Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A COMPARISON OF THE INTESTINAL HELMINTH COMMUNITIES OF EQUIDAE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

The intestinal helminth communities of 8 horses, 12 donkeys, 21 Hartmann's mountain zebras, and 44 Burchell's zebras were compared using the original data from 6 studies in South Africa and Namibia. Necropsy and worm recovery techniques were comparable between the studies. Sixty helminth species (58 nematode, 1 cestode, and 1 trematode species) were recorded. There were significant differences in the helminth community structures of the 4 Equus species. The helminth communities of the 2 closely related zebra subspecies were most similar, and they jointly shared 7 helminth species with donkeys and only 1 with horses. Geographic variation and host-mixing contributed to the helminth species composition. Multiple confamilial species infections were the norm in the donkeys and zebra subspecies, and no single-species infection was recorded for the Strongylidae. Congeneric species were commonly recorded in 3 genera (Cyathostomum, Cylicocyclus, and Cylicostephanus). The shape of the occupancy frequency distributions for the donkeys and zebra subspecies was multimodal, with no clear satellite or core modes. Despite the presence of environmental variability and comparatively low parasite-host specificity, the phylogenetic signal within Equus helminth communities remains strong.
Metformin and cancer: Doses, mechanisms and the dandelion and hormetic phenomena

In the early 1970s, Professor Vladimir Dilman originally developed the idea that antidiabetic biguanides may be promising as geroprotectors and anticancer drugs ("metabolic rehabilitation"). In the early 2000s, Anisimov´s experiments revealed that chronic treatment of female transgenic HER2-/neu mice with metformin significantly reduced the incidence and size of mammary adenocarcinomas and increased the mean latency of the tumors. Epidemiological studies have confirmed that metformin, but not other anti-diabetic drugs, significantly reduces cancer incidence and improves cancer patients' survival in type 2 diabetics. At present, pioneer work by Dilman & Anisimov at the Petrov Institute of Oncology (St. Petersburg, Russia) is rapidly evolving due to ever-growing preclinical studies using human tumor-derived cultured cancer cells and animal models. We herein critically review how the antidiabetic drug metformin is getting reset to metabolically fight cancer. Our current perception is that metformin may constitute a novel "hybrid anti-cancer pill" physically combining both the long-lasting effects of antibodies -by persistently lowering levels of blood insulin and glucose- and the immediate potency of a cancer cell-targeting molecular agent -by suppressing the pivotal AMPK/mTOR/S6K1 axis and several protein kinases at once, including tyrosine kinase receptors such as HER1 and HER2-. In this scenario, we discuss the relevance of metformin doses in pre-clinical models regarding metformin's mechanisms of action in clinical settings. We examine recent landmark studies demonstrating metformin's ability to specifically target the cancer-initiating stem cells from which tumor cells develop, thereby preventing cancer relapse when used in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy (dandelion hypothesis). We present the notion that, by acting as an efficient caloric restriction mimetic, metformin enhanced intrinsic capacity of mitotically competent cells to self-maintenance and repair (hormesis) might trigger counterintuitive detrimental effects. Ongoing chemopreventive, neoadjuvant and adjuvant trials should definitely establish whether metformin's ability to kill the "dandelion root" beneath the "cancer soil" likely exceeds metformin-related dangers of hormesis.
The effect of the oral glucose tolerance test on the white blood count, the serum cholinesterase activity, the sodium-potassium ratio in the plasma and the erythrocytes in toxaemia of late pregnancy as compared with the effects of androgens and desoxycorticosterone.

We have previously shown that corticoids probably play an important part in the aetiology of toxaemia (Parviainen, Soiva & Ehrnroot, 1949, 1950 a, b, c, d). Our investigations into urinary corticosteroid excretion, which were carried out by the method of Heard and Sobel (Parviainen, Soiva & Vartiainen, 1950), support this opinion. Further evidence is also given by the more extensive hormone determinations of Devis & Devis-van den Eeckhoudt (1949). As we were unable to carry out accurate corticoid determinations, we have studied the adrenocortical function in cases of toxaemia by the so-called indirect methods (cf. Parviainen & P\l=a"\rn\l=a"\nen,1950). The oral glucose tolerance test was chosen as our attempts to obtain ACTH were unsuccessful.
Quantitative Trait Loci Mapping for Porcine Backfat Thickness

