Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cloud Security Consciousness: A Need For Realisation In Entrepreneurial Small Firms

Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in the way information services are provided but with its unique architecture comes additional security challenges, many of which are technical in nature. However, the paradigm shift also presents new challenges, which are non-technical and whether or not companies actually consider all of these issues in moving to the cloud is a matter of concern. This paper attempts to elevate the notion of cloud security consciousness (CSC) in the domain of small firms with a goal of introducing a level of innateness into the concept in its practical use. By synthesising CSC with various behavioural theories including coping theory, we seek to place CSC and the coping process at the centre of a security-centric cognitive framework for cloud adoption, while recognising that such coping processes are heavily shaped by both social influence and self-efficacy factors.
The economic and welfare impact of lameness in sows in England

Lameness in pigs is a major welfare concern and one of the most commonly reported reasons to premature culling of breeding sows. The prevalence of lameness in sows was estimated from 113 English pig breeding units and different risk factors associated with the occurrence of lameness were examined, followed by an assessment of the economic costs of lameness in sows. The prevalence of lameness in sows was 4.3%, and at least one lame sow was observed at 50.4 % of the 113 farms. In both indoor and outdoor sows, the presence of a prevention plan for lameness at the farm significantly affected the occurrence of lameness. Farms with higher producing sows were more likely to have a prevalence of lameness of 5% or higher. When only indoor sows were considered, the odds of lameness occurring at the farm increased with the number of sows in the pen. Lameness was also more likely to occur at farms where sows were housed on solid flooring than when they were kept on slatted or partly slatted flooring. Depending on the severity of the case, the estimated cost of an initial case of lameness could range from £19 to above £266. An increased awareness of the risk factors behind lameness is essential in farm management and can be useful when designing housing areas as well as developing future prevention plans for lameness.
Hypertrophy of ligamentum flavum in lumbar spine stenosis associated with the increased expression of connective tissue growth factor

Hypertrophy of the ligamentum flavum (LF) contributes to lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS), and results mainly from fibrosis. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is a profibrotic factor involved in the fibrotic process. This study aimed to evaluate CTGF expression in hypertrophied lumbar LF and the involvement of CTGF in LF hypertrophy. Ten patients with LSS were enrolled in this study. The control group included 10 patients with lumbar disc herniation. LF thickness was measured on the preoperative axial T1‐weighted MRI. LF samples were collected during surgery. LF fibrosis was scored by Masson's trichrome staining. CTGF expression was determined by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunohistochemistry. Correlation between LF thickness and CTGF expression was analyzed. Human LF cells were cultured and treated with recombinant human (rh) CTGF. Expression of types I and III collagen was determined by real‐time PCR and ELISA. The thickness and fibrosis scores of LF in the LSS group were higher than that in the control group (all P < 0.001). CTGF was expressed in the extracellular matrix of all ligament samples, and was significantly higher in the LSS group than that in the control group (P < 0.001). The increase of CTGF expression was positive correlation with the LF thickness (r = 0.969, P = 0.000). rhCTGF treatment increased the mRNA expression and protein synthesis of types I and III collagen of the LF cells (all P < 0.001). Our results suggest that the increased expression of CTGF is associated with hypertrophy of the LF in patients with LSS. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1592–1597, 2011
Nicotinic Receptor Fourth Transmembrane Domain

The fourth transmembrane domain (M4) of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR) contributes to the kinetics of activation, yet its close association with the lipid bilayer makes it the outermost of the transmembrane domains. To investigate mechanistic and structural contributions of M4 to AChR activation, we systematically mutated αT422, a conserved residue that has been labeled by hydrophobic probes, and evaluated changes in rate constants underlying ACh binding and channel gating steps. Aromatic and nonpolar mutations of αT422 selectively affect the channel gating step, slowing the rate of opening two- to sevenfold, and speeding the rate of closing four- to ninefold. Additionally, kinetic modeling shows a second doubly liganded open state for aromatic and nonpolar mutations. In contrast, serine and asparagine mutations of αT422 largely preserve the kinetics of the wild-type AChR. Thus, rapid and efficient gating of the AChR channel depends on a hydrogen bond involving the side chain at position 422 of the M4 transmembrane domain.
Phenylpropanoid Glycosides and Tetrahydrofurofuranlignan Glycosides from the Adaptogenic Plant Drugs Tinospora cordifola and Drypetes roxburghii

