Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Update on Oxidative Damage to Spermatozoa and Oocytes

On the one hand, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are mandatory mediators for essential cellular functions including the function of germ cells (oocytes and spermatozoa) and thereby the fertilization process. However, the exposure of these cells to excessive levels of oxidative stress by too high levels of ROS or too low levels of antioxidative protection will render these cells dysfunctional thereby failing the fertilization process and causing couples to be infertile. Numerous causes are responsible for the delicate bodily redox system being out of balance and causing disease and infertility. Many of these causes are modifiable such as lifestyle factors like obesity, poor nutrition, heat stress, smoking, or alcohol abuse. Possible correctable measures include foremost lifestyle changes, but also supplementation with antioxidants to scavenge excessive ROS. However, this should only be done after careful examination of the patient and establishment of the individual bodily antioxidant needs. In addition, other corrective measures include sperm separation for assisted reproductive techniques. However, these techniques have to be carried out very carefully as they, if applied wrongly, bear risks of generating ROS damaging the germ cells and preventing fertilization.
Drying Characteristics and Physical and Nutritional Properties of Shrimp Meat as Affected by Different Traditional Drying Techniques

The influence of different drying methods on physical and nutritional properties of shrimp meat was investigated in this study. Peeled shrimps were dried separately using an air-oven dryer and a tunnel solar dryer. The drying profile of shrimp meat was determined in the two drying systems by monitoring moisture loss over the drying period. Changes in color, proximate composition, and rehydration capacity were assessed. The rate of moisture removal during solar drying was faster than the air-oven drying. The development of red color during drying was comparable among the two methods, but solar-dried shrimps appeared darker (L ⁎ = 47.4) than the air-oven-dried (L ⁎ = 49.0). Chemical analysis indicated that protein and fat made up nearly 20% and 2% (wb) of the shrimp meat, respectively. Protein and ash content of shrimp meat dried under the two dryer types were comparable but fat was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in oven-dried meat (2.1%), compared to solar-dried meat (1.5%). Although rehydration behavior of shrimp from the two drying systems followed a similar pattern, solar-dried shrimp absorbed moisture more rapidly. The results have demonstrated that different approaches to drying may affect the physical and nutritional quality of shrimp meat differently.
Health-Aware and User-Involved Battery Charging Management for Electric Vehicles: Linear Quadratic Strategies

This paper studies control-theory-enabled intelligent charging management for battery systems in electric vehicles (EVs). Charging is crucial for the battery performance and life as well as a contributory factor to a user’s confidence in or anxiety about EVs. For the existing practices and methods, many run with a lack of battery health awareness during charging, and none includes the user needs into the charging loop. To remedy such deficiencies, we propose to perform charging that, for the first time, allows the user to specify charging objectives and accomplish them through dynamic control, in addition to suppressing the charging-induced negative effects on battery health. Two charging strategies are developed using the linear quadratic control theory. Among them, one is based on control with fixed terminal charging state, and the other on tracking a reference charging path. They are computationally competitive, without requiring real-time constrained optimization as needed in most charging techniques available in the literature. A simulation-based study demonstrates their effectiveness and potential. It is anticipated that charging with health awareness and user involvement guaranteed by the proposed strategies will bring major improvements to not only the battery longevity but also the EV user satisfaction.
Stratospheric age of air computed with trajectories based on various 3D-Var and 4D-Var data sets

Abstract. The age of stratospheric air is computed with a trajectory model, using ECMWF ERA-40 3D-Var and operational 4D-Var winds. Analysis as well as forecast data are used. In the latter case successive forecast segments are put together to get a time series of the wind fields. This is done for different forecast segment lengths. The sensitivity of the computed age to the forecast segment length and assimilation method are studied, and the results are compared with observations and with results from a chemistry transport model that uses the same data sets. A large number of backward trajectories are started in the stratosphere, and from the fraction of these trajectories that has passed the tropopause the age of air is computed. First, for ten different data sets 50-day backward trajectories starting in the tropical lower stratosphere are computed. The results show that in this region the computed cross-tropopause transport decreases with increasing forecast segment length. Next, for three selected data sets (3D-Var 24-h and 4D-Var 72-h forecast segments, and 4D-Var analyses) 5-year backward trajectories are computed that start all over the globe at an altitude of 20km. For all data sets the computed ages of air in the extratropics are smaller than the observation-based age. For 4D-Var forecast series they are closest to the observation-based values, but still 0.5-1.5 year too small. Compared to the difference in age between the results for the different data sets, the difference in age between the trajectory and the chemistry transport model results is small.
The effect of age on technology acceptance among field police officers

