Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiological regulation of synaptic effectiveness at frog neuromuscular junctions.

1. Nerve terminals in two different muscles of the frog, the sartorius and cutaneous pectoris (c.p.), have been found to differ sharply in safety factor. This difference is shown to be attributable to corresponding disparities in the amount of transmitter released, without evident correlated morphological differences. 2. In Ringer containing 0.3 mM‐Ca2+ and 1 mM‐Mg2+, quantal content of c.p. junctions exceeded that of sartorius junctions by 3‐4 times. 3. When quantal content was corrected for nerve terminal size, c.p. terminals still released 2‐4 times more transmitter per unit terminal length. 4. Light and electron microscopic examination of junctional morphology in the two muscles revealed no significant difference in the spacing of presynaptic active zones, the width of synaptic contact, or the density of presynaptic vesicles and mitochondria. It seems likely, therefore, that the greater release at c.p. junctions is due to a ‘physiological’ difference between the two populations of terminals. 5. No evidence could be found that action potential invasion of the terminal was less complete in the sartorius than in the c.p. 6. The dependence of evoked and spontaneous release on Ca2+ concentration was of similar slope for terminals in the two muscles, but of different absolute value, consistent with the observed difference in release.
Type I interferons have no major influence on humoral autoimmunity in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE Type I IFNs have recently been implicated in autoantibody-mediated diseases such as SLE. As half the RA patients display a type I IFN(high) signature, we investigated in a pilot study if type I IFN determines the autoantibody response in RA. METHODS Serum and peripheral blood cells were obtained from 52 RA patients, with paired samples before and after infliximab treatment in 21 patients. Additional samples were collected from 8 anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA)-positive individuals without arthritis and from 10 ACPA-negative healthy controls. The type I IFN signature was determined by peripheral blood cell gene expression analysis and quantitative RT-PCR. ACPA IgG and IgM, RF IgM, anti-nucleosome IgM and anti-dsDNA were measured by ELISA. RESULTS The type I IFN signature was not related to the presence and titers of ACPA and RF during active disease. TNF blockade induced a similar rise of ANAs, and a similar decrease in RF titers in both groups. ACPA IgG and IgM levels appeared to be down-modulated only in the type I IFN(low) group. These changes were independent of the changes in type I IFN response gene activity after TNF blockade. Furthermore, the ACPA response in individuals without arthritis and inflammation was not related to an increase of type I IFN. CONCLUSIONS In this explorative study, type I IFN signature does not appear to have a major impact on the humoral autoimmune response in RA. Replication of these data remains warranted.
Syntactically Guided Neural Machine Translation

We investigate the use of hierarchical phrase-based SMT lattices in end-to-end neural machine translation (NMT). Weight pushing transforms the Hiero scores for complete translation hypotheses, with the full translation grammar score and full n-gram language model score, into posteriors compatible with NMT predictive probabilities. With a slightly modified NMT beam-search decoder we find gains over both Hiero and NMT decoding alone, with practical advantages in extending NMT to very large input and output vocabularies.
Nonlinear Control and Disturbance Decoupling of HVAC Systems Using Feedback Linearization and Backstepping With Load Estimation

A new control methodology is introduced for nonlinear and MIMO heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. A full information feedback of states and disturbances is used for disturbance decoupling and model linearization purposes. Then a backstepping controller is applied to the system linearized model. It is shown that in this way, heat and moisture loads can be compensated completely if considered as measurable disturbances. For non-measurable disturbances, a stable observer is designed for estimation purpose. Simulation results show that the closed-loop system has good and fast tracking, offset-free and smooth response with high disturbance decoupling and optimal energy consuming properties in presence of time-varying loads.
Diabetes Topics Associated With Engagement on Twitter

Introduction Social media are widely used by the general public and by public health and health care professionals. Emerging evidence suggests engagement with public health information on social media may influence health behavior. However, the volume of data accumulating daily on Twitter and other social media is a challenge for researchers with limited resources to further examine how social media influence health. To address this challenge, we used crowdsourcing to facilitate the examination of topics associated with engagement with diabetes information on Twitter. Methods We took a random sample of 100 tweets that included the hashtag “#diabetes” from each day during a constructed week in May and June 2014. Crowdsourcing through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform was used to classify tweets into 9 topic categories and their senders into 3 Twitter user categories. Descriptive statistics and Tweedie regression were used to identify tweet and Twitter user characteristics associated with 2 measures of engagement, “favoriting” and “retweeting. ” Results Classification was reliable for tweet topics and Twitter user type. The most common tweet topics were medical and nonmedical resources for diabetes. Tweets that included information about diabetes-related health problems were positively and significantly associated with engagement. Tweets about diabetes prevalence, nonmedical resources for diabetes, and jokes or sarcasm about diabetes were significantly negatively associated with engagement. Conclusion Crowdsourcing is a reliable, quick, and economical option for classifying tweets. Public health practitioners aiming to engage constituents around diabetes may want to focus on topics positively associated with engagement.
Automatic rate desynchronization of embedded reactive programs

