. idas and L. melissa and genomic introgression in hybrids varied across the genome. The most differentiated genetic regions were characterized by elevated L. idas ancestry in the admixed population, which occurs in L. idas‐like habitat, consistent with the hypothesis that local adaptation contributes to speciation. Moreover, locus‐specific measures of genetic differentiation (a metric of divergent selection) were positively associated with extreme genomic introgression (a metric of hybrid fitness). Interestingly, concordance of differentiation and introgression was only partial. We discuss multiple, complementary explanations for this partial concordance.
Pathways to Value from Business Analytics

Through what pathways does business analytics (BA) contribute to business value? To answer this question we argued that BA tools and capabilities only produce value if they are used, so we set out to explore different types of BA use. This led to the identification of two types of BA users-analytics professionals and analytics end-users (from executives to the shop floor)-which in turn led to identification of the three "pathways to value from business analytics", namely provision of advisory services, creation and enhancement of BA tools and the BI-platform, and use of BA tools by end users. As a preliminary empirical assessment of the validity of these three pathways, we conducted eleven one-hour interviews with thirteen senior managers with a wide range of interests in BA. Results from those interviews are consistent with our claim that the three pathways exist and are important sources of business value from BA.
A Measurement of Large-Scale Peculiar Velocities of Clusters of Galaxies: Results and Cosmological Implications

Peculiar velocities of clusters of galaxies can be measured by studying the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) generated by the scattering of the microwave photons by the hot X-ray-emitting gas inside clusters. While for individual clusters such measurements result in large errors, a large statistical sample of clusters allows one to study cumulative quantities dominated by the overall bulk flow of the sample with the statistical errors integrating down. We present results from such a measurement using the largest all-sky X-ray cluster catalog combined to date and the 3 yr WMAP CMB data. We find a strong and coherent bulk flow on scales out to at least ≳300 h−1 Mpc, the limit of our catalog. This flow is difficult to explain by gravitational evolution within the framework of the concordance ΛCDM model and may be indicative of the tilt exerted across the entire current horizon by far-away pre-inflationary inhomogeneities.