Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural fibre composites from polyethylene waste and hazelnut shell: dimensional stability, physical, mechanical and thermal properties

Within the framework of this study, the physical modification of high-density polyethylene waste foil was performed using finely ground hazelnut flour to produce a composite whose physical, mechanical and flammable properties make it possible to use inside and outside of buildings. Three mixtures were produced with filler shares of 11, 26 and 42 vol.% using equipment that is normally used in polymer processing, and no refining additives were applied. The produced materials were analysed for their processing (mass flow ratio), physical (density and moisture content) and mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation at break and dynamic thermal analysis) and resistance to environmental factors (swelling and water absorption, thermogravimetric analysis and combustion heat). The particle size distribution of the filler and morphological properties of the composites (scanning electron microscopy) were also investigated. It was vital to obtain an inexpensive material with low absorptivity. The resulting materials are characterised by a low density, acceptable low absorptive and good mechanical properties; also, they can constitute an important fuel once their practical properties have been exploited.
Pneumonia in South-East Asia Region: Public health perspective

Globally, pneumonia is the leading cause of death in young children and burden of disease is disproportionately high in South-East Asia Region of WHO. This review article presents the current status of pneumonia disease burden, risk factors and the ability of health infrastructure to deal with the situation. Literature survey was done for the last 20 years and data from country offices were also collected. The estimated incidence of pneumonia in under five children is 0.36 episodes per child, per year. Risk factors are malnutrition (40% in India), Indoor air pollution, non-breast feeding, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc. Strengthening of health care delivery system for early detection and treatment and as well as minimization of preventable risk factors can avert a large proportion of death due to pneumonia.
Site-resolved X-ray investigations on injection-molded polypropylene filled with magnesium hydroxide

Plates were injection molded from isotactic polypropylene filled with up to 40 wt% Mg(OH)2 and investigated by site-resolved wide-angle X-ray scattering measurements, performed directly on the plates or on cross-sections cut from the plates. The experimental data were analyzed in terms of various parameters and functions capable of characterizing the orientation of the filler particles and of the polypropylene crystallites in dependence on the distance from the gate and from the surface of the plates. The results establish that Mg(OH)2 influences the orientation of the polypropylene crystallites only moderately, in spite of the pronounced orientation of the platy filler particles parallel to the mold surface, whereas other platy fillers like talc or graphite were found to exert a very pronounced orientation effect on the polypropylene matrix. The different efficiency of Mg(OH)2 may be explained by the poor ability of this filler to nucleate polypropylene.
Nitric-Oxide Synthase Knockout Modulates Ca2+-Sensing Receptor Expression and Signaling in Mouse Mesenteric Arteries

Extracellular calcium (Ca2+e)-induced relaxation of isolated, phenylephrine (PE)-contracted mesenteric arteries is dependent on an intact perivascular sensory nerve network that expresses the Ca2+-sensing receptor (CaSR). Activation of the receptor stimulates an endocannabinoid vasodilator pathway, which is dependent on cytochrome P450 and phospholipase A2 but largely independent of the endothelium. In the present study, we determined the role of nitric oxide (NO) in perivascular nerve CaSR-mediated relaxation of PE-contracted mesenteric resistance arteries isolated from mice. Using automated wire myography, we studied the effects of NO synthase (NOS) gene knockout (NOS−/−) and pharmacologic inhibition of NOS on Ca2+e-induced relaxation of PE-contracted arteries. Endothelial NOS knockout (eNOS−/−) upregulates but neuronal NOS knockout (nNOS−/−) downregulates CaSR expression. NOS−/− reduced maximum Ca2+e-induced relaxation with no change in EC50 values, with eNOS−/− having the largest effect. The responses of vessels to calindol and Calhex 231 indicate that the CaSR mediates relaxation. l-N5-(1-iminoethyl)-ornithine reduced Ca2+e-induced relaxation of PE-contracted arteries from C57BL/6 control mice by ≈38% but had a smaller effect in vessels from eNOS−/− mice. 7-Nitroindazole had no significant effect on relaxation of arteries from NOS−/− mice, but both NG-nitro-l-arginine methylester and NG-monomethyl-l-arginine significantly reduced the relaxation maxima in all groups. Interestingly, the nNOS-selective inhibitor S-methyl-l-thiocitrulline significantly increased the EC50 value by ≈60% in tissues from C57BL/6 mice but reduced the maximum response by ≈80% in those from nNOS−/− mice. Ca2+-activated big potassium channels play a major role in the process, as demonstrated by the effect of iberiotoxin. We conclude that CaSR signaling in mesenteric arteries stimulates eNOS and NO production that regulates Ca2+e-induced relaxation.
Robust Pedestrian Tracking and Recognition from FLIR Video: A Unified Approach via Sparse Coding