1 ott, H. H. , Hecker, E. (1981) Experientia 37, 88—91. 2 Starratt, A. N. (1969) Phytochemistry 8, 1831—1832. Ponsinet, G. , Qurisson, G. (1968) Phytochemistry 7, 89— 98. Hemmers, H. , GUlz, P. G. (1989) Z. Naturforsch. 44c, 563— 567. Ferrigni, N. R. , Putham, J. E. , Anderson, B. , Jacobsen, L. B. , Nichols, D. E. , Moore, D. S. , McLaughlin. J. L. (1982) J. Nat. Prod. 45, 679—686. 6 De Pascual Teresa, J., Urones, J. G. , Marcos, I. S. , Basabe, P., Sexmero, C. , M. J., and Fernandez, M. R. (1987) Phytochemistry 26, 1767— 1776. Rasool, N. , Khan, A. Q. , Ahmat, V. U. , Malik, A. (1991) J. Nat. Prod. 54, 889—892. Anjaneyulu, V. , Sambasiva Rao, G. , Connolly, D. J. (1985) Phytochemistry 24, 1610—1612.
Point-of-care HbA1c screening predicts diabetic status of dental patients.

PURPOSE Mutual production of proinflammatory cytokines causes a deleterious cyclic relationship between uncontrolled diabetes and periodontal disease. The prevalence of diabetes is escalating out of control. Early detection of pre-diabetes and diabetes may respectively prevent or delay disease onset and eliminate or decrease complications. The dental office offers an opportune site for diabetes screening. This study investigated the ability to precisely screen previously unidentified dental patients for diabetes and pre-diabetes. METHODS In this predictive correlational study, participants were chosen by convenience sampling, and were included based on self-proclaimed risk factors. A point-of-care (POC) fingerstick HbA1c screening identified participants for confirming venous HbA1c laboratory screenings. Kendall's tau analyzed the relationship between POC HbA1c results and classification as diabetic or pre-diabetic based on laboratory HbA1c results. Chi Square, Likelihood Ratio, Cramer's V and Lambda compared the expected and observed results. RESULTS Of the 104 diabetes risk questionnaires completed, 75 participants were included in the POC screening. Of these, 34 (71% female and 29% male) had HbA1c levels at or above the American Diabetes Association's (ADA) recommended 5.7% cut-point for pre-diabetes. Three participants were less than age 44, 10 were 44 to 57, and 21 were over 57. Laboratory results categorized 6 participants as normoglycemic and 28 with HbA1c greater than or equal to 5.7%. Kendall's tau (p=0.004) determined POC results can predict diabetic or pre-diabetic laboratory group assignment. Pearson's chi-square (p=0.004), Likelihood ratio (p=0.004) and Cramer's V (p<0.001) concluded a relationship existed between group assignment based on POC HbA1c results and those of subsequent laboratory HbA1c results; Lambda (p=0.145) did not. CONCLUSION Within the limits of this study, it was established that a safe and minimally invasive dental chair-side POC HbA1c screening unveiled previously unidentified diabetic and pre-diabetic patients.
MUSCLE WASTING AFTER 48 HOURS OF FOOD DEPRIVATION DIFFERS BETWEEN MOUSE STRAINS AND IS PROMOTED BY MYOSTATIN DYSFUNCTION

