Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Delay-Aware Cross Layer Data Transmission Schemes for Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs) are widely used in monitoring and control of critical systems. Data delivery in a timely manner is highly desired for various emerging application fields such as smart grid and e-health. For the resource constrained WSANs, transmitting time-critical data calls for data prioritization and delay-awareness. In this paper, we propose two delay-aware, cross layer (DRX) data transmission schemes for WSANs. Our approaches are based on delay-estimation and data prioritization steps that are performed by the application layer, in addition to the MAC layer parameters responding to the delay requirements of the application and the varying channel conditions in the network. Our results show that the proposed DRX schemes, particularly DRXCCA is able to reduce end-to-end delay for data demanding timely delivery while maintaining acceptable performance in terms of throughput, packet loss and energy consumption. Keywords; Cross layer protocol, delay-awareness, IEEE802.15. 4, wireless sensor and actor networks.
Effect of High-Intensity Interval Training ( HIIT ) on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor ( VEGF ) in Heart Muscle in Healthy Rats

Effect of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) in Heart Muscle in Healthy Rats 1Parvaneh Nazarali, 2Zahra Kohestani sini and 3Mohamadreza Kordi ABSTRACT The effect of exercise on angiogenic factors is a subject that has interested many researches. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a secretory protein with a molecular size of 25 to 45 kD. It is a signal protein generated by cells that stimulate angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 1, 3 and 5 sessions of high-intensity interval training on VEGF in the heart muscle of healthy rats. Thirty two healthy male rats, aged 3-4 weeks and weighed 250±20 g, were subdivided into four groups randomly: control group (n=8), 1 session (n=8), 3 sessions (n=8), and 5 sessions (n=8) of high-intensity interval training. The exercise training included 1 hour of highintensity interval running. Sampling from heart muscle was done twenty-four hours after the activity. Then, the heart tissue levels of VEGF were examined by using ELISA method. Independent t-test and one-way ANOVA were run to analyze the data. The results showed no significant change in VEGF in the 1, 3 and 5-session groups in comparison with the control group. It is likely that 5 sessions HIIT could not increase VEGF protein levels and promote angiogenesis, or that they increased the level of VEGF gene or other angiogenic expression but did not contribute to protein synthesis or increase capillary density.
Association of visceral and subcutaneous adiposity with kidney function.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Obesity is a risk factor for incident chronic kidney disease (CKD). Visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) may confer differential metabolic risk profiles. The relations of VAT and SAT were analyzed with CKD as estimated by creatinine- and cystatin-based estimating equations. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Participants from the Framingham Offspring Study who underwent abdominal computed tomography for VAT and SAT quantification were included (n = 1299; 53% women; mean age 60 yr). CKD was defined as estimated GFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m(2), as estimated using creatinine (n = 89) in the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) formula or by cystatin C (n = 136). Regression models evaluated the cross-sectional relations between VAT and SAT with CKD and cystatin C, with age and gender adjustment and cardiovascular risk factor adjustment. RESULTS Neither VAT nor SAT was associated with CKD as estimated by the MDRD equation. In contrast, both VAT and SAT were associated with CKD when defined using cystatin-based equations. The estimated decrease in estimated GFR by cystatin C per 1-SD increase of VAT was 1.9 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) and for SAT was 2.6 ml/min per 1.73 m(2) in a multivariable-adjusted model. CONCLUSIONS VAT and SAT were associated with CKD when defined using cystatin C estimating equations but not when using a creatinine-based estimating equation. Mechanisms linking adipose tissue to cystatin C warrant further research.
Modeling Agent-Based Network Monitoring Application using UML 1

Network monitoring applications are becoming critical systemsand increasingly complex to manage. To help manage this complexity, the application needs to be modeled properly in order to understand its challenges and possible solutions to adopt. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the standard language for modeling software intensive systems like network monitor applications. In this paper, we used the use-case, sequence, and state chart diagrams to model our design user interface interactions, internal mechanisms behavior and application state. UML is recommended for software architects, application developers and researchers in the field of software engineering for vital technical documentations.
Abuse History and Pathological Dissociation Among Israeli and American College Students: A Comparative Study

ABSTRACT This paper has three objectives: (1) to compare the abuse histories of American and Israeli college students, (2) to closely examine the different types of dissociative experiences among these students, and (3) to compare the dissociative experiences of American and Israeli college students. The US sample reported higher levels of abuse than the Israeli sample. The US and Israeli samples did not differ in overall level of dissociation but the US sample had higher rank-ordered scores for five kinds of dissociation: Flashbacks, Somatoform Dissociation, Persecutory Voices, Temporarily Dissociated Knowledge or Skills, and Being Told of Disremembered Behavior.
Lipogenesis and insulin sensitivity of single fat cells *

