Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The peptide fraction of Bothrops jararaca snake venom induces toxicological effects on the male reproductive system after local envenomation in mice

Bothrops envenomation is complex and provokes prominent local tissue damage and systemic disturbances, but little is known about their effects on the male reproductive system. After intratesticular injection, the bioactive peptide fraction (Bj-PF) obtained from Bothrops jararaca snake venom changes the structure of different stages of the seminiferous epithelium cycle in adult mice. For the first time, we investigated whether local envenomation of Bj-PF induces toxicological effects on the male reproductive system, particularly on the seminiferous epithelium and Sertoli cells. Male adult mice were treated with 0.24 mg.kg by intramuscular (i.m.) injection for 24 h. The testes samples were collected for morphological and morphometric evaluation. The toxicological effects of Bj-PF were also analyzed on mitochondrial metabolism and nitrite (NO2) production in 15P-1 Sertoli cell culture. Bj-PF changed the structure and function of the seminiferous epithelium, particularly the disruption of the epithelium and the presence of degenerated germ cells in the adluminal compartment, but there were no alterations in the basal compartment. Bj-PF increased the thickness of the seminiferous epithelium and decreased the lumen diameter of the tubule. Semiquantitative histological assessment of the degree of tubule degeneration revealed that Bj-PF also increased the number of hypospermatogenic tubules compared to control. Bj-PF reduced NO2 levels in 15P-1 Sertoli cells without changing the mitochondrial metabolism. Overall, the fact that Bj-PF alters the structure and function of the seminiferous epithelium suggests that bioactive peptides found in B. jararaca snake venom can have toxicological effects on the reproductive systems of affected male mice, providing new insight into the biological characteristics of snake venom and therapeutic strategies for envenomation inflammation.
Regorafenib Induces Senescence and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Colorectal Cancer to Promote Drug Resistance

Potential intrinsic resistance mechanisms to regorafenib were explored after short exposure (3 days) on five CRC cell lines (HCT-116, SW1116, LS-1034, SW480, Caco-2). The observation of senescence-like features led to the investigation of a drug-initiated phenotype switch. Following long-term exposure (12 months) of HCT-116 and SW480 cell lines to regorafenib, we developed resistant models to explore acquired resistance. SW480 cells demonstrated senescent-like properties, including a cell arrest in the late G2/prophase cell cycle stage and a statistically significant decrease in the expression of G1 Cyclin-Dependent Kinase inhibitors and key cell cycle regulators. A specific senescence-associated secretome was also observed. In contrast, HCT-116 treated cells presented early senescent features and developed acquired resistance triggering EMT and a more aggressive phenotype over time. The gained migration and invasion ability by long-exposed cells was associated with the increased expression level of key cellular and extracellular EMT-related factors. The PI3K/AKT pathway was a significant player in the acquired resistance of HCT-116 cells, possibly related to a PI3KCA mutation in this cell line. Our findings provide new insights into the phenotypic plasticity of CRC cells able, under treatment pressure, to acquire a stable TIS or to use an early senescence state to undergo EMT.
Changes in milk and plasma progesterone and pregnancy-associated glycoprotein and their relationships with the foetal number during early pregnancy in Jakhrana goats

This study was designed to investigate milk and circulating profiles of progesterone (P4) and pregnancy-associated glycoprotein (PAG) during early pregnancy and to determine their associations with the foetal numbers in Jakhrana goats. For this, milk (whole and defatted milk) and blood samplings from10 pregnant and 3 non-pregnant Jakhrana goats were continued from the day 7 until day 51 post-mating. The PAG profile in both milk and plasma increased gradually from day 26 to 51 of gestation. Whereas, circulating P4 remains unchanged during early pregnancy in pregnant goats. The P4 and PAG concentrations in blood plasma, whole milk and defatted milk were 1.30, 1.24 and 2.04, 1.98, 1.99 and 1.88 folds higher in twin foetus than the single foetus bearing does, respectively. The P4 and PAG in plasma and milk samples were positively correlated with the foetal number. However, the results of stepwisemultivariate linear regression analyses indicated milk and circulating P4 as better predictors of foetal numbers than plasma PAG. The defatting of milk samples resulted in about 2-folds decline in the P4 concentration, however, the PAG level remains unaffected. In conclusion, milk and plasma profiles of P4 and PAG were affected by the foetal number and P4 is a reliable predictor of foetal number during early pregnancy in Jakhrana goats.
First-principles calculation of structural and magnetic properties for Fe monolayers and bilayers on W(110)

