Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of enalapril on the cardiac remodelling in ovariectomized spontaneously hypertensive rats

Angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors reduce the blood pressure (BP) and inhibit the generation of the angiotensin II from the inactive angiotensin I. Ten 28‐week‐old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) had their ovaries bilaterally removed and five rats were left intact and studied for 7 additional weeks: intact group, ovariectomized group (ovx SHRs) and ovariectomized + enalapril group (ovx + en). BP was higher in ovx SHRs and lower in treated ovx SHRs. Left ventricular (LV) mass index was greater in untreated ovx SHRs and smaller in ovx + en group. The LV cardiomyocyte (cmy) mean cross‐sectional area, measured by stereology, was greater in ovx SHRs and smaller in both intact and ovx + en SHRs. Ovx significantly decreased the density of intramyocardial blood vessels (ive), but administration of enalapril was able to restore the density of the ive to that seen in intact group. The worst ive:cmy ratio was found in untreated ovx SHRs, the intact group showed a 90% greater ratio, and the treated ovx group showed a 150% greater ratio than the untreated ovx group. In conclusion, ovariectomy, in SHRs, causes cardiac hypertrophy and an unfavourable myocardial remodelling. Of the spectrum of changes seen, the major effect of enalapril appears to be mediated via an increase in the density of ive.
A Piezoresponse Force Microscopy Study of CaxBa1−xNb2O6 Single Crystals

Polar structures of CaxBa1−xNb2O6 (CBN100x) single crystals were investigated using piezoresponse force microscopy. Increasing Ca content results in decreasing domain size and enhancement of the polar disorder. For the composition with x = 0.32 the characteristic domain size is similar to that reported for relaxor Sr0.61Ba0. 39Nb2O6 (SBN61). However, decay of an artificial macroscopic domain in CBN32 takes place below the macroscopic transition temperature, contrary to SBN61, where random fields stabilize it above the transition temperature. We can conclude that CBN with 0.26 ≤ x ≤ 0.32 does not display classical relaxor behavior and might be considered as a disordered ferroelectric.
A decay-accelerating factor-binding strain of coxsackievirus B3 requires the coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor protein to mediate lytic infection of rhabdomyosarcoma cells

The composition of the cellular receptor complex for coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) has been an area of much contention for the last 30 years. Recently, two individual components of a putative CVB3 cellular receptor complex have been identified as (i) decay-accelerating factor (DAF) and (ii) the coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor protein (CAR). The present study elucidates the individual roles of DAF and CAR in cell entry of CVB3 Nancy. First, we confirm that the DAF-binding phenotype of CVB3 correlates to the presence of key amino acids located in the viral capsid protein, VP2. Second, using antibody blockade, we show that complete protection of permissive cells from infection by high input multiplicities of CVB3 requires a combination of both anti-DAF and anti-CAR antibodies. Finally, it is shown that expression of the CAR protein on the surface of nonpermissive DAF-expressing RD cells renders them highly susceptible to CVB3-mediated lytic infection. Therefore, although the majority of CVB3 Nancy attaches to the cell via DAF, only virus directly interacting with the CAR protein mediates lytic infection. The role of DAF in CVB3 cell infection may be analogous to that recently described for coxsackievirus A21 (D. R. Shafren, D. J. Dorahy, R. A. Ingham, G. F. Burns, and R. D. Barry, J. Virol. 71:4736-4743, 1997), in that DAF may act as a CVB3 sequestration site, enhancing viral presentation to the functional CAR protein.
Effect of sebum and ointment rubbing on the skin permeation of triamcinolone acetonide from white petrolatum ointment.

Effect of sebum and ointment rubbing was evaluated on the permeation of a model steroidal drug, triamcinolone acetonide (TA), from white petrolatum ointment through excised hairless rat skin. Two kinds of white petrolatum ointment containing TA at a concentration of 1.0% were made using a "pre-applied ointment," which was made by applying and recovering white petrolatum on and from the rat skin, respectively, and the "original ointment. " Solubility and skin permeation of TA in and from both the ointments were measured and compared. TA solubility in the pre-applied ointment was about twice to that of the original ointment. Full-thickness skin and stripped skin permeabilities of TA from pre-applied ointment were about 2.3- and 1.5-times higher than those from the original ointment. In addition, the calculated partition coefficient of TA from pre-applied ointment to full-thickness skin was 2.7-times that of the original ointment. Next, the ointment-rubbing effect was determined. Skin permeation of TA from 1.0% TA original ointment with a 30 s-rubbing was 9-times higher than that after drug-free ointment-rubbing and application of 1.0% TA original ointment. The increase in solubility and skin permeation of TA due to pre-applied ointment is probably due to dissolution of TA by skin lipids extracted from the skin surface. Ointment rubbing increases the transient decrease in skin impedance and enhanced delivery of ointment base to the skin. These results are useful for development of ointment formulations and skin penetration mechanisms from an ointment base.
From Competitor to Consumer: The Changing Focus of Federal Regulation of Advertising, 1914–1938