Sparse coding is an emerging method that has been successfully applied to both robust object tracking and recognition in the vision literature. In this paper, we propose to explore a sparse coding-based approach toward joint object tracking-and-recognition and explore its potential in the analysis of forward-looking infrared (FLIR) video to support nighttime machine vision systems. A key technical contribution of this work is to unify existing sparse coding-based approaches toward tracking and recognition under the same framework, so that they can benefit from each other in a closed-loop. On the one hand, tracking the same object through temporal frames allows us to achieve improved recognition performance through dynamical updating of template/dictionary and combining multiple recognition results; on the other hand, the recognition of individual objects facilitates the tracking of multiple objects (i.e., walking pedestrians), especially in the presence of occlusion within a crowded environment. We report experimental results on both the CASIAPedestrian Database and our own collected FLIR video database to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed joint tracking-and-recognition approach.
Drug, Healthcare and Patient Safety Dovepress Implementation of Co-trimoxazole Preventive Therapy Policy for Malaria in Hiv-infected Pregnant Women in the Public Health Facilities in Tanzania

you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms Background: In 2011, Tanzania adopted a policy for provision of daily co-trimoxazole pro-phylaxis to HIV-infected pregnant women for prevention of malaria and other opportunistic infections. As per the policy, HIV-infected pregnant women should not be given sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) for intermittent preventive therapy. The challenges associated with this policy change and the extent to which the new policy for prevention of malaria in pregnant women coinfected with HIV was implemented need to be assessed. Aim: To assess the implementation of malaria-preventive therapy policy among HIV-infected pregnant women in the public health facilities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Three hundred and fifty-three HIV-infected pregnant women who were attending antenatal clinics (ANCs) and using co-trimoxazole for prevention of malaria were interviewed. Twenty-six health care workers working at the ANCs were also interviewed regarding provision of co-trimoxazole prophylaxis to pregnant women. A knowledge scale was used to grade the level of knowledge of health care providers. Focus group discussions were also conducted with 18 health care workers to assess the level of implementation of the policy and the challenges encountered. Results: Twenty-three (6.5%) pregnant women with known HIV serostatus were using co-trimoxazole for prevention of opportunistic infections even before they became pregnant. Out of the 353 HIV-infected pregnant women, eight (2.5%) were coadministered with both SP and co-trimoxazole. Sixty (16.7%) pregnant women had poor adherence to co-trimoxazole prophylaxis. Out of the 26 interviewed health care providers, 20 had high level of knowledge regarding malaria-preventive therapy in HIV-infected pregnant women. Lack of adequate supply of co-trimoxazole in health facilities and inadequate training of health care providers were among the factors causing poor implementation of co-trimoxazole prophylaxis for prevention of malaria in HIV-infected pregnant women. Conclusion: There is a need to continue sensitization of pregnant women and communities about the importance of early attendance to the ANCs for testing of HIV and provision of co-trimoxazole prophylaxis. Availability of co-trimoxazole in the health facilities, regular training, and sensitization of health care providers are necessary for effective implementation of this policy.
Innovative embodiment of job interview in emotionally aware communication robot