Many embedded reactive programs perform computations at different rates, while still requiring the overall application to satisfy very tight temporal constraints. We propose a method to automatically distribute programs such that the obtained parts can be run at different rates, which we call rate desynchronization. We consider general programs whose control structure is a finite state automaton and with a DAG of actions in each state. The motivation is to take into account long-duration tasks inside the programs: these are tasks whose execution time is long compared to the other computations in the application, and whose maximal execution rate is known and bounded. Merely scheduling such a long duration task at a slow rate would not work since the whole program would be slowed down if compiled into sequential code. It would thus be impossible to meet the temporal constraints, unless such long duration tasks could be desynchronized from the remaining computations. This is precisely what our method achieves: it distributes the initial program into several parts, so that the parts performing the slow computations can be run at an appropriate rate, therefore not impairing the global reaction time of the program. We present in detail our method, all the involved algorithms, and a small running example. We also compare our method with the related work.
Recent developments in detection and enumeration of waterborne bacteria: a retrospective minireview

Waterborne diseases have emerged as global health problems and their rapid and sensitive detection in environmental water samples is of great importance. Bacterial identification and enumeration in water samples is significant as it helps to maintain safe drinking water for public consumption. Culture‐based methods are laborious, time‐consuming, and yield false‐positive results, whereas viable but nonculturable (VBNCs) microorganisms cannot be recovered. Hence, numerous methods have been developed for rapid detection and quantification of waterborne pathogenic bacteria in water. These rapid methods can be classified into nucleic acid‐based, immunology‐based, and biosensor‐based detection methods. This review summarizes the principle and current state of rapid methods for the monitoring and detection of waterborne bacterial pathogens. Rapid methods outlined are polymerase chain reaction (PCR), digital droplet PCR, real‐time PCR, multiplex PCR, DNA microarray, Next‐generation sequencing (pyrosequencing, Illumina technology and genomics), and fluorescence in situ hybridization that are categorized as nucleic acid‐based methods. Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunofluorescence are classified into immunology‐based methods. Optical, electrochemical, and mass‐based biosensors are grouped into biosensor‐based methods. Overall, these methods are sensitive, specific, time‐effective, and important in prevention and diagnosis of waterborne bacterial diseases.
Optimal Scheduling of Reliability-Constrained Relaying System Under Outdated CSI in the Finite Blocklength Regime

Under the assumption of outdated channel state information at the source, we maximize the finite blocklength throughput of a two-hop relaying system while guaranteeing a reliability constraint. We investigate the tradeoff between the choice of so-called scheduling weights to avoid transmission errors and the resulting coding rate. We show that the corresponding maximization of the throughput can be solved efficiently by iterative algorithms that require a recomputation of the scheduling weights prior to each transmission. Thus, we also study heuristics relying on choosing the scheduling weights only once. Through numerical analysis, we first provide insights to the structure of the throughput under different scheduling weights and channel correlation coefficients. We then turn to the comparison of the optimal scheduling with the heuristic and show that the performance gap between them is only significant for relaying systems with high average signal-to-noise ratios on the backhaul and relaying link. In particular, the optimal scheduling scheme provides most value in case that the data transmission is subject to strict reliability constraints, justifying the significant additional computational burden.
G-Protein β-Subunit Specificity in the Fast Membrane-Delimited Inhibition of Ca2+ Channels

We investigated which subtypes of G-protein β subunits participate in voltage-dependent modulation of N-type calcium channels. Calcium currents were recorded from cultured rat superior cervical ganglion neurons injected intranuclearly with DNA encoding five different G-protein β subunits. Gβ1 and Gβ2 strongly mimicked the fast voltage-dependent inhibition of calcium channels produced by many G-protein-coupled receptors. The Gβ5 subunit produced much weaker effects than Gβ1 and Gβ2, whereas Gβ3 and Gβ4 were nearly inactive in these electrophysiological studies. The specificity implied by these results was confirmed and extended using the yeast two-hybrid system to test for protein–protein interactions. Here, Gβ1 or Gβ2 coupled to the GAL4-activation domain interacted strongly with a channel sequence corresponding to the intracellular loop connecting domains I and II of a α1subunit of the class B calcium channel fused to the GAL4 DNA-binding domain. In this assay, the Gβ5 subunit interacted weakly, and Gβ3 and Gβ4 failed to interact. Together, these results suggest that Gβ1 and/or Gβ2 subunits account for most of the voltage-dependent inhibition of N-type calcium channels and that the linker between domains I and II of the calcium channel α1 subunit is a principal receptor for this inhibition.
Entity Linking on Microblogs with Spatial and Temporal Signals