It is a truism that government regulation of business, like all institutions of the political economy, has been evolutionary in nature. Yet few regulatory programs have metamorphosed quite so completely as that of the Federal Trade Commission, which converted itself in the period covered by this article from a watchdog of “competitive practices” that might militate against preservation of atomistic industrial organization, to an agency bent on protecting the interests of consumers. Professor Tedlow shows how this process worked itself out in the important case of truth in advertising.
Assessment of DNA Damage at the Dimer Level: Measurement of the Formamide Lesion

Abstract Greene, K. F. , Budzinski, E. E. , Iijima, H. , Davidzik, J. B. , DeFedericis, H-C. , Patrzyc, H. B. , Evans, M. S. , Bailey, D. T. , Freund, H. F. and Box, H. C. Assessment of DNA Damage at the Dimer Level: Measurement of the Formamide Lesion. Radiat. Res. 167, 146–151 (2007). UVC-radiation-induced DNA damage was measured in mouse fibroblast cells using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in conjunction with isotopically labeled internal standards. The thymine glycol and formamide lesions were assayed in the form of modified dinucleoside monophosphates. The 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine lesion was measured as the modified nucleoside. DNA damage in cells treated with tirapazamine was also measured. Tirapazamine is a chemotherapeutic agent that acts via a free radical mechanism. The two agents, UVC radiation and tirapazamine, produce markedly different profiles of DNA damage, reflecting their respective mechanisms of action. Both agents produce significant amounts of thymine glycol and formamide damage, but only the former produced a measurable amount of the 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine lesion. The merits of measuring DNA damage at the dimer level are discussed.
Efficiently Encodable Irregular QC-LDPC Codes Constructed from Self-Reciprocal Generator Polynomials of MDS Codes

This letter presents a class of quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes which are efficiently encodable and have better memory efficiency than other randomly constructed QC-LDPC codes. The parity-check matrix of the codes is obtained from a block circulant matrix that is generated from a self-reciprocal generator polynomial of a maximum distance separable (MDS) code by replacing some of its block entries by all zero matrices. We show by simulations that the codes can achieve excellent error performance.
Video games and the crowdfunding ideology: From the gamer-buyer to the prosumer-investor

Digital convergence and Web 2.0 have led to the emergence of new forms of involvement and participation of consumers in the game industry. Prosumers are now participating in productive and decision-making structures at the highest level using collective financing model or crowdfunding. In this system, the traditional business relations based on hierarchy have undergone a major change repositioning the creative focus on the player. The top-down culture of game business becomes bottom-up participatory culture intervening mainly in game genres, topics, and mechanics. This research frames crowdfunding in the participatory culture and the conversion from consumer to prosumer-investor to later analyze the 10 most funded games on Kickstarter. A qualitative analysis focused on the ideology of crowdfunding discourses concludes that positive arguments for video games collective financing model develop an emancipatory-utopian framework, which is critical with publishers, libertarian with users, and melancholic-postmodern with the content developed in the past.
Wearable system for patient motor condition assessment and training monitoring

In this paper we describe an extendable point of care system for simultaneous motor rehabilitation (post-stroke and -arthroscopy) patient condition assessment and patient safety observations. Electronic linear and angular accelerometer sensors attached to the human upper or lower limbs gather information about performed therapeutic exercises. The measurement data processing of the vital sign sensors and accelerometers is done in the health hub device in real time with the patient feedback. The movement correctness evaluation and gait analysis is done with ANARX neural network based models. The system is implemented and tested. The evaluation of the test results is presented.
Canadian Collaborative Project on Genetic Susceptibility to MS, Phase 2: Rationale and Method

ABSTRACT: Background: Results from the Canadian Collaborative Project on Genetic Susceptibility to Multiple Sclerosis (MS)-Phase 1 (CCPGSMS-Phase 1) together with other family data published since 1982 have led to the following conclusions about the etiology of MS: (i) genetic and non-genetic (environmental) factors are involved in the etiology of MS on a population basis; (ii) the familial aggregation of MS is genetic; (iii) maternal factors do not influence the risk for siblings to develop MS; and (iv) MS appears to be oligogenic. The present paper describes the rationale and methodology for the CCPGSMS-Phase 2. Methods: The CCPGSMS-Phase 2 is a nation-wide collaborative effort involving all the 15 Canadian MS clinics. A series of structured questionnaires is administered to MS index cases, spouse controls and mothers of index cases and spouse controls (if available) by trained interviewers. Blood samples are taken for molecular genetic studies. This national effort is coordinated by the MS Clinics in Vancouver and London. Results: The CCPGSMS-Phase 2 is in progress so specific results are not available. The study is designed to (i) increase the database for genetic epidemiological/molecular genetic research and (ii) gather population-based data to further our understanding of the non-genetic factors in the etiology of MS. Conclusions: It is anticipated that the results from this study will impact on the eventual prevention, cure and treatment of MS.
Content Based Image Retrieval System using Image Classification 1

