Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of Ginseng Java root extract on uterine contractility in nonpregnant rats

Ginseng Java or Talinum paniculatum (Jacq.) Geartn has long been used in herbal recipes because of its various therapeutic properties. Ginseng Java is believed to be beneficial to the female reproductive system by inducing lactation and restoring uterine functions after the postpartum period. There are, however, no scientific data on verifying the effects on the uterus to support its therapeutic relevance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Ginseng Java root extract and its possible mechanism(s) of action on uterine contractility. Female virgin rats were humanely killed by CO2 asphyxia and uteri removed. Isometric force was measured in strips of longitudinal myometrium. The effects of Ginseng Java root extract at its IC50 concentration (0.23 mg/mL) on spontaneous, oxytocin‐induced (10 nmol/L), and depolarized (KCl 40 mmol/L) contraction were investigated. After establishing regular phasic contractions, the application of Java root extract significantly inhibited spontaneous uterine contractility (n = 5). The extract also significantly inhibited the contraction induced by high KCl solution (n = 5) and oxytocin (n = 5). The extract also inhibited oxytocin‐induced contraction in the absence of external Ca entry (n = 7) and the tonic force induced by oxytocin in the presence of high KCl solution. Taken together, the data demonstrate a potent and consistent ability of extract from Ginseng Java root to reduce myometrial contractility. The tocolytic effects were demonstrated on both spontaneous and agonist‐induced contractions. The fact that force was inhibited in depolarized conditions suggests that the possible mechanisms may be blockade of Ca influx via L‐type Ca channels. The data in Ca‐free solutions suggest that the extract also reduces IP3‐induced Ca release from the internal store. These tocolytic effects do not support the use of ginseng to help with postpartum contractility, but instead suggest it may be helpful in reducing inappropriate uterine contractions, such as in threatened preterm delivery.
X-ray group and cluster mass profiles in MOND: unexplained mass on the group scale

Although very successful in explaining the observed conspiracy between the baryonic distribution and the gravitational field in spiral galaxies without resorting to dark matter (DM), the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) paradigm still requires DM in X-ray bright systems. Here, to get a handle on the distribution and importance of this DM, and thus on its possible form, we deconstruct the mass profiles of 26 X-ray emitting systems in MOND, with temperatures ranging from 0.5 to 9 keV. Initially, we compute the MOND dynamical mass as a function of radius, then subtract the known gas mass along with a component of galaxies which include the cD galaxy with M/L K = 1. Next, we test the compatibility of the required DM with ordinary massive neutrinos at the experimental limit of detection (m ν = 2 eV), with density given by the Tremaine-Gunn limit. Even by considering that the neutrino density stays constant and maximal within the central 100 or 150 kpc (which is the absolute upper limit of a possible neutrino contribution there), we show that these neutrinos can never account for the required DM within this region. The natural corollary of this finding is that, whereas clusters (T ≳ 3 keV) might have most of their mass accounted for if ordinary neutrinos have a 2 eV mass, groups (T ≲ 2 keV) cannot be explained by a 2 eV neutrino contribution. This means that, for instance, cluster baryonic dark matter (CBDM, Milgrom) or even sterile neutrinos would present a more satisfactory solution to the problem of missing mass in MOND X-ray emitting systems. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 RAS.
Astrotactin: a novel neuronal cell surface antigen that mediates neuron- astroglial interactions in cerebellar microcultures

A microculture system for mouse cerebellar cells has been used to identify an immune activity, raised in rabbits against postnatal cerebellar cells, that blocks neuron-glial interactions in vitro. In the presence of blocking antibodies, stable neuron-glial contacts did not form and neuronal induction of glial process outgrowth did not occur. Subsequently, neurons were randomly arranged in the cultures rather than organized along the arms of astroglia. We have named the immune activity that blocks neuron-astroglial interactions anti-astrotactin. Partial purification of the anti-astrotactin blocking antibodies was obtained by cellular absorption with PC12 cells, a clonal cell line which expresses both the N-CAM and NILE (Ng-CAM, L1) glycoproteins. Subsequent absorption with purified cerebellar granule cells, but not with astroglial cells, removed the blocking activity, suggesting that the antigen(s) bound by blocking antibodies are neuronal. Immunoprecipitation of [35S]methionine- or [3H]fucose-radiolabeled Triton extracts of early postnatal cerebellar cells showed that the unabsorbed antiserum recognized a large number of proteins. Among these were bands with apparent molecular masses of N-CAM (180 and 140 kD) and NILE (230 kD). After absorption of the immune serum with PC12 cells, the number of bands recognized by the antiserum was reduced to a prominent band at 100 kD and a diffuse smear of material between 80 and 90 kD. The prominent band at 100 kD was removed by subsequent absorption of the immune serum with granule cells, a step which removed the blocking activity in the cerebellar microculture assay. Further evidence suggests that the astrotactin activity is missing or defective on granule cells from the neurological mutant mouse weaver, an animal that suffers a failure of glial-guided neuronal migration. When anti-astrotactin Fab fragments were pre-absorbed with weaver cerebellar neurons and then tested in the functional assay of neuron-glial interactions, the immune blocking activity was not removed. In contrast, wild-type cerebellar neurons removed the anti-astrotactin blocking activity under the same conditions. Subsequently, when [3H]fucose-radiolabeled Triton extracts of weaver and normal cells were immunoprecipitated with whole or PC12-absorbed anti-astrotactin antiserum, the intensity of the band at 100 kD was reduced by 95% in weaver cells.
The neural mechanisms for understanding self and speaker²s mind from emotional speech: an event-related fMRI study