Structure optimizations were performed for 1 and 2 monolayers (ML) of Fe on a 5 ML W(110) substrate employing the all-electron full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (FP-LAPW) method. The magnetic moments were also obtained for the converged and optimized structures. We find significant contractions ($\sim$ 10 %) for both the Fe-W and the neighboring Fe-Fe interlayer spacings compared to the corresponding bulk W-W and Fe-Fe interlayer spacings. Compared to the Fe bcc bulk moment of 2.2 $\mu_B$, the magnetic moment for the surface layer of Fe is enhanced (i) by 15% to 2.54 $\mu_B$ for 1 ML Fe/5 ML W(110), and (ii) by 29% to 2.84 $\mu_B$ for 2 ML Fe/5 ML W(110). The inner Fe layer for 2 ML Fe/5 ML W(110) has a bulk-like moment of 2.3 $\mu_B$. These results agree well with previous experimental data.
Innovative Media Mapping in Online Guidance and Counseling Services

Online learning is facing an obstacle caused mainly by a lack of students learning interests. The situation is worsening caused by only a few creative learning media in online education. The study aims to map the kinds of innovative media in guidance and counseling delivery. The research used mix method. The research activities are surveys and in-depth interviews. The number of the subject was ninety-four school counselors in senior high school. The result of the study is a map that shows the classification of media based on its characteristics. The study also describes the constraints faced by the teacher in school while developing and applying innovative learning media. The limitations are mainly caused by the availability of computer and internet connections in schools. Another constraint is that many school counselors cannot use technology to develop interactive guidance and counseling media. The recommendation from this study is to equip the school's counselors with computers and other tools and build their skills to use technology effectively.
Manganese Dioxide Nanoparticles Prepared by Laser Ablation as Materials with Interesting Electronic, Electrochemical, and Disinfecting Properties in Both Colloidal Suspensions and Deposited on Fluorine-Doped Tin Oxide

Nanoparticles (NPs) of α-MnO2 have high applicability in photoelectrochemical, heterogeneous photocatalysis, optical switching, and disinfection processes. To widen this panorama about MnO2 NPs, the formation of this material by laser ablation and deposition by dip-coating on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO), were considered in this study. The optical, spectroscopic, electrochemical characterization, and the evaluation of the antimicrobial activity, plus the photocatalytic response, were measured herein in colloidal media and deposited. For the deposition of NPs on FTO sheet, an anode is produced with a pseudocapacitive behavior, and 2.82 eV of band gap (GAP) in comparison with colloidal NPs for a value of 3.84 eV. Both colloidal suspension and deposited NPs have intrinsic antibacterial activity against two representative microorganisms (E. coli and S. aureus), and this biological activity was significantly enhanced in the presence of UVA light, indicating photocatalytic activity of the material. Thus, both the colloidal suspension and deposited NPs can act as disinfecting agents themselves or via light activation. However, an antibacterial behavior different for E. coli and S. aureus was observed, in function of the aggregation state, obtaining total E. coli disinfection at 30 min for deposited samples on FTO.
Awareness and Needs of Smoking Cessation Services for Female Emotional Laborers, Parcel Delivery Workers, Transportation Workers, and Construction Workers in South Korea