A partial genome scan using porcine microsatellites was carried out to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) for backfat thickness (BFT) in a pig reference population. This population carried QTL on chromosomes 1, 13 and 18. The QTL on chromosome 1 was located between marker loci S0113 and SW1301. The QTL corresponded to very low density lipoprotein receptor gene (VLDLR) in location and in biological effects, suggesting that VLDLR might be a candidate gene. The QTL found on chromosome 13 was found between marker loci SWR1941 and SW864, but significance for the marker-trait association was inconsistent by using data with different generations. The QTL on chromosome 18 was discovered between markers S0062 and S0117, and it was in proximity of the regions where IGFBP3 and GHRHR were located. The porcine obese gene might be also a candidate gene for the QTL on chromosome 18. In order to understand genetic architecture of BFT better, fine mapping and positional comparative candidate gene analyses are necessary. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2002. Vol 15, No. 7 : 932-937)
Energy-efficient data collection for context recognition

Detection of the user's context with mobile sensing systems is a common problem in ubiquitous computing. However, the typically small battery of such systems is often making continuous detection impractical. The strain on the battery can be reduced if the sensor setting is adapted to each context. We propose a method that efficiently finds near-optimal sensor settings. It uses Markov chains to simulate the behaviour of the system in different configurations, and multi-objective genetic algorithm to find a set of good non-dominated configurations.
A comparison of visual and collection-based methods for assessing community structure of coral reef fishes in the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Gorgona island, the major insular area in the Colombian Pacific Ocean, is characterized by a remark - ably high biological and ecosystem diversity for this area of the world. Coral reefs are well developed and their fish communities have been described using conventional visual surveys. These methods, however, are known to be biased towards detecting larger and more mobile species, tending to ignore small and cryptobenthic species. The two main objectives of this study were to describe the assemblage structure of the cryptobenthic fish fauna and estimate the extent to which this fauna is underestimated by visual surveys.At the beginning and the end of the warm season, we compared the cryptobenthic fish assemblage recorded using visual surveys against the one recorded using "enclosed anesthetic/rotenone samples" on isolated coral colonies (N=54 beginning of warm season; N=17 end of warm season). The crypthobenthic fish fauna associated to coral colonies was characterized by small body sizes and was composed mainly by species of the families Antennaridae, Blennidae, Gobiidae, Labrisomidae, Muraenidae, Serranidae, Scorpaenidae and Syngnathidae. Conventional visual surveys underes- timated overall species richness by 28-36% and number of individuals by 16-35%. Noteworthy, four species recorded during this study using "enclosed anesthetic/rotenone samples" were new records for Gorgona island. Although both sampling methods can detect a largely overlapping group of species, the "enclosed anesthetic/ rotenone samples" method was able to detect more individuals and species, including several species that visual surveys fail to detect. Although this study is the first effort to describe the cryptobenthic fish assemblage associ- ated to coral reefs in the Tropical Eastern Pacific, our results suggest that these assemblages are an important component of the reef fish community in the region in terms of biodiversity and functional roles. Rev. Biol. Trop. 62 (Suppl. 1): 359-371. Epub 2014 February 01.
ML estimation of timing, integer frequency and primary sequence index in LTE systems

This paper addresses the problem of maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of slot timing, integer carrier frequency offset and primary sequence index for the downlink of Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems. The proposed algorithm is designed to exploit the knowledge of the pilot Zadoff-Chu sequence embedded in the primary synchronization signal (PSS). The estimation process is affected by the presence of a large set of nuisance parameters, which need to be estimated jointly with the parameters of interest. As a consequence, the exact ML solution is extremely complex and we have developed a suboptimal algorithm designed to provide a good balance between estimation accuracy and complexity. In particular, a key finding is a reduced-rank representation for the frequency response of the channel, which is required by the ML estimator but is not available at receiver prior to having acquired synchronization. Compared to existing alternatives, the resulting scheme exhibits improved accuracy in the estimation of all three parameters of interest.
Mentoring für MigrantInnen