This paper studies the differences on technology acceptance between two age groups among uniform police forces. The goal was to seek more understanding on the effects of age on technology adaption in the context of mandatory technology use. Data was collected from police officers in field operations. User intentions were measured after subjects had seen a presentation of a pre-prototype of a mobile information system on the video. The results of this study suggest that there is no difference between the old and young age groups. Similarly, the results suggest that the effect of age is similar between the age groups on the effects of the factors in the research model. This suggests that the old police officers are similar to young police officers regarding the acceptance of new technology for their use. The most prominent result was that regression of behavioral intention on perceived usefulness was not statistically important.
Generalization of Steane's Enlargement Construction of Quantum Codes and Applications

We generalize Steane's enlargement construction of binary quantum codes to q-ary quantum codes. We then apply this result to BCH codes and the study of asymptotic bounds, and obtain improvements to the quantum BCH codes constructed by Aly and Klappenecker and the quantum asymptotic bounds from algebraic geometry codes obtained by Feng, Ling, and Xing.
On channel orthogonalization using space-time block coding with partial feedback

Orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBCs) yield full diversity gain even while requiring only a linear receiver. Such full-rate (rate-one) orthogonal designs are available for complex symbol constellations only for N=2 transmit antennas. In this paper, we propose a new family of full-rate space-time block codes (STBCs) using a single parameter feedback for communication over Rayleigh fading channels for N=3,4 transmit antennas and M receive antennas. The proposed rate-one codes achieve full diversity, and the performance is similar to maximum receiver ratio combining. The decoding complexity of these codes are only linear even while performing maximum-likelihood decoding. The partial channel information is a real phase parameter that is a function of all the channel gains, and has a simple closed-form expression for N=3,4. This feedback information enables us to derive (channel) orthogonal designs starting from quasi-orthogonal STBCs. The feedback complexity is significantly lower than conventional closed-loop transmit beamforming. We compare the proposed codes with the open-loop OSTBCs and also with the closed-loop equal gain transmission (EGT) scheme which uses equal power loading on all antennas. Simulated error-rate performances indicate that the proposed channel orthogonalized STBCs significantly outperform the open-loop orthogonal designs, for the same spectral efficiency. Moreover, even with significantly lower feedback and computational complexity, the proposed scheme outperforms the EGT technique for M>N
Longitudinal study on occurrence of adenoviruses and hepatitis A virus in raw domestic sewage in the city of Limeira, SÃo Paulo

The aim of this study was to verify the presence and annual distribution of adenoviruses and hepatitis A virus in domestic sewage in the city of Limeira, São Paulo. Fifty samples with a volume of 8 liters each were collected weekly from December 2004 to December 2005. The viruses were concentrated by filtration through positively charged ZP60S filter membranes, followed by ultracentrifugation. Human adenoviruses (HAdV) were detected by PCR followed by nested-PCR and screening for species F was done by restriction of the PCR product with TaqI endonuclease. Virus infectivity assays were performed by inoculation of concentrates onto HEp-2 cell monolayers. RT-PCR was used for the detection of hepatitis A virus. HAdV were detected in all samples, and 64% of samples were positive for infectious virus. Species F was present in 82% of the samples. Hepatitis A virus was detected in 48% of the samples. These results demonstrate that HAdV and HAV were present in the domestic sewage of Limeira throughout the period of study, demonstrating the importance of an adequate treatment before the disposal in the environment.
Population Adaptive Index: a New Method to Help Measure Intraspecific Genetic Diversity and Prioritize Populations for Conservation

Abstract: In conservation biology genetic diversity is recognized as an important criterion to consider when prioritizing populations for protection. Today, population genomics offers the opportunity to evaluate both neutral and adaptive components of genetic diversity directly at the genome level with molecular tools. By screening the genome with many genetic markers, it is possible to detect loci supposedly under natural selection and thus of adaptive significance. We devised a new diversity index, the population adaptive index (PAI), which accounts for the adaptive value of the population it refers to. To estimate this index, we performed a genome scan with amplified fragment length polymorphism markers to identify neutral and selected loci in several populations of a widespread amphibian (common frog, Rana temporaria) and a threatened plant (Austrian dragonhead, Dracocephalum austriacum L.). We then investigated four different conservation strategies aimed at protecting the maximum amount of genetic diversity (neutral or selected). In particular we explored the relevance of the principle of complementarity, usually applied to the protection of species, in the management of intraspecific diversity. This principle advocates the conservation of sets of units that together maximize the species' or genetic diversity, which is in opposition to the traditional approach of targeting populations that are the most diverse individually. Four major conclusions emerged from these results. First, the PAI seemed to be a valuable index to evaluate the adaptive diversities within populations. Second, in the two species, the neutral and adaptive diversities within and among populations were not correlated, so conservation strategies based on the neutral and adaptive indexes would not select the same populations for protection. Third, because of its efficiency in conserving genetic diversity, the principle of complementarity deserves to be used more often for this purpose. Fourth, when neutral and adaptive results conflict, additional arguments (e.g., demography, ecology, and geographic proximity) should be considered together with levels of genetic diversity to determine a conservation strategy.
Content is still king: the effect of neighbor voting schemes on tag relevance for social image retrieval

