Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In Vitro Bioaccessibility, Human Gut Microbiota Metabolites and Hepatoprotective Potential of Chebulic Ellagitannins: A Case of Padma Hepaten® Formulation

Chebulic ellagitannins (ChET) are plant-derived polyphenols containing chebulic acid subunits, possessing a wide spectrum of biological activities that might contribute to health benefits in humans. The herbal formulation Padma Hepaten containing ChETs as the main phenolics, is used as a hepatoprotective remedy. In the present study, an in vitro dynamic model simulating gastrointestinal digestion, including dialysability, was applied to estimate the bioaccessibility of the main phenolics of Padma Hepaten. Results indicated that phenolic release was mainly achieved during the gastric phase (recovery 59.38%–97.04%), with a slight further release during intestinal digestion. Dialysis experiments showed that dialysable phenolics were 64.11% and 22.93%–26.05% of their native concentrations, respectively, for gallic acid/simple gallate esters and ellagitanins/ellagic acid, in contrast to 20.67% and 28.37%–55.35% for the same groups in the non-dialyzed part of the intestinal media. Investigation of human gut microbiota metabolites of Padma Hepaten and pure ChETs (chebulinic, chebulagic acids) established the formation of bioactive urolithins (A, B, C, D, M5). The fact of urolithin formation during microbial transformation from ChETs and ChET-containing plant material was revealed for the first time. Evaluation of the protective effect of ChETs colonic metabolites and urolithins on tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP)-induced oxidative injury in cultured rat primary hepatocytes demonstrated their significant reversion of the t-BHP-induced cell cytotoxicity, malonic dialdehyde production and lactate dehydrogenase leakage. The most potent compound was urolithin C with close values of hepatoprotection to gallic acid. The data obtained indicate that in the case of Padma Hepaten, we speculate that urolithins have the potential to play a role in the hepatic prevention against oxidative damage.
An Interior-Point Algorithm for Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization with Inexact Step Computations

We present a line-search algorithm for large-scale continuous optimization. The algorithm is matrix-free in that it does not require the factorization of derivative matrices. Instead, it uses iterative linear system solvers. Inexact step computations are supported in order to save computational expense during each iteration. The algorithm is an interior-point approach derived from an inexact Newton method for equality constrained optimization proposed by Curtis, Nocedal, and Wachter [SIAM J. Optim. , 20 (2009), pp. 1224-1249], with additional functionality for handling inequality constraints. The algorithm is shown to be globally convergent under loose assumptions. Numerical results are presented for nonlinear optimization test set collections and a pair of PDE-constrained model problems.
Dietary switch reveals fast coordinated gene expression changes in Drosophila melanogaster

Dietary restriction (DR) reduces age-specific mortality and increases lifespan in many organisms. DR elicits a large number of physiological changes, however many are undoubtedly not related to longevity. Whole-genome gene expression studies have typically revealed hundreds to thousands of differentially expressed genes in response to DR, and a key open question is which subset of genes mediates longevity. Here we performed transcriptional profiling of fruit flies in a closely spaced time series immediately following a switch to the DR regime and identified four patterns of transcriptional dynamics. Most informatively we find 144 genes rapidly switched to the same level observed in the DR cohort and are hence strong candidates as proximal mediators of reduced mortality upon DR. This class was enriched for genes involved in carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism. Folate biosynthesis was the only pathway enriched for gene up-regulated upon DR. Four among the down-regulated genes are involved in key regulatory steps within the pentose phosphate pathway, which has been previously associated with lifespan extension in Drosophila. Combined analysis of dietary switch with whole-genome time-course profiling can identify transcriptional responses that are closely associated with and perhaps causal to longevity assurance conferred by dietary restriction.
Microarrayed allergen molecules: diagnostic gatekeepers for allergy treatment

Type I allergy is an immunoglobulin E (IgE)‐mediated hypersensitivity disease affecting more than 25% of the population. Currently, diagnosis of allergy is performed by provocation testing and IgE serology using allergen extracts. This process defines allergen‐containing sources but cannot identify the disease‐eliciting allergenic molecules. We have applied microarray technology to develop a miniaturized allergy test containing 94 purified allergen molecules that represent the most common allergen sources. The allergen microarray allows the determination and monitoring of allergic patients’ IgE reactivity profiles to large numbers of disease‐causing allergens by using single measurements and minute amounts of serum. This method may change established practice in allergy diagnosis, prevention, and therapy. In addition, microarrayed antigens may be applied to the diagnosis of autoimmune and infectious diseases.
Sleep intensity and the evolution of human cognition