The efficient technique for image retrieval is Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) which retrieves images using image content. The image content is known as color, texture, shape and spatial information. Color feature is secure and liberates to rotation, translation and scale changes. The proposed CBIR system have a fused feature of 3*3 block color histogram and color cooccurrence matrix. The multidimensional indexing is used after the process of extracting color and spatial feature and stored the values of Hue, Saturation, Value, Color Histogram and Color co-occurrence matrix with the images for increasing retrieval speed. Further the Feature Matching algorithm is used to sort the similar images. Applying classification is used to reduce the images in the search space. So the images are classified and fixed numbers of images are to be retrieved.
Using randomized experiments and structural models for 'scaling up': evidence from the PROGRESA evaluation

The evaluation of welfare programs and more generally government or international organisms interventions is often posed as a one off question, in that evaluators ask whether a specific intervention achieves a specific objective in a specific situation. However,recently, the more general question of whether results from a given studies can be used to predict the effect of different interventions in,possibly,different contexts has received a considerable amount of attention. The usefulness of such an exercise, if successful, is obvious. The ability to extrapolate success stories and avoid failures in different situations would obviously be highly desirable. Unfortunately, a rigorous and successful extrapolation is extremely difficult. Perhaps such difficulties should not be unexpected,given the problems that often one encounters in establishing the effects of social programs in non experimental settings. In this paper we discuss at length the issues involved with the evaluation of social interventions and with the attempts at 'scaling them up'. In particular, we discuss the relative merits of non- parametric evaluation strategies that rely on (possibly experimental) exogenous variation to estimate the impact effects and of more structural approaches. The difference between the two approaches is particularly relevant when one comes to the issue of 'extrapolation' and 'scaling up'. In principle one could consider two types of extrapolation and scaling up. First, one might want to predict the effects of a program that is different from the one that was evaluated or the effect of changing some aspects of the program evaluated. Second, one might want to predict the effect of exporting an existing program from a population where its effects were evaluated (evaluation population) to a different population (implementation population). In what follow we focus on the latter problem and discuss the former only marginally. After considering extensively the conceptual and technical issues involved with this type of exercises, we apply the ideas we discuss to the results from the evaluation of PROGRESA , a large welfare program in Mexico, for which a randomized evaluation sample is available and has been extensively studied. In particular, we divide the seven Mexican states in which the evaluation was carried out in two groups and check to what extent the results in one group can be extrapolated to the other. The advantage of such a strategy is that one can compare the extrapolation results (based on a structural model) with the actual 'ex-post' evaluation that can be carried out either by simple comparison of means or by structural methods.
Using light-dependent scleractinia to define the upper boundary of mesophotic coral ecosystems on the reefs of Utila, Honduras

Shallow water zooxanthellate coral reefs grade into ecologically distinct mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) deeper in the euphotic zone. MCEs are widely considered to start at an absolute depth limit of 30m deep, possibly failing to recognise that these are distinct ecological communities that may shift shallower or deeper depending on local environmental conditions. This study aimed to explore whether MCEs represent distinct biological communities, the upper boundary of which can be defined and whether the depth at which they occur may vary above or below 30m. Mixed-gas diving and closed-circuit rebreathers were used to quantitatively survey benthic communities across shallow to mesophotic reef gradients around the island of Utila, Honduras. Depths of up to 85m were sampled, covering the vertical range of the zooxanthellate corals around Utila. We investigate vertical reef zonation using a variety of ecological metrics to identify community shifts with depth, and the appropriateness of different metrics to define the upper MCE boundary. Patterns observed in scleractinian community composition varied between ordination analyses and approaches utilising biodiversity indices. Indices and richness approaches revealed vertical community transition was a gradation. Ordination approaches suggest the possibility of recognising two scleractinian assemblages. We could detect a mesophotic and shallow community while illustrating that belief in a static depth limit is biologically unjustified. The switch between these two communities occurred across bathymetric gradients as small as 10m and as large as 50m in depth. The difference between communities appears to be a loss of shallow specialists and increase in depth-generalist taxa. Therefore, it may be possible to define MCEs by a loss of shallow specialist species. To support a biological definition of mesophotic reefs, we advocate this analytical framework should be applied around the Caribbean and extended into other ocean basins where MCEs are present.
Distributed Structured Compressive Sensing-Based Time-Frequency Joint Channel Estimation for Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems

In massive multi-input multi-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems, accurate channel state information (CSI) is essential to realize system performance gains such as high spectrum and energy efficiency. However, high-dimensional CSI acquisition requires prohibitively high pilot overhead, which leads to a significant reduction in spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose a more efficient time-frequency joint channel estimation scheme for massive MIMO-OFDM systems to resolve those problems. First, partial channel common support (PCCS) is obtained by using time-domain training. Second, utilizing the spatiotemporal common sparse property of the MIMO channels and the obtained PCCS information, we propose the priori-information aided distributed structured sparsity adaptive matching pursuit (PA-DS-SAMP) algorithm to achieve accurate channel estimation in frequency domain. Third, through performance analysis of the proposed algorithm, two signal power reference thresholds are given, which can ensure that the signal can be recovered accurately under power-limited noise and accurately recovered according to probability under Gaussian noise. Finally, pilot design, computational complexity, spectrum efficiency, and energy efficiency are discussed as well. Simulation results show that the proposed method achieves higher channel estimation accuracy while requiring lower pilot sequence overhead compared with other methods.
Promiscuity in ligand-binding: The three-dimensional structure of a Piromyces carbohydrate-binding module, CBM29-2, in complex with cello- and mannohexaose

Carbohydrate–protein recognition is central to many biological processes. Enzymes that act on polysaccharide substrates frequently contain noncatalytic domains, “carbohydrate-binding modules” (CBMs), that target the enzyme to the appropriate substrate. CBMs that recognize specific plant structural polysaccharides are often able to accommodate both the variable backbone and the side-chain decorations of heterogeneous ligands. “CBM29” modules, derived from a noncatalytic component of the Piromyces equi cellulase/hemicellulase complex, provide an example of this selective yet flexible recognition. They discriminate strongly against some polysaccharides while remaining relatively promiscuous toward both β-1,4-linked manno- and cello-oligosaccharides. This feature may reflect preferential, but flexible, targeting toward glucomannans in the plant cell wall. The three-dimensional structure of CBM29-2 and its complexes with cello- and mannohexaose reveal a β-jelly-roll topology, with an extended binding groove on the concave surface. The orientation of the aromatic residues complements the conformation of the target sugar polymer while accommodation of both manno- and gluco-configured oligo- and polysaccharides is conferred by virtue of the plasticity of the direct interactions from their axial and equatorial 2-hydroxyls, respectively. Such flexible ligand recognition targets the anaerobic fungal complex to a range of different components in the plant cell wall and thus plays a pivotal role in the highly efficient degradation of this composite structure by the microbial eukaryote.
Behavioral and Emotional Adjustment of Teenagers in Mainstream School Who Were Born Before 29 Weeks’ Gestation

Objectives. To investigate behavioral and emotional problems and positive adjustment of 15-to 16-year-olds who were born at extremely low gestational age (ELGA), from the perspective of parents, teachers, and teenagers. Methods. Prospective follow-up was conducted of birth cohorts, with classroom control subjects. All infants who were born before 29 weeks in 1983–1984 (mean gestational age: 27 weeks) to mothers who resided in 3 regions of the United Kingdom were studied. A total of 82% (179 of 218) of survivors were traced at age 15 to 16. The 150 in mainstream school were compared with age- and gender-matched classroom control subjects (n = 108). Behavioral and emotional problems, delinquency, peer relations, self-esteem, and hobbies, were assessed by standardized, well-validated instruments, including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, administered by mail to parents, teenagers, and teachers. Results. Parents were more likely to rate ELGA teenagers than control subjects as in the “abnormal” range for hyperactivity (8% vs 1%; difference: 7%; (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2–12), peer relationship problems (19% vs 5%; difference: 14%; 95% CI: 6-21), and emotional problems (18% vs 7%; difference: 11%; 95% CI: 3-19), but not conduct problems (10% vs 5%; difference: 5%; 95% CI: −1 to 12)). Teachers reported a similar pattern. In contrast, compared with control subjects, ELGA teenagers did not rate themselves as having more problems with peers, hyperactivity, conduct, depression, or low self-esteem. They reported more emotional problems but less delinquency, alcohol, cannabis, and other drug use. Conclusions. Compared with mainstream classmates, children who are born extremely early continue to have higher levels of parent- and teacher-reported emotional, attentional, and peer problems well into their teens. However, despite these problems, they do not show signs of more serious conduct disorders, delinquency, drug use, or depression.
Behavior of Covariance Matrices with Equi-Correlation Approach

Funds and asset managers are increasingly concerned with quantitative and econometric model in order to apply their portfolio models. The main goal of this publication is to study the behavior and the proportions of a stock portfolio from CAC All-Tradable with these kinds of models and compare the results with the historical approach. A GARCH (1,1) process has been used for modelling each asset volatility and Engle dynamic equi-correlation model to forecast covariance matrices. From a small amount of underlying values, the question is raised whether forecasted covariance matrix is more relevant than traditional variance-covariance matrix in a context of