Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigations on the membrane interactions of naringin and its complexes with copper and iron: implications for their cytotoxicity

Flavonoid glycosides are a group of polyphenols with different glycoside substituents that possess diverse pharmacological activities albeit with lesser potency than their aglycone counterparts. Complexation with transition metal ions may alter their pharmacological activity, but this facet has remained unexplored thus far. Therefore, the present study aims to synthesize copper and iron complexes of naringin and investigate their nature of membrane interactions employing erythrocyte membrane models. An attempt to correlate their interaction and localization in the membrane with their cytotoxic effects was also made. Hypotonic hemolysis experiments carried out in the presence of naringin or its complexes with copper or iron reveals their different extent of penetration in to the membrane. Naringin and naringin–iron were found to preferentially interact with the membrane surface when compared with naringin–copper. The transformation of erythrocyte membrane from the normal discoidal shape to an echinocyte form induced by the addition of naringin, naringin–copper and naringin–iron complex suggests their interaction with the outer leaflet of the erythrocyte membrane. Naringin–copper exhibited the maximum tendency to alter the morphology of erythrocyte membranes. The copper and iron complexes of naringin exhibit superior cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cancer cells that can be a manifestation of their degree of perturbation of the membrane architecture as well as different levels of activation of various molecular targets.
TOXICITY OF SECOND GENERATION ANTICOAGULANT BROMADIOLONE AGAINST RATTUS RATTUS: INDIVIDUAL AND SEX SPECIFIC VARIATIONS

There are reports of development of resistance to the second generation anticoagulant, bromadiolone in rodents from several countries, but no systematic study has been carried out in India to record the status of bromadiolone resistance. To distinguish susceptible and resistant individuals of house rat, Rattus rattus, it was required to record their response towards toxicity of LD50 of bromadiolone. The Present study was carried out to determine LD50 value of 0.005% bromadiolone bait against R. rattus of both sexes. Different doses of cereal based bait of 0.005% bromadiolone were fed to different groups (5 rats per group) of male (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 32 and 64 g/100g bw) and female (2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 g/100g bw) rats. LD50 values were found to be 1.05 and 1.83 mg/kg bw of active ingredient corresponding to 2.10 and 3.67 g/100g bw of 0.005% bromadiolone bait for male and female rats, respectively. Female rats were found more tolerant to bromadiolone toxicity than male rats. In some cases, the mortality in rats of lower dose group was found more than those of higher dose group. Also, the groups which had consumed almost double the dose of bromadiolone from one another showed similar mortality rate. Within one group, days to death varied among individual rats. Present study therefore reports individual as well as sex specific variations in response towards toxicity of bromadiolone in R. rattus.
Effect of Initial Conditions on the Scalar Decay in Grid Turbulence at Low Rλ

Decaying grid turbulence is considered at low Reynolds number (Rλ ~ 50) for different initial conditions. Three different grid geometries are used. Heat is injected via a mandoline at a distance of 1.5 M from the grid. The amount of heating is such that temperature may be treated as a passive scalar. A small contraction (1.36:1) is added at a distance of 11M downstream of the grid. The power-law exponents for the scalar variance are compared with those for the turbulent kinetic energy. These exponents depend on the grid geometry. For the isotropic dissipation rate 〈χ〉iso, the power-law exponent agrees with that inferred from the temperature variance transport equation. Restricting the range of validity of the decay law affects the magnitudes of the origin and decay exponent. Secondorder temperature structure functions collapse when the normalization is based on the local temperature variance and the Corrsin microscale but the asymptotic form of this collapse depends on the initial conditions.
ASSESSMENT OF MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY AND SANITARY STATUS OF SWIMMING POOLS IN IBADAN , NIGERIA

The prevalence of recreational water illnesses contracted through the use of swimming pools is a public health concern worldwide. In many developing countries, there is a dearth of information on the microbiological quality and hence the sanitary status of swimming pools. Five swimming pools selected for the study in Ibadan were stratified by facility type into: Hotel/Guest House Facilities(HGHF), Recreational Facilities(RF) and Student Facility(SF). Water samples were collected from each facility and analysed to ascertain their physico-chemical and microbiological quality. Results showed that the mean turbidity of the pools were above the WHO guideline. Also, the mean pH values of samples from RF and SF facilities were above permissible limit. The mean coliform count of water samples from the selected swimming pools were above the WHO Guideline limit, thus signifying contamination. Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from RF, HGHF and SF while Pseudomonas aeruginosa was also isolated from the HGHF and RF. Only one facility was observed to have clear water such that the pool bottom could be seen clearly from the deck; availability of constant water supply was often a problem at the students’ facility. The study recommends improvement in personal hygiene of swimmers, adequate disinfection of the pools and enforcement of standards by government.
Effect of Distillers Grains Fat Level on Digestibility

