Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of Effect of Experimental Pre-Eclampsia on Plasma Lipocalin-2 Level in Rats

Background: preeclampsia (PE) is a pregnancy related complication defined as a disease that begins in the placenta and ends at the maternal endothelium. It is a multi-stage disease that starts by utero-placental insufficiency and leads to generalized maternal endothelial dysfunction.Lipocalin2 (LCN2) is a 25kDasecretory glycoprotein implicated in many functions such as apoptosis and innate immunity. Also, it has been recognized to have potential effects in obesity, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice and humans. Many controversial studies about the changes in the plasma LCN2 levels in PE are reported. Aim: The current study was designed to perform an animal model of experimental PE in a trial to demonstrate the possible relationship between PE and the circulating LCN2 levels. Design: forty eight healthy adult female albino rats and eight adult male albino rats were used. The male rats were used for induction of pregnancy. The adult female rats (n=48) were divided into four equal groups: group I (control non-pregnant group), group II (non-pregnant treated with L-NAME), group III (normal pregnant group) and group IV (pregnant treated with L-NAME to induce a model of experimental PE). In all groups, body weight, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, circulating levels of urea, creatinine, triglycerides (TGs), IL-6, endothelin-1(ET-1), vitamin D (VD), LCN2 and D-dimers in addition to total urinary proteins are measured. Histopathological examination of placental sections was done in group III and group IV. Results: The results of the present study revealed a significant increase in the body weight, BMI, MAP, total urinary proteins, circulating levels of urea, creatinine, TGs, IL-6, ET-1, LCN2 and D-dimers in both group II and IV. In addition to a significant decrease in VD in the same two groups. In group III, there was a significant increase in body weight, BMI, total urinary proteins and circulating levels of TGS, D-dimers and LCN2. There was a significant decrease in VD and MAP. Moreover, there was a positive significant correlation between LCN2 and all measured parameters except VD in group IV together with a positive significant correlation between LCN2 and MAP, IL-6, ET-1and D-dimers in group II.The results in group IV are supported by the histopathological examination results. Conclusion: L-NAME can be used for induction of experimental PE and plasma levels of LCN2 can be used as an indicator for the renal complications and coagulopathies in PE. Further studies are needed to ascertain this association.
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS OF NUTRIENTS ON INSECTS

Digestibility and nutrient composition of foodstuffs, be they plant or not, and the nutritional requirements of insects vary. The qualitative nutritional requirements among insects are quite similar. Therefore, qualities of foodstuff as measured by its ability to promote or support growth, etc. depend on how well the nutrient composition of foodstuff made available by digestion fits the nutritional requirements of the insect. This is better seen using synthetic diets rather than plants. From such investigations it is found that, provided all essential nutrients are present, the proportions of essential nutrients in a foodstuff contribute more to nutritional quality than do the absolute amounts of nutrients. Thus, nutrient balance per se can affect: rate of food consumption and efficient utilization; parasites with respect to host food; rate of growth and development as such, and with respect to temperature; and food selection in an insect.
Composition, mineral safety index, calcium, zinc and phytate interrelationships in four fast-foods consumed in Nigeria

The proximate, mineral and amino acid contents and calculated values of calcium/phytate Ca/Phy, Zn/Phy, [Ca][Phy]/[Zn], Ca/P, Na/K, Ca/Mg, [K/(Ca+Mg)], mineral safety index (MSI) for Na, Mg, P, Ca, Fe and Zn, and the amino acid scores were determined in four fast-foods consumed in Nigeria. The fast-foods were meat pie, doughnut, moin-moin (steamed bean pudding) and cake. In the proximate: protein ranged 156-327 g/kg, carbohydrate ranged 467-664 g/kg and energy ranged 14-16 mega Joules (14-16 MJ/kg). In minerals: Zn ranged 323-1071 mg/kg and 119-327 mg/kg in Fe while Cu and Co were not detected. The highest phytate level (2554 mg/kg) was observed in moin-moin . [Ca][Phy]/[Zn] ranged 0.04-0.06 showing Zn availability for body biochemical use. The essential amino acids were on the high side with range of 243-317 mg/g crude protein. The limiting amino acids varied. The best MSI was observed for Ca while the worst was observed for Zn showing that Zn might have some deleterious effects. Two independent experiments were conducted. KEY WORDS : Fast-foods, Minerals, Amino acids, Mineral Safety Index Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2012 , 26(1), 43-54. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4314/bcse.v26i1. 5
Interannual climatic variation mediates elevated CO2 and O3 effects on forest growth