Tags associated with social images are valuable information source for superior tag-based image retrieval (TagIR) experiences. One of the key issues in TagIR is to learn the effectiveness of a tag in describing the visual content of its annotated image, also known as tag relevance. One of the most effective approaches in the literature for tag relevance learning is neighbor voting. In this approach a tag is considered more relevant to its annotated image (also known as the seed image) if the tag is also used to annotate the neighbor images (nearest neighbors by visual similarity). However, the state-of-the-art approach that realizes the neighbor voting scheme does not explore the possibility of exploiting the content (e.g., degree of visual similarity between the seed and neighbor images) and contextual (e.g., tag association by co-occurrence) features of social images to further boost the accuracy of TagIR. In this paper, we identify and explore the viability of four content and context-based dimensions namely, image similarity, tag matching, tag influence, and refined tag relevance, in the context of tag relevance learning for TagIR. With alternative formulations under each dimension, this paper empirically evaluated 20 neighbor voting schemes with 81 single-tag queries on nus-wide dataset. Despite the potential benefits that the contextual information related to tags bring in to image search, surprisingly, our experimental results reveal that the content-based (image similarity) dimension is still the king as it significantly improves the accuracy of tag relevance learning for TagIR. On the other hand, tag relevance learning does not benefit from the context-based dimensions in the voting schemes.
Visualizing ontologies with UML-like notation

Since the advent of the Web Ontology Language (OWL), there have been multiple alternatives for graphically visualizing OWL ontologies, including UML profiles for OWL. However, current approaches are either verbose or do not represent every OWL construct visually. The paper builds on top of existing approaches and proposes a visualization for OWL ontologies that mixes the UML class diagram notation with a graph-based notation. The result is a clear visualization of OWL ontologies.
Towards comprehensive web search

The World Wide Web has rapidly become a key medium for information dissemination to all members of society. However, its disorganized nature and sheer size can make it difficult for people to find information. Web search services have made a significant contribution towards enabling people to quickly find information on the Web. Unfortunately, as of this writing, no Web search service can conduct a comprehensive search of the Web for any topic. In addition, many major Web search services are unable to return a stable set of results. An intuitive assumption about the behavior of any search service is that the results of a given query will be unchanged unless either the documents referred to in the results change and become irrelevant or better documents become available. Unfortunately, due to a variety of real-world constraints and design choices, many search services are unstable, intermittently omitting relevant documents from search results even though the documents are contained within their indices. One technique that could enable both a more comprehensive search of the Web as well as a more stable search is meta-search. Meta-search is conducting a single search using multiple search resources. This thesis examines the application of meta-search to the World Wide Web. It answers the following questions: can meta-search provide a more comprehensive search than traditional Web searching? Is meta-searching necessary now, and will it be necessary in the future? Can meta-searching be implemented in a practical manner? And can meta-search enable a more stable search? We present MetaCrawler, a meta-search service, as a means of obtaining a more comprehensive search than existing Web search services. MetaCrawler addresses some of the issues with Web search service through forwarding a user query and combining the results from multiple search services into a single list. To summarize the results of this thesis, we conclude that MetaCrawler demonstrates that meta-search can be implemented in a manner such that average Web users will take advantage of the benefits of meta-search. We also conclude that MetaCrawler demonstrates that meta-search can be provided and maintained with limited resources. Through our experiments using Inference of User Value through Real-world data, a new methodology to evaluate search services, we conclude that MetaCrawler provides a significantly more comprehensive search than any single search service. Furthermore, the growth trends of the Web and search service indices lead us to conclude that meta-search will be necessary to provide a comprehensive search in the future. Our experiments also demonstrate that most major search services are unstable, and may omit relevant documents even if those documents are present in their indices. Finally, we conclude that search results can not only be made stable, but can be improved through Collaborative Index Enhancement, a novel model for enhancing a searchable index based on the experience of previous users.
The Use of rLH, HMG and hCG in Controlled Ovarian Stimulation for Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Abstract : The physiologic roles of both follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone are well established in the natural menstrual cycle. Research by Ryan and colleges in the 1960s established the concept of two different cells in the ovarian follicle, the thecal and granulosa cells, functioning in different manners to produce products of the steroid pathway, the two cell hypothesis (1, 2). Further work over the next two decades established the two-cell two-gonadotropin theory, demonstrating the action of FSH on granulosa cells and LH on thecal cells (3). Thecal cells alone were shown to express CYP17, the gene encoding for the critical enzyme in the conversion of progesterone and pregnenalone to androgens (3). Conversely, granulosa cells were demonstrated to be the cell expressing aromatase, allowing for the conversion of the androgens derived from the thecal cells to be converted to estrogens. The cooperation of both cells under the influence of both gonadotropins is essential for normal folliculogenesis and steroidogenesis in the ovary. LH has several physiologic roles within the ovary in addition to its roll in androgen production (Figure 1). LH receptor activation leads to increases in adenylate cyclase and cAMP, resulting in increased mitochondrial transport of cholesterol necessary for steroidogeneis through upregulation of StAR (4, 5). LH activity also induces the expression of EGF-like growth factors amphiregulin and epiregulin from luteinized granulosa cells (6). These factors protect these cells from apoptosis, induce pro-survival signaling cascades, and are critical in peri-ovulatory events (6, 7). The mid-cycle LH surge causes a cascade of events leading to ovulation of the oocyte from the ovarian follicle and take the oocyte out of meiotic arrest (8). Finally, LH receptors have been demonstrated in the endometrium during the implantation window, raising a possible roll for LH in peri-implantation endometrial events 9, 10).
The distribution of GABAergic cells, fibers, and terminals in the monkey amygdaloid complex: an immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization study