Microblogs present an excellent opportunity for monitoring and analyzing world happenings. Given that words are often ambiguous, entity linking becomes a crucial step towards understanding microblogs. In this paper, we re-examine the problem of entity linking on microblogs. We first observe that spatiotemporal (i.e., spatial and temporal) signals play a key role, but they are not utilized in existing approaches. Thus, we propose a novel entity linking framework that incorporates spatiotemporal signals through a weakly supervised process. Using entity annotations on real-world data, our experiments show that the spatiotemporal model improves F1 by more than 10 points over existing systems. Finally, we present a qualitative study to visualize the effectiveness of our approach.
NHE-1 inhibition-induced cardioprotection against ischaemia/reperfusion is associated with attenuation of the mitochondrial permeability transition.

AIMS The possible contribution of the cardiac mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP) towards the cardioprotective effects of Na(+)-H(+) exchanger-1 (NHE-1) inhibition was studied in hearts subjected to ischaemia/reperfusion (IR). METHODS AND RESULTS Langendorff-perfused rat hearts were subjected to 40 min of global ischaemia and 60 min of reperfusion in the presence or absence of the NHE-1 specific inhibitor AVE-4890 (AVE, 5 microM). Mitochondrial PTP opening was determined in the intact heart using 2-deoxy-[(3)H]-glucose entrapment and in isolated mitochondria by monitoring the decrease of the calcium-induced light scattering. Mitochondrial respiration was measured with a Clark-type oxygen electrode whereas release of apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) and endonuclease G (EndoG) and levels of cleaved poly-(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) were analysed by western blotting. IR induced mitochondrial PTP opening, which was inhibited by 28% (P < 0.05) with AVE treatment. Mitochondria isolated from AVE-treated hearts demonstrated significantly less calcium-induced swelling and higher substrate oxidation at complex I and II as well as cytochrome c oxidase and citrate synthase activity. AVE treatment also suppressed IR-induced release of AIF and EndoG from mitochondria, prevented the IR-induced rise in cleaved PARP levels, and was associated with significantly enhanced postischaemic recovery of left ventricular developed pressure and a significant decrease in lactate dehydrogenase release. AVE did not affect PTP opening directly in isolated mitochondria. CONCLUSION The beneficial effect of NHE-1 inhibition in hearts subjected to IR is associated with attenuation of mitochondrial PTP opening and apoptosis and the resultant mitochondrial dysfunction. The effect of AVE on PTP opening most likely is indirect, as pore opening was not affected by direct administration of AVE to mitochondrial suspensions.
DIETARY SUPPLEMENT USE AMONG ADOLESCENT ATHLETES IN CENTRAL NEBRASKA AND THEIR SOURCES OF INFORMATION

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of dietary supplement use among adolescent athletes. The project was also directed at identifying the sources these student-athletes used for acquiring information about dietary supplements. One hundred thirty nine high school athletes (99 males; 34 females; mean age = 15.8 ± 1.19 years) volunteered to participate in this study. A 16-question anonymous survey instrument examined use of dietary supplements, reasons for use, type of sport participation, and sources of information regarding dietary supplements. Of the participants in this study, 22.3% (N = 31) reported currently taking dietary supplements. There was no relationship found between dietary supplement use and age. There were a significantly higher number of males reporting current dietary supplement use. Of those who reported to be currently taking dietary supplements, sports performance (N = 25) was the most reported reason for use. There were no significant differences found in reported dietary supplement use between any of the sports. Of the participants, 38.1% (N = 53) listed their coach as their best source of information on dietary supplements. The results of this study offer the current literature some additional insight into trends in supplement use among high school student athletes. Practical implications suggest that it may be necessary to ensure coaches have sufficient knowledge about dietary supplements so that adolescent athletes are receiving accurate information.
Effect of various temperatures on the postharvest quality and storage life of persimmon fruit