Four steers were used in a three-period switchback design to determine effects of dry distillers grains fat level on digestibility. Forage based diets were supplemented with distillers grains with differing fat levels (6.9% or 13.3 % dry matter). Intake and digestibility of DM and organic matter did not differ between treatments. Neutral detergent fiber intake was less and digestibility tended to be less in steers supplemented with high fat distillers grains. Differences in fiber type and intake as well as fat intake may be responsible for the small difference in neutral detergent fiber digestibility.
Perturbation of convection-permitting NWP forecasts for flash-flood ensemble forecasting

Abstract. Mediterranean intense weather events often lead to devastating flash-floods. Extending the forecasting lead times further than the watershed response times, implies the use of numerical weather prediction (NWP) to drive hydrological models. However, the nature of the precipitating events and the temporal and spatial scales of the watershed response make them difficult to forecast, even using a high-resolution convection-permitting NWP deterministic forecasting. This study proposes a new method to sample the uncertainties of high-resolution NWP precipitation forecasts in order to quantify the predictability of the streamflow forecasts. We have developed a perturbation method based on convection-permitting NWP-model error statistics. It produces short-term precipitation ensemble forecasts from single-value meteorological forecasts. These rainfall ensemble forecasts are then fed into a hydrological model dedicated to flash-flood forecasting to produce ensemble streamflow forecasts. The verification on two flash-flood events shows that this forecasting ensemble performs better than the deterministic forecast. The performance of the precipitation perturbation method has also been found to be broadly as good as that obtained using a state-of-the-art research convection-permitting NWP ensemble, while requiring less computing time.
INVESTIGATION OF TOTAL SEED STORAGE PROTEINS OF PAKISTANI AND JAPANESE MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) THROUGH SDS-PAGE MARKERS

The assessment of genetic diversity among the members of a species is of vital importance for successful breeding and adaptability. In the present study 83 genotypes of maize of Pakistani and Japanese origin were evaluated for the total seed storage proteins using sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) through vertical slab unit. The total protein subunits were separated on 12% polyacrylamide gel using standard protocols. A total of 18 protein subunits were noted out of which 7 (39%) were monomorphic and 11 (61%) were polymorphic, with molecular weight ranging from 10 to 122 kDa. Coefficients of similarity among the accessions ranged between 0.89 and 1.00. The dendrogram obtained through UPGMA clustering method showed two main clusters: 1 and 2. First cluster comprised of 9 genotypes including Sahiwal-2002, while second cluster contained 74 genotypes including Aaiti-2002 and Sadaf. Over all a low level of polymorphism was observed in total seed storage protein patterns of maize genotypes from Pakistan as well as Japan. It is inferred from the present study that more genotypes of maize could be brought under study and more advanced biochemical techniques with more reliable results could be followed to bring assessment of genetic diversity of maize for planning breeding programs.
Simplified design technique for high performance microstrip multi-section couplers

A new design technique has been developed which improves the design of microstrip multi-section coupler by a simplified version of the non-uniform coupler method. The design is further improved by the use of the "saw-tooth" odd and even mode equalisation technique. The measured results demonstrate an improved performance over the multi-section coupler in terms of coupling performance and bandwidth, whilst the size and the fabrication tolerance are better than the nonuniform line coupler.
All-digital on-chip monitor for PMOS and NMOS process variability measurement utilizing buffer ring with pulse counter

This paper presents an all-digital process variability monitor which utilizes a simple buffer ring with a pulse counter. The proposed circuit monitors the process variability according to a count number of a single pulse which propagates on the buffer ring and a fixed logic level after the pulse vanishes. The proposed circuit has been fabricated in 65nm CMOS process and the measurement results demonstrate that we can monitor the PMOS and NMOS variabilities independently using the proposed monitoring circuit.
Comparative performance evaluation of open shortest path first, OSPF and routing information protocol, RIP in network link failure and recovery cases