We analyzed growth data from model aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) forest ecosystems grown in elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide ([CO2]; 518 μL L−1) and ozone concentrations ([O3]; 1.5 × background of 30–40 nL L−1 during daylight hours) for 7 years using free‐air CO2 enrichment technology to determine how interannual variability in present‐day climate might affect growth responses to either gas. We also tested whether growth effects of those gasses were sustained over time. Elevated [CO2] increased tree heights, diameters, and main stem volumes by 11%, 16%, and 20%, respectively, whereas elevated ozone [O3] decreased them by 11%, 8%, and 29%, respectively. Responses similar to these were found for stand volume and basal area. There were no growth responses to the combination of elevated [CO2+O3]. The elevated [CO2] growth stimulation was found to be decreasing, but relative growth rates varied considerably from year to year. Neither the variation in annual relative growth rates nor the apparent decline in CO2 growth response could be explained in terms of nitrogen or water limitations. Instead, growth responses to elevated [CO2] and [O3] interacted strongly with present‐day interannual variability in climatic conditions. The amount of photosynthetically active radiation and temperature during specific times of the year coinciding with growth phenology explained 20–63% of the annual variation in growth response to elevated [CO2] and [O3]. Years with higher photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) during the month of July resulted in more positive growth responses to elevated [CO2] and more negative growth responses to elevated [O3]. Mean daily temperatures during the month of October affected growth in a similar fashion the following year. These results indicate that a several‐year trend of increasingly cloudy summers and cool autumns were responsible for the decrease in CO2 growth response.
Coastal erosion, global sea-level rise, and the loss of sand dune plant habitats

Much of America's coastline is threatened by overdevelopment and coastal erosion, driven by global sea-level rise, a problem that is attracting the attention of researchers around the world. Although we have now acknowledged the impending risks, little is known about the response of spatially dependent dune plant communities to the loss or restriction of their habitat. In order to study this development, a spatially explicit model of sand dune plant succession on Galveston Island, Texas, was created, using sea-level rise as the primary mechanism causing local erosion. Simulations of sea-level rise scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated that beach erosion constrained plants to a narrow area, resulting in a breakdown of the successional process. The loss of late-succession plants along coastlines, their dependent faunal species, and possible solutions are discussed. This model and example serves as a harbinger of the future for many of the US's sandy beaches and co.
Enzyme-mediated carbonate precipitation (EMCP) for soil improvement: the effect of magnesium substitution

The enzyme-mediated calcite precipitation (EMCP) was evaluated as a soilimprovement technique. In the present work, magnesium chloride was newly added to the injecting solutions to delay the reaction rate and to enhance the amount of carbonate precipitation. Soil specimens were prepared in PVC cylinders and treated with concentration-controlled solutions composed of urea, urease, calcium, and magnesium chloride. The mechanical properties of the treated soil specimens were examined through unconfined compressive strength (UCS) tests. A precipitation ratio of the carbonate up to 90% of the maximum theoretical precipitation was achieved by adding a small amount of magnesium chloride. Adding magnesium chloride as a delaying agent was indeed found to reduce the reaction rate of the precipitation, which may increase the volume of the treated soil if used in real fields because of the slower precipitation rate and the resulting higher injectivity. A mineralogical analysis revealed that magnesium chloride decreases the crystal size of the precipitated materials and that another carbonate of aragonite is newly formed. Mechanical test results indicated that carbonate precipitates within the soils and brings about a significant improvement in strength. A maximum UCS of 0.6 MPa was obtained from the treated samples.
Perspectives on Initiating Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) involves partnerships between academics and communities to address community priorities through collaborative research. Undergraduate student engagement in CBPR as part of an academic course is uncommon and there is limited evidence on the lessons learned about partnership initiation from course-based partnerships. This paper shares lessons from Medford and Tufts Community Health (MATCH), a course-based CBPR initiative. At the end of this course, three students, the instructor, and two community partners identified a list of four key lessons learned about partnership initiation. First, undergraduates should understand and explicitly attend to the privileges they bring to CBPR as students. Second, internal “champions,” who serve in a dual role in the community and university can provide students with important historical context to support partnership initiation. Third, students should assess and communicate what they can offer to community partners. Fourth, instructors should facilitate relationship building within student research teams. These lessons are critical for undergraduate instructors teaching CBPR courses and looking to initiate community partnerships with students
Accelerated DRL Agent for Autonomous Voltage Control Using Asynchronous Advantage Actor-critic

This paper presents a novel data-driven parallel framework for autonomous voltage control (AVC) of the power grid. The proposed framework employs a distributed Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithm named Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (A3C) to regulate voltage profiles in a power grid. A well-trained accelerated agent is obtained in the proposed framework by employing multiple workers simultaneously and interacting with a power grid simulator repeatedly. With the proposed framework, multiple threads can run in parallel. A well-trained agent, which utilizes the parameters acquired by the joint training of multiple workers, is obtained and tested through a realistic Illinois 200-bus system with consideration of N-1 contingencies. The training and testing results show the significant speedup capability and excellent numerical stability of the proposed framework.
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF MICRO- ELECTROMECHANICAL FLYING INSECT FLAPPING WINGS AERODYNAMIC PERFORMANCE

Microelectromechanical flying insect (entomopter) is the one of the youngest group of aircraft. Aerodynamic phenomena during entomopter flight are still not well recognized. Present work concerns on experimental investigations of flapping wings robot (so called flapper), conducted in water tunnel. Flapper is dipterous mechanism, and each wing can perform various spherical motions (wings are rotated around point). The aim of work is to investigate, how the lift force, tangent force and necessary power for horizontal flight are changing due to various kinematics rules of wing motion. The experiment consist of measurements of hydrodynamic forces generated by entomopter wings. Test was performed for various pitch angle trajectories. In addition, pitching moment and lift force derivatives of the forward velocity were designated.
Truncation Cross Entropy Loss for Remote Sensing Image Captioning

Recently, remote sensing image captioning (RSIC) has drawn an increasing attention. In this field, the encoder–decoder-based methods have become the mainstream due to their excellent performance. In the encoder–decoder framework, the convolutional neural network (CNN) is used to encode a remote sensing image into a semantic feature vector, and a sequence model such as long short-term memory (LSTM) is subsequently adopted to generate a content-related caption based on the feature vector. During the traditional training stage, the probability of the target word at each time step is forcibly optimized to 1 by the cross entropy (CE) loss. However, because of the variability and ambiguity of possible image captions, the target word could be replaced by other words like its synonyms, and therefore, such an optimization strategy would result in the overfitting of the network. In this article, we explore the overfitting phenomenon in the RSIC caused by CE loss and correspondingly propose a new truncation cross entropy (TCE) loss, aiming to alleviate the overfitting problem. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, extensive comparison experiments are performed on three public RSIC data sets, including UCM-captions, Sydney-captions, and RSICD. The state-of-the-art result of Sydney-captions and RSICD and the competitive results of UCM-captions achieved by TCE loss demonstrate that the proposed method is beneficial to RSIC.
Lipoid proteinosis: A rare congenital genodermatosis

Lipoid proteinosis or Urbach–Wiethe disease is a very rare autosomal recessive disease. The term was first coined by Urbach. This disorder is characterized by intercellular deposition of periodic-acid Schiff-positive amorphous hyaline material in the skin, mucosa, and viscera. Fewer than 300 cases have been reported in the literature till date. Characteristic skin lesions include multiple brown atrophic scars over the face and distal extremities, beaded papules over the margins of the eyelids, and verrucous nodules over the friction bearing areas such as elbows, knees, and buttocks. The overall prognosis is good. There is no definitive treatment. We present a case of this rare disorder with relevant review of the literature.
Using Visualization Techniques for Supporting Interaction with the TaxonomyBrowser Database

TaxonomyBrowser is a biodiversity information system developed to manage data collected by biologists during field work as well as data resulting from further analyses. It was developed as a web application and stores data on a database organized according to the taxonomic tree of leaving species, i.e., specimens collected or observed during field work are recorded in the database classified as pertaining to some level in the taxonomic tree. In its first version, TaxonomyBrowser had a common, form-based user interface for managing the database. This work presents the new visualization-based interface of the system, describing the features that are available for entering data from collected specimens as well as accessing data through different visualization techniques. The interface was assessed by means of a survey with remote users in order to evaluate the provided features and validate the concept of a visualization-based interface for such kind of system. Participants considered the application to be intuitive, and most of them provided positive feedback.
Does earnings quality affect the cost of debt in a banking system? Evidence from French listed companies

This study examines the effect of earnings quality on the cost of debt, for a sample of French listed firms from 2005 to 2015. Using accruals quality (AQ) as a proxy for the quality of financial reports, the results obtained confirm the research hypothesis formulated, showing that the quality of financial reports is negatively related to firms’ interest cost. The results also support that the innate component of AQ has a greater impact on the cost of debt than the discretionary component. The findings of this study may be of interest to managers by providing evidence on the economic consequences of improved earnings on the cost of debt and the factors that determine debt pricing in making decisions to minimize it. The results of this article are also important for creditors, that is, banks, showing that earnings are important in predicting firms’ reimbursement capacity (i.e. future cash flows) and that less estimation error in accruals improves the ability of earnings to predict future cash flows.
Incidence, clinical appraisal and treatment of haemonchosis in small ruminants of resource-poor areas in South Africa

A novel clinical assay for the assessment and subsequent treatment of Haemonchus infection in sheep to slow down the development of anthelmintic resistance – the FAMACHA© system – has been developed, tested and validated in South Africa. The system is based on a colour chart with five colour categories depicting varying degrees of anaemia that are compared with the colour of the mucous membranes of the eyes of sheep. The animal is then scored from severely anaemic * With the exception of Fisher’s Exact Test, the current draft is that published in Veterinary Parasitology 99 (2001) 1-14. (pale) through anaemic to non-anaemic (red) and those animals considered in danger of succumbing to the effects of haemonchosis are treated. This method was tested in goats farmed under resourcepoor conditions in South Africa. Analyses in goats performed during the summers of 1998/1999 and 1999/2000 show a test sensitivity of 76% and 85%, respective ly, meaning that the system may be used to identify correctly 76% to 85% of those animals in need of treatment with an anthelmintic. However, the test specificity remains low at 52% to 55%. This means that a large proportion of those animals that would not require treatment would in fact be treated. However, when the use of the FAMACHA system is compared with conventional dosing practices where all the animals are treated, using the FAMACHA© system would result in a large proportion of the animals being left untreated. The untreated animals are then able to deposit the eggs of anthelmintic-susceptible worms on the pasture, while the treated ones should pass very few ova, given an effective anthelmintic. This maintains a reservoir of susceptible larvae in refugia , and should slow down the development of anthelmintic resistance. The validation of the FAMACHA© system for goats for use by resource-poor farmers, which this paper describes, may have wide application in the tropics and subtropics of sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. © 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
Association of Diplodia mutila with blue stain of Caribbean pine in Venezuela

Diplodia mutila was isolated from blue-stained Caribbean pine timber (Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis) in eastern Venezuela. The ability of D. mutila to cause blue stain was demonstrated in vitro. Association du Diplodia mutila avec le bleuissement du bois chez le pin des Cara, au Venezuela Diplodia mutila a ete isole du bois bleu du tronc de Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis dans l’est du Venezuela. La capacite de D. mutilaa provoquer le bleuissement a ete montree in vitro. Assoziation von Diplodia mutila mit einer Blaue an Kiefernholz (Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis) in Venezuela In Ost-Venezuela wurde aus verblautem Kiefernholz (Pinus caribeae var. hondurensis) der Pilz Diplodia mutila isoliert. In vitro konnte gezeigt werden, dass D. mutila Blaue verursacht.
Fossil Frogs from the Clarendonian (Late Miocene) of Oklahoma, U.S.A.

Fossil frogs of North America have been reviewed by Holman (2003), and records from the middle and late Miocene of North America are relatively numerous. Nonetheless, frog fossils from the late Miocene Clarendonian North American Land Mammal Age time period (ca. 12.5-9 Ma) are rare and biogeographically poorly represented. There is a single record of a bufonid from the Clarendonian Land Mammal Age (LMA) of South Dakota (Holman, 1973), but most of our knowledge of Clarendonian LMA frogs comes from a single local fauna, the Wakeeney Lo cal Fauna (L.F.) of Kansas (Wilson, 1968; Holman, 1975, 2003). In this report we describe an important collection of middle to late Clarendonian (ca. 11-9 Ma; time scale of Woodburne, 2004) frog fossils recovered from the Whisenhunt Quarry fossil site of Beaver County, Oklahoma. The mammals of the Whisenhunt Quarry fossil site have been discussed previously by Dalquest et al. (1996) and, to a lesser degree, by Smith (2005). The Whisen hunt Quarry frogs represent the first lower vertebrates reported from the local fauna, but more importantly they provide new and noteworthy information that improves our knowledge about the diversity and distribution of North American midcontinental frogs from this time period. Fossil Locality? The Whisenhunt Quarry fossil site is located approximately 10 km south of Gate, Beaver County, Oklahoma, in the Laverne Formation at T3N, R28E, Sec. 9, SE 1/4, NW 1/4 (Dalquest et al., 1996; see Fig. 4 for the general location of the site). Late Miocene mammals from this Great Plains formation have been known to science since at least the late 19th century (see discussion in Tedford et al, 2004). Fossils from the Whisen hunt Quarry site were obtained by Dalquest et al. (1996) by pro cessing matrix collected at the quarry in the early 1990s. The ma terial was derived from a stratum of sand and diatomaceous clay, which they (Dalquest et al., 1996:133) believed represented an ancient "still-water pool or lake in a marsh or swamp. " No ra diometric date (numerical date) is available for the Whisenhunt Quarry, but on the basis of a detailed study of the Whisenhunt Quarry mammals, Dalquest et al. (1996) assigned the local fauna a biochronological age of middle to late Clarendonian LMA. They suggested that the Whisenhunt Quarry L.F. best correlated with the well-documented late Clarendonian Wakeeney L.F. of Kansas. On the basis of megaand micromammal components of the Whisenhunt Quarry and mammals from other nearby Lav erne Formation sites, Tedford et al. (2004) suggested a medial Clarendonian age for the local fauna.
Utility of Preimplantation Genetic Screening in Women of Advanced Maternal Age with Poor Embryo Survival: A Case Report

A crucial component of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) success is selection of excellent quality embryos for uterine transfer. The ability to correlate excellent quality embryos with successful implantation is diminished in women of advanced maternal age (AMA). In recent years, controversy has surrounded the universal use of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) in women undergoing IVF. A 39-year-old Caucasian nulligravida with age related infertility underwent an unsuccessful fresh IVF cycle that was followed by the unusually poor survival of morphologically good quality frozen blastocysts. Subsequently, she underwent a second IVF cycle with PGS of fresh blastocysts as well as blastocysts from the first IVF cycle. A successful transfer of euploid embryos resulted in a live birth. This case, although not conclusive, delineates the additional benefit of using PGS in women of advanced maternal age with poor survival of morphologically good quality embryos.