An experiment was conducted to find out the “ effect of various temperatures on the postharvest quality and storage life of persimmon fruit” at Post Harvest Horticulture Laboratory, The University of Agriculture Peshawar, during 2016. The experiment was laid down in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) having two factor replicated thrice. Persimmon fruits were stored at different temperatures (10°C RH=89±1 , 20°C RH=79±1 and 30°C RH=69±1 ) and storage durations (0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 days). Fruits were analyzed for different physico-chemical attributes after each 6 days of storage durations. Temperature show significant effect on the quality attributes of persimmon fruit. Maximum value of fruit firmness (3.75 kg/cm 2 ), ascorbic acid content (37.68 mg/100g), moisture content (71.47%) and titratable acidity (0.24%) with minimum weight loss (8.09%), waste percent (3.8%), color score (3.19), taste score (3.44), total soluble solids (TSS) (17.76 °brix) and pH (5.84) were noted in fruits stored at 10°C. Quality attributes were significantly influenced by storage durations. The highest fruit firmness (4.07 kg/cm 2 ), moisture content (76.81%), titratable acidity (0.30%) and ascorbic acid content (50.44 mg/100g) with minimum value of TSS (15.27 °brix), pH (5.27), weight loss (0.00%), waste percent (0.00%), color score (1.66) and taste score (1.72) were found in fresh fruits. The interaction showed significant effect on all quality parameters. The highest fruit firmness (3.23 kg/cm 2 ), moisture percent (64.22%), titratable acidity (0.18%) and ascorbic acid content (22.22 mg/100g) with minimum value of TSS (21.66 °brix), pH (6.29), weight loss (19.17%), waste percent (17.77%), color score (5.51) and taste score (5.50) were found in fruits on 36 days of storage durations at 10°C. The overall results revealed that fruits stored at 10°C maintained all the qualitative attributes of persimmon fruits up to 36 days storage durations.
Modeling and analysis of an opportunistic transmission scheme based on channel quality information in multi-channel cognitive networks

This paper considers the problem of cognitive access to channels of primary users in a hierarchical network with multiple practical time varying channels. The proposed access strategy is not only based on the sensing about the occupation of the channel by the primary user, but also based on the channel state of the secondary user. We have established a new and more meaningful performance metric to measure secondary user's total throughput among channels, rather than just the channel occupation rate. The optimization objective of cognitive access is designed to maximize the total throughput among multiple channels subject to collision constraints used for primary users protection. It is shown that our proposed algorithm can achieve higher throughput under tight collision constraints through grasping the access opportunities which have good channel qualities. Numerical results are also presented to validate the theoretical analysis and the expressions of algorithm parameters. This paper shows that the total throughput can be improved significantly by introducing the new access strategy, which takes the advantage of access opportunities of the channel in time domain when it is free and of high quality.
Valorization of cocoa and rose waste for preparation of liqueurs

Chocolate industry generates yearly large quantities of cacao wastes. These by-products pose to the manufacturers’ difficulties for disposal and represent also valuable sources of substances: polysaccharides, polyphenols, etc. The aim of the present work was to characterize cacao waste and search for possible food applications. The waste was investigated for total polyphenol content (5.86±0.39 mg GAE/g dry weight (DW)), flavonoids (0.77±0.02 mg QE/g DW), total dietary fibers (63.58±1.25% DW), proteins (15.80±0.11% DW), and hexane-soluble substances (13.39±0.08% DW). The antioxidant activity, evaluated by DPPH and FRAP (82.82±1.72 and 31.13±0.70 mM TE/g DW waste, respectively) suggested that cacao waste had potential as antioxidant supplement. The most abundant essential amino acids were lysine, tyrosine and phenylalanine: 8.55±0.19, 7.32±0.13 and 6.32±0.11 g/100g protein, respectively. Extraction with water, 50% and 96% ethanol was performed and it was found that the highest amount of polyphenols (and hence higher antioxidant activity) was extracted with 50% ethanol.The results from the analysis suggested that the cacao waste was a rich source of valuable substances and on that basis liqueurs with substituted cacao powder and waste Rosa damascena were prepared. The test panel suggested that the cacao husks were a promising constituent for low-alcoholic beverages.
[Treatment of chronic hydrocephalus in adults by lumboperitoneal shunt. Results and indications apropos of 82 cases].

Patients with chronic hydrocephalus are most often aged people and in bad general condition. It seems that treatment may be more simplest possible and the less iatrogenic. Furthermore, the diagnosis of chronic hydrocephalus is not often certain, and can be generally assert after the good result of the CSF shunting. Since 1985, when hydrocephalus appears communicant, a lumboperitoneal shunt was systematically implanted in the aim to decrease the number of complications due to ventricular shunts. The operation can be performed on neuroloptanalgesia and/or local anesthesia. Post-operative orthostatic intracranial hypotension can be prevented by using valves with opening pressure varying with the position or valves with a flow depending of the opening pressure. Our clinical series includes 82 patients (51 males and 31 females), aged from 27 to 88 years (average 55 years). In 47 cases, hydrocephalus was idiopathic and in 35 cases hydrocephalus was secondary to an identified aetiology: subarachnoid or intracranial hemorrhage (20 cases), post-traumatic (11 cases), post meningitic (1 case) and post anoxic (1 case). In this last case, physiopathological mechanism was unclear. The middle delay between the first symptom and the operation was greater than 6 months for the majority of observations, but in few cases, precoce shunting was performed (between 1 to 3 months) in post S.A. H. and post traumatic hydrocephalus when C.T. Scan shows increasing ventricular size. Clinical results are evaluated after 2 months and at long term, and complications analysed. The lumbo-peritoneal shunt gives same results on the clinical symptoms, and less iatrogenic complications than ventricular shunts. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)