Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative Studies on the Amylase and Cellulase Production of Aspergillus and Penicillium

Filamentous fungi are important due to their high enzymes production potential. Many enzymes produced by fungi have related to biotechnological applications in several industrial sectors. The purpose of this study was to collect and isolate Penicillium and Aspergillus species from different sources and examined for their ability to produce cellulase and amylase. Ten fungal isolates of genera, Aspergilus and Penicillium were examined for their ability to produce industrial important enzymes. All fungal isolates exhibited high DCZ/DFC ratio in cellulase and amylayes activity. It was also evident that starch and cellulose medium effected the fungal growth. Four Penicillium species viz. P. janthinellum (IK-48), P. melinii (IK-49) and P. velutinum (IK- 51) and P. waskmanii (IK- 50) showed the increased growth in starch and cellulose medium as compare to control. P. waskmanii (IK- 50) showed the highest growth stimulation in the cellulose and starch medium. This study contributes to catalogue local fungal isolated in Pakistan, and provides additional information to support future research about the industrial potential of these microorganisms for enzymes and, eventually, also secondary metabolites with anti-microbial or anti-parasitic activities. @JASEM Keywords: Cellulose; Amylase; Fungi; Enzymes J. Appl. Sci. Environ. Manage . Dec, 2011, Vol. 15 (4) 657 - 661
Inhalation of Toluene Diisocyanate Vapor Induces Allergic Rhinitis in Mice1

Diisocyanates are the leading cause of occupational asthma, and epidemiological evidence suggests that occupational rhinitis is a comorbid and preceding condition in patients who develop asthma. The goal of the present studies was to develop and characterize a murine model of toluene diisocyanate (TDI)-induced rhinitis. Female C57BL/6 mice were exposed to workplace-relevant concentrations of TDI vapor via inhalation for 4 h/day for 12 days with or without a 2-wk rest period and TDI challenge. Mice exposed 12 consecutive weekdays to 50 parts per billion TDI vapor showed elevated total serum IgE and increased TDI-specific IgG titers. Breathing rates were decreased corresponding with increased inspiratory time. TDI exposure elevated IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, and IFN-γ mRNA expression in the nasal mucosa, suggesting a mixed Th1/Th2 immune response. Expressions of mRNA for proinflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules were also up-regulated. These cytokine changes corresponded with a marked influx of inflammatory cells into the nasal mucosa, eosinophils being the predominant cell type. Removal from exposure for 2 wk resulted in reduced Ab production, cytokine mRNA expression, and cellular inflammation. Subsequent challenge with 50 parts per billion TDI vapor resulted in robust up-regulation of Ab production, cytokine gene expression, as well as eosinophilic inflammation in the nasal mucosa. There were no associated changes in the lung. The present model shows that TDI inhalation induces immune-mediated allergic rhinitis, displaying the major features observed in human disease. Future studies will use this model to define disease mechanisms and examine the temporal/dose relationship between TDI-induced rhinitis and asthma.
Measuring Corporate Tax Avoidance – An Analysis of Different Measures

This study (1) gives an overview of and analyzes the different existing measures of tax avoidance in the empirical tax research literature and (2) aims at answering the question of how closely related they are in measuring corporate tax avoidance. Starting with a theoretical comparison of different Effective Tax Rate based measures, Book-Tax-Differences based measures, the measure developed by Henry and Sansing (2014), Tax Shelter Scores, and Unrecognized Tax Benefits an empirical comparison of the first three mentioned measures is conducted. The purely descriptive analysis reveals that although there are differences between the single measures and those differences persist over time, especially annual proxies exhibit considerable correlation, which increases with similarity in computation and inputs used. A comparison of annual with long-run measures implies that the reliability of annual measures in depicting long-run tax avoidance is not sufficiently high.Keywords: tax avoidance, tax sheltering, Effective Tax Rate, Book-Tax-Difference
Adolescents, sexual behavior and HIV‐1 in rural Rakai district, Uganda