Emotions form an important component of human behavior and decision making. This paper reports on the embodiment of emotions and other human attributes like gestures, speech and motion in a communication robot for conducting a job interview and measuring emotional and cultural fitness of a candidate for a sales job. The contributions include enhanced information quality for managerial decision making, customization of follow up face to face interviews, and enhancement of social interaction between people and communication robot in interview situations.
Learning routing queries in a query zone

Word usage is domain dependent. A common word in one domain can be quite infrequent in another. In this study we exploit th~ property of word usage to improve document routing. We show that routing queries (profiles) learned only from the documents in a query domain are better than the routing profiles learned when query domains are not used. We approximate a query domain by a guerg zone. Experiments show that routing profiles learned from a query zone are 8–12~0 more effective than the profiles generated when no query zoning is used.
Sorbicillinoids from Fungi and Their Bioactivities

Sorbicillinoids are important hexaketide metabolites derived from fungi. They have a variety of biological activities including cytotoxic, antioxidant, antiviral and antimicrobial activity. The unique structural features of the sorbicillinoids make them attractive candidates for developing new pharmaceutical and agrochemical agents. About 90 sorbicillinoids have been reported in the past few decades. This mini-review aims to briefly summarize their occurrence, structures, and biological activities.
A greedy strategy for tracking a locally predictable target among obstacles

Target tracking among obstacles is an interesting class of motion planning problems that combine the usual motion constraints with robot sensors' visibility constraints. In this paper, we introduce the notion of vantage time and use it to formulate a risk function that evaluates the robot's advantage in maintaining the visibility constraint against the target. Local minimization of the risk function leads to a greedy tracking strategy. We also use simple velocity prediction on the target to further improve tracking performance. We compared our new strategy with earlier work in extensive simulation experiments and obtained much improved results
The effect of antioxidant supplementation in semen extenders on semen quality and lipid peroxidation of chilled bull spermatozoa

Summary The aim of this study was to determine the effects of the antioxidants superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) on microscopic semen parameters and lipid peroxidation following the freeze-thawing of bull semen. Ejaculates were collected from five Holstein bulls and pooled at 37°C. The semen samples were diluted with a CEY extender containing additives including 100 U and 200 U SOD/ml, 50 U or 100 U GPx/ml and an extender containing no antioxidants (control) and stored in liquid nitrogen. The pooled ejaculates were then diluted with CEY or a Tris (hydroxymethyl) aminomethane (TRIS)-based extender (TEY) alone or with added 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 or 4.0 mM BHT, and the routine semen evaluation was conducted. The lowest production of malondialdehyde (MDA) was obtained by addition of 100 U SOD/ml, 0.5 and 1 mM BHT to CEY extender compared with the other groups. Sperm viability and motility was significantly higher when 0.5, 1 mM BHT and 100 U SOD/ml were added in CEY extender. The highest sperm viability was achieved by addition of 50 U GPx/ml to CEY extender. In addition, sperm motility was significantly higher in samples extended in Tris-egg yolk (TEY) with 0.5 mM BHT compared with the control group. The results suggest that CEY extender can be improved with the addition of SOD and BHT.
KLF4-Mediated Negative Regulation of IFITM3 Expression Plays a Critical Role in Colon Cancer Pathogenesis

