Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simultaneous Elimination of Carbon and Nitrogen Compounds of Petrochemical Effluents by Nitrification and Denitrification

Human activities have resulted in the increase of nitrogen and carbon content in wastewater and groundwater affecting the environment (Bremmen, 2002). The average water consumption in Mexico is close to 0.25 m3/d, resulting in municipal and industrial wastewater generation between 168 and 232 m3/s, respectively. Only 12 and 20% of wastewater has received some treatment (Monroy et al., 2000). The increase of nitrogen compounds such as nitrate, nitrite and ammonium in superficial and groundwater has caused several environmental effects such as eutrophication, toxicity to aquatic organisms, loss of biodiversity (Galloway, 1998; Mateju et al., 1992; Schimel et al., 1996); and human health damages as methahemoglobinemia (Mateju et al., 1992; Morgan-Sagastumen et al., 1994); formation of nitrosoamines which are potentially carcinogenic compounds (Cerhan et al., 2001, as cited in Gonzalez-Blanco et al., 2011) and gastric cancer (Knobeloch et al., 2000; Ward et al., 2005). In the north of Gulf of Mexico, an important hypoxic zone has been detected where oxygen concentration is lower than 2 mg/l due to high nitrate discharges and eutrophication (Alexander et al., 2000; McIsaac et al., 2002). Nitrate concentrations between 7 and 156 mg/l (Anton & Diaz, 2000) and higher than 80 mg/l (Munoz et al., 2004; Pacheco et al., 2001) have been determined in aquifers of middle and south of Mexico, respectively. These nitrate concentrations are higher than the maximum levels established by Secretary of Environmental and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), NOM-003-ECOL-1997 (15 and 40 mg total nitrogen/l) (Diario Oficial de la Federacion, 1998) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA, 2007) (10 mg N-NO3-/l, 1 mg N-NO2-/l and 10 mg N-NH4+/l). Therefore, it is clear the need of applying effective wastewater treatments for reducing nitrogen contamination.
The Bispectral Index and Explicit Recall During the Intraoperative Wake-up Test for Scoliosis Surgery

In this prospective study, we evaluated the bispectral index (BIS) and postoperative recall during the intraoperative wake-up examination in 34 children and adolescents undergoing scoliosis surgery. Each anesthesiologist was blinded to BIS values throughout surgery and the wake-up test. The BIS, mean arterial blood pressure, and heart rate were compared at: before starting the wake-up test, patient movement to command, and after the patient was reanesthetized. The anesthetic technique for Group 1 was small-dose isoflurane, nitrous oxide, fentanyl, and midazolam and for Group 2 was nitrous oxide, fentanyl, and midazolam. Controlled hypotension was used for all cases. At patient movement to command, the patients were told a specific color to remember (teal) and on the second postoperative day were interviewed for explicit recall of the color and other intraoperative events. A total of 37 wake-up tests were performed in 34 patients. There was a significant increase in both groups of BIS (P < 0.001), mean arterial blood pressure (P < 0.001), and heart rate (P < 0.01) at the time of purposeful patient movement followed by a significant decline in BIS after reintroduction of anesthesia (P < 0.01). No patient recalled intraoperative pain, one patient recalled the wake-up test but not the color, and five patients recalled the specified color. We conclude that BIS may be a useful clinical monitor for predicting patient movement to command during the intraoperative wake-up test, particularly when controlled hypotension is used and hemodynamic responses to emergence of anesthesia are blunted.
Composition in Distributional Models of Semantics

Vector-based models of word meaning have become increasingly popular in cognitive science. The appeal of these models lies in their ability to represent meaning simply by using distributional information under the assumption that words occurring within similar contexts are semantically similar. Despite their widespread use, vector-based models are typically directed at representing words in isolation, and methods for constructing representations for phrases or sentences have received little attention in the literature. This is in marked contrast to experimental evidence (e.g., in sentential priming) suggesting that semantic similarity is more complex than simply a relation between isolated words. This article proposes a framework for representing the meaning of word combinations in vector space. Central to our approach is vector composition, which we operationalize in terms of additive and multiplicative functions. Under this framework, we introduce a wide range of composition models that we evaluate empirically on a phrase similarity task.
Analyzing Two-Settlement Electricity Market Equilibrium by Coevolutionary Computation Approach

Forward contracts play an important role for market power mitigation and risk hedging in electricity markets. In this paper, a two-settlement electricity market including a forward market and a spot market is formulated as a two-stage game. The linear supply function equilibrium (LSFE) model and Cournot model are used to model strategic bidding for the spot market, while the forward market is modeled by Cournot model. A coevolutionary genetic algorithm (CGA) is employed to determine the market equilibrium. The paper then examines the question whether generation companies (GenCos) would voluntarily enter forward markets due to economic inspiration and studies theoretically and numerically the factors which can affect the bidding behaviors of GenCos. The effectiveness of CGA in determining the market equilibrium is investigated and demonstrated based on two test examples. The studies show that GenCos' decisions on the participation in forward markets depend significantly on the type of competition that they have in the spot market. Moreover, GenCos' bidding behaviors in the forward market can be affected by their cost parameters and the slope of system demand function significantly.
TARJETAS DE VALORACIÓN CULTURAL: UN LLAMADO PARA DESARROLLAR SENTIDOS PARTICIPATIVOS DE MONITOREO Y EVALUACIÓN

Los profesionales del cambio social reconocen cada vez mas que los indicadores tradicionales, tanto en los conocimientos como en las actitudes y practicas (“KAP”) participantes, resultan inadecuados para calibrar la eficacia de los programas. En este articulo se explora el potencial de los metodos de investigacion participativa como medio para generar otros mas apropiados. Los nuevos indicadores propuestos, bautizados como tarjetas de valoracion cultural (“cultural scorecards” en ingles), son sentidos locales relevantes y culturalmente arraigados destinados a evaluar lo que constituye un “cambio” para el usuario final. Se analizan ejemplos de tarjetas de valoracion cultural provenientes de tres proyectos de evaluacion participativa llevados acabo en Uganda, India y Peru, con el fin de ilustrar el valor que anaden a las tradiciones actuales de monitoreo, valoracion y evaluacion de impactos. Este analisis da lugar a dos implicaciones fundamentales; (1) una relacionada con el valor epistemologico de las tarjetas de valoracion cultural, y (2) otra que habla del potencial al emplear esas tarjetas en todo tipo de investigacion intervencional.
Quantitative Easing and Volatility Spillovers Across Countries and Asset Classes

We identify networks of volatility spillovers and examine time-varying spillover intensities with daily implied volatilities of U.S. Treasury bonds, global stock indices, and commodities. The U.S. stock market is the center of the international volatility spillover network, and its volatility spillover to other markets has intensified since 2008. Moreover, U.S. quantitative easing alone explains 40%–55% of intensifying spillover from the United States. The addition of interest rate and currency factors does not diminish the dominant role of quantitative easing. Our findings highlight the primary contribution of U.S. unconventional monetary policy to volatility spillovers and potential global systemic risk. This paper was accepted by Neng Wang, finance .
Immunogenicity of oncolytic vaccinia viruses JX-GFP and TG6002 in a human melanoma in vitro model: studying immunogenic cell death, dendritic cell maturation and interaction with cytotoxic T lymphocytes

Oncolytic virotherapy is an emerging immunotherapeutic modality for cancer treatment. Oncolytic viruses with genetic modifications can further enhance the oncolytic effects on tumor cells and stimulate antitumor immunity. The oncolytic vaccinia viruses JX-594-GFP+/hGM-CSF (JX-GFP) and TG6002 are genetically modified by secreting granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or transforming 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) into 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). We compared their properties to kill tumor cells and induce an immunogenic type of cell death in a human melanoma cell model using SK29-MEL melanoma cells. Their influence on human immune cells, specifically regarding the activation of dendritic cells (DCs) and the interaction with the autologous cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) clone, was investigated. Melanoma cells were infected with either JX-GFP or TG6002 alone or in combination with 5-FC and 5-FU. The influence of viral infection on cell viability followed a time- and multiplicity of infection dependent manner. Combination of virus treatment with 5-FU resulted in stronger reduction of cell viability. TG6002 in combination with 5-FC did not significantly strengthen the reduction of cell viability in this setting. Expression of calreticulin and high mobility group 1 protein (HMGB1), markers of immunogenic cell death (ICD), could be detected after viral infection. Accordingly, DC maturation was noted after viral oncolysis. DCs presented stronger expression of activation and maturation markers. The autologous CTL clone IVSB expressed the activation marker CD69, but viral treatment failed to enhance cytotoxicity marker. In summary, vaccinia viruses JX-GFP and TG6002 lyse melanoma cells and induce additional immunostimulatory effects to promote antitumor immune response. Further investigation in vivo is needed to consolidate the data.
Recommendations for euthanasia of experimental animals: Part 1