Objectives:To describe the epidemiology of HIV-1 infection among adolescents aged 13–19 years, in rural Rakai district, Uganda. Study design:Baseline survey and 2-year follow-up (1990–1992) of adolescents in a population-based, open rural cohort. Methods:Annual enumeration and behavioral/serological survey of all consenting adolescents aged 13–19 years at recruitment, residing in 31 randomly selected community clusters. Results:At baseline, of 909 adolescents present in study clusters, 824 (90.6%) provided interview data and serological samples. No adolescents aged 13–14 years were HIV-infected. Among those aged 15–19 years, 1.8% of men and 19.0% of women were HIV-positive. Among young women aged 15–19 years in marital/consensual union, 21.3% were HIV-positive; this rate did not differ significantly from the 29.1% prevalence in those reporting non-permanent relationships; prevalence was significantly lower in women reporting no current relationship (4.3%). After multivariate adjustment, female sex, age 17–19 years, residence in trading centers/trading villages and a history of sexually transmitted disease symptoms remained significantly associated with HIV infection. Seventy-nine per cent of adolescents provided a follow-up serological sample. No young men aged 13–14 years seroconverted during the study; in young women aged 13–14 years, HIV seroincidence was 0.6 per 100 person-years (PY) of observation. Among young men aged 15–19 years, there were 1.1 ± 0.6 seroconversions per 100 PY of observation prior to age 21 years; among women 15–19 years, the incidence rate was 3.9 ± 1.0 per 100 PY of observation prior to age 21 years. The mortality rate among HIV-positive adolescents aged 15–19 years, at 3.9 per 100 PY of observation, was 13-fold higher than that among the HIV-uninfected. By 1992, knowledge of sexual transmission was almost universal, the proportions reporting multiple partners had decreased and condom use had increased over baseline. Conclusions:Adolescents, and young women in particular, are vulnerable to HIV infection. Despite reported behavioral changes, HIV incidence rates remain substantial, and there is a need for innovative HIV preventive measures.
The Labor Market Effects of US Reemployment Policy: Lessons from an Analysis of Four Programs during the Great Recession

We present experimental evidence on four US reemployment programs targeting unemployment insurance (UI) recipients during the Great Recession. All programs reduced UI spells, produced UI savings that exceeded program costs, and increased employment rates. The services referral program had the smallest effects, occurring because of voluntary UI exits by participants to avoid requirements. The two programs reviewing participants’ UI eligibility produced greater effects because they induced voluntary exits and disqualified participants who did not meet UI requirements. The program requiring participation in both eligibility review and job-counseling services was the most effective, suggesting that services improved participants’ job search efforts.
The fine-grained and parallel complexity of andersen’s pointer analysis

Pointer analysis is one of the fundamental problems in static program analysis. Given a set of pointers, the task is to produce a useful over-approximation of the memory locations that each pointer may point-to at runtime. The most common formulation is Andersen’s Pointer Analysis (APA), defined as an inclusion-based set of m pointer constraints over a set of n pointers. Scalability is extremely important, as points-to information is a prerequisite to many other components in the static-analysis pipeline. Existing algorithms solve APA in O(n2· m) time, while it has been conjectured that the problem has no truly sub-cubic algorithm, with a proof so far having remained elusive. It is also well-known that APA can be solved in O(n2) time under certain sparsity conditions that hold naturally in some settings. Besides these simple bounds, the complexity of the problem has remained poorly understood. In this work we draw a rich fine-grained and parallel complexity landscape of APA, and present upper and lower bounds. First, we establish an O(n3) upper-bound for general APA, improving over O(n2· m) as n=O(m). Second, we show that even on-demand APA (“may a specific pointer a point to a specific location b? ”) has an Ω(n3) (combinatorial) lower bound under standard complexity-theoretic hypotheses. This formally establishes the long-conjectured “cubic bottleneck” of APA, and shows that our O(n3)-time algorithm is optimal. Third, we show that under mild restrictions, APA is solvable in Õ(nω) time, where ω<2.373 is the matrix-multiplication exponent. It is believed that ω=2+o(1), in which case this bound becomes quadratic. Fourth, we show that even under such restrictions, even the on-demand problem has an Ω(n2) lower bound under standard complexity-theoretic hypotheses, and hence our algorithm is optimal when ω=2+o(1). Fifth, we study the parallelizability of APA and establish lower and upper bounds: (i) in general, the problem is P-complete and hence unlikely parallelizable, whereas (ii) under mild restrictions, the problem is parallelizable. Our theoretical treatment formalizes several insights that can lead to practical improvements in the future.
Progress in GaAs metamorphic HEMT technology for microwave applications

This paper reviews recent progress in the development of GaAs metamorphic HEMT (MHEMT) technology for microwave applications. Commercialization has begun, while efforts to further improve performance, manufacturability and reliability continue. We also report the first multi-watt MHEMT MMIC power amplifiers, demonstrating up to 3.2W output power and record power-added efficiency (PAE) at Ka-band.
Differentiating Experts' Anticipatory Skills in Beach Volleyball