Purpose:IFITM3, an IFN-inducible gene, is overexpressed in human colorectal cancer. In this study, we sought to determine the clinical significance and underlying mechanisms of its dysregulated expression in human colon tumor specimens and murine models of this disease. Experimental Design: IFITM3 expression in a tissue microarray of tumor and matched normal colon tissue specimens and lymph node metastasis specimens obtained from 203 patients with colon cancer was measured immunohistochemically. Results: IFITM3 was expressed at higher levels in colon tumors and, particularly, nodal metastases than in normal colon tissue. A Cox proportional hazards model showed that IFITM3 expression was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival in patients with colon cancer. Knockdown of IFITM3 expression by a specific siRNA significantly suppressed the proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion of colon cancer cells in vitro and tumor growth and metastasis in a xenograft model. Restored expression of KLF4, a putative tumor suppressor, downregulated IFITM3 expression in colon cancer cells in vitro. Two KLF4-binding sites in the IFITM3 promoter bound specifically to KLF4 protein in a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay and promoter mutagenesis analyses. Specific deletion of KLF4 led to IFITM3 overexpression in colon mucosa in Villin-Cre+;Klf4fl/fl mice. An inverse correlation between loss of KLF4 expression and IFITM3 overexpression was evident in human colon tumors. Conclusion: These clinical and mechanistic findings indicate that IFITM3 is a direct transcriptional target of KLF4 and that dysregulated KLF4 expression leads to aberrant IFITM3 expression, thus contributing to colon cancer progression and metastasis. Clin Cancer Res; 17(11); 3558–68. ©2011 AACR.
Evaluation of Oral Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate and Topical Tenofovir GS-7340 to Protect Infant Macaques Against Repeated Oral Challenges With Virulent Simian Immunodeficiency Virus

Summary: Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection of infant macaques is a useful animal model of pediatric HIV infection to evaluate the potential of chemoprophylactic regimens to reduce mother-to-infant transmission of HIV. Previous studies have demonstrated that short-term subcutaneous administration of the reverse transcriptase inhibitor tenofovir was highly effective in protecting newborn macaques against infection after a single high-dose oral inoculation with virulent SIVmac251. In the current study, we mimicked HIV transmission through breast-feeding by repeatedly feeding infant macaques low doses of SIVmac251. Topical administration of a low dose of the second-generation tenofovir prodrug GS-7340 did not have detectable prophylactic efficacy. Oral administration of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (DF; 10 mg/kg SID) lowered the infection rate at birth, but had lower efficacy against virus infection at 4 weeks of age, most likely because drug levels became suboptimal relative to those obtained with the current tenofovir DF regimen in humans. These prophylactic results further underscore the relevance of the current tenofovir DF prevention trials in pediatric and adult populations.
Developmental onset of polysaccharide storage myopathy in 4 Quarter Horse foals.

Polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM) is characterized by the accumulation of glycogen and an abnormal polysaccharide in the skeletal muscle fibers of Quarter Horse–related breeds. Glycogen storage disorders have been identified in human beings and other animal species that are due to single gene mutations causing deficiencies in the enzyme activities of the glycogenolytic or glycolytic pathways.1 Biochemical studies have demonstrated that horses with PSSM have functional glycogenolytic and glycolytic pathways.2 More recently, muscle glycogen and abnormal polysaccharide accumulation in PSSM horses have been suggested to be due to a novel defect in glucose transport in skeletal muscle. Results of IV and oral glucose tolerance tests in adult PSSM horses indicated that affected individuals have enhanced glucose clearance from the bloodstream, which occurs at lower insulin concentrations than in controls.3 Clinical signs of PSSM include muscle stiffness, pain, and reluctance to exercise and are usually 1st noticed in adult horses at the commencement of training or when exercise resumes after a lay-up period.4 Serum creatine kinase (CK) activity may be high at rest in PSSM horses and can increase up to 80,000 IU/L after a 15-minute submaximal exercise test.5 Although pedigree analysis suggests that PSSM is probably transmitted as an autosomal recessive trait, there is little information about the expression of the disease from birth to the beginning of training at 2–3 years of age.6 Recently, 2 foals with pneumonia developed severe rhabdomyolysis and were diagnosed with PSSM, suggesting that, under certain circumstances, this disorder may be expressed in young animals.7 The purpose of this longitudinal study was to follow the offspring from PSSM mares bred to a closely related stallion to determine the age of onset of skeletal muscle glycogen and abnormal polysaccharide accumulation, enhanced glucose clearance, and exertional rhabdomyolysis that are indicative of PSSM. The
Realization of Reactive Power Compensation Near the LCC-HVDC Converter Bridges by Means of an Inductive Filtering Method