Using linguistically positive and negative words uttered either pleasantly or unpleasantly by four speakers, we examined the brain regions that mediate speech communication through event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses. Subjects were adult listeners who evaluated either speakers’ mind, their own mind, or (as a control condition) the number of letters for spoken stimuli, which were randomly presented through earphones. In both the self and speakermind judgment tasks, the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC), that has been implicated in theory of mind or selfreferential processing, is significantly activated, in addition to the classical cortical regions involved in processing linguistic semantics and emotional prosody of speech. These results suggest that the mental state attribution accomplished by the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex plays an important role to understand our own and speaker’s mind in speech communication.
The anticorrelation between the hard X-ray photon index and the Eddington ratio in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei？

We find a significant anticorrelation between the hard X-ray photon indexand the Eddington ratio Lbol/LEdd for a sample of low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions and local Seyfert galaxies, compiled from literature with Chandra or XMM-Newton observations. This result is in contrast with the positive correlation found in luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN), while it is similar to that of X-ray binaries (XRBs) in the low/hard state. Our result is qualitatively consistent with the spectra produced from advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs). It implies that the X-ray emission of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN) may originate from the Comptonization process in ADAF, and the accretion process in LLAGN may be similar to that of XRBs in the low/hard state, which is different from that in luminous
Animals in the world: A materialist approach to sociological animal studies

The connections between nonhuman animals and human societies have become an increasingly prominent topic of sociological research over the past decade. A focus on animals in sociological research raises a variety of conceptual and epistemological challenges, since sociological methods and theories were developed to analyze humans. We outline these challenges and elaborate a realist approach to animal studies, which focuses on the materiality of the animals in the world and does not confuse them with social constructions of animals. We examine the potential to combine methods focused on understanding human meaning, such as ethnography, with methods aimed at scientifically studying animal behavior from ethology, or a political ethology approach. We also assess how the materiality of animals can be incorporated into quantitative macro-comparative analyses as well as historical studies. We argue that increasingly incorporating animal studies into the domain of sociology can expand our understanding of the world and generate new questions for sociologists.
Unveiling the link between facets of positive nonverbal communication and perceived leader effectiveness: A moderated mediation model

ABSTRACT Previous experimental research has examined the important role of combined facets of kinesics and paralanguage in engendering perceived leader effectiveness. However, little is known about the distinct impact of these overarching forms of nonverbal communication and the underlying mechanisms that account for this relationship. Hence, conducting a scenario and a survey, we examined the affect of leader positive kinesics and paralanguage on perceived leader effectiveness through trust in leader. Furthermore, we investigated if these indirect effects are contingent on a novel personality trait--namely, suspicion. The present results demonstrated that suspicion moderated the mediating effect of trust in leader on the relationship between both kinesics and paralanguage and perceived leader effectiveness. Implications and future research are also discussed.
Photodarkening in Yb-doped Al-silicate fibers: Investigation, modelling and mitigation

In this paper we review our work on study of Photodarkening in Yb-doped Al-silicate base. We propose a measurement set-up and we investigate the possibility of Photodarkening mitigation by using visible light photons. We also report measurement of excited-state-absorption from excited Yb ions that plays a fundamental role in the photodarkening phenomenon.
Code Placement for Reducing the Energy Consumption of Embedded Processors with Scratchpad and Cache Memories