Although South Korea has implemented various smoking cessation services, women who are emotional laborers, as well as parcel delivery, transportation, and construction workers, have poor access to these services. This study evaluated the smoking-related characteristics of workers in these four occupations as well as the awareness of and need for smoking cessation services. In total 808 workers in these four occupations aged 19 years and above were recruited nationwide and had their data analyzed. The participants’ age, marital status, number of work hours per week, job-related stress, age when they started smoking, average number of cigarettes a day, types of tobacco products, close relationships to others who smoke, number of attempts to quit smoking, plans to quit smoking, awareness of cessation services, prior utilization of cessation services, and need for cessation services were surveyed. Compared with parcel delivery workers, female emotional laborers and transportation and construction workers had more attempts to quit smoking, plans to quit smoking, and prior utilization of smoking cessation services, moreover, construction workers had a significantly lower awareness of smoking cessation services. Parcel delivery workers need smoking cessation programs, mobile applications to help them quit smoking, and improvements in their work environments. Cessation services and education should be promoted at workplaces and among managers.
Adaptive Mesh Refinement for Singular Current Sheets in Incompressible Magnetohydrodynamic Flows

The formation of current sheets in ideal incompressible magnetohydrodynamic flows in two dimensions is studied numerically using the technique of adaptive mesh refinement. The growth of current density is in agreement with simple scaling assumptions. As expected, adaptive mesh refinement shows to be very efficient for studying singular structures compared to nonadaptive treatments.
Pressure of Hot QCD at Large Nf

We compute the pressure and entropy of hot QCD in the limit of large number of fermions, Nf >> Nc ~ 1, to next to leading order in Nf. At this order the calculation can be done exactly, up to ambiguities due to the presence of a Landau pole in the theory; the ambiguities are O(T8/ΛLandau4) and remain negligible long after the perturbative series (in g2Nf) has broken down. Our results can be used to test several proposed resummation schemes for the pressure of full QCD.
Long-term filter efficiency of mobile air purifiers in schools

Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic forced many restrictions upon the public, such as the closing of schools, affecting social development and education of children. Here we tested air purifiers with HEPA filters as a measure to reduce the infection risk via airborne transmission during classes. We evaluated the efficiency and long-term performance of three devices over six month of operation at two schools by monitoring the particle decay from 0.003 to 10 µm. We found that the particle concentration was reduced reliably and spatially homogenously by 85 − 95% throughout the whole observed particle spectrum within ∼20 min for air exchange rates between 4.8 and 6.7 h−1. During the study we did not observe a clear decline in efficiency or performance of the air purifiers. We complemented our particle measurements with model calculations to estimate the virus concentration and inhaled dose of a susceptible person, assuming one infectious person was present. We calculated that the additional use of air purifiers reduced the number of potentially inhaled viruses at the end of the day by a factor of 2.65 relative to the case without air purifiers. Further, school-wide surveys indicated that the disturbance by the noise level of the air purifiers is to be considered and that the acceptance of air purifiers can be improved when the noise level is reduced. Overall, our study suggests that a combination of air purifiers and venting is a well-suited measure to reduce the potential indoor viral-load while still introducing fresh air into the room.
Assessment of Micro-Hardness, Degree of Conversion, and Flexural Strength for Single-Shade Universal Resin Composites

Single-shade universal resin composites (SsURC) are preferred in clinical practice to reduce time for shade selection and obtain good esthetic results. In this study, the static mechanical properties of seven new SsURCs were investigated, their spectral analyzes were performed and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) evaluations were presented. Charisma Diamond One/DO, Admira Fusion x-tra/AFX, Omnichroma/OC, OptiShade/OS, Essentia Universal/EU, Zenchroma/ZC, Vittra APS Unique/VU were used in a three-point bending test to determine flexural strength (FS) and elastic modulus (EM); Vickers micro-hardness (VHN) and hardness-ratio (HR) were performed with a micro-hardness tester from top/bottom after 24-h/15-days of storage in distilled water at 37 °C (±1 °C). The degree of conversion (DC) was assessed by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The structure of the resin matrix and filler content were assessed by SEM. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS V23 and the R program and the significance level was taken as p < 0.05. The main effect of the tested SsURCs was found to be statistically significant on FS, EM, VHN, and DC values (p < 0.001). Bis-GMA free SsURCs (AFX, DO, VU) showed better DC and HR except for OC. All seven tested SsURCs conform to the requirements of ISO standards for dental resin composites for all tested categories.
Gravitational Waves and gamma -Ray Bursts