1. A method for measuring the lipogenesis from [14C]glucose by single fat cells is described: (i) after incubation with ‘carrier‐free’ [U‐14C]glucose (0·55 μ‐mole/ml.), collagenase‐isolated fat cells were fixed with osmium tetroxide; (ii) similarly incubated pieces of epididymal fat pads were treated with osmium tetroxide for 90 sec, whereby only the superficial cells are fixed, and the tissue was then disintegrated by shaking with collagenase. The osmium‐fixed free cells were washed, sucked into a micropipette, measured under a microscope and assayed individually for 14C‐activity.
Keep calm and vote on: Swarm resiliency in collective decision making

The design of large groups of simple robots that coordinates through local interactions has attracted great interest in engineering research and deﬁned the ﬁeld of swarm robotics [1]. For most operations, a fundamental ability is collective decision making, that is, the ability of the swarm to reach an agreement among all robots [2]. Several studies proposed alternative solutions, under complementary assumptions, to the collective decision making problem [1], [2], [3]. Most problems analysed the decision performance in terms of speed-accuracy, and took into consideration how problem paramaters, such as decision difﬁculty, number of options, or spatial correlation, had an impact on the system dynamics. Recently, some attention has been devoted to studying the resiliency of the swarm to disturbances which could be either intrinsic properties, such as robots failures [4], [5], or extrinsic factors, such as malicious attacks [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]; however, only a few work considered decision making tasks [12], [13]. In
Phytochemical analysis and in vitro biological activity of Betonica officinalis and Salvia officinalis extracts

The objectives of this study were to define the phenolic profile, antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties of extracts from Betonica officinalis and Salvia officinalis herbs used in traditional medicine. The results indicated that the extract inhibits scavenges stable 2,2-diphenyl-1picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) cation radicals. In the present study, Salvia officinalis was potent antibacterial agent against Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The extracts inhibited cyclooxygenase (COX-1) and denaturation of protein, which suggests these species might be a potential source of plant-derived anti-inflammatory substances. Our study, for the first time, revealed the antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activity of the Betonica officinalis herb. The results of this study could be helpful to develop medicinal preparations and uses of this species as an antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and wound healing agent.
The Impact of Retailers ’ Corporate Social Responsibility on Price Fairness

We study the effects of four key dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility in the grocery retail industry on consumers’ perceptions of the fairness of retailers’ prices and their attitudinal and behavioral loyalty toward retailers. We estimate both the direct effect of CSR on loyalty and the indirect effect through price fairness perceptions, while controlling for other drivers of price fairness perceptions and loyalty and for heterogeneity in CSR response. We find that all CSR efforts do not garner equal rewards – both the direct and indirect effects vary significantly across the four CSR dimensions we study. Only those CSR initiatives that are related directly to the products consumers buy and the employees who serve them bring statistically and managerially significant returns in behavioral loyalty. A one standard deviation increase in consumer perceptions of such CSR initiatives leads to a gain in share of wallet of up to 2.5 percentage points or a price premium of up to 17%. Further, the indirect effect through price fairness perceptions can account for up to 15% of the total gain in SOW or a 2% price premium.
Prognostic Significance of Hematological Markers for Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Meta-analysis

Purpose: Hematological parameters are considered to be associated with prognosis in various cancers. We designed a meta-analysis to evaluate the prognostic significance of hematological parameters, including the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (CRP/ALB), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), plasma fibrinogen level, Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level, on clinical outcomes in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: Relevant studies published prior to February 2018 were identified in the PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE and Cochrane library databases. The primary outcome was overall survival (OS), and the secondary outcome was progression-free survival (PFS). The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Results: In total, 23 studies encompassing 23,417 patients were included in our meta-analysis. An elevated NLR was related to a poor OS (HR=1.46, 95% CI=1.30-1.63, p<0.00001) and PFS (HR=1.67, 95% CI=1.36-2.07, p<0.00001), and a high PLR was associated with a poor OS (HR=1.62, 95% CI=1.32-1.98, p<0.00001). Additionally, a high LMR predicted a significantly favorable OS (HR=0.50, 95% CI: 0.43-0.58, p<0.00001). CRP/ALB, the GPS, HDL-C and plasma fibrinogen levels were also related to OS and PFS. Conclusion: Inflammation-based prognostic scoring systems considering inflammatory cells (lymphocytes, neutrophils, platelets and monocytes) and proteins (ALB, CRP and HDL-C) are essential prognostic factors.
The Integrated Constructed Wetlands (ICW) concept