Working Party: Mrs Bryony Close (Chair), Dr Keith Banister, Dr Vera Baumans, Dr Eva-Maria Bernoth, Dr Niall Bromage, Dr John Bunyan, Professor Dr Wolff Erhardt, Professor Paul Flecknell, Dr Neville Gregory, Professor Dr Hansjoachim Hackbarth, Professor David Morton & Mr Clifford Warwick Correspondence to: Mrs B Close, Battleborough Croft, Battleborough Lane, Brent Knoll, Highbridge. Somerset TA94DS, UK
Study on the Growth Inhibition of Human Multiple Myeloma Cells by an IL‐6Rα Mutant

DM650, a soluble human IL‐6Ralpha mutant with mutation of C277D/H280I, was previously shown to exhibit an antagonism to IL‐6, which resulted in growth‐inhibition of human multiple myeloma cell line AF‐10 autocrining as the growth‐stimulating factor. We investigated here the nature of the growth inhibition by examining cell apoptosis. Flow‐cytometric analysis of the DNA fragmentation demonstrated that 7.2% of the AF‐10 cells were apoptotic after 24 h of treatment with DM650. The constitutive gene expression of bcl‐2 in AF‐10 cells indicated that apoptosis suppressed by IL‐6 was independent of bcl‐2 regulation. The altered gene expression of c‐myc and p53 suggested that a novel apoptosis pathway, other than that suppressed by IL‐6, might be triggered by a complex of DM650 and IL‐6.
Studies on biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles of risperidone: in vitro and in vivo evaluation.

AIM The aim of this work was to develop extended-release risperidone nanoparticles for parenteral delivery (intravenous) and to reduce the dose-dependent extrapyramidal side effects of risperidone. METHODS Polymeric nanoparticles containing risperidone made of poly (epsilon-caprolactone) were designed by the nanoprecipitation method using polymeric stabilizers (poloxamers). The in vivo efficacy of prepared formulations and the risperidone solution was studied by administering them intravenously to apomorphine-treated mice. Extrapyramidal side effects of the risperidone and its formulations were also studied. RESULTS The particle size of the prepared nanoparticles ranged between 99 and 304 nm. Approximately 78-85% drug-encapsulation efficiency was achieved when risperidone was loaded at 1.7-4.1% by weight of the polymer. During in vivo studies, prepared risperidone-containing formulations showed a significant prolonged antipsychotic effect than that of risperidone solution, also having less extrapyramidal side effects. CONCLUSION The prolonged effect of risperidone was obtained from the nanoparticles of risperidone administered by the intravenous route and this may improve the treatment of psychotic disorders by dose reduction.
p53 protein accumulation and p53 gene mutation in esophageal carcinoma

p53 gene mutation and p53 protein accumulation are common in human cancer. However, their clinical significance is controversial and p53 accumulation may not correlate with gene mutation. The current study investigates the occurrence of p53 alterations in esophageal carcinoma, the correlation between the analyses at the gene and protein level, and their prognostic significance.
Clinical impact of upper gastrointestinal tract injuries in glyphosate-surfactant oral intoxication

1 Fifty patients with glyphosate-surfactant oral ingestion were studied with upper gastrointestinal (UGI) endoscopic grading using Zargar's modified grading system for mucosal corrosive injury. 2 Esophageal injury was seen in 68% of the patients, gastric injury in 72%, and duodenal injury in 16%. There were no grade 3 injuries. The upper gastrointestinal tract injuries caused by glyphosate-surfactant were minor in comparison with those by other strong acids. 3 The WBC count, amount of glyphosate-surfactant ingested, length of hospital stay and the occurrence of serious complications increased markedly in the group which had grade 2 esophageal injuries. Thus, the severity of the esophageal injuries may be a prognostic factor for the patient with glyphosate-surfactant ingestion. 4 The UGI endoscopy may be indicated for grading esophageal injury in patients who have ingested glyphosate-surfactant in amounts greater than 100 ml. Physicians should pay more attention to the patients with grade 2 or 3 esophageal injuries to prevent serious complications and to provide aggressive supportive care.
Compact Size Directional Coupler for Mobile RFID Reader