Over the past four decades, scientists have made substantial progress in understanding the evolution of sleep patterns across the Tree of Life. Remarkably, the specifics of sleep along the human lineage have been slow to emerge. This is surprising, given our unique mental and behavioral capacity and the importance of sleep for individual cognitive performance. One view is that our species' sleep architecture is in accord with patterns documented in other mammals. We promote an alternative view, that human sleep is highly derived relative to that of other primates. Based on new and existing evidence, we specifically propose that humans are more efficient in their sleep patterns than are other primates, and that human sleep is shorter, deeper, and exhibits a higher proportion of REM than expected. Thus, we propose the sleep intensity hypothesis: Early humans experienced selective pressure to fulfill sleep needs in the shortest time possible. Several factors likely served as selective pressures for more efficient sleep, including increased predation risk in terrestrial environments, threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction. Less sleep would enable longer active periods in which to acquire and transmit new skills and knowledge, while deeper sleep may be critical for the consolidation of those skills, leading to enhanced cognitive abilities in early humans.
Survey of State Directors on Student Transfer Reporting and Analysis.

ABSTRACT In 1990, a national survey was conducted of state directors of community and junior colleges regarding student transfer reporting and analysis. Responses were received from 45 of 50 states for a 90% response rate, although Maine and South Dakota were dropped from the study because they indicated that they did not have a community college system. Study findings included the following: (1) 8 states (19t) indicated they had an official definition of transfer, while another 20 states (47%) used a working definition of student transfer for reporting purposes; (2) 31 states (72%) had the capacity to report the number of students who transferred from public community colleges to public four-year/upper-division colleges; (3) five states (16%) calculated a student transfer rate, while two states (5%) were reassessing their student transfer rate formulas; (4) seven states (16%) recommended the use of the most general data available to compute a student transfer rate, while 26 states (60%) either were uncertain about the most effective way to compute a transfer rates or did not respond; (5) 23 state directors (53%) reported havng the authority to adopt a national transfer reporting and analysis standard should one be recommended, and 11 state directors (26%) were prepared to recommend such a standard or policy in their states, while 30 (70%) were uncertain/did not respond and 2 (5%) would not recommend such adoption; and (6) responses from 14 state directors inCicated that the time required to implement such a standard on transfer ranged from 6 months to 4 years, with the average being 20 months. A copy of the test instrument, response totals, and pie-charts are included. (JMC)
PULSATING REVERSE DETONATION MODELS OF TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE. I. DETONATION IGNITION

Observational evidences point to a common explosion mechanism of Type Ia supernovae based on a delayed detonation of a white dwarf (WD). Although several scenarios have been proposed and explored by means of one, two, and three-dimensional simulations, the key point still is the understanding of the conditions under which a stable detonation can form in a destabilized WD. One of the possibilities that have been invoked is that an inefficient deflagration leads to the pulsation of a Chandrasekhar-mass WD, followed by formation of an accretion shock around a carbon–oxygen rich core. The accretion shock confines the core and transforms kinetic energy from the collapsing halo into thermal energy of the core, until an inward moving detonation is formed. This chain of events has been termed Pulsating Reverse Detonation (PRD). In this work we explore the robustness of the detonation ignition for different PRD models characterized by the amount of mass burned during the deflagration phase, Mdefl. The evolution of the WD up to the formation of the accretion shock has been followed with a three-dimensional hydrodynamical code with nuclear reactions turned off. We found that detonation conditions are achieved for a wide range of Mdefl. However, if the nuclear energy released during the deflagration phase is close to the WD binding energy (∼0.46 × 1051 erg ⇒ Mdefl ∼ 0.30 M☉) the accretion shock cannot heat and confine the core efficiently and detonation conditions are not robustly achieved.
Application of the Photocatalytic Chemistry of Titanium Dioxide to Disinfection and the Killing of Cancer Cells

Abstract This article will review the work that has been published on disinfection and the killing of cancer cells using photocatalytic chemistry with titanium dioxide (TiO2). This is an application of photocatalytic chemistry that has been under active investigation since 1985. Because the nature of the research is such that it brings together disparate disciplines, this review provides background on photocatalytic chemistry, fundamental characteristics of target organisms, potential applications, and the toxicology of titanium dioxide. Literature identified in searches done through September 1998 is included.
R-CNNs for Pose Estimation and Action Detection

We present convolutional neural networks for the tasks of keypoint (pose) prediction and action classification of people in unconstrained images. Our approach involves training an R-CNN detector with loss functions depending on the task being tackled. We evaluate our method on the challenging PASCAL VOC dataset and compare it to previous leading approaches. Our method gives state-of-the-art results for keypoint and action prediction. Additionally, we introduce a new dataset for action detection, the task of simultaneously localizing people and classifying their actions, and present results using our approach.
Downregulation of DAB2IP Promotes Mesenchymal-To-Neuroepithelial Transition and Neuronal Differentiation of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