In this paper, a reactive power (Q) balance strategy is proposed to enhance the stability of the HVDC inverter connected to weak grids. The main circuit topology of a new line-commutated-converter (LCC)-based HVDC system is presented, where a new converter transformer and related fully tuned (FT) branches are included in the converter subsystem for implementing an inductive filtering method. The phasor analysis is used to reveal a special Q-compensation performance of the new LCC-HVDC system. Then, an equivalent impedance representation, which takes the Q-compensation degree at the ac valve side of the converter into consideration, is established by a mathematical modeling. Based on these, the impact of the inductive filtering on the Q-compensation characteristic of the converter is investigated under different HVDC control modes (e.g., constant dc-current and dc-voltage controls at the rectifier and the inverter sides, respectively). Finally, both the transient simulation and experimental results validate the theoretical analysis, and further demonstrate that the proposed Q -balance strategy can compensate reactive power near the converter bridges (the Q-absorber), widen the operating range of the converter, and enhance the stability of the LCC-HVDC connected with weak grids.
A Designated Odor–Language Integration System in the Human Brain

Odors are surprisingly difficult to name, but the mechanism underlying this phenomenon is poorly understood. In experiments using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the physiological basis of odor naming with a paradigm where olfactory and visual object cues were followed by target words that either matched or mismatched the cue. We hypothesized that word processing would not only be affected by its semantic congruency with the preceding cue, but would also depend on the cue modality (olfactory or visual). Performance was slower and less precise when linking a word to its corresponding odor than to its picture. The ERP index of semantic incongruity (N400), reflected in the comparison of nonmatching versus matching target words, was more constrained to posterior electrode sites and lasted longer on odor-cue (vs picture-cue) trials. In parallel, fMRI cross-adaptation in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) was observed in response to words when preceded by matching olfactory cues, but not by matching visual cues. Time-series plots demonstrated increased fMRI activity in OFC and ATL at the onset of the odor cue itself, followed by response habituation after processing of a matching (vs nonmatching) target word, suggesting that predictive perceptual representations in these regions are already established before delivery and deliberation of the target word. Together, our findings underscore the modality-specific anatomy and physiology of object identification in the human brain.
Interference-Free Pilots Insertion for MIMO-GFDM Channel Estimation

Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM) is a flexible non-orthogonal waveform. Due to its flexibility it can be served as a framework to emulate diverse multi-carrier waveforms including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and single-carrier frequency domain equalization (SC- FDE). Nevertheless, inter-symbol- and inter-carrier- interference may arise in GFDM if the filter roll-off factor is larger than zero. In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scenarios, also inter-antenna- interference further challenges the receiver design. In this paper, we focus on pilot-aided channel estimation for GFDM. In contrast to our prior works, we propose a technique to insert the pilot symbols in a manner such that they are orthogonal to the data symbols in the frequency domain. Based on this design, frequency-domain channel estimation algorithms initially developed for OFDM become straightforwardly applicable. We also examine the impact of such pilot design on the signal properties, including power spectral density (PSD) and peak-to- average-power ratio (PAPR). At the end of the paper, the performance of a MIMO-GFDM system is investigated and compared with the conventional MIMO-OFDM systems.
Determinants of Job Satisfaction among Healthcare Workers at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Job satisfaction can be defined as "the extent to which people like or dislike their jobs". This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or global affective reaction that individuals hold about their job. Family Roles are patterns of behavior by which individuals fulfill family functions and needs. Family role changes may affect their daily activities including a person’s work. Unlike traditional job satisfaction surveys, this study was trying to explore the correlation between employee’s personal profile and their satisfaction in their job. The personal profile determinants which were compared with overall job satisfaction were - Age, Gender, Work experience, marital status, dependent children and parents. It revealed that majority of the determinants studied were having positive impact on the job satisfaction. It is interesting to note that comparatively young employees with dependents were more satisfied with their job. They were feeling satisfied and motivated to work as they were contributing to the family.