The free surface flow Integrated Constructed Wetlands (ICW) concept explicitly combines the objectives of cleansing and managing water flow from farmyards with that of integrating the wetland infrastructure into the landscape and enhancing its biological diversity. This leads to system robustness and sustainability. Hydraulic dissipation, vegetation interception, and evapotranspiration create an additional freeboard at the outlet of each wetland segment and at the point of discharge, thus enhancing hydraulic residence time and cleansing capacity during hydraulic fluxes. The principal design criteria leading to adequate effluent water quality (i.e., molybdate reactive phosphorus less than 1 mg/1) from ICW are that the wetland area needs to be sized by a factor of at least 1.3 times the farmyard area and the aspect ratio for the individual wetland segments (i.e., approximately four cells) needs to be less than 1:2.2 (width to length). Within a year of ICW commissioning, approximately 75% of farmyard runoff was intercepted, leading to improvements in the receiving surface waters of the catchment. Most of the recorded phosphate concentrations after ICW treatment agreed with the Irish Urban Wastewater Treatment Regulation 2001, which can be used as a benchmark to assess ICW treatment performance and which is usually applied unofficially to ICW even if it may appear to be too stringent. A case study of 13 ICW systems suggested that phosphorus exported from an ICW system was similar to the typical background concentrations of phosphorus export rates from land to water.
TEMPO-NORMALIZED MEASUREMENT AND TEST SET DEPENDENCY IN OBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF ENGLISH LEARNERS ’ TIMING CHARACTERISTICS

In this paper, we present experimental results on tempo-normalized measurements and sentence sets for the objective evaluation of English speech timing by Japanese learners. Phone-independent versus phone-dependent tempo normalizations were compared using raw duration differences between English native speakers and Japanese learners. Sentence length was adopted as a criterion to observe the effect of test sentence differences. Through experiments, high correlations between subjective evaluations and duration differences with normalization showed the remarkable advantage of phone-dependent normalization. Large correlation differences between long and short sentences indicated the need for carefully choosing test materials. Subjective evaluation score estimation by linear regression showed better performance using long sentences and duration differences with phonedependent normalization than a conventional one using all test sentences and duration differences without normalization.
Socio-Anthropological Approach to the Discourse of Transplant Patients in the District of Abidjan : Between Promotion of Kidney Donation and Silence

DOI: 10.21276/sjams.2018. 6.10. 14 Abstract: Today, living kidney transplant practices, as well as biomedical research, have made the body an application of technology and an object of scientific research. Indeed, kidney transplantation from living kidneys to humans is an innovative therapy in the history of medicine. It is indeed, with the application of this technique that man becomes a medicine for man, i.e. the elements and not only products of the body of one used as a therapeutic means for the other. Initially, this study aimed to analyse the discourse of the beneficiaries of living transplants in a scientific approach. To achieve the expected results, a methodology based on a qualitative approach was used. This has allowed us to achieve the following results: The choice of a living donor raises ethical questions that must be borne in mind by the stakeholders concerned. This practice is in total contradiction with the first principle of medical ethics, which is "first of all, do no harm", since a healthy person is subjected to surgery with its risk of complications. This is only possible if the objective expected for the recipient far exceeds the disadvantages of sampling.
Promiscuous DNA-binding of a mutant zinc finger protein corrupts the transcriptome and diminishes cell viability.

The rules of engagement between zinc finger transcription factors and DNA have been partly defined by in vitro DNA-binding and structural studies, but less is known about how these rules apply in vivo Here, we demonstrate how a missense mutation in the second zinc finger of Krüppel-like factor-1 (KLF1) leads to degenerate DNA-binding specificity in vivo, resulting in ectopic transcription and anemia in the Nan mouse model. We employed ChIP-seq and 4sU-RNA-seq to identify aberrant DNA-binding events genome wide and ectopic transcriptional consequences of this binding. We confirmed novel sequence specificity of the mutant recombinant zinc finger domain by performing biophysical measurements of in vitro DNA-binding affinity. Together, these results shed new light on the mechanisms by which missense mutations in DNA-binding domains of transcription factors can lead to autosomal dominant diseases.
Kittask Computational Models of Concept Similarity for the Estonian Language

The purpose of this thesis is to test and compare different computational models of similarity for the Estonian language. Models’ predictions for words and concepts similarity is usually compared against human predictions. To make such comparisons between models’ similarity estimates and human scores, a proper human annotated data set had to be created for the Estonian language. The SimLex-999 data set was chosen for translation into Estonian. This resource is used to test three families of computational models of similarity: distributional models, semantic networks and computer vision models. The results of this thesis can be used to evaluate future similarity models.
Metanarrative of the " New Father " and Narratives of Young Finnish First-Time Fathers