Background. Genetic factors play an important role in determining muscle mass. Indeed, myostatin dysfunction is associated with a pronounced muscle hypertrophy. The aim of our study was to test the hypothesis that starvation induced muscle wasting differs between BEH+/+ and C57BL/6J strains of mice and myostatin dysfunction prevents muscle wasting in BEH strain. Methods. 18-week-old males of C57BL/6J, BEH+/+ and BEH were subjected to 48 h food deprivation (FD). C57BL/6J mice were representatives of classic mouse strain. BEH mice which differ from BEH+/+ mice by Compact mutation in the Mstn gene represented a model for myostatin dysfunction. All mice were divided into experimental and control groups. The control groups consisted of mice fed ad libitum. Seven mice were studied in each group. Mice were weighed before as well as 24 h and 48 h after FD which was followed by dissection and weighing of the hindlimb skeletal muscle. Results. BEH and BEH+/+ mice showed a similar (16.9 ± 1.4% vs. 19.3 ± 2.4%, p > .05) loss of body mass while loss of body mass in C57BL/6J mice was the greatest (24.8 ± 1.9%, p < .001) after FD. The loss of muscle mass was significant in both BEH ( p < .001) and C57BL/6J ( p < .01) mice, but it was below the level of significance ( p > .05) in BEH+/+ mice. Conclusions. Myostatin dysfunction promotes muscle atrophy after FD. During short periods of FD, BEH+/+ mice are more resistant to body and muscle loss compared to C57BL/6J mice.
Histogram Based Visual Place Recognition for Improving SLAM Performance

In SLAM systems, loop closures play crucial role to decrease the accumulating drift of the estimated trajectory for consistent mapping. Place recognition is so important for determining loop closure candidates. This paper presents a method for visual place recognition using image histograms in conjunction with keypoint correspondences to select loop closure candidates. The method compares color and grayscale histograms of RGB images and then applies keypoint matching to the images having similar histograms. The proposed method is integrated into a state-of-the-art RGB-D SLAM system and tested on a popular dataset. The quantitative results show that the proposed method improves accuracy significantly.
Potential for In Vivo Acquisition of R Plasmids by One Strain of Vibrio cholerae Biotype El Tor

The feces of five patients admitted to a hospital during an outbreak of cholera in Melbourne, Australia, in November 1972, were examined for the presence of tetracycline-resistant coliforms and tetracycline-resistant strains of Vibrio cholerae. Despite the abundance of tetracycline-resistant coliforms able to transfer this resistance to other strains of Escherichia coli, no tetracycline-resistant strains of V. cholerae were detected. In vitro transfer experiments using the V. cholerae strain responsible for the outbreak as recipient revealed that it was a particularly poor host for most R plasmids.
The history of LASIK.

Keratomileusis, brainchild of Jose I. Barraquer Moner, was conceived and developed as the first stromal sculpting method to correct refractive error in 1948. The word "keratomileusis" literally means "sculpting" of the "cornea. " Barraquer's first procedures involved freezing a disc of anterior corneal tissue before removing stromal tissue with a lathe. Over the years, the procedure continued to develop, first through the Barraquer-Krumeich-Swinger non-freeze technique where tissue was removed from the underside of the disc by a second pass of the microkeratome. In-situ keratomileusis was later developed by passing the microkeratome a second time directly on the stromal bed. The procedure became known as automated lamellar keratoplasty with the invention of an automated microkeratome and was further refined by replacing the disc without sutures and later by stopping the microkeratome before the end of the pass to create a hinged flap, as first demonstrated in 1989. The history of the excimer laser dates back to 1900 and the quantum theory, eventually leading to the discovery that 193-nm ultraviolet excimer laser pulses could photoablate tissue without thermal damage. Ultrastructural and wound healing studies confirmed that large area ablation could be performed in the central cornea. This was described as photorefractive keratectomy in 1986 and the first sighted eyes were treated in 1988. An excimer laser was first used to sculpt from the stromal bed under a hinged flap created manually using a trephine and scalpel in 1988. The incorporation of a microkeratome in 1990 finally led to laser in situ keratomileusis-LASIK-as we know it today.
Non-standard radiotherapy fractionations delay the time to malignant transformation of low-grade gliomas