The primate amygdaloid complex is a prominent structure in the medial temporal lobe that comprises a variety of cytoarchitectonically distinct nuclei and cortical regions. The present study employed immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization techniques to determine the distribution of GABAergic cells, fibers, and terminals in the macaque monkey amygdala. Using a monoclonal antibody to GABA, immunoreactive neurons were observed throughout the amygdaloid complex (constituting approximately 20% of the neurons in the lateral nucleus), with higher densities located in the intercalated nuclei, amygdalohippocampal area, and posterior cortical nucleus. The lowest densities of labeled cells were observed in the central and medial nuclei. Interestingly, despite the low number of GABA-immunoreactive neurons, the terminal density in the central nucleus was among the highest in the amygdala. The GABAergic neurons in the amygdala were heterogeneous in morphology, and three general classes of immunopositive aspiny cells were observed. Using mRNA probes for glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD: GAD65 and GAD67), in situ hybridization demonstrated distributions of labeled cells that generally replicated the immunohistochemical findings. One exception was in the central nucleus where, in contrast to the low number of immunohistochemically labeled cells, both GAD probes labeled large numbers of neurons. These studies on the organization of GABAergic circuits in the primate amygdala are significant because alterations of function in the human amygdala have been implicated in the pathogenesis of temporal lobe epilepsy and in the etiology of affective and other behavioral disorders. The present study provides baseline information with which to evaluate the role of GABAergic systems in amygdala- mediated behaviors and the potential contribution of GABAergic dysfunction in amygdala-associated disorders.
RELATION BETWEEN HUMAN PLASMA CONCENTRATION OF LEPTIN AND ADIPOSIS

Leptin is a protein produced by matured, full fat cells which considerably influence the energy metabolism of the body cells and has probably one of the decisive functions in reduction of body weight. The leptin concentration in serum can be considered as an indicator of the amount of fatty tissue in the cells. The aim of this study was to find and verify anthropological, age and functional relations to the leptin serum level in a wide population. A complex of 139 probands (sportsmen, sedentary healthy individuals and diabetics) of age from 18 to 82 years (56 men and 83 women) was examined. The recorded and statistically processed values of serum leptin, BMI, body fat (%) and cardiovascular efficiency (indices of CHR-test) were used for calculation of mutual relations to these parameters. Leptin correlated positively with all anthropological indicators and on the contrary, a relation was not established between serum leptin and the indices of cardiovascular system efficiency, both in men and women; in addition a positive relation was also established between leptin and age. Physical activity together with diet belongs to the most efficient methods in a rational reduction of the superfluous amount of somatic fat. Controlling leptin can help in the identification of efficiency of this method. A return to optimal dynamics for leptin level based on behavioural interventions can in future become an indicator of the success of prevention or therapy of obesity.