All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Metanarrative of the "New Father" and Narratives of Young Finnish First-Time Fathers Eerola, Petteri; Huttunen, Jouko
Transient enalapril attenuates the reduction in glomerular filtration rate in prenatally programmed rats

A maternal low‐protein diet has been shown to program hypertension and a reduction in glomerular filtration rate in adult offspring. This study examined the effect of continuous administration of enalapril in the drinking water and transient administration of enalapril administered from 21 to 42 days of age on blood pressure and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in male rats whose mothers were fed a 20% protein diet (control) or a 6% protein diet (programmed) during the last half of pregnancy. After birth all rats were fed a 20% protein diet. Programmed rats (maternal 6% protein diet) were hypertensive at 15 months of age compared to control rats and both continuous and transient administration of enalapril had no effect on blood pressure on control offspring, but normalized the blood pressure of programmed offspring. GFR was 3.2 ± 0.1 mL/min in the control group and 1.7 ± 0.1 mL/min in the programmed rats at 17 months of age (P < 0.001). The GFR was 3.0 ± 0.1 mL/min in the control and 2.7 ± 0.1 mL/min in the programmed group that received continuous enalapril in their drinking water showing that enalapril can prevent the decrease in GFR in programmed rats. Transient administration of enalapril had no effect on GFR in the control group (3.2 ± 0.1 mL/min) and prevented the decrease in GFR in the programmed group (2.9 ± 0.1 mL/min). In conclusion, transient exposure to enalapril for 3 weeks after weaning can prevent the hypertension and decrease in GFR in prenatal programmed rats.
Stigmergy, collective actions, and animal social spacing

Significance Marking animals avoid locations recently visited by others. We conceptualized this time nonlocal avoidance behavior as stigmergy, a form of mediated interaction that gives rise to coordinated behavior from seemingly independent individuals. In so doing, the concept of stigmergy is used beyond the realm of eusocial insects. To link the population spatiotemporal patterns that emerge from the individual nonlocal rules of interaction, we construct a collective movement model whereby randomly moving animals have the tendency to avoid marks left by a conspecific, depending on the age of the mark. As a result, we are able to quantify animal decision-making processes in terms of current and past locations of other individuals, linking behavior to history-dependent actions. Collective animal behavior studies have led the way in developing models that account for a large number of individuals, but mostly have considered situations in which alignment and attraction play a key role, such as in schooling and flocking. By quantifying how animals react to one another’s presence, when interaction is via conspecific avoidance rather than alignment or attraction, we present a mechanistic insight that enables us to link individual behavior and space use patterns. As animals respond to both current and past positions of their neighbors, the assumption that the relative location of individuals is statistically and history independent is not tenable, underscoring the limitations of traditional space use studies. We move beyond that assumption by constructing a framework to analyze spatial segregation of mobile animals when neighbor proximity may elicit a retreat, and by linking conspecific encounter rate to history-dependent avoidance behavior. Our approach rests on the knowledge that animals communicate by modifying the environment in which they live, providing a method to analyze social cohesion as stigmergy, a form of mediated animal–animal interaction. By considering a population of animals that mark the terrain as they move, we predict how the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge depend on the degree of stigmergy of the interaction processes. We find in particular that nonlocal decision rules may generate a nonmonotonic dependence of the animal encounter rate as a function of the tendency to retreat from locations recently visited by other conspecifics, which has fundamental implications for epidemic disease spread and animal sociality.
Species specificity of attachment and damage to oviduct mucosa by Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Neisseria gonorrhoeae colony type 1 were inoculated into organ cultures of oviducts obtained from various animal species. Gonococci rapidly attached to extensive areas of the mucosa of human oviducts (fallopian tubes), entered the mucous-secreting cells, and caused histological damage to the tissues. In addition, 2 to 4 days after infection there was complete loss of ciliary activity. In contrast, gonococci attached very scantily or not at all to the mucosa of rabbit, porcine, or bovine oviducts. However, the organisms multiplied in the medium of these organ cultures and were located sometimes in the base of mucosal cells and in large numbers in the submucosa. Despit this, there was no histological evidence of damage, and at least 7 days after infection ciliary activity was maintained equally as well as it was in uninfected control cultures. The host specificity of N. gonorrhoeae appears to be determined, at least in part, by a markedly diminished ability of the organisms to attach to and damage the genital mucosa of nonhuman species.