Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Antibacterial 9,11-Secosterol from a Marine Sponge Ircinia sp.

E-mail: hjkang@snu.ac. krReceived June 2, 2014, Accepted July 21, 2014Key Words : Antibacterial, Secosterol, Marine, Sponge Marine sponges are a rich source of structurally diversenatural products and about 35% of marine natural productshave been found from this chemically rich phylum of marineorganisms.
Gasification of Natural and Waste Biomass in a Pilot Scale Fluidized Bed Reactor

Three commercially available biomass fuels, made of natural and waste wood, were fed in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed gasifier having an internal diameter of 0.381 m and a maximum feeding capacity of 100 kg/h. The experimental runs were carried out at about 850°C and under values of the equivalence ratio between 0.20 and 0.30. The fluidized bed was generally made of natural olivine even though some runs utilized beds of dolomite or quartz sand. Measurements taken during each run include the gas composition, the content of tar in the syngas, the mass flow rate and composition of entrained fines collected at the cyclone and the characterization of bed material. The results indicate that the air gasification process is technically feasible with all the biomass tested. The olivine as tar removal bed catalyst provides for different results with waste and natural biomass fuels.
HDAC Inhibition Induces Cell Cycle Arrest and Mesenchymal-Epithelial Transition in a Novel Pleural-Effusion Derived Uterine Carcinosarcoma Cell Line

Objective: Uterine carcinosarcoma (UCS) is a rare but highly aggressive malignancy with biphasic growth pattern. This morphology can be attributed to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) that often associates with tumor invasion and metastasis. Accordingly, we analyzed a novel patient-derived preclinical model to explore whether EMT is a potential target in UCS. Methods: A novel UCS cell line (PF338) was established from the malignant pleural effusion of a 59-year-old patient at time of disease progression. Immunohistochemistry was performed in primary and metastatic tumor lesions. Oncogenic mutations were identified by next-generation sequencing. Viability assays and cell cycle analyses were used to test in vitro sensitivity to different standard and novel treatments. E-cadherin, β-catenin and pSMAD2 expressions were measured by immunoblot. Results: Whereas immunohistochemistry of the metastatic tumor showed a predominantly sarcomatous vimentin positive tumor that has lost E-cadherin expression, PF338 cells demonstrated biphasic growth and carried mutations in KRAS, PIK3CA, PTEN and ARID1A. PF338 tumor cells were resistant to MEK- and TGF-β signaling-inhibition but sensitive to PIK3CA- and PARP-inhibition and first-line chemotherapeutics. Strikingly, histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition markedly reduced cell viability by inducing a dose-dependent G0/1 arrest and led to mesenchymal-epithelial transition as evidenced by morphological change and increased E-cadherin and β-catenin expression. Conclusions: Our data suggest that HDAC inhibition is effective in a novel UCS cell line by interfering with both viability and differentiation. These findings emphasize the dynamic manner of EMT/MET and epigenetics and the importance of molecular profiling to pave the way for novel therapies in UCS.
Sero-prevalence and Risk Factor Analysis of BoHV-1 in Bovines in Haryana State of India

Background: Bovine herpesvirus-1 (BoHV-1) is an important pathogen of cattle and buffaloes associated with various clinical conditions including infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) and abortion. To know the status of BoHV-1, a cross-sectional serological study was conducted with the objectives of estimating the apparent prevalence of BoHV-1 and potential risk factor among unorganized cattle and buffalo herds. Method: A total of 490 serum samples were collected from cattle and buffaloes from all twenty two (22) districts of Haryana from unorganised herd randomly and tested for antibodies against BoHV-1 using ELISA. Result: The overall percent sero-prevalence of BoHV-1 was observed as 48.78% however the species wise sero-prevalence was 37.77% in cattle and 62.27% in buffaloes. The overall sero-prevalence was significantly (p less than 0.05) associated with species, zone and age of animals. The likelihood of BoHV-1 was significantly higher (2.72 times) in buffaloes (Odds ratio (OR) =2.72, 95% Confidence Interval (CI):1.86; 3.98) than in cattle (OR=1). Eastern zone of the state showed higher (1.52 times, 95% CI: 1.03, 2.26) likelihood of BoHV-1 as compared to western zone (OR=1.00). The aged animals with age³6.5 years (2.96 times), followed by 2.5-4.5 years (2.44 times) and 4.5-6.5 years (1.68 times) showed higher likelihood than younger animals (Age less than 2.5 years). Further, it can be concluded that BoHV1 is circulating among livestock population in the state.
Flagellin From Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Stimulates ATB0,+ Transporter for Arginine and Neutral Amino Acids in Human Airway Epithelial Cells

At present, the central role played by arginine in the modulation of the inflammatory cellular responses is well-recognized, and many pro-inflammatory stimuli are known to modulate the expression and activity of its transmembrane transporters. In this regard, we have addressed the effects of bacterial flagellin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (FLA-PA) on the uptake of the amino acid in human epithelial respiratory cells. Among the arginine transporters, only ATB0,+, y+L, and y+ were operative in bronchial epithelial Calu-3 cells under control conditions; however, only the expression and activity of ATB0,+ were stimulated upon incubation with flagellin, whereas those of systems y+L and y+ were not stimulated. As a result, this induction, in turn, led to an increase in the intracellular content of arginine without making any change to its metabolic pathway. In addition, flagellin upregulated the amount of other amino acids substrates of ATB0,+, in particular, all the essential amino acids, such as valine, isoleucine, and leucine, along with the non-essential glutamine. At the molecular level, these effects were directly referable to the stimulation of a toll-like receptor-5 (TLR5) signaling pathway and to the induction of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) transcription factor. An induction of ATB0,+ expression has been observed also in EpiAirway™, a model of primary human normal tracheal-bronchial epithelial cells that mimics the in vitro pseudostratified columnar epithelium of the airways. In this tissue model, the incubation with flagellin is associated with the upregulation of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) for the chemokine IL-8 and for the cytokines IL-6 and interleukin-1β (IL-1β); as for the latter, a marked secretion in the extracellular medium was also observed due to the concomitant activation of caspase-1. The overall findings indicate that, in human respiratory epithelium, flagellin promotes cellular responses associating the increase of intracellular amino acids through ATB0,+ with the activation of the inflammasome. Given the role of the ATB0,+ transporter as a delivery system for bronchodilators in human airway epithelial cells, its induction under inflammatory conditions gains particular relevance in the field of respiratory pharmacology.
Adaptive trainable non-linear reaction diffusion for Rician noise removal

Rician noise reduction is an essential issue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recently, learning-based methods have achieved great success in dealing with image restoration problems, which provide fast inference and good performance. One limitation of these methods, however, is that the training procedure is usually noise-level dependent, i.e. the trained models are bound to a specific noise level and lack the ability to automatically adapt to different noise levels. In this study, the authors propose a variational model for Rician noise removal by integrating a noise adaption function into the field of experts image prior, which can adapt to different noise levels. Instead of directly solving the energy minimisation problem, the authors unroll the gradient descent step of the energy functional for several iterations, the time-dependent parameters of which can be learned through a supervised training process. The authors call this methodology as the noise adaptive trainable non-linear reaction–diffusion model. The proposed methodology is robustness against noise level changing and noise distributions. Experimental results over T 1 -, T 2 - and PD-weighted MRI data set demonstrate that the proposed model can achieve superior performance compared with other methods in terms of both the peak signal-to-noise ratio and the structural similarity index.
LONG‐TERM EFFECTS OF EXTENSIVE GYPSUM AMENDMENT APPLIED WITH SODIC WATER IRRIGATION ON SOIL PROPERTIES AND SOIL SOLUTION CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

Four neighboring locations, two noncultivated and two gypsum-treated, were sampled and analyzed for chemical composition of soil solution. Accumulation of soluble sodium salts in the gypsum-treated loessial soil irrigated with sodic waters was found to be significant after 11 yr of amendment application. A combination of high salinity and low ESP values in the topsoil significantly improved soil hydraulic conductivity and thus enhanced salt input and accumulation. It is predicted that continuation of such management could result in an increase in the concentration of sodium-soluble salts at shallower depths. Under these circumstances, the common ion effect would inhibit gypsum dissolution, thus making additional gypsum application useless.
Performance Evaluation of a Melon Seeds Shelling and Separation Machine

The scarcity of information on the performance of most machines developed in Nigeria impedes the commercialization of proven indigenous technologies. A newly developed melon seeds shelling and separation machine with the capability to continuously shell conditioned melon seeds and simultaneously separate the seed cotyledons from it shells was evaluated. The machine extracts heat exclusively from the exhaust gases of a gasoline prime mover by heat conduction principle, mildly dry the shelled melon seed mixture before effecting separation of the cotyledons from it shells by aerodynamic and screening principles. Based on preliminary studies, performance evaluation of the machine was carried out at 900, 1500 and 2100 rpm operating speed and 14, 20 and 26% db moisture content of white edge (Serewe) melon seed variety. The data obtained were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistic software version 25. Results of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at P ≤ 0.05 showed that, shelling efficiency and machine capacity varies significantly with the operating speed, moisture content of the seeds, and their interactions; while separation efficiency and seed breakage percentage varies significantly with the operating speed and moisture content of the seeds but not significant with their interactions. An optimal performance of 96% shelling efficiency, 95% separation efficiency, 2.67% seed breakage percentage and 54.23 kg/h machine capacity, was obtained at 2100 rpm operating speed and 20% db seed moisture level. The performance of the machine is satisfactory and therefore recommended for commercialization and adoption by melon seed processors.
ISLAMIC BANKING AND BANK PERFORMANCE IN MALAYSIA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

This paper examines the performance of Malaysia’s banking sector and its relationship to the presence of Islamic banking in the country. More specifically, by controlling for the theoretically relevant determinants of bank performance we compare the efficiency, profitability and risk of Islamic banks to conventional banks and examine the spillover effects of Islamic banking penetration on bank performance. To these ends, we adopt a panel modelling approach. Taking note that our focal variables comprise the time-invariant Islamic banking dummy and potentially endogenous Islamic banking share, we apply the Hausman–Taylor (HT) instrumental-variable estimator in the analysis. Our results indicate that Islamic banks in Malaysia are less profitable than their conventional counterparts and that Islamic banking penetration is associated with lower bank profitability. However, the increasing presence of Islamic banking appears to make Malaysian banks less risky and, with limited evidence, more efficient. Finally, the efficiency–risk trade-off seems to have potential as the Islamic banking portion of the sector increases in size. These results are reasonably robust compared to alternative specifications of the model.
Genetic Diversity and Phylogenetic Relationship of Clinical Isolates of Brucella melitensis Based on Gene Polymorphism of β Subunit of RNA Polymerase (rpoB) Gene in Iran

Background: The prevalence of Brucella infections in animals and humans has indicated the important need for different regional/local reference laboratories to use valid species-determining approaches to facilitate and compare data exchange. The purpose of current study was to evaluate the RNA Polymerase Beta Subunit (rpoB) as a molecular marker in Brucella species differentiation and to determine the genotype of Brucella melitensis species using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis. Materials & Methods: In this study, blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were taken from 108 patients with brucellosis. After culturing the samples insupplemented Brucella agar, eleven isolates of Brucella bacteria were isolated and identified by classical and molecular biotyping methods. Then the complete sequence of their rpoB gene was multiplied and sequenced. Sequencing results were analyzed by Mega6 program. Results: According to the results, the rpoB gene was able to differentiate between Brucella species and other bacteria.Moreover, the rpoB typing grouped the majority of Iranian isolates in the rpoB type 2, while only one strain belonged to the rpoB type 1. Among the 10 isolates of rpoB type 2, there are six different isolates with only one unique type2 SNPs in codon 985, which gives rise to new genotype 2 variants. Conclusion: Our results shown a high discriminative power of rpoB gene among B. melitensis strains from some regions of Iran, which leads to accurate genotype and identification of these bacteria.
Borin‐Anlagerungsverbindungen des Äthylendiamins

Darstellung und Eigenschaften der Anlagerungsprodukte Athylendiamin: BH3 = 1:2 und 1:1 werden beschrieben. Aus den Infrarotspektren wird fur das Produkt 1:2 auf eine ringformige, ionische Struktur geschlossen.
Development of an n-heptane/toluene/polyaromatic hydrocarbon mechanism and its application for combustion and soot prediction

A chemical reaction mechanism has been developed for modeling the combustion process and polyaromatic hydrocarbon formation of diesel and n-heptane/toluene fuels. A reduced n-heptane/polyaromatic hydrocarbon mechanism was applied and updated to better predict the formation of polyaromatic hydrocarbon up to four rings (A4) in ethylene and n-heptane premixed flames. In addition, a reduced toluene mechanism was updated and combined with the n-heptane/polyaromatic hydrocarbon mechanism to predict the combustion and polyaromatic hydrocarbon formation of diesel and n-heptane/toluene fuels. The final mechanism consists of 71 species and 360 reactions. This mechanism was validated with experimental ignition delay data in shock tubes, premixed flame species concentration profiles, homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion and direct injection spray combustion data. A practical multistep soot model was integrated with the polyaromatic hydrocarbon kinetic model to predict soot emissions of diesel and n-heptane/toluene direct injection engine data. Constant-volume combustion vessel simulations were also conducted and the effects of combustion parameters, such as temperature and equivalence ratio, together with the n-heptane/toluene ratio on polyaromatic hydrocarbon and soot formation are discussed. The results show that the present mechanism provides promising agreement in terms of polyaromatic hydrocarbon prediction for various fuels in premixed flames and highlights the importance of aromatics on the polyaromatic hydrocarbon formation and soot emissions. Homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion and direct injection spray combustion simulation results confirm that the present mechanism gives reliable predictions of combustion and soot emissions for both diesel and n-heptane/toluene fuels under various conditions.
Electron paramagnetic resonance analysis of gamma irradiated 4-nitropyridine N-oxide single crystal

A free radical produced by 60Co- γ irradiation in single crystals of 4-nitropyridine N-oxide, C5H4N2O3, has been observed and analyzed for different orientations of the crystal in the magnetic field at the temperature between 120 and 450 K, using an Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) technique. The spectra were found to be temperature independent and the resonance form of the radical was attributed to the 4-nitropyridinium cation radical. The isotropic average value of the g-factor and the hyperfine splitting constants are obtained as g av = 2.01077, , , and . The measurements indicate that 70% of the unpaired electrons are localized on the N(1).
Modelling Drug-Target Binding Affinity using a BERT based Graph Neural network

Understanding the interactions between novel drugs and target proteins is fundamentally important in disease research as discovering drug-protein interactions can be an exceptionally time-consuming and expensive process. Alternatively, this process can be simulated using modern deep learning methods that have the potential of utilising vast quantities of data to reduce the cost and time required to provide accurate predictions. We seek to leverage a set of BERT-style models that have been pre-trained on vast quantities of both protein and drug data. The encodings produced by each model are then utilised as node representations for a graph convolutional neural network, which in turn are used to model the interactions without the need to simultaneously fine-tune both protein and drug BERT models to the task. We evaluate the performance of our approach on two drug-target interaction datasets that were previously used as benchmarks in recent work.Our results significantly improve upon a vanilla BERT baseline approach as well as the former state-of-the-art methods for each task dataset. Our approach builds upon past work in two key areas; firstly, we take full advantage of two large pre-trained BERT models that provide improved representations of task-relevant properties of both drugs and proteins. Secondly, inspired by work in natural language processing that investigates how linguistic structure is represented in such models, we perform interpretability analyses that allow us to locate functionally-relevant areas of interest within each drug and protein. By modelling the drug-target interactions as a graph as opposed to a set of isolated interactions, we demonstrate the benefits of combining large pre-trained models and a graph neural network to make state-of-the-art predictions on drug-target binding affinity.
Adsorption equilibrium, thermodynamics, kinetics, mechanism and process design of zinc(II) ions onto cashew nut shell

Cashew nut shell (CNS) is an agricultural waste was investigated as a new adsorbent for the removal of zinc(II) from aqueous environment. Effects of solution pH, CNS dose, contact time, initial zinc(II) concentration and temperature on removal efficiency were tested and optimum conditions were evaluated. The equilibrium data were fitted well with Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Langmuir monolayer adsorption capacity of CNS was examined as 24.98 mg/g. Changes in standard Gibbs free energy (▵G°), standard enthalpy (▵H°) and standard entropy (▵S°) showed that the sorption of zinc(II) ions onto CNS are spontaneous and exothermic at 303–333 K. Sorption process was found to be controlled by both surface and pore diffusion. A batch adsorber was designed for different CNS dose to effluent volume ratios using Langmuir equation. Effective diffusivity values were found to be 1.927 × 10−11 (10 mg/L), 2.135 × 10−11 (20 mg/L), 2.267 × 10−11 (30 mg/L), 2.305 × 10−11 (40 mg/L) and 2.362 × 10−11 (50 mg/L) m2/s. © 2011 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering
Multimodal Sensor Fusion for Low-Power Wearable Human Motion Tracking Systems in Sports Applications

This paper presents a prototype human motion tracking system for wearable sports applications. It can be particularly applicable for tracking human motion during executing certain strength training exercises, such as the barbell squat, where an inappropriate technique could result in an injury. The key novelty of the proposed system is twofold. Firstly, it is an inside-out, multimodal, motion tracker that incorporates two complementary sensor modalities, i.e. a camera and an inertial motion sensor, as well as two externally-mounted points of reference. Secondly, it incorporates a novel multimodal sensor fusion algorithm which uses the complementary nature of vision and inertial sensor modalities to perform a computationally efficient 3-Dimensional (3-D) pose detection of the wearable device. The 3-D pose is determined by fusing information about the two external reference points captured by the camera together with the orientation angles captured by the inertial motion sensor. The accuracy of the prototype was experimentally validated in laboratory conditions. The main findings are as follows. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) in 3-D position calculation was 36.7 mm and 13.6 mm in the static and mobile cases, respectively. Whereas the static case was aimed at determining the system’s performance at all 3-D poses within the work envelope, the mobile case was used to determine the error in tracking human motion that is involved in the barbell squat, i.e. a mainly repeated vertical motion pattern.