In order to offer RFID services on mobile phones, the RFID reader must be embedded on the handset as a chip. However, the directional coupler, a ceramic passive component used in conventional handsets, of an RFID system using an identical Tx/Rx carrier frequency has a significant volume limitation compared to active components. This paper presents the directional coupler design for UHF RFID mobile reader using IPD (integrated passive device) process. The parallel-coupled line theory has been used for formulation of a T and pi-type coupler. Coupler with dimensions of 1.74times1. 6, and 1.32times1. 4 mm was assembled using the IPD process.
NEUROIMAGING IN DEMENTIA

As treatment of neurodegenerative disease moves toward therapies aimed at specific molecular abnormalities, the importance of early and accurate diagnosis will increase, as will the need for sensitive measures for tracking disease progression. Brain imaging, using MRI and PET scanning, offers a variety of highly reliable techniques that examine the structure, chemical content, metabolic state, and functional capacity of the brain. For all the major neurodegenerative disorders, relatively specific findings can be identified with some or all of these techniques. New approaches for imaging specific molecular pathology likely will revolutionize brain imaging and be combined with established imaging approaches to obtain a complete molecular, structural, and metabolic characterization, which could be used to improve diagnosis, and to stage each patient and follow disease progression and response to treatment.
EFFECT OF FOLLICULAR FLUID SUPPLEMENTATION ON IN-VITRO MATURATION AND DEVELOPMENTAL RATE OF BUFFALO OOCYTES

The effect of supplementation of follicular fluid (FF) at 5.0% concentration in in vitro maturation (IVM) media on in vitro production of buffalo embryos was studied. Oocytes were aspirated from slaughter house derived ovaries and graded. Cultutarable quality oocytes were randomly cultured in IVM media with FF (n = 334) and without FF (n = 228) and subjected to maturation. The maturation rate, cleavage rate and embryo developmental rate was recorded in both the groups. The maturation, cleavage, morula and blastocyst rates (78.2 ± 1.8, 41.2 ± 1.3, 15.2 ± 0.7 and 7.7 ± 0.9 % respectively) were significantly (P < 0.01) higher when oocytes were matured in media supplemeted with FF than controls (55.3 ± 1.9, 28.7 ± 1.5, 6.7 ± 0.8 and 2.2 ± 0.8 % respectively). Thus, it could be concluded that supplementation of FF (5.0 %) to IVM media would benefit the maturation, cleavage and embryo development in buffalo IVF programme.
Cascaded transform space watermarking based on analysis of local entropy variation

Increasing multimedia content production and exchange has increased the need for better protection of copyright by means of watermarking. Different methods have been proposed to satisfy the tradeoff between imperceptibility and robustness as two important characteristics in watermarking while maintaining proper data-embedding capacity. Recently watermarking methods based on contourlet transform (CT) have demonstrated promising results. In this paper we have improved CT-based watermarking by overcoming some of previous methods' deficiencies. Our method cascades CT and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to embed binary logos as watermark. Image blocks local entropy variations are used to adaptively control the strength factor of watermarking. This has enabled our method to take advantage of all image blocks to elevate the embedding capacity while preserving imperceptibility. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed method and better results comparing to similar works in this domain.
Positron Emission Tomography in the Evaluation of Laryngeal Carcinoma

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a relatively new radiologic imaging technique based on glucose analog uptake and metabolism in tumor tissue. In this study, PET was used in evaluating 38 patients with laryngeal cancer. Twenty-five patients were examined with PET prior to treatment to study the reliability of PET in identifying the primary tumor and assessing regional nodal status; 13 patients who had previously received irradiation with curative intent and who represented differential diagnostic problems were imaged to differentiate between irradiation effects and recurrent or residual cancer. Findings for both groups were compared to results of clinical evaluation and those of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The PET results were essentially identical to those of CT, MRI, and clinical evaluation in identifying metastatic lesions (82% correct), and were as reliable as CT and MRI for correctly identifying primary tumors (88%). Positron emission tomography was most helpful in differentiating recurrent tumor from postirradiation tissue sequelae. However, its lack of anatomic detail made PET less valuable for primary staging and therapeutic planning. It may enhance the diagnostic accuracy of CT and MRI where anatomic distortions occur or where diagnostic criteria for CT and MRI are ambiguous.
A Survey On Socio-Cultural And Economical Factors Affecting Women Entrepreneurs In Khouzestan Province

The target of this study was to determine the socio-cultural and economical factors affecting women's entrepreneurship in Khouzestan province. The subject were entrepreneual women in Ahwaz, Dezfol, khorramshar and Abadan, 100 entrepreurs were selected based on simple random sampling. The measurement instrument of the research was questionnaire. Descriptive and analytic procedures were employed. The current research was a correlation type. Data analysis resulted using Pearson and regression coefficient showed that socio-cultural and economic factors had positive effect on women entrepreneurs. The present research revealed that social Factors had more effect on women entrepreneurship in Khouzestan than other factors.
Concurrent Use of Opioids and Benzodiazepines: Evaluation of Prescription Drug Monitoring by a United States Laboratory

Objectives: Recently, more than 63% of the 52,404 drug overdose deaths in the United States involved heroin and opioid pain medications. More than 30% of opioid-related deaths also involved benzodiazepines. Previous studies examining the extent of concurrent opioid and benzodiazepine use have relied on prescription data. To gain fuller insight into the extent of the concurrent use problem, we analyzed opioid and benzodiazepine prescription patterns in the context of drug testing results. Methods: All specimens from patients that were prescribed at least 1 drug and were tested for both opioids and benzodiazepines by a national reference laboratory were included. This resulted in an analytical set of 231,228 sets of test results from 144,535 patients with diverse demographic factors being tested in a variety of health care settings. Results: Laboratory test results indicated concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines in over 25% of patients. In 52% of test results with evidence of concurrent use, 1 drug class was prescribed and the other was non-prescribed. Nearly 1 in 5 specimens (19%) testing positive for prescribed opioids also tested positive for non-prescribed benzodiazepines. Over 15% of specimens with prescribed benzodiazepines also demonstrated non-prescribed opioid use. Conclusions: The extent of concurrent use of benzodiazepines and opioids, particularly non-prescribed use, suggests the need for more effective clinician assessment and intervention. The results support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opioid prescribing guidelines that drug testing occur before and periodically throughout opioid use and suggest that this testing should be extended to patients prescribed benzodiazepines as well.
Energy-Efficient and Low-Complexity Uplink Transceiver for Massive Spatial Modulation MIMO

In this paper, we design the uplink transceiver for a new multiuser (MU) massive spatial modulation (SM) multiple-input-multiple-output (SM-MIMO) system over frequency-selective fading channels, where the base station (BS) is equipped with massive antennas, and user equipment (UE) has multiple transmit antennas (TAs) but only one radio-frequency (RF) chain. UE transmit data bits to the BS simultaneously by cyclic-prefix single-carrier (CP-SC) SM. For the uplink MU detection (MUD), we construct a low-complexity generalized approximate message passing detector (GAMPD), which can exploit both the sparsity and prior probability distribution of the transmitted signal and is suitable for hardware implementation because its most complex operation is only matrix-vector multiplication. Its mean square error (MSE) and uncoded bit error rate (BER) performances are also analyzed based on the state evolution (SE). Compared with stagewised linear detectors, GAMPD shows orders-of-magnitude lower complexity. Moreover, simulation results indicated that GAMPD approaches to the performance of maximum-likelihood (ML) detection and outperforms minimum MSE (MMSE) significantly. Finally, to design energy-efficient massive SM-MIMO, we propose a practical algorithm to optimize the key system parameters (e.g., the transmission power, the numbers of the BS antennas or UE, or the TAs at the UE). Numerical results indicate that low BS circuit power consumption and long channel coherence time are the two key prerequisites for the success of massive SM-MIMO.