In this study, we examined how perceptual-motor expertise and watching experience contribute to anticipating the outcome of opponents' attacking actions in beach volleyball. To this end, we invited 8 expert beach volleyball players, 8 expert coaches, 8 expert referees, and 8 control participants with no beach volleyball experience to watch videos of attack sequences that were occluded at three different times and to predict the outcome of these situations. Results showed that expert players and coaches (who were both perceptual-motor experts) outperformed the expert referees (who were watching experts but did not have the same motor expertise) and the control group in the latest occlusion condition (i.e., at spiker-ball contact). This finding suggests that perceptual-motor expertise may contribute to successful action anticipation in beach volleyball.
Rescheduling of real power for congestion management using Cuckoo Search Algorithm

This paper proposes a novel congestion management strategy by generator rescheduling in a deregulated electricity market. With growing electricity demands, power system is reaching towards its security limits where transmission lines play one of the vital rules in the system. Occurrence of transmission congestion can be avoided by one of the renowned technique i.e.; generator rescheduling technique. In this paper, Generator Sensitivity factor (GSF) is identified to select few generators to participate in congestion management problem. Next Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA) is used to minimize the rescheduling cost of generators. Present work is tested on IEEE 39 Bus New England Test System.
Safety, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of oral omaveloxolone (RTA 408), a synthetic triterpenoid, in a first-in-human trial of patients with advanced solid tumors

Background Omaveloxolone is a semisynthetic oleanane triterpenoid that potently activates Nrf2 with subsequent antioxidant function. We conducted a first-in-human Phase I clinical trial (NCT02029729) with the primary objectives to determine the appropriate dose for Phase II studies, characterize pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters, and assess antitumor activity. Methods Omaveloxolone was administered orally once daily continuously in a 28-day cycle for patients with stage 4 relapsed/refractory melanoma or non-small cell lung cancer. An accelerated titration design was employed until a grade 2-related adverse event (AE) occurred. A standard 3+3 dose escalation was employed. Single-dose and steady-state plasma pharmacokinetics of the drug were characterized. Downstream Nrf2 activation was assessed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells by quantification of target gene mRNA expression. Results Omaveloxolone was tested at four dose levels up to 15 mg given orally once daily. No dose-limiting toxicities were detected, and the maximum tolerated dose was not determined. All drug-related AEs were either grade 1 or 2 in severity, and none required clinical action. The most common drug-related AEs were elevated alkaline phosphatase (18%) and anemia (18%). No drug interruptions or reductions were required. Omaveloxolone was rapidly absorbed and exhibited proportional increases in exposure across dose levels. With some exceptions, an overall trend toward time-dependent and dose-dependent activation of Nrf2 antioxidant genes was observed. No confirmed radiologic responses were seen, although one lung cancer subject did have stable disease exceeding 1 year. Conclusions Omaveloxolone has favorable tolerability at biologically active doses, although this trial had a small sample size which limits definitive conclusions. These findings support further investigation of omaveloxolone in cancer.
Carotenoid pigments: their possible role in protecting against photooxidation in eyes and photoreceptor cells

The effect of light on animal tissues is ambivalent. Light is necessary for many functions, e. g. for vision and, as in the flagellate halobacterium, to gain energy. But light is potentially dangerous: it is capable of destroying cells or their components by photooxidation, especially in the presence of sensitizing pigments such as haems and cytochromes, which are ubiquitous in aerobic cells. Several different examples are discussed to show how a compromise is achieved in animal tissues that for functional reasons receive high exposure to light. Carotenoid pigments, present in many eyes and photoreceptors, seem especially suited to protect against the deleterious effects of light because they absorb the dangerous short wavelength part of the light spectrum. In plant tissue, carotenoids are also well known to be capable of ‘quenching’ photoexcited states of sensitizing pigments and of oxygen, a function that they might have also in animal tissues. A consequence of the considerations is that whenever animal tissues are exposed to higher than usual light levels and/or oxygen pressures cellular damage might occur. Examples are discussed; strategies to circumvent the deleterious effects by photooxidation follow directly from the arguments.
Biofiltration of Air Contaminated by Styrene Vapors on Inorganic Filtering Media: An Experimental Study