Grade II gliomas are slowly growing primary brain tumors that affect mostly young patients. Cytotoxic therapies (radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy) are used initially only for patients having a bad prognosis. These therapies are planned following the “maximum dose in minimum time” principle, i. e. the same schedule used for high-grade brain tumors in spite of their very different behavior. These tumors transform after a variable time into high-grade gliomas, which significantly decreases the patient’s life expectancy. In this paper we study mathematical models describing the growth of grade II gliomas in response to radiotherapy. We find that protracted metronomic fractionations, i.e. therapeutical schedules enlarging the time interval between low-dose radiotherapy fractions, may lead to a better tumor control without an increase in toxicity. Other non-standard fractionations such as protracted or hypoprotracted schemes may also be beneficial. The potential survival improvement depends on the tumor’s proliferation rate and can be even of the order of years. A conservative metronomic scheme, still being a suboptimal treatment, delays the time to malignant progression by at least one year when compared to the standard scheme.
Stable proline box motif at the N‐terminal end of α‐helices

We describe a novel N‐terminal α‐helix local motif that involves three hydrophobic residues and a Pro residue (Pro‐box motif). Database analysis shows that when Pro is the N‐cap of an α‐helix the distribution of amino acids in adjacent positions changes dramatically with respect to the average distribution in an α‐helix, but not when Pro is at position N1. N‐cap Pro residues are usually associated to Ile and Leu, at position N', Val at position N3 and a hydrophobic residue (h) at position N4. The side chain of the N‐cap Pro packs against Val, while the hydrophobic residues at positions N' and N4 make favorable interactions. To analyze the role of this putative motif (sequence fingerprint hPXXhh), we have synthesized a series of peptides and analyzed them by circular dichroism (CD) and NMR. We find that this motif is formed in peptides, and that the accompanying hydrophobic interactions contribute up to 1.2 kcal/mol to helix stability. The fact that some of the residues in this fingerprint are not good N‐cap and helix formers results in a small overall stabilization of the α‐helix with respect to other peptides having Gly as the N‐cap and Ala at N3 and N4. This suggests that the Pro‐box motif will not specially contribute to protein stability but to the specificity of its fold. In fact, 80% of the sequences that contain the fingerprint sequence in the protein database are adopting the described structural motif, and in none of them is the helix extended to place Pro at the more favorable N1 position.
Elite and Everyday Social Contracts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Pathways to Forging a National Social Contract?

ABSTRACT The Dayton Peace Agreement ended the violence in Bosnia–Herzegovina, however, it also solidified antagonistic political identities leading to the creation of two social contracts: an ‘elite social contract’ involving primarily political elites of the main ethnic groups and an ‘everyday social contract’ involving ordinary citizens trying to manage a complex social and economic environment. The first social contract is hegemonic, however, alternative, non-nationalist views are slowly emerging. Grassroots groups, the surviving remnants of inter-ethnic coexistence, the integrating pull of market forces and the presence of a large diaspora all constitute resources for the creation of a resilient national social contract.
Impact of Vaccination on Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Immunodominance and Cooperation against Simian Immunodeficiency Virus Replication in Rhesus Macaques