If the gamma-ray burst sources detected by GRO are coalescing binaries at cosmological distances there should be a coincident gravitational radiation signal. Using the GRBs rate we predict the gravitational radiation detection rate as a function of the gravitational wave strain at Earth. This method of predicting the rate avoids the large statistical uncertainties in the current estimates that are based on the three neutron star binaries containing pulsars found, so far, in the Galaxy. The brightest gamma-ray bursts should be accompanied by a gravitational pulse detectable by LIGO or VIRGO, and by using the bursts as triggers for LIGO/VIRGO their sensitivity can be improved by 50% and the detection rate increases by a factor of 3. LIGO/VIRGO must reach a strain sensitivity of 10(sup-20.7)h(sub 0) to detect one burst per decade, and a failure to find coincidences at a rate of one per year with a strain sensitivity of 10(sup -20.6)h(sub 0) will rule out the binary hypothesis. If they are detected as gravitational wave sources, the time delay between the gamma-rays and the gravitational waves will help to determine the burst mechanism, and the polarization of the gravitational waves will help to determine the burst geometry.
ANALYSIS OF THE SPACE SEMI-DISCRETIZED SUPG METHOD FOR TRANSIENT CONVECTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS

We consider space semi-discretization of the transient convection–diffusion equation using a Streamline Upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) finite element method. We show stability and convergence both for the standard SUPG formulation with elementwise evaluated Laplacian and for a weakly consistent formulation where the elementwise Laplacian is replaced by a discrete, reconstructed, Laplacian. Some numerical examples are presented to illustrate the theory.
Spectroscopic follow-up of the Hercules–Aquila Cloud

We designed a follow-up program to find the spectroscopic properties of the Hercules-Aquila Cloud (HAC) and test scenarios for its formation. We measured the radial velocities (RVs) of 45 RR Lyrae in the southern portion of the HAC using the facilities at the MDM observatory, producing the first large sample of velocities in the HAC. We found a double-peaked distribution in RVs, skewed slightly to negative velocities. We compared both the morphology of HAC projected onto the plane of the sky and the distribution of velocities in this structure outlined by RR Lyrae and other tracer populations at different distances to N-body simulations. We found that the behaviour is characteristic of an old, well-mixed accretion event with small apo-galactic radius. We cannot yet rule out other formation mechanisms for the HAC. However, if our interpretation is correct, HAC represents just a small portion of a much larger debris structure spread throughout the inner Galaxy whose distinct kinematic structure should be apparent in RV studies along many lines of sight.
Asymmetric exclusion processes with shuffled dynamics

The asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) with periodic boundary conditions is investigated for shuffled dynamics. In this type of update, in each discrete timestep the particles are updated in a random sequence. Such an update is important for several applications, e.g., for certain models of pedestrian flow in two dimensions. For the ASEP with shuffled dynamics and a related truncated process exact results are obtained for deterministic motion (p = 1). Since the shuffled dynamics is intrinsically stochastic, also this case is nontrivial. For the case of stochastic motion (0 < p < 1) it is shown that, in contrast to all other updates studied previously, the ASEP with shuffled update does not have a product measure steady state. Approximative formulae for the steady-state distribution and fundamental diagram are derived that are in very good agreement with simulation data.
Perceptual richness of words and its role in free and cued recall