In der vorliegenden Arbeit beschaftigte ich mich aus anthropologischer Sicht mit dem Mentoring-Projekt ZusammenLeben. ZusammenLeben ist ein Kooperationsprojekt des Verein Grenzenlos mit der Interface GmbH zur Forderung der Integration von MigrantInnen in Wien. Mein Interesse lag darin die Auswirkung der Teilnahme auf die Beteiligten herauszufinden. Dabei war es fur mich spannend zu sehen welche Prozesse und Mechanismen hinter dem Begriff Integration stehen konnen. Als Mentorin und Forscherin im gleichen Projekt erhielt ich Einblicke in den Ablauf und die Treffen der MentorInnen-Paare. Mit Hilfe der teilnehmenden Beobachtung konnte ich wahrend des gesamten Projektverlaufs Daten erheben. Ausgehend von den einzelnen Treffen von MentorInnen und Mentees startete ich bei der Motivation der TeilnehmerInnen und deren Auswirkung auf das Projekt und dessen Verlauf. Dabei zeigten sich Spracherwerb, aber auch interkultureller Austausch als zentrale Beweggrunde fur die Teilnahme am Projekt. Weiters wurde sichtbar, dass Sprachkenntnisse alleine nicht zu einer gleichberechtigten Teilhabe fuhren, sondern weitere Faktoren wie die Gesetzeslage oder die personlichen Moglichkeiten die Chancen einschranken. Als Basis fur die weitere Analyse dienten mir Netzwerktheorien. Einerseits ist die Vergroserung von Netzwerken ausschlaggebend fur die Erweiterung von Moglichkeiten und Zugang zu Ressourcen, andererseits kann durch die Kanale der Netzwerke Unterstutzung stattfinden und neue Kompetenzen erworben werden. So kam es im Rahmen des Mentoring-Projekts zu einer Veranderung des Selbstbildes der TeilnehmerInnen. Gleichzeitig wurde Empowerment angeregt und die Rolle des cultural brokers sichtbar. Die Diplomarbeit zeigt auf in welcher Art und Weise personliche Beziehungen, hier im Rahmen eines Mentoring-Projekts, unseren Horizont erweitern und neue Moglichkeiten entstehen.
Roles of Toll-Like Receptors in C-C Chemokine Production by Renal Tubular Epithelial Cells1

Pyelonephritis, in which renal tubular epithelial cells are directly exposed to bacterial component, is a major predisposing cause of renal insufficiency. Although previous studies have suggested C-C chemokines are involved in the pathogenesis, the exact source and mechanisms of the chemokine secretion remain ambiguous. In this study, we evaluated the involvement of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in C-C chemokine production by mouse primary renal tubular epithelial cells (MTECs). MTECs constitutively expressed mRNA for TLR1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, but not for TLR5 or 9. MTECs also expressed MD-2, CD14, myeloid differentiation factor 88, and Toll receptor-IL-1R domain-containing adapter protein/myeloid differentiation factor 88-adapter-like. Synthetic lipid A and lipoprotein induced monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) and RANTES production in MTECs, which strictly depend on TLR4 and TLR2, respectively. In contrast, MTECs were refractory to CpG-oligodeoxynucleotide in chemokine production, consistently with the absence of TLR9. LPS-mediated MCP-1 and RANTES production in MTECs was abolished by NF-κB inhibition, but unaffected by extracellular signal-regulated kinase inhibition. In LPS-stimulated MTECs, inhibition of c-Jun N-terminal kinase and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase significantly decreased RANTES, but did not affect MCP-1 mRNA induction. Thus, MTECs have a distinct expression pattern of TLR and secrete C-C chemokines in response to direct stimulation with a set of bacterial components.
Fasting triglyceride and the triglyceride-HDL cholesterol ratio are not markers of insulin resistance in African Americans.