This paper proposes a code placement algorithm for reducing the total energy consumption of embedded processor systems including a CPU core, on-chip and off-chip memories. Our approach exploits a noncacheable memory region for an effective use of a cache memory and as a result, reduces the number of off-chip accesses. Our algorithm simultaneously finds code layouts for a cacheable region, a scratchpad region, and the other non-cacheable region of the address space so as to minimize the total energy consumption of the processor system. Experiments using a commercial embedded processor and an off-chip SDRAM demonstrate that our algorithm reduces the energy consumption of the processor system by 23% without any performance loss compared to the best result achieved by the conventional approach.
Spark Advance Modeling and Control

The spark advance determines the efficiency of spark-ignited (SI) engines by positioning the combustion in relation to the piston motion. Today’s spark-advance controllers are open-loop systems that measure parameters that effect the sparkadvance setting and compensate for their effects. Several parameters influence the best spark-advance setting but it would be too expensive to measure and account for all of them. This results in a schedule that is a compromise since it has to guarantee good performance over the range of all the non-measured parameters. A closed-loop scheme instead measures the result of the actual spark advance and maintains an optimal spark-advance setting in the presence of disturbances. To cover this area two questions must be addressed: How to determine if the spark advance is optimal and how it can be measured? This is the scope of the present work. One possible measurement is the in-cylinder pressure, which gives the torque, but also contains important information about the combustion. The cylinder pressure can accurately be modeled using well known single-zone thermodynamic models which include the loss mechanisms of heat transfer and crevice flows. A systematic procedure for identifying heat-release model parameters is presented. Three well-known combustion descriptors have been presented in the literature that relate the phasing of the pressure signal to the optimal ignition timing. A parametric study was performed showing how changes in model parameters influence the combustion descriptors at optimum ignition timing. Another possible measurement is the ionization current that uses the spark plug as a sensor, when it is not used for ignition. This is a direct in-cylinder measurement which is rich in information about the combustion. A novel approach to spark-advance control is presented, which uses the ionization current as a sensed variable. The feedback control scheme is closely related to schemes based on incylinder pressure measurements, that earlier have reported good results. A key idea in this approach is to fit a model to the measured ionization current signal, and extract information about the peak pressure position from the model parameters. The control strategy is validated on an SI production engine, demonstrating that the spark-advance controller based on ionization current interpretation can control the peak pressure position to desired positions. A new method to increase engine efficiency is presented, by using the closed-loop spark-advance control strategy in combination with active water injection. However, the major result is that the controller maintains an optimal spark advance under various conditions and in the presence of environmental disturbances such as air humidity.
25 Years of Software Engineering in Brazil: An Analysis of SBES History

The application of Software Engineering involves a systematic approach to the analysis, design, assessment, implementation, test, maintenance and reengineering of software. It first appeared in the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference as means to overcome the software crisis. This study aims to investigate how the Software engineering area is evolving, by analyzing the 24 editions of Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES), and understanding which is the impact of international research in this event. A scoping study was performed to figure out how the SE area is evolving and if it suffers influences from international research. We found 512 studies over the 24 SBES editions, which were analyzed and discussed. Based on the analysis, we observed that in the first years there were a few empirical studies; most of them were of theoretical nature. The industry participation and interest still continuous over the editions. Regarding to international impact, we did not find any relation with international research. Our findings suggest that greater attention should be given to the Software Engineering area, with the aim to attract research from industry with real data, and also international collaboration.
Alice in Pheromone Land: An Experimental Setup for the Study of Ant-like Robots

The pheromone trail laying and trail following behaviors of ants have proved to be an efficient mechanism to optimize path selection in natural as well as in artificial networks. Despite this efficiency, this mechanism is under-used in collective robotics because of the chemical nature of pheromones. In this paper we present a new experimental setup which allows to investigate with real robots the properties of a robotics systems using such behaviors. To validate our setup, we present the results of an experiment in which a group of 5 robots has to select between two identical alternatives a path linking two different areas. Moreover, a set of computer simulations provides a more complete exploration of the properties of this system. At last, experimental and simulation results lead us to interesting prediction that will be testable in our setup.
Globalisation and Small-Scale Farming in Africa: What role for Information Centres?

Globalisation aims at bringing the world closer like a global village. But it has not had much impact on small-scale farming communities in Africa due to several barriers. These include illiteracy which hinders access to printed and electronic information; poverty which does not allow farmers to have the purchasing power to acquire equipment, such as television sets, radio sets, computer, etc, that would enable them benefit from globalisation; and the lack of basic infrastructure, such as adequate electricity supply and communication facilities. The obstacles faced by the farming communities would disable them from accessing latest innovations in farming practices. This paper proposes the setting up of information centres throughout the rural Africa, where majority of small scale farmers live.
Excitotoxin‐Induced Neuronal Death Is Associated with Response of a Unique Intracellular Aspartic Proteinase, Cathepsin E

Abstract: Excitotoxicity produced by excessive stimulation of glutamate receptors is known to lead to neuronal lesion and death. Here, we demonstrate that quantitative and qualitative changes in cathepsin E (CE) gene products are associated with execution of the excitotoxic neuronal death. Intracerebroventricular injection of kainate (KA) resulted in marked elevation of both mRNA and protein levels of CE in the rat hippocampal CA3 region, where the enzyme was mainly found in vulnerable neurons and activated microglia. Northern blot analysis showed that the size of the transcript for CE was identical with that normally expressed in rat spleen. Immunoblot analysis, however, revealed the predominant occurrence of the highly modified CE species, besides the mature CE. This polypeptide was distinct from the mature CE in molecular masses (106 vs. 82 kDa) and pl (6.4–7.3 vs. 5.0–5.5) and showed resistance to conversion into the enzymatically active form by acid treatment. Consistent with these in vivo results, administration of glutamate to primary cultured rat hippocampal neurons resulted in a marked expression of this novel CE species. These data indicate that excessive stimulation of glutamate receptors causes induction of the CE gene response followed by persistent expression of CE in the novel form, besides its mature form, predominantly in the hippocampal neurons.
Genetic Susceptibility to Type 2 Diabetes: A Global Meta-Analysis Studying the Genetic Differences in Tunisian Populations

Abstract The present study is the first meta-analysis to evaluate type 2 diabetes (T2D)— associated polymorphisms in cohorts originated from several Tunisian regions. In fact, we evaluated the effect of seven polymorphisms in the following genes—PPARg (Pro12Ala), TNF&agr; (-308A/G), ENPP1(K121Q), TCF7L2(rs7903146°C/T), MTHFR(C677T), ACE(I/D), and CAPN10(3R/2R)—on T2D risk, through a meta-analysis combining data of previous studies performed on Tunisian populations originating from the north, center, or south of the country. R statistics version 2.12. 1 software was used to estimate the heterogeneity between studies. Pooled odds ratios were computed by the fixed-effects method of Mantel-Haenszel if no heterogeneity between studies exists. Despite the similarities founded in a number of loci, the Woolf test reported that the contributions of ENPP1 and ACE loci in T2D risk are dependent on the geographic origin of concerned groups, and this heterogeneity could be attributed not only to the variable contribution of the variant in T2D risk but also to diversities of genetic background between tested groups. Interestingly, observed heterogeneity highlighted founding concerning Y chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA about the genetic structure of Tunisian population and proves once again that Tunisians, like the north-Africans, are a mosaic of subpopulations, with significant differences in genetic structure. In homogeneous groups, we replicated the association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms of TCF7L2, MTHFR, CAPN 10, TNF&agr;, and ACE genes with a T2D risk in the Tunisian population with OR ranging from 1.43 to 6.72. However, we reported an absence of the association of PPARg with T2D in the Tunisian population.
Accelerating Deep Convolutional Neural Networks Using Specialized Hardware

Recent breakthroughs in the development of multi-layer convolutional neural networks have led to stateof-the-art improvements in the accuracy of non-trivial recognition tasks such as large-category image classification and automatic speech recognition [1]. These many-layered neural networks are large, complex, and require substantial computing resources to train and evaluate [2]. Unfortunately, these demands come at an inopportune moment due to the recent slowing of gains in commodity processor performance. Hardware specialization in the form of GPGPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs offers a promising path towards major leaps in processing capability while achieving high energy efficiency. To harness specialization, an effort is underway at Microsoft to accelerate Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) using servers augmented with FPGAs—similar to the hardware that is being integrated into some of Microsoft’s datacenters [3]. Initial efforts to implement a single-node CNN accelerator on a mid-range FPGA show significant promise, resulting in respectable performance relative to prior FPGA designs and high-end GPGPUs, at a fraction of the power. In the future, combining multiple FPGAs over a low-latency communication fabric offers further opportunity to train and evaluate models of unprecedented size and quality. Background State-of-the-art deep convolutional neural networks are typically organized into alternating convolutional and max-pooling neural network layers followed by a number of dense, fully-connected layers—as illustrated in the well-known topology by Krizhevsky et al. in Figure 1 [1]. Each 3D volume represents an input to a layer, and is transformed into a new 3D volume feeding the subsequent layer. In the example below, there are five convolutional layers, three max-pooling layers, and three fully-connected layers. Figure 1. Example of Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Image Classification. Image source: [1]. 1 General Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units, Field Programmable Gate Arrays, ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuits.