Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Correlation between Peer Aggression and Peer Victimization: Are Aggressors Victims Too?

To investigate the possible correlation between peer aggression and peer victimization, 148 sixth-graders were asked to respond to the Reduced Aggression and Victimization Scales (RAVS). RAVS measures the frequency of reporting aggressive behaviors or of being victimized during the previous week prior to the survey. The scales are composed of six items each. Each point represents one instance of aggression or victimization. Specifically, the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PMCC) was used to determine the correlations between the scores of the sixthgraders in the two scales, both in individual items and total scores. Positive correlations were established and correlations were significant at the 0.01 levels. Keywords—correlation, peer aggression, peer victimization,
Bartonella species in bats (Chiroptera) and bat flies (Nycteribiidae) from Nigeria, West Africa.

Previous and ongoing studies have incriminated bats as reservoirs of several emerging and re-emerging zoonoses. Most of these studies, however, have focused on viral agents and neglected important bacterial pathogens. To date, there has been no report investigating the prevalence of Bartonella spp. in bats and bat flies from Nigeria, despite the fact that bats are used as food and for cultural ritual purposes by some ethnic groups in Nigeria. To elucidate the role of bats as reservoirs of bartonellae, we screened by molecular methods 148 bats and 34 bat flies, Diptera:Hippoboscoidea:Nycteribiidae (Cyclopodia greeffi) from Nigeria for Bartonella spp. Overall, Bartonella spp. DNA was detected in 76 out of 148 (51.4%) bat blood samples tested and 10 out of 24 (41.7%) bat flies tested by qPCR targeting the 16S-23S internal transcribed spacer (ITS) locus. Bartonella was isolated from 23 of 148 (15.5%) bat blood samples, and the isolates were genetically characterized. Prevalence of Bartonella spp. culture-positive samples ranged from 0% to 45.5% among five bat species. Micropterus spp. bats had a significantly higher relative risk of 3.45 for being culture positive compared to Eidolon helvum, Epomophorus spp. , Rhinolophus spp. , and Chaerephon nigeriae. Bartonella spp. detected in this study fall into three distinct clusters along with other Bartonella spp. isolated from bats and bat flies from Kenya and Ghana, respectively. The isolation of Bartonella spp. in 10.0-45.5% of four out of five bat species screened in this study indicates a widespread infection in bat population in Nigeria. Further investigation is warranted to determine the role of these bacteria as a cause of human and animal diseases in Nigeria.
Immunoneutralization of endometrial monoclonal nonspecific suppressor factor beta (MNSFβ) inhibits mouse embryo implantation in vivo

Successful embryo implantation and pregnancy in mammals depends on the establishment of immune tolerance between the maternal immune system and fetal cells. Monoclonal nonspecific suppressor factor beta (MNSFβ), a cytokine produced by suppressor T cells in various tissues, possesses an antigen‐nonspecific immune‐suppressive function, and may be involved in the regulation of the uterine immune response during embryo implantation. In this study, anti‐MNSFβ IgG administered directly into the uterine lumen, significantly inhibited mouse embryo implantation in a dose‐dependent manner in vivo, and this effect was reversed by co‐administration of recombinant MNSFβ. The effects of anti‐MNSFβ IgG on the gene pattern profiles in mouse uterine tissues were examined by cDNA microarray and several changes were confirmed by real‐time PCR. Anti‐MNSFβ IgG caused up‐regulation (≥2‐fold) of 71 known genes and 17 unknown genes, and decreased expression (≥2‐fold) of 74 known genes and 43 unknown genes, including several genes previously associated with embryo implantation or fetal development. Most of the known genes are involved in immune regulation, cell cycle/proliferation, cell differentiation/apoptosis, and lipid/glucose metabolism. These results demonstrate that MNSFβ plays critical roles during the early pregnancy via multiple pathways. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 74: 1419–1427, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
High speed lattice based VLSI architecture of 2D discrete wavelet transform for real-time video signal processing

This paper presents an efficient lattice structure based VLSI architecture of 2D discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for hierarchical image compression, which is scalable to extend to an arbitrary 2D DWT with M laps and J levels. The proposed architecture consists Of four 1D lattice filters, which processes in horizontal and vertical directions at the same time. The proposed lattice structure fits in a VLSI implementation due to its regularity and shows the period of N/sup 2//2 to compute an N/spl times/N image because the even and odd rows are processed simultaneously. Compared to conventional approaches, the proposed architecture shows shorter period to complete 2D DWT while requiring relatively less hardware resources. Therefore, the proposed architecture can be applied in real-time video signal processing such as JPEG-2000 and MPEG4, which require high speed processing. The process schedule using the data dependency graph, performance, and the required hardware cost are discussed.
Parasitological and Clinico-Pathological Studies on Some Herbal Preparations in Mice Experimentally Infected With Schistoma mansoni

269 Referred by Prof. Dr. Olfat, A. Mahdy Professor of Parsitology, Fac. Vet. Med., Cairo University. Prof. Dr. Alaa Rafat Professor of Clinical Pathology, Fac. Vet. Med., Cairo University. Parasitological and Clinico-Pathological Studies on Some Herbal Preparations in Mice Experimentally Infected With Schistoma mansoni By Eman, M. Abd EL-Mottaleb*; Heba H. El-Gharieb* and Abdel Rahman, M. A.M** * Pathology Dept and ** Parasitology Dept, Animal Health Research Institute, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
Bradykinin‐induced burst of prostaglandin formation in osteoblasts is mediated via B2 bradykinin receptors

The receptor subtype mediating the bradykinin (Bk)‐induced burst of prostaglandin formation in osteoblasts has been studied. Bk, but not des‐Arg9‐Bk, induced the formation of prostaglandin E2 and prostacyclin in neonatal mouse calvarial bones incubated for 30 minutes. Bk‐induced prostaglandin synthesis in neonatal mouse calvarial bones was significantly inhibited by the B2 Bk receptor antagonist D‐Arg0[Hyp3, Thi5,8, D‐Phe']‐Bk. The B2 Bk receptor agonists Bk and Lys‐Bk, but not the B1 Bk receptor agonist des‐Arg9‐Bk, caused a rapid burst (5 minutes) of prostaglandin E2 and prostacyclin formation in isolated osteoblast‐like cells from neonatal mouse calvarial bones and in the murine osteoblastic cell lineage MC3T3‐E1. When comparing the relative potency of different kinin analogs on their stimulatory effect on prostaglandin formation in isolated osteoblast‐like cells and in MC3T3‐E1 cells, we found that Bk = Lys‐Bk > Met‐lys‐Bk >>> Des‐Arg9‐Bk. Bk‐induced prostaglandin synthesis in isolated osteoblast‐like cells and in MC3T3‐E1 cells was inhibited by D‐Arg0[Hyp3, Thi5,8, D‐Phe7]‐Bk, whereas the B1 Bk receptor antagonist des‐Arg9‐Leu8‐Bk had no effect. Total binding of 3H‐Bk (3–20 nM; 4°C) to whole MC3T3‐E1 cells reached a maximum after 4–5 h. An excess of nonradioactive Bk (1 μM) reduced cell‐associated radioactivity by 20–30%. The B2 Bk receptor agonist Bk and the B2 Bk receptor antagonist D‐Arg0[Hyp3, Thi5,8, D‐Phe7]‐Bk were able to reduce specific binding, but the B1 Bk receptor agonist des‐Arg9‐Bk was unable to reduce the specific binding of 3H‐Bk to whole MC3T3‐E1 cells. These findings indicate the presence of B2 Bk receptors on osteoblasts coupled to enhanced prostaglandin synthesis.
Bilirubin as an inhibitor of cartilage metabolism: Effect on avian chondrocyte proliferation in cell culture

Elevated levels of bilirubin and other tetrapyrroles are common to a number of chronic hematologic and liver diseases that can result in growth failure. This report establishes a cellular model system for the study of these endogenous growth inhibitors. Primary chondrocyte cultures were prepared from embryonic chick cartilage; cells were incubated (0.3 ± 105 cells per plate) in tissue culture medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) with or without added bilirubin, 0.01‐0.10 mM. Bilirubin caused profound, dose‐dependent inhibition of chondrocyte proliferation: after 7 days, control incubations contained 11.45 ± 2.0 ± 105 cells per plate versus 4.92 ± 0.55 ± 105 cells per plate for wells with added 0.01 mM bilirubin and 1.76 ± 0.30 ± 105 for cultures with added 0.05 mM bilirubin. In chondrocytes cultured for 3 days, the addition of 0.05 mM bilirubin was associated with inhibition of [3H]thymidine incorporation into DNA (47 ± 5% of control), [3H]uridine incorporation into RNA (11 ± 0.05% of control), and [14C]leucine incorporation into proteins (16 ± 1% of control). The inhibition of chondrocyte proliferation induced by a range of bilirubin concentrations (0.01‐0.10 mM) was in no way attenuated by the addition of physiologic concentrations of albumin (4 g/dl). After 3 days in media containing bilirubin or heme (at equimolar concentrations), chondrocytes were subsequently incubated in FBS alone for an additional 3 days; only partial reversal of the bilirubin (or heme)‐induced inhibition was then observed. Our data show that bilirubin (and heme) produces profound, dose‐dependent, partially reversible inhibition of chondrocyte proliferation in culture without affecting cell viability, supporting the concept that these endogenous tetrapyrroles are potent growth inhibitors. We also conclude that chick chondrocytes in cell culture are a suitable model for delineating the mechanisms of tetrapyrrole tissue action.
Discriminative Structured Dictionary Learning on Grassmann Manifolds and Its Application on Image Restoration

Image restoration is a difficult and challenging problem in various imaging applications. However, despite of the benefits of a single overcomplete dictionary, there are still several challenges for capturing the geometric structure of image of interest. To more accurately represent the local structures of the underlying signals, we propose a new problem formulation for sparse representation with block-orthogonal constraint. There are three contributions. First, a framework for discriminative structured dictionary learning is proposed, which leads to a smooth manifold structure and quotient search spaces. Second, an alternating minimization scheme is proposed after taking both the cost function and the constraints into account. This is achieved by iteratively alternating between updating the block structure of the dictionary defined on Grassmann manifold and sparsifying the dictionary atoms automatically. Third, Riemannian conjugate gradient is considered to track local subspaces efficiently with a convergence guarantee. Extensive experiments on various datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the removal of mixed Gaussian-impulse noise.
Maggot debridement therapy in the treatment of nonhealing chronic wounds

Background: Maggot therapy utilizes freshly emerged, sterile larvae of the common greenbottle fly, Phaenicia (Lucilia) sericata which secrete digestive enzymes that selectively dissolve necrotic tissue, disinfect the wound, and thus stimulate wound healing. Introduction: The purpose of this paper was to review the literature in an attempt to determine the efficacy of maggot debridement therapy (MDT) of skin ulcers (e.g. diabetic foot ulcers, venous stasis, osteomyelitis), with specific focus on assessing the healing time and amputation rate. Methodology: Efficacy was measured by comparing MDT to traditional treatment (i.e., antibiotics and surgical debridement). Level of evidence included case-control, cohort retrospective, retrospective, prospective control, non-randomized in-vivo, and report studies. Results: Overall results of the thirteen articles that met the inclusion criteria indicate that MDT healing time was equal to or significantly shorter and amputation rate was less than traditional treatment. Limitations: Limitations to these studies include minimal amount of subjects involved in each study, the inability to conduct randomized control studies and insufficient number of articles found. Conclusion: Preliminary studies confirm that MDT successfully accelerates debridement of long-standing chronic wounds leading to enhanced healing time and reduced amputation rates, making it a particularly safe and affective method in wound care.
Bargaining games for material procurement in large-scale projects

Procurement management is an important process in large-scale projects because large-scale projects heavily depend on building materials from suppliers. This paper applies the basic idea of cooperative game theory and bargaining theory to analyze the cooperation in the procurement of the large-scale projects. We develop two bargaining games of the material procurement between one contractor and one supplier, where they form a procurement coalition. In addition, we give the allocation rule of cooperative surplus for the procurement coalition according to the bargaining theory, i.e., subgame perfect Nash equilibrium solutions. The allocation plan is acceptable for the two players, very stable, and plays an important role in maintaining the survival of the procurement coalition. But the relative bargaining power of the players will determine who benefits more from cooperation.
Increased incidence of hepatoma in mice with chronic schistosomiasis mansoni treated with a carcinogen.

Although an association between urinary bladder cancer and schistosomiasis haematobium is generally accepted,1 many authorities believe that there is no relation between the high incidence of hepatoma in Africa and infection with Schistosoma mansoni.2B Recently, a two-stage theory of the etiology of hepatoma has been presented which suggests that damage to the liver in childhood may alter reactivity to hepatotoxic agents later in life.4 This hypothesis, in addition to the recent discovery of natural carcinogens contaminating staple food products in Africa,5 suggested the present study, in which mice with chronic Schistosoma mansoni infections were given injections of a carcinogen. They had a much higher incidence of hepatomas than control mice or mice with either schistosomiasis or carclnogen injectlons alone.
An Australian stocks and flows model for asbestos

All available data on asbestos consumption in Australia were collated in order to determine the most common asbestos-containing materials remaining in the built environment. The proportion of asbestos contained within each material and the types of products these materials are most commonly found in was also determined. The lifetime of these asbestos containing products was estimated in order to develop a model that projects stocks and flows of asbestos products in Australia through to the year 2100. The model is based on a Weibull distribution and was built in an excel spreadsheet to make it user-friendly and accessible. The nature of the products under consideration means both their asbestos content and lifetime parameters are highly variable, and so for each of these a high and low estimate is presented along with the estimate used in the model. The user is able to vary the parameters in the model as better data become available.
A prospective randomized double-blind trial of antithrombin III concentrate in the treatment of multiple-organ dysfunction syndrome during hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Many of the complications of high-dose therapy with hematopoietic stem cells are caused by or lead to the multiple-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). In hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), acquired antithrombin III (ATIII) deficiency is independently associated with MODS to the exclusion of transplant type, preparative regimen, and bacteremia. In experimental settings, replacement of ATIII can ameliorate the severity of MODS that develops in response to a variety of pathologic stimuli, suggesting that ATIII supplementation might improve the clinical course of MODS in patients undergoing HSCT. We performed a study to determine if ATIII can improve the morbidity of MODS in HSCT. Forty-nine patients undergoing HSCT, who developed pulmonary dysfunction (oxygen saturation of <90%), central nervous system dysfunction (drop of >4 points in the mini-mental status exam), or hepatic dysfunction (bilirubin >34 micromol/L [2.0 mg%], weight gain of >5% over baseline, and abdominal pain, possibly of hepatic origin) with a concomitant ATIII activity of <84% were double-blind randomized to receive ATIII concentrate, 70 units/kg within 24 hours of recognition of initial organ dysfunction followed by 50 units/kg 8, 16, 48, and 72 hours later, or albumin placebo. The group randomized to ATIII had a lower severity-of-illness score (15.7 +/- 19.2 vs. 28.6 +/- 25.2, p = 0.03), shorter duration of hospitalization (14.9 +/- 16.7 vs. 25.7 /- 17.9 days, p = 0.03), and lower hospital charges ($138,700 +/- $23,500 vs. $206,400 +/- $34,000). ATIII concentrate was associated with improved morbidity of MODS in patients undergoing HSCT when given early in the evolution of the syndrome.
Reduced Degranulation of NK Cells in Patients with Frequently Recurring Herpes

ABSTRACT NK cells lyse virus-infected cells by degranulation; however, alterations in NK cell degranulation in persistent viral infections have not been directly studied. Earlier reports have documented a decrease in NK activity in patients with frequently recurring herpes (FRH). We corroborate these findings by showing that the degranulation responses of blood NK cells from patients with FRH, both during relapse and during remission, are significantly lower than those in healthy donors. The impaired degranulation was probably not caused by defective target cell recognition, since it was observed upon stimulation both with K562 cells and with a receptor-independent stimulus (phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate plus ionomycin). We also show that the intracellular expression of perforin and CD107a by NK cells from patients with FRH is not different from that in healthy donors, thus excluding that the low NK cell degranulation in FRH is caused by a smaller size of the lytic granule compartment. We confirm previous reports on lowered NK activity in FRH patients and show that NK activity is significantly impaired only during remission, but not relapse; the causes for the discrepancy between the low degranulation and “normal” NK cell activity during relapse are discussed. In all, these data point at the deficit of NK cell degranulation in FRH. Whether this is a predisposing factor or a consequence of herpes simplex virus infection requires further investigation.
Serum Level of Ghrelin in Umbilical Cord in Small and Appropriate for Gestational Age Newborn Infants and its Relationship to Anthropometric Measures

Objective: To compare the cord blood ghrelin level in (SGA) infants with the level in appropriate for gestational age (AGA) infants, and determine its relationship to anthropometric measurements at delivery. Materials and Methods: Fifty newborn infants (30 SGA newborns and 20 AGA infants) were included in the study and were subjected to complete clinical examinations, anthropometric measurement, and ghrelin assays. Results: The cord blood ghrelin level in SGA infants was significantly higher than that in AGA infants. Cord ghrelin level correlated negatively with gestational age, weight, length, and body mass index in SGA group. Conclusion: Cord ghrelin concentration increased in SGA infants due to state of prolonged undernutrition the source of ghrelin unknown may be from the mother placenta or fetal tissues.
MODAL SOLUTIONS FOR JUNCTION PARAMETERS OF DISCONTINUITY PROBLEMS IN DIELECTRIC RECTANGULAR WAVEGUIDES

In this paper the discontinuity problems of the junction of two different dielectric rectangular waveguides has been studied, both for two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) cases. The technique used, is to obtain expressions for the z-directed complex power due to all modes (propagating and non propagating) present at the step junction for a normalized incident field. The expressions for junction parameters like admittance and susceptance have been derived for the structures with step junctions in x direction, in y direction and for the 3D case where the step is both x and y directed. The numerical results have then been computed for different step ratios of these three cases.
Stimulus Novelty and Cognitive-Related Erp Components of the Infant Brain

This study recorded visual fixation performance and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine processing of novel visual information in 6- to 7-mo. -old infants as well as to test attention- or memory-related hypotheses of the functional significance of the Nc-ERP component. Separate groups of infants were presented two versions of a novelty-probe task with three types of visual stimuli: (a) a frequent face on 70% of the trials, (b) an oddball face on 15% of the trials, and (c) novel probe stimuli on the remaining 15% of the trials. The novelty probes were faces in one group and irregular shapes in the second group. Analysis showed longer fixations and Nc responses of greater amplitude occurred to oddball and novel stimuli. It was concluded that Nc reflects a top-down, controlled processing mechanism that flexibly allocates attentional resources.
The effect of platelet derived growth factor-AB on periodontal ligament fibroblasts: An in vitro study

Background and Objectives: Traditional methods of periodontal therapy produce results in healing of tissues by repair; however, what we require is regeneration of the lost tissues. The periodontal ligament (PDL) cells appear to be important in periodontal wound healing. Platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), a potent mitogen and useful mediator for wound healing, has been extensively studied in periodontal regeneration. This in vitro study was designed to evaluate the effect of PDGF-AB on human PDL fibroblasts (hPDLF) at 50, 100 and 150 ng/ml dosages at 24, 48 and 72 hours time duration. Materials and Methods: Tissue explants from three different patients were harvested from the roots of freshly extracted, uninfected and impacted third molars. The cells cultured from all samples were divided into 4 groups: Group-1 was the control group, and the experimental groups were designated as Group-2, Group-3 and Group-4, to test the effect of PDGF-AB at 50, 100 and 150 ng/ml by proliferation assay carried out at 24, 48 and 72 hours. Results: The results revealed maximum mitogenic response of PDL cells at 100 ng/ml and at 48 hours, suggesting that the mitogenic response of PDGF-AB is both, time and dose dependent. Conclusions: The results of this in vitro study suggest that PDGF has maximum mitogenic response on hPDLF at 48 hours and for 100 ng dose. However for clinical application, randomized controlled clinical trials are required to substantiate the results of this in vitro study.
Theory and Methodology of Exploratory Social Science Research

Confirmatory, deductive research cannot produce absolute truths, according Karl POPPER (2002). If we accept this premise, then it is worth giving inductive and explorative research another chance. Exploration can produce valid and insightful findings in the social sciences, if conducted in a transparent and self-reflexive way. It can also profit from applying dialectical thinking. This article proposes a rationale for exploration in the social sciences and it elaborates the criteria on which such research must stand. Bernd Reiter Professor of Political Science and Graduate Director School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies & Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL