Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory peptide: an emerging candidate for vascular dysfunction therapy

Abstract Abnormal vasoconstriction, inflammation, and vascular remodeling can be promoted by angiotensin II (Ang II) in the renin–angiotensin system (RAS), leading to vascular dysfunction diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis. Researchers have recently focused on angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory peptides (ACEIPs), that have desirable efficacy in vascular dysfunction therapy due to Ang II reduction by inhibiting ACE activity. Promising methods for the large-scale preparation of ACEIPs include selective enzymatic hydrolysis and microbial fermentation. Thus far, ACEIPs have been widely reported to be hydrolyzed from protein-rich sources, including animals, plants, and marine organisms, while many emerging microorganism-derived ACEIPs are theoretically biosynthesized through the nonribosomal peptide synthase (NRPS) pathway. Notably, vasodilatation, anti-inflammation, and vascular reconstruction reversal of ACEIPs are strongly correlated. However, the related molecular mechanisms underlying signal transduction regulation in vivo remain unclear. We provide a comprehensive update of the ACE-Ang II-G protein-coupled type 1 angiotensin receptor (AT1R) axis signaling and its functional significance for potential translation into therapeutic strategies, particularly targeting AT1R by ACEIPs, as well as specific related signaling pathways. Future studies are expected to verify the biosynthetic regulatory mechanism of ACEIPs via the NRPS pathway, the effect of gut microbiota metabolism on vascular dysfunction and rigorous studies of ACE-Ang II-AT1R signaling pathways mediated by ACEIPs in large animals and humans.
Quantitative Electroencephalographic Comodulation: An Investigation of Patterns in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Introduction. This is a pilot study of quantitative electro-encephalographic (QEEG) comodulation analysis, which is used to assist in identifying regional brain differences in those people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) compared to a normative database. The QEEG comodulation analysis examines spatial-temporal cross-correlation of spectral estimates in the resting dominant frequency band. A pattern shown by Sterman and Kaiser (2001) and referred to as the anterior posterior dissociation (APD) discloses a significant reduction in shared functional modulation between frontal and centro-parietal areas of the cortex. This research attempts to examine whether this pattern is evident in CFS. Method. Eleven adult participants, diagnosed by a physician as having CFS, were involved in QEEG data collection. Nineteen-channel cap recordings were made in five conditions: eyes-closed baseline, eyes-open, reading task one, math computations task two, and a second eyes-closed baseline. Results. Four of the 11 participants showed an anterior posterior dissociation pattern for the eyes-closed resting dominant frequency. However, seven of the 11 participants did not show this pattern. Examination of the mean 8-12 Hz amplitudes across three cortical regions (frontal, central and parietal) indicated a trend of higher overall alpha levels in the parietal region in CFS patients who showed the APD pattern compared to those who did not have this pattern. All patients showing the pattern were free of medication, while 71% of those absent of the pattern were using antidepressant medications. Conclusions. Although the sample is small, it is suggested that this method of evaluating the disorder holds promise. The fact that this pattern was not consistently represented in the CFS sample could be explained by the possibility of subtypes of CFS, or perhaps co-morbid conditions. Further, the use of antidepressant medications may mask the pattern by altering the temporal characteristics of the EEG. The results of this pilot study indicate that further research is warranted to verify that the pattern holds across the wider population of CFS sufferers.
THE PERFORMANCE OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT SCHEME IN ISLAMI BANK BANGLADESH FROM AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) is one of the leading and efficient financial institutions in the globe. The Rural Development Scheme (RDS) has become an exclusive domain to play a significant role in increasing the performance of development in nation building. As a result, IBBL is playing a vital role in the rural area in applying the RDS for poverty alleviation. The aim of this study is to analyze the performance of the RDS of IBBL in the rural area. This paper will also discuss the achievements of this scheme in the present context to evaluate its performance. Finally, the researcher will come up with some suggestions and recommendations for further improvement. =========================================== Bank Islami Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) adalah salah satu lembaga keuangan terkemuka dan efisien di dunia. â€œSkema Pembangunan Pedesaanâ€ (RDS) telah menjadi suatu domain yang ekslusif dalam memainkan peranan yang signifikan bagi peningkatan performa dalam pembangunan negara. Sebagai hasilnya, IBBL memainkan peranan yang penting di daerah pedesaan dalam mengaplikasikan skama RDS bagi upaya penanggulangan kemiskinan. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisa performa skema RDS dari IBBL di daerah pedesaan. Paper ini juga akan mendiskusikan pencapaian skaema ini dalam konteks saat ini guna mengevaluasi performanya. Pada akhirnya, peneliti akan menyampaikan beberapa saran dan rekomendasi untuk peningkatan di masa yang akan datang.
Effects of gradient, distance, curvature and aspect on steep burned and unburned hillslope soil erosion and deposition

Wildfire denudes vegetation and impacts chemical and physical soil properties, which can alter hillslope erosion rates. Post‐wildfire erosion can also contribute disproportionately to long‐term erosion rates and landscape evolution. Post‐fire hillslope erosion rates remain difficult to predict and document at the hillslope scale. Here we use 210Pbaex (lead‐210 mineral‐adsorbed excess) inventories to describe net sediment erosion on steep, convex hillslopes in three basins (unburned, moderately and severely burned) in mountainous central Idaho. We analyzed nearly 300 soil samples for 210Pbaex content with alpha spectrometry and related net sediment erosion to burn severity, aspect, gradient, curvature and distance from ridgetop. We also tested our data against models for advective, linear and non‐linear diffusive erosion. Statistically lower net soil losses on north‐ versus south‐facing unburned hillslopes suggest that greater vegetative cover and soil cohesion on north‐facing slopes decrease erosion. On burned hillslopes, erosion differences between aspects were less apparent and net erosion was more variable, indicating that vegetation influences erosion magnitude and fire drives erosion variability. We estimated net soil losses throughout the length of unburned hillslopes, including through a footslope transition to concave form. In contrast, on burned hillslopes, the subtle shift from convex to concave form was associated with deposition of a post‐fire erosion pulse. Such overall patterns of erosion and deposition are consistent with predictions from a non‐linear diffusion equation. This finding also suggests that concave sections of overall convex hillslopes affect post‐disturbance soil erosion and deposition. Despite these patterns, no strong relationships were evident between local net soil losses and gradient, curvature, distance from ridgetop, or erosion predicted with advection or diffusion equations. The observed relationship between gradient and erosion is therefore likely more complex or stochastic than often described theoretically, especially over relatively short timescales (60–100 years). Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behaviours: The Contingent Role of Public Service Motivation

This paper examines whether the relationship between transformational leadership and organisational citizenship behaviours is contingent on public service motivation (PSM). We propose that PSM may reduce followers’ reliance on the motivational behaviours of transformational leaders in public sector organisations. Using a sample of Mexican employees we tested this proposition with structural equation modelling. Our results show that public sector followers higher in PSM placed less reliance, than those lower in PSM, on transformational behaviours. A follow-up study in private sector organisations did not reveal a similar interaction effect. These findings appear consistent with previous research demonstrating that PSM is more aligned to the goals and values of public rather than private sector organisations.
The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Service Employees in the Hotel Industry

Transformational leadership is important to the hotel industry where employees play a critical role in delivering the service. Transformational leadership is a leadership style that causes changes in employees by sharing the organization’s vision and goals, providing necessary resources, promoting intellectual stimulation, and expecting high performance. This study uses four dimensions of transformational leadership to investigate how the dimensions influence employees’ organizational identification, creativity, and task performance. In order to test the proposed model, data were gathered from employees of six hotels in South Korea. The data were analyzed with SmartPLS 4.0 program. The finding shows that four dimensions of transformational leadership have different effects on organizational identification and creativity. While core transformational leadership and supportive leader behavior enhance employees’ organizational identification, which affects creativity and task performance, intellectual stimulation has an impact on creativity, which influences task performance. The post hoc analysis shows that organizational identification fully mediates the relationship between two dimensions of transformational leadership and creativity. This study contributes to the existing literatures of leadership theory and social identification theory by expanding the knowledge on the role of transformational leadership on employees. Some theoretical and practical implications are offered.
The Impact of Transformational Leadership on the Development of Human Resources: Mediating Role of Entrepreneurship Orientation

A large part of leadership research has been conducted to have a greater impact on the development of human resources. This research aims to investigate the mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation on the relationship between transformational leadership and human resource development. For this purpose, 259 completed questionnaires from government employees in the Agricultural Jihad Organization (Ministry of Agriculture in Iran) were collected and analyzed using the maximum likelihood method and based on Baron and Kenny’s four-step analysis; the adequacy of the model and its indicators were confirmed (RMSEA=0.073). Structural equation modeling with Baron and Kenny’s four-step method showed that transformational leadership has a positive and significant impact on human resource development and entrepreneurial orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation significantly mediates the effect of transformational leadership on human resource development. The results of this research can help managers to consider the entrepreneurial orientation in organizational management even in government and public institutions; furthermore, they can benefit from it as a variable in facilitating the development of human resources. It can also be considered as one of the predictor variables of individual growth in the organization with regard to other organizational and individual variables.
Exploring the Geography of Tags in Youtube Views

Although tags play a critical role in many social media, their link to the geographic distribution of user generated videos has been little investigated. In this paper, we ana- lyze the correlation between the geographic distribution of a video’s views and the tags attached to this video in a Youtube dataset. We show that tags can be interpreted as markers of a video’s geographic diffusion, with some tags strongly linked to well identified geographic areas. Based on our findings, we explore whether the distribution of a video’s views can be predicted from its tags. We demon- strate how this predictive power could help improve on-line video services by preferentially storing videos close to where they are likely to be viewed. Our results show that even with a simplistic approach we are able to predict a minimum of 65.9% of a video’s views for a majority of videos, and that a tag-based placement strategy can improve the hit rate of a distributed on-line video service by up to 6.8% globally, with an improvement of up to 34% in the USA.
Osteoporosis in men: epidemiology and treatment with denosumab

Osteoporosis is a major public health care concern. Although often described as a disease affecting postmenopausal women, researchers and clinicians have emphasized its prevalence in men in recent years. The National Osteoporosis Foundation has stated that up to 25% of men over the age of 50 years will experience a fracture due to osteoporosis. Men who suffer from a major fracture have higher mortality rates than women. Pharmacologic therapy options for treating osteoporosis are limited for men as compared with women, so each medication approved for use in this population represents an important clinical option. In September 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new indication for denosumab to increase bone mass in men with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture. Denosumab is a fully human monoclonal antibody and novel antiresorptive agent that works by binding receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-β ligand (RANKL) and inhibiting the signaling cascade that causes osteoclast maturation, activity, and survival. Ultimately, denosumab suppresses bone turnover and increases bone mineral density in both trabecular and cortical bone. Approval for treating osteoporosis in men was based on data from the ADAMO trial which displayed efficacy in increasing bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, total hip, femoral neck, hip trochanter, and one-third radius. Studies indicate that denosumab is effective and safe, and has superior adherence rates and patient satisfaction. Although long-term data and further research on fracture reduction rates in men should be explored, at this time denosumab is one of several appropriate first-line treatment options for men with osteoporosis.
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist

Written by the man considered the "Person of the Century" by Time magazine, this is not a glimpse into Einstein's personal life, but an extension and elaboration into his thinking on science. Two of the great theories of the physical world were created in the early 20th century: the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein created the theory of relativity and was also one of the founders of quantum theory. Here, Einstein describes the failure of classical mechanics and the rise of the electromagnetic field, the theory of relativity, and of the quanta. Written in German by Einstein himself, the book is faced, page-by-page, with a translation by the noted Professor of Philosophy Paul Arthur Schilpp.
Bioengineering the Lung : Molecules , Materials , Matrix , Morphology , and Mechanics Osteopontin is an endogenous modulator of the constitutively activated phenotype of pulmonary adventitial fibroblasts in hypoxic pulmonary hypertension

Adil Anwar, Min Li, Maria G. Frid, Binod Kumar, Evgenia V. Gerasimovskaya, Suzette R. Riddle, B. Alexandre McKeon, Roopa Thukaram, Barbara O. Meyrick, Mehdi A. Fini, and Kurt R. Stenmark Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, Colorado, Department of Surgery, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, Colorado, and Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, Colorado; and Department of Pathology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee
A Simple Model for Sheddies: Ocean Eddies Formed from Shed Vorticity

AbstractRecent studies show that vertical eddy diffusivity is sufficient on its own to introduce intense horizontal shear layers at sloping ocean margins (Molemaker et al.; Gula et al.; Dewar et al.). These layers influence mesoscale energy and potential vorticity budgets but cannot be fully represented in models without sloping boundaries, no-slip boundary conditions, and sufficiently high resolution. This paper investigates the detachment of these shear layers and their subsequent rolling up into concentrated eddies. These shed eddies, or “sheddies,” may have significant oceanographic impacts. Their growth is considered using a simple point vortex model that adapts the Brown–Michael model of vortex shedding to quasigeostrophic flow and allows detailed consideration of the vorticity fluxes. The model shows good qualitative agreement with observations and experimental and numerical results. It is applied to a number of examples of well-known cases of sheddy formation, including the Agulhas cyclones, Calif.
Virtual Teams: Projects, Protocols and Processes

Virtual teams are a relatively new phenomenon and by definition work across time, distance, and organizations through the use of information and communications technology. Virtual Teams: Projects, Protocols and Processes gathers the best of academic research on real work-based virtual teams into one book. It offers a series of chapters featuring practical research, insight and recommendations on how virtual team projects can be better managed, as well as in depth discussion on issues critical to virtual team success, including the place of virtual teams in organizations, leadership, trust and relationship building, best use of technology, and knowledge sharing.
Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organizations with Technology

Why Virtual Teams? : The New Way to Work Teaming from the Beginning: How Groups Became Virtual The Power of Purpose: Do, Doing, Done Through the Worm Hole: Links for Virtual Teams Teaming with People: The Paradoxes of Participation It's All in the Doing: Virtual Team Life as a Process Virtual Places: Home Is Where the Site Is Working Smart: A Web Book for Virtual Teams Virtual Values: Generating Social Capital Afterword Notes About the Authors Index.
Evaluation of the uplift behavior of plate anchor in structured marine clay

ABSTRACT The uplift behavior of a plate anchor in a structured clay (soft Ariake clay) is investigated through a series of laboratory tests and method of finite element analysis. The tests are adopted to identify the factors influencing the behavior of the anchor, including the thixotropic nature of Ariake clay, consolidation time, and embedment ratio of the anchor. A finite element method (FEM) is used to analyze and predict the uplift behavior of the anchor plate well in the elastic region and the yield load. The results from both the laboratory tests and the FEM analysis suggest that the embedment ratio for a deep anchor in Ariake clay is close to 4. Further increase in embedment ratio improves the capacity to a lesser extent. FEM overestimates the failure load of the uplift anchor in soft Ariake clay by about 20%. This may be ascribed to the hypothesis in the FEM analysis that there is continuous contact between the clay and the anchor until failure. Vesic’s theory for deep anchors, which may be used to predict the ultimate pullout resistance of the plate anchor in reconstituted Ariake clay, is verified to be applicable. In this paper, the plastic flow zone around the anchor is discussed using FEM which makes the behavior of anchor more understandable during the design stage.
On the correction of liquid precipitation

The paper discusses a bi-linear statistical model for correcting aerodynamic errors, earlier presented by Allerup and Madsen, 1980. Further data from Finland, USA and Australia testing the model will be presented. A simplification of the bi-linear model in order to cover different gauge types and varying measuring levels will be demonstrated. The simplification will extend the applicability of the correction model when implemented into automatic correction systems. The paper will discuss the problems of fit by the simplified model and attention will be given to physical interpretation of the mathematical structure in the model. Besides aerodynamic errors, wetting losses influence the correction values. It will be demonstrated how these effects cause too large corrections for small amounts of precipitation and too small corrections for large amounts.
Cyclone and mesocyclone tracking in the Antarctic region and southern polar ocean

In a first step, we have determined the seasonal synoptic-scale cyclone activity over 10 years, using the ERA-Interim data (Figure 1). Therefore, we have calculated the relative vorticity field from the 850 hPa wind field on a T159 Gaussian grid. A band pass filter was set to wavenumbers n with 5 < n < 15 which corresponds to a spatial resolution of 1300 to 4000 km for 60°S (the main latitude of synoptic-scale cyclone activity in the southern hemisphere). In addition, with focus on the synoptic scale, we truncated the band pass filtered data to a T42 Gaussian grid. To exclude short lived systems, we have assumed a minimum lifetime of 48 hours for each system. The vorticity anomaly threshold was set to 1.0 x 10 s. The regional upper bound displacement was set to 6.0 degrees for latitudes higher than 20°S.
A possible freak wave event measured at the draupner jacket January 1 1995

A brief informal description of the weather conditions at the Draupner platform January 1. 1995 is given. During this day a wave with a majestic crest height, often referred to as the New Year Wave or the Draupner Wave, was measured by a down-looking laser. The crest height is clearly an outlier in view of what is expected for that sea state and is considered as a possible freak wave event.
Department of Pesticide Regulation

The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) regulates fumigants as restricted materials and manages the use of these pesticides through permits or regulations restricting their use practices. The department has developed mitigation measures to minimize acute exposure of persons offsite to fumigant vapors that escape from the application site following a fumigant application. These mitigation measures are developed with the objective of avoiding the exceedance of air concentration targets set by the Medical Toxicology Branch in DPR for specific fumigants. The air concentration target exposure duration and concentration levels are set at appropriate levels for the toxicological action of a specific fumigant. For example, Methyl Bromide (MeBr) has an acute air concentration target of 2 10 parts per billion (ppb) as a 24-hour Time Weighted Average (TWA) (Nelson, 1992), while Methyl Isothiocyanate (MITC), has an acute air concentration target of 220 ppb as a l-hour TWA (Gosselin, P. per. comm.). The differences in these targets reflects the differences in the toxicological action of these two fumigants. The air concentrations of these two targets are TWAs. To obtain a TWA air concentration the air is sampled in a continuous manner for a specific period of time and the concentration is then determined by dividing the total mass found in the final sample by the total air flow during the sampling period. The TWA air concentration is a measurement that represents a time-integral of concentration (Csanady, 1973).