This research aimed to clarify the role of the perceptual richness of words (PR) in the recall tasks. PR was operationalized as the number of sensory modalities through which an object can be perceived. Previously, we found that concepts experienced with many modalities (dog) were recalled more accurately in cued recall than those perceived with few modalities (rainbow) and abstract words. This finding fitted the Perceptual symbol system theory (PSST) and the Dual coding theory (DCT) predictions. We tested the PR effect in both cued (experiment 1- E1) and free recall tasks (experiment 2 – E2) in the present study. With careful stimuli manipulation of context availability and emotional valence and statistical control of arousal and relatedness, made to exclude their influence on recall, we tested alternative explanations of the concreteness effect offered by the relational-distinctiveness hypothesis. The additional perceptual codes improved recall accuracy in the cued recall task (E1), which was in line with the PSST and the DCT. This conclusion is straightforward: two critical groups of concrete words were matched for concreteness and visual perceptual strength. Thus, more accurate recall of concepts experienced with many modalities can be attributed to richer perceptual experience. However, the relational information was essential for recall accuracy in the free recall task (E2), as hypothesized by the relational-distinctiveness hypothesis.
Vacuum polarization in Schwarzschild spacetime

The polarization of the vacuum induced by gravitation is studied for massless fields in the region exterior to the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. The renormalized value of $〈{\ensuremath{\varphi}}^{2}(x)〉$ is calculated according to the "covariant point-separation scheme" for each of the Boulware, Hartle-Hawking, and Unruh "vacua. " The form of the renormalized expectation value of the stress tensor near the horizon and at infinity is discussed for each of these three states. It is found that the Unruh vacuum best approximates the state that would obtain following the gravitational collapse of a massive body in the sense that the expectation values of physical observables are finite, in a freely falling frame, on the future horizon and that this state is empty near infinity apart from an outgoing flux of a blackbody radiation. The response of an Unruh box is examined further in the light of the results obtained for the stress tensor. Finally it is shown by explicit solution of the linearized Einstein equations that the area of the horizon decreases at the rate expected from the flux at infinity.
Firm- and Country-Specific Advantages: Towards a Better Understanding of MNEs’ Environmental Performance in the International Arena

International diversification is predominantly assumed to have a mixed (either positive or negative) linear relationship with environmental performance in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Departing from this assumption, we use firm-specific advantages (FSA) and institutional theory to hypothesise that international diversification, due to recombination barriers, has a curvilinear U-shaped relationship with MNEs’ environmental performance. Because of their key roles as boosters of country-specific advantages (CSA), we also examine whether home country competitiveness and environmental levels moderate the proposed curvilinear relationship. Results from panel data of 298 MNEs between 2006 and 2017 from 21 different countries in 11 sectors provide support for the main curvilinear relationship and the moderating influence of home country competitiveness. Our study contributes to the international business literature by casting doubt on the widely held assumption that international diversification always carries either positive or negative effects on environmental records.
STACCATO: a novel solution to supernova photometric classification with biased training sets

We present a new solution to the problem of classifying Type Ia supernovae from their light curves alone given a spectroscopically confirmed but biased training set, circumventing the need to obtain an observationally expensive unbiased training set. We use Gaussian processes (GPs) to model the supernovae's (SN) light curves, and demonstrate that the choice of covariance function has only a small influence on the GPs ability to accurately classify SNe. We extend and improve the approach of Richards et al (2012} -- a diffusion map combined with a random forest classifier -- to deal specifically with the case of biassed training sets. We propose a novel method, called STACCATO (SynThetically Augmented Light Curve ClassificATiOn') that synthetically augments a biased training set by generating additional training data from the fitted GPs. Key to the success of the method is the partitioning of the observations into subgroups based on their propensity score of being included in the training set. Using simulated light curve data, we show that STACCATO increases performance, as measured by the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC), from 0.93 to 0.96, close to the AUC of 0.977 obtained using the 'gold standard' of an unbiased training set and significantly improving on the previous best result of 0.88. STACCATO also increases the true positive rate for SNIa classification by up to a factor of 50 for high-redshift/low brightness SNe.