BACKGROUND The "lipid criteria" consist of a triglyceride (TG) level of 130 mg/dL (1.47 mmol/L) or greater and a ratio of TG to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) of 3 or greater. In Caucasians, the lipid criteria predict insulin resistance in individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 kg/m(2) or greater. Our goal was to determine whether TG levels or TG-HDL-C ratio predicted insulin resistance in African Americans with a BMI of 25 kg/m(2) or more. METHODS Of 125 African Americans, the 98 with a BMI of 25 kg/m(2) or more participated. All subjects had frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance tests with insulin resistance determined by the insulin sensitivity index. Subjects were divided into the following tertiles by insulin sensitivity: 12.8 to 4.3, 4.2 to 2.3, and 2.2 to 0.2 mU/L per minute. Insulin resistance was defined as being in the third tertile. Across tertiles, the distribution of variables was compared by 1-way analysis of variance. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve were determined to identify variables that predicted insulin resistance. RESULTS Fasting insulin level, BMI, and waist circumference increased across tertiles (all P<.01), but TG levels and TG-HDL-C ratio did not (all P>/=.3). The mean +/- SE areas under the curves for fasting insulin, BMI, and waist circumference were 0.85 +/- 0.04, 0.72 +/- 0.05, and 0.71 +/- 0.05, respectively. For TG level and TG-HDL-C ratio, the areas under the curves were 0.55 +/- 0.06 and 0.56 +/- 0.06, respectively, meaning that the true-positive rate was nearly equal to the false-positive rate. Therefore, they could not be used as markers of insulin resistance. Furthermore, 17 subjects met the lipid criteria but only 7 were in the insulin-resistant tertile, making the sensitivity of these criteria to identify insulin resistance only 17%. CONCLUSION In African Americans, TG levels and TG-HDL-C ratio are not reliable markers of insulin resistance.
Rethinking Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century France

Introduction: charting a noisy silence 1. Competing solutions to a Jewish question 2. The unyielding wall: Christianity and Judaism 3. The eternal Jew 4. Sensuality, depravity, and ritual murder: Jews in the Orient, and Jews at home? 5. 'Rothschildian greed: this new variety of despotism' 6. Evolutions in the Jewish question Conclusion.
Total soil C and N sequestration in a grassland following 10 years of free air CO2 enrichment

Soil C sequestration may mitigate rising levels of atmospheric CO2. However, it has yet to be determined whether net soil C sequestration occurs in N‐rich grasslands exposed to long‐term elevated CO2. This study examined whether N‐fertilized grasslands exposed to elevated CO2 sequestered additional C. For 10 years, Lolium perenne, Trifolium repens, and the mixture of L. perenne/T. repens grasslands were exposed to ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations (35 and 60 Pa pCO2). The applied CO2 was depleted in δ13C and the grasslands received low (140 kg ha−1) and high (560 kg ha−1) rates of 15N‐labeled fertilizer. Annually collected soil samples from the top 10 cm of the grassland soils allowed us to follow the sequestration of new C in the surface soil layer. For the first time, we were able to collect dual‐labeled soil samples to a depth of 75 cm after 10 years of elevated CO2 and determine the total amount of new soil C and N sequestered in the whole soil profile. Elevated CO2, N‐fertilization rate, and species had no significant effect on total soil C. On average 9.4 Mg new C ha−1 was sequestered, which corresponds to 26.5% of the total C. The mean residence time of the C present in the 0–10 cm soil depth was calculated at 4.6±1.5 and 3.1±1.1 years for L. perenne and T. repens soil, respectively. After 10 years, total soil N and C in the 0–75 cm soil depth was unaffected by CO2 concentration, N‐fertilization rate and plant species. The total amount of 15N‐fertilizer sequestered in the 0–75 cm soil depth was also unaffected by CO2 concentration, but significantly more 15N was sequestered in the L. perenne compared with the T. repens swards: 620 vs. 452 kg ha−1 at the high rate and 234 vs. 133 kg ha−1 at the low rate of N fertilization. Intermediate values of 15N recovery were found in the mixture. The fertilizer derived N amounted to 2.8% of total N for the low rate and increased to 8.6% for the high rate of N application. On average, 13.9% of the applied 15N‐fertilizer was recovered in the 0–75 cm soil depth in soil organic matter in the L. perenne sward, whereas 8.8% was recovered under the T. repens swards, indicating that the N2‐fixing T. repens system was less effective in sequestering applied N than the non‐N2‐fixing L. perenne system. Prolonged elevated CO2 did not lead to an increase in whole soil profile C and N in these fertilized pastures. The potential use of fertilized and regular cut pastures as a net soil C sink under long‐term elevated CO2 appears to be limited and will likely not significantly contribute to the mitigation of anthropogenic C emissions.
Automatic domain pruning filter for optical observations on short arcs

The uncertainty region associated with short arcs is typically large, making the initialization of orbit estimators a challenging task. In this work we propose a method to reduce the size of the uncertainty region using automatic domain pruning. The initial orbit and its confidence region are obtained by using a differential algebra-based initial orbit determination algorithm and a least squares algorithm. New measurements are used to reduce the size of the confidence region by retaining only those portions of the domain in which the likelihood is above a certain threshold.
Adaptive Importance Sampling

Parametric adaptive importance sampling (IS) algorithms that adapt the IS density to the system of interest during the course of the simulation are discussed. This approach removes the burden of selecting the IS density from the system designer. The performance of two such algorithms is investigated for both linear and nonlinear systems operating in Gaussian noise. In addition, the algorithms are shown to converge to the optimum improved importance sampling density for the special case of a linear system with Gaussian noise. >
Nucleotide sequence of htpB, the Legionella pneumophila gene encoding the 58-kilodalton (kDa) common antigen, formerly designated the 60-kDa common antigen

Gene htpB, which encodes the 58-kilodalton protein of Legionella pneumophila, was cloned in Escherichia coli and its complete nucleotide sequence was determined. Analysis of this sequence revealed an open reading frame of 1,644 nucleotides encoding a protein with a predicted molecular mass of 57,952 daltons. Data obtained by amino-terminal sequencing of the purified 58-kilodalton protein agreed, except for one amino acid residue, with the predicted amino acid sequence, identifying this open reading frame as htpB. A comparison of the primary structure of this protein to other proteins of similar molecular weights from E. coli, Mycobacterium leprae, M. tuberculosis, and Coxiella burnetii revealed significant regions of sequence similarity, which are discussed.
HIF1α-Induced Glycolysis Metabolism Is Essential to the Activation of Inflammatory Macrophages

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) 1α is a metabolic regulator that plays an important role in immunologic responses. Previous studies have demonstrated that HIF1α participates in the M1 polarization of macrophages. To clarify the mechanism of HIF1α-induced polarization of M1 macrophage, myeloid-specific HIF1α overexpression (Lysm HIF1α lsl) mice were employed and the bone marrow-derived and peritoneal macrophages were isolated. RT-PCR results revealed that HIF1α overexpression macrophage had a hyperinflammatory state characterized by the upregulation of M1 markers. Cellular bioenergetics analysis showed lower cellular oxygen consumption rates in the Lysm HIF1α lsl mice. Metabolomics studies showed that HIF1α overexpression led to increased glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway intermediates. Further results revealed that macrophage M1 polarization, induced by HIF1α overexpression, was via upregulating the mRNA expression of the genes related to the glycolysis metabolism. Our results indicate that HIF1α promoted macrophage glycolysis metabolism, which induced M1 polarization in mice.
Far-infrared emission in luminous quasars accompanied by nuclear outflows

Combining large-area optical quasar surveys with the new far-infrared Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 1, we search for an observational signature associated with the minority of quasars possessing bright far-infrared (FIR) luminosities. We find that FIR-bright quasars show broad C iv emission line blueshifts in excess of that expected from the optical luminosity alone, indicating particularly powerful nuclear outflows. The quasars show no signs of having redder optical colours than the general ensemble of optically-selected quasars, ruling out differences in line-of-sight dust within the host galaxies. We postulate that these objects may be caught in a special evolutionary phase, with unobscured, high black hole accretion rates and correspondingly strong nuclear outflows. The high FIR emission found in these objects is then either a result of star formation related to the outflow, or is due to dust within the host galaxy illuminated by the quasar. We are thus directly witnessing coincident small-scale nuclear processes and galaxy-wide activity, commonly invoked in galaxy simulations which rely on feedback from quasars to influence galaxy evolution.
Investigation of material identification with terahertz pulsed imaging

Terahertz pulsed imaging provides a wealth of information about the terahertz response of the material under test. We investigate the identification and classification of explosives and common materials based on their terahertz absorption spectra obtained by this spectroscopic imaging technique. In the classification experiment, an accuracy of 96.6% is achieved by using Fisher's linear discriminant analysis for dimensionality reduction of the original spectral data set and support vector machine classifier for classification.