The DOC-2/DAB2 interactive protein (DAB2IP) is a new member of the Ras GTPase–activating protein family. Recent studies have shown that, in addition to its tumor suppressive role in various tumors, DAB2IP also plays an important role in regulating neuronal migration and positioning during brain development. In this study, we determined the roles of DAB2IP in the neuronal differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). We found that lentiviral short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated knockdown of DAB2IP promoted the mesenchymal-to-neuroepithelial stem cell transition (MtNeST) and neuronal differentiation, which were accompanied by a reduction of cell proliferation but not apoptosis or cellular senescence. This suggests that DAB2IP plays an important role in the neuronal induction of hMSCs. Moreover, our finding that reduction of glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β) activity upon LiCl pretreatment inhibited both the MtNeST and production of MAP2-positive cells upon DAB2IP knockdown suggests that this transition is most likely mediated by regulation of the GSK3β signaling pathway. Our study demonstrates that DAB2IP participates in the first step of neuron induction of hMSCs, which implies a potentially important role for DAB2IP in the MtNeST during neurogenesis.
Clinical and Socio-Demographic Characteristics of College Students Exposed to Traumatic Experiences: A Census of Seven College Institutions in Northeastern Brazil

Background Epidemiological studies show that most of the adult population will be exposed to at least one potentially traumatic event in the course of his/her life; adolescence and early adulthood are the most vulnerable periods of life for exposure to traumatic experiences (70% of their deaths are due to external causes). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is characterized by the development of dysfunctional symptoms that cause distress or social, academic, or occupational impairment, as result of exposure to a traumatic event. The aim of this multicentric study is to establish the proportion of college students, within seven institutions in Northeastern Brazil, who were exposed to traumatic experience and met PTSD criteria. Methods/Design A one-phase census protocol of seven college institutions in three metropolitan regions in Northeastern Brazil was performed (April to July 2011). All students aged 18 years or older, matriculated and attending their first or final semester were eligible. The self-applied protocol consisted of a socio-demographic questionnaire and the following scales adjusted to Brazilian Portuguese standards Trauma History Questionnaire (THQ), PTSD Checklist-Civilian (PCL-C), Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11). Data were entered into SPSS 17.0. Results 2213 (85.5%) students consented to participate, and completely filled in the protocols. Of these, 66.1% were woman, mean age 23.9 (SD 6.3), 82.7% were single, and 57.3% attended university outside their native cities. The total PTSD prevalence was 14%, and the median for frequency of trauma exposure was 5 events. Conclusion A high frequency of exposure to violence, as well as a high rate of PTSD, suicide attempts, and high-risk sexual behavior was found in Brazilian college students. This highlights the importance of effective public health actions in relation to the prevention and treatment of PTSD and other dysfunctional behaviors resulting from traumatic exposure in young individuals, usually an at risk population for violence and traumatic situations.
Characterization of loose powder sintered porous titanium and Ti6Al4V alloy

Porous titanium and Ti6Al4V alloy, biomedical candidate materials for use in orthopedic and dental implants, were manufactured by sintering the powders at various temperatures in loose condition. The characteristics of the corresponding powders and utilized sintering temperatures limited the final porosities in the range 30-37.5 vol. %. Similar to wrought alloys, compression stress-strain curves of porous samples exhibited 3 distinct deformation regions containing an elastic region, subsequent to yielding strain hardening region up to a peak stress and fast fracture after small straining. The mechanical properties of porous samples of both types were observed to obey minimum solid area (MSA) models in which the bond regions between particles perpendicular to loading direction are assumed to dominate in transmission of stress. A linear relation was obtained between yield strength and square of neck size ratio, (X/D) 2 , where X and D represent the average neck and particle diameters, respectively.
Foreshocks explained by cascades of triggered seismicity

[1] The observation of foreshocks preceding large earthquakes and the suggestion that foreshocks have specific properties that may be used to distinguish them from other earthquakes have raised the hope that large earthquakes may be predictable. Among proposed anomalous properties are the larger proportion than normal of large versus small foreshocks, the power law acceleration of seismicity rate as a function of time to the mainshock, and the spatial migration of foreshocks toward the mainshock when averaging over many sequences. Using southern California seismicity, we show that these properties and others arise naturally from the simple model that any earthquake may trigger other earthquakes, without arbitrary distinction between foreshocks, aftershocks, and mainshocks. We find that foreshock precursory properties are independent of the mainshock size. This implies that earthquakes (large or small) are predictable to the same degree as seismicity rate is predictable from past seismicity by taking into account cascades of triggering. The cascades of triggering give rise naturally to long-range and long-time interactions, which can explain the observations of correlations in seismicity over surprisingly large length scales.
Temporal reasoning on Twitter streams using semantic web technologies