The effect of Network link failure is undesirable which necessitated redundant links for reliability. This implies that operations are switched between links in case of failure. In the modern world where speed matters, it is important to investigate how quickly different routing protocols, in this case, Open Shortest Path First, OSPF and Routing Information Protocol, RIP recovers in case of link failure in a mesh topology. The research was simulated using OPNET. It was modelled after the University of Salford main campus, using three of its building, Newton, Peel and CW library. There were several links in between the buildings. There network was configured for the two routing protocols in different scenarios to test for their performance in case of single and multiple link(s) failure and recovery. It was observed that RIP converges faster (11.21s) than OSPF (53.06s) at the initial stage of the network in all cases. However, OSPF converges faster (Average of 5s — link failure, Average of 15s — Link recovery) than RIP (Average of 18.57s-link failure, Average of 18.28s — link recovery) in both single and multiple link(s) failure/recovery scenarios. Therefore, based on the performance comparison, OSPF should be used in a network prone to frequent link failure as it performs better in this situation. However, RIP would be preferred if the network is not prone to frequent network failure.
Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Hepatitis C Infection among Doctors and Dentists in Lahore

Background: The Hepatitis C virus infection has been documented in Medical doctors and surgeons after needle stick injuries. Doctors and dentists with chronic Hepatitis C Infectionhave been found responsible for HCV infection transmission to their patients. The dentists (oral and maxillofacial surgeons and periodontists) are at more risk of getting HCV than general population. Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of Hepatitis-C infection among doctors and dental surgeons of Lahore metropolitan. Methods: 151 doctors and dental surgeons from various organizations in and around Lahore Metropolitan from January 2011 to December 2012 were selected in this study. After taking informed consent, their blood samples were obtained according to standard protocol and processed for AntiHCV antibody detection through ELISA by using third generation ELISA Kit.The Anti-HCV positive serum samples were stored for RT-PCR to estimate the viral load and to investigate the genotypes of HCV for study. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 16. A P-value < 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: From 151 doctors and dental surgeons who were tested for anti-HCV, 2 (1.32%) were reactive to anti-HCV. The mean age of reactive and non reactive doctors and dental surgeons was 28.50±0.707 and 28.69± 4.01 years respectively. Significant association was seen for income per month (P-value<0.05), Blood transfusion (P-value<0.05), Ward in which they worked (P-value<0.05), Tattoo on the body (P-value<0.05) with respect to Anti-HCV status. Although some of the odds ratio were >1 but as p-values was insignificant so the odds ratio becomes inappropriate. Conclusion: In our study two doctors and dental surgeons have HCV infection and are at danger of the disease.
Study of association between schizophrenia and functional polymorphisms of genes encoding Bcl-2 family proteins

It is proposed that both pre- and postnatal as well as genetically determined abnormalities of the apoptotic processes are among factors responsible for the development of schizophrenia. The ultimate vulnerability of cells to diverse apoptotic stimuli is determined by the relative rat io of various pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic members of the B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) family proteins among which Bcl-2 proper is a major anti-apoptotic protei n, and Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax) is pro-apoptotic death promoter. Post mortem studies demonstrated the increased expression level of Bax encoding gene and high Bax/Bcl-2 proteins ratio in schizophrenia. However, it is yet unclear whether these alterations are genetically determined or caused by other factors. In the present study we, for the first, time evaluated the associa tion of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs1057369 (A>G) and rs956572 (G>A), rs1801018 (A>G) of Bax and Bcl-2 encoding genes, BAX and BCL2 , respectively, with schizophrenia in Armenian population using polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers. BAX rs1057369 SNP was found negatively associated with this disorder; the presence of BAX rs1057369*G minor allele, especially in homozygous form, was associated with decreased risk of developing schizophrenia, whereas no association between schiz ophrenia and BCL2 rs956572 and rs1801018 polymorphisms was revealed. Based on the obtained results we concluded that the rs1057369*G minor all ele of BAX may have a protective effect relative to schizophrenia, and th at this effect is most pronounced in individuals with GG homozygous genotype.
An Analysis of Factors Affecting the Consumer's Attitude of Trust and their Impact on Internet Purchasing Behavior

Consumer trust in online transactions significantly is more important than in traditional markets, and Lack of trust in e-commerce component is considered as one of the main reasons for crashing some dot-com companies. The aim of present study is to examine factors that affecting the formation trust and their impact on purchase behavior in decision making process. This research is based on data that obtained through a survey study. In this study, the hypotheses were presented considering the variables were associated with trust and technology acceptance and diffusion model that in 2009 by Yu and Tao was presented. In this regard, factors were considered in the overall format of the trustee, trustor and environmental factors in the three-step approach to building trust, purchase and purchase repeat. Hypotheses were tested by Spss software and finally became clear that some of the factors have the strong impact on which level of customer behavior.
Publisher’s Note: Synthesis, electromechanical characterization, and applications of graphene nanostructures

The emerging field of graphene brings together scientists and engineers as the discovered fundamental properties and effects encountered in this new material can be rapidly exploited for practical applications. There is potential for a two-dimensional graphene-based technology and recent works have already demonstrated the utility of graphene in building nanoelectromechanical systems, complex electronic circuits, photodetectors and ultrafast lasers. The state-of-the-art of substrate-suported graphene growth, and the current fundamental understanding of the electromechanical properties of graphene and graphene nanoribbons, represent important knowledge for developing new applications. © 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). [DOI: 10.1117/1.JNP. 6.064501]
Resistant nephrotic syndrome: review of trials using ACTH and a case series of six patients treated with ACTHar.

Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is associated with edema, proteinuria, hyperlipidemia, and an increased risk for deep vein thrombosis. Therapy may include glucocorticoids, immunosuppressive therapy, and/or chemotherapy. Each is associated with significant toxicity. Adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) has been approved for treating NS since the 1950s. Both the synthetic form of ACTH (cosyntropin-ACTH 1-24) and ACTHar (ACTH1-39), a synthetic gel isolated from porcine pituitary extracts, have been used successfully in treating NS but fewer than 100 published cases of ACTHar therapy are available in the literature. Membranous nephropathy is the best studied entity. Our case series adds six new cases to the literature and strengthens the growing consensus that ACTHar may be effective in treating focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. Case Study Wolf et al.; BJMMR, 5(11): 1453-1457, 2015; Article no.BJMMR. 2015.164 1454
The adult diet of Xanthoperla apicalis and Siphonoperla torrentium (Plecoptera, Chloroperlidae) in the Danube basin (Slovakia)

The gut contents of adult Xanthoperla apicalis and Siphonoperla torrentium were analysed. X. apicalis females eat mainly pollen, while males feed principally on detritus and pollen. Adults of S. torrentium, regardless of sex, eat mainly pollen. The presence of animal remains (claws and leg and antennae segments of Arthropoda) in the gut of several individuals of both species was observed and discussed.
An Improved Spatial Downscaling Procedure for TRMM 3B43 Precipitation Product Using Geographically Weighted Regression

Precipitation data at high spatio-temporal resolution are essential for hydrological, meteorological, and ecological research in local basins and regions. The coarse spatial resolution (0.25°) of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 product is insufficient for practical requirements. In this paper, a multivariable geographically weighted regression (GWR) downscaling method was developed to obtain 1 km precipitation. The GWR method was compared with two other downscaling methods [univariate regression (UR) and multivariate regression (MR)] in terms of the performance of downscaled annual precipitation. Variables selection procedures were proposed for selecting appropriate auxiliary factors in all three downscaling methods. To obtain the monthly 1 km precipitation, two monthly downscaling strategies (annual-based fraction disaggregation method and monthly based GWR method) were evaluated. All analysis was tested in Gansu province, China with a semiarid to arid climate for three typical years. Validation with measurements from 24 rain gauge stations showed that the proposed GWR method performed consistently better than the UR and MR methods. Two monthly downscaling methods were efficient in deriving the monthly precipitation at 1 km. The former method faces the challenge of precipitation spatial heterogeneity and the derived monthly precipitation heavily depends on the annual downscaled results, which could lead to the accumulation of errors. The monthly based GWR method is suitable for downscaling monthly precipitation, but the accuracy of original TRMM 3B43 data would have large influence on downscaling results. It was demonstrated that the proposed method was effective for obtaining both annual and monthly TRMM 1 km precipitation with high accuracy.
Thermal performance modeling of foil wound concentrated coils in electric machines

While the use of foil windings in transformers and air core inductors is not uncommon, their use in electric machines is just emerging. Although prototype realizations have been reported in the literature, a definitive analysis of their thermal performance is necessary to evaluate their potential for broad applications. This paper is devoted to presenting a comprehensive model for evaluating their thermal performance including loss modeling and temperature rise prediction in realistic designs. An overview of foil windings in electric machines and their advantages in improved fill factor is presented, along with experimental results that compare the AC losses and temperature distribution under identical steady-state operating conditions with a prototype round conductor coil and foil conductor coil. A lumped parameter thermal model that predicts the heat transfer behavior of the foil conductor coil is presented along with supporting experimental results.
NIST Special Publication 500-253 May 2003 GLUT/Tk: ∗ OpenGL † with Tcl/Tk

GLUT/Tk provides a mechanism for control of 3D graphics applications by a full-featured GUI system. It connects control windows written in Tk to OpenGL graphics windows managed by GLUT, with minimal disruption of each package’s default program structure and small changes to the GLUT source code. GLUT/Tk is available for both Unix/X and Windows platforms, and our experience indicates that using GLUT/Tk, instead of platform speciﬁc inter-process communication (IPC) methods, makes programs much easier to port.