ABSTRACT Cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses play a central role in viral suppression in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. Prophylactic vaccination resulting in effective CTL responses after viral exposure would contribute to HIV control. It is important to know how CTL memory induction by vaccination affects postexposure CTL responses. We previously showed vaccine-based control of a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) challenge in a group of Burmese rhesus macaques sharing a major histocompatibility complex class I haplotype. Gag206-216 and Gag241-249 epitope-specific CTL responses were responsible for this control. In the present study, we show the impact of individual epitope-specific CTL induction by prophylactic vaccination on postexposure CTL responses. In the acute phase after SIV challenge, dominant Gag206-216-specific CTL responses with delayed, naive-derived Gag241-249-specific CTL induction were observed in Gag206-216 epitope-vaccinated animals with prophylactic induction of single Gag206-216 epitope-specific CTL memory, and vice versa in Gag241-249 epitope-vaccinated animals with single Gag241-249 epitope-specific CTL induction. Animals with Gag206-216-specific CTL induction by vaccination selected for a Gag206-216-specific CTL escape mutation by week 5 and showed significantly less decline of plasma viral loads from week 3 to week 5 than in Gag241-249 epitope-vaccinated animals without escape mutations. Our results present evidence indicating significant influence of prophylactic vaccination on postexposure CTL immunodominance and cooperation of vaccine antigen-specific and non-vaccine antigen-specific CTL responses, which affects virus control. These findings provide great insights into antigen design for CTL-inducing AIDS vaccines.
Complications in multiple gestation pregnancy: A cross-sectional study of ten maternal-fetal medicine centers in China

Complications in women with multiple gestation pregnancy have not been studied in China. We aimed to establish a database of women with multiple gestation pregnancy and investigate the complications related to multiple pregnancy. We conducted a cross-sectional study that included 3246 women with multiple gestation pregnancy and who had multiple live-birth deliveries; the women were registered at ten maternal-fetal medicine centers in China in 2013. All participants completed a detailed questionnaire that included basic demographic information, history of gestation and abnormal fetal development, risk factors during pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes. Overall, 1553 (47.8%) women experienced pregnancy complications; these women were more likely to have lower height and less education than women who did not experience complications. However, women who experienced complications had a higher twin birth rate and were more likely to have received regular antenatal care and assisted reproductive technology than women without complications (P < 0.05). Notably, preterm birth was a primary complication in multiple pregnancy (n = 960). In conclusion, pregnancy complications, especially preterm birth, were relatively common in women with multiple gestation pregnancy. The findings from this cross-sectional study in China may be used as a foundation for investigating risk factors for complications in women with multiple gestation pregnancy in the future.
Viable and morphologically normal boar spermatozoa alter the expression of heat‐shock protein genes in oviductal epithelial cells during co‐culture in vitro

The principal aim of this study was to determine if boar spermatozoa influence the expression of four selected chaperone and heat‐shock protein (HSP) genes—namely clusterin (CLU), HSP90AA1, HSPA5, and HSPA8—in oviductal epithelial cells (OECs) during in vitro co‐culture. All corresponding proteins of these genes were previously identified in a sperm‐interacting, 70‐kDa soluble fraction derived from apical plasma membranes of OECs. The present study also sought to determine whether or not: (i) spermatozoa must directly bind to OEC for an effect on gene expression to be elicited and (ii) reproductive and nonreproductive epithelial cell types (LLC‐PK1, pig kidney) respond equivalently, in terms of alterations in chaperone and HSP gene expression, during co‐culture with sperm. Spermatozoa induced a significant upregulation (P < 0.05) in HSP90AA1 and HSPA5 in OECs after 3 hr, and in HSPA8 after 6 hr of co‐culture when they were in direct contact with epithelial cells. Conversely, no upregulation of HSP transcription was observed when spermatozoa did not directly bind to OECs. Spermatozoa also induced a significant upregulation (P < 0.05) of the same three genes when in direct contact with LLC‐PK1 cells, but the timing occurred later than with OECs. Interestingly, the extent of HSP gene upregulation induced by direct contact of spermatozoa with epithelial cells was dependent on sperm‐binding index and on the viability and morphological quality of the bound sperm population. In conclusion, the upregulation of HSP genes caused by direct contact between spermatozoa and OECs, rather than nonreproductive epithelial cells, suggests HSPs could play an integral role in the modulation of sperm function in the oviductal reservoir. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 81: 805–819, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.