There has been a significant increase in recent years in the volume and diversity of streams of data, data streams from sensors, data streams arising from the analysis of content or data mining, right through to user generated Twitter streams. There has been a corresponding increase in demand for more real-time analysis of these streams in order to spot significant events and trends of interest to an individual or business. This has resulted in an increased need to achieve efficient temporal reasoning upon the streams. In this paper, we present a novel approach to perform temporal reasoning on real time streams of data using Semantic Web Technologies so that we could derive more valuable information by taking account of the time dimension. Moreover, in order to deal with such high-frequency data, several filter mechanisms have been implemented to, significantly, improve the performance of the reasoning process. In order to illustrate and evaluate the approach, the real-time analysis of Twitter data is taken as a concrete use case for such data streams.
Speed limits 2 Running head : SPEED LIMITS IN NATURAL SCENE DISCRIMINATION Speed Limits : Orientation and Semantic Context Interactions Constrain Natural Scene Discrimination Dynamics

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In five experiments we quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an object discrimination task, and pattern-masked with various scene-to-mask stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Full psychometric functions and reaction times (RTs) were measured. We found that: 1) Rotating the full scenes increased threshold SOA at intermediate rotation angles but not for inversion. 2) Rotating object or context degraded classification performance in a similar manner. 3) Semantically congruent contexts had negligible facilitatory effects on object classification compared to meaningless baseline contexts with a matching contrast structure, but incongruent contexts severely degraded performance. 4) Any object-context incongruence (orientation or semantic) increased RTs at longer SOAs, indicating dependent processing of object and context. 5) Facilitatory effects of context emerged only when the context shortly preceded the object. We conclude that the effects of natural scene context on object classification are primarily inhibitory and discuss possible reasons.
Outperforming the Broad Market: An Application of Can Slim Strategy

ABSTRACTInvestor's Business Daily has advocated the CAN SLIM investment strategy since the 1980s. Unlike traditional long term, buy and hold portfolio strategies, CAN SLIM advocates an active management style. This paper examines the use of a simplified version to test for effective and profitable investment possibilities. The results indicate that an average investor with little or no analytical capabilities can outperform a buy and hold strategy in the SP developed a 232% total return on investment and outperformed the market by randomly selecting up to 10 portfolio positions each month.CAN SLIM InvestingCAN SLIM was created by William J. O'Neil (WJO). This strategy is based on his analysis of 500 of the biggest stock market winners from 1953 to 1993. CAN SLIM is explained in detail in his book, How to Buy Stocks (2002). Although his system is created for the average investor, it is extremely complex in nature when regarding the analytical capabilities of recognizing chart patterns and understanding cyclical markets. Academic interest in CAN SLIM started within a decade of the founding of Investor's Business Daily. Olson, Nelson, Witt and Mossman (1998) tested the CAN SLIM system on SP Cheh, Kim, and Lee (2011) test a simplified version of the CAN SLIM system. Their study uses two conditions, both related to increasing earnings per share (EPS). Their results outperformed the Wilshire 5000 over the time period tested. …
Consumer Attitudes Toward Mobile Advertising: An Empirical Study

The rapid proliferation of mobile phones and other mobile devices has created a new channel for marketing. The use of Short Messaging Service to access customers through their handheld devices is gaining popularity, making the mobile phone the ultimate medium for one-to-one marketing. The present research investigates consumer attitudes toward mobile advertising and the relationship between attitude and behavior. An instrument for measuring attitudes toward mobile advertising is developed. The results of a survey indicate that (1) consumers generally have negative attitudes toward mobile advertising unless they have specifically consented to it, and (2) there is a direct relationship between consumer attitudes and consumer behavior. Thus it is not a good idea to send SMS advertisements to potential customers without prior permission.
Following in parental footsteps? The influence of gender and learning experiences on entrepreneurial intentions

This study focusses on the influence of the family context on the development of entrepreneurial intention (EI) among young adults with entrepreneurial parents. It extends the EI literature by drawing on social cognitive career theory to study the interaction between entrepreneurial parents and their children. We introduce the learning experiences ‘vicarious learning’ and ‘social persuasion’ as antecedents of EI and found significant empirical support for the influence of social persuasion. In addition, we study the relationship between gender and EI. Our results not only confirm the direct effect of gender on EI but also reveal a significant mediating effect of parental preference – one of the social persuasion factors studied – on the gender–EI relationship.