Abstract This paper presents a study on the biofiltration of styrene by using two inorganic filtering materials. The effects of styrene inlet load and nitrogen concentration present in the nutrient solution on biofilter performance were studied. The styrene inlet concentration was varied from 65 to 1115 parts per million by volume (ppmv), whereas the contaminated airflow rate was fixed at 1 m3/hr. The nitrogen concentration in nutrient solution was varied from 1 to 4 gN/L. The maximum elimination capacity obtained was 105 g/m3-hr, which corresponded to a removal efficiency of 80% for a styrene inlet load of 130 g/m3-hr. This study shows that the nitrogen content in the nutrient solution affects the removal rate of styrene, with an optimal nitrogen concentration of 3 gN/L. The performance comparison between two different inorganic bed types was undertaken and a comparative study on biofiltration of two aromatic compounds, styrene and toluene, is also presented.
Psychoform and Somatoform Dissociation and PTSD in Deaf Adults

Both deafness and dissociation disconnect people from certain aspects of the external environment. Dissociation among the deaf population has been largely neglected as an area of scientific investigation. The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to examine the psychometrics of 2 dissociation measures—the Dissociation scale of the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) and the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire–20 (SDQ-20); and second, to evaluate the relationship between dissociation and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in deaf adults. A diverse sample of 79 deaf adults was assessed using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, the TSI, and the SDQ-20. Results provided support for the concept of psychoform dissociation, as measured by the TSI Dissociation scale, in deaf adults. However, somatoform dissociation, as measured by the SDQ-20, showed lower internal consistency. The SDQ-5, a shortened version of the SDQ-20, was unreliable in the current sample. Deaf adults were significantly higher on psychoform dissociation than the norm samples of hearing adults. As in hearing samples, dissociation—both psychoform and somatoform—was significantly related to PTSD symptoms. In addition, those with dissociative PTSD displayed significantly more symptoms of depression, anger, impaired self-reference, tension reduction behavior, and somatoform dissociation than did the nondissociative PTSD group.
A comparative analysis of tourism policy networks

This chapter seeks to examine the formal network relationships that influence the tourism policy making process. In order to illustrate the complexities of the tourism policy making process and the importance of networks within this context, the chapter provides an empirical analysis of formal tourism policy networks in two Caribbean countries – Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The contributions of this chapter are that it provides both theoretical and methodological approaches for understanding the tourism policy making process. It suggests that policy making is a process that involves certain inputs of policy actors and an output of articulated policies in policy statements. In both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago,the low influence of community actors belies the governments’ commitment to sustainable, responsible and more inclusive tourism development as enumerated in their tourism policy documents. In order to achieve this vision for tourism development there is a need for both countries to seek to develop and implement strategies that can empower communities so that they can potentially, have greater influence in tourism policy making and by extension, tourism development. With limited community involvement Jamaica’s tourism vision for an “inclusive, world class, distinctly Jamaican” industry can be challenged.
The effect of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization on CYP1A2 activity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Aim: CYP1A2, a constitutive enzyme expressed in the liver, is among the phase I enzymes responsible for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons metabolism. Phenacetin O‐de‐ethylation is a marker for CYP1A2 activity. This study investiagtes the metabolism of phenacetin in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Measurement of the Current Distribution Between Multiple Brush Armatures During Launch

This paper reports on a diagnostic technique developed to improve the understanding of the behavior of discontinuous armature configurations. The knowledge of the current distribution between the different conductors is of central importance for such configurations. The measurement technique is explained and experimental results obtained at the ISL-railgun EMA3 (muzzle velocity v0 < 2 km/s, applied energy per shot Eprim < 0.6 MJ, l = 3 m, cal. = 15 mm times 30 mm, multiple metal fiber brush armatures) are presented. The results are discussed with the help of other experimental observations and by comparison with static finite element calculations.
The occurrence of encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) in European pigs from 1990 to 2001

The occurrence of encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) among domestic pigs and wild boar in several European countries is described and discussed. From 1990 to 2001 clinical outbreaks were analysed and serum samples, partly from existing screening programmes, were tested for antibodies against EMCV. Most clinical EMCV outbreaks were reported in Belgium (320), followed by Italy (110), Greece (15) and Cyprus (6). The outbreaks appeared to be clustered in ‘endemic areas’ with an increase in outbreaks during the autumn and winter months. The within-herd seroprevalence measured in clinically affected pig farms varied considerably among farms (2–87%), with age (0–84%) and by country. Data from farms with no clinical disease showed that subclinical infection with EMCV was found both within (seroprevalence 6–62%) and outside (up to 17%) the endemic areas of the clinically affected countries as well as in the non-clinically affected countries Austria and France (3–5·4%). Among wild boar, the seroprevalence varied between 0·6 and 10·8%, and a study in Belgium found a prevalence of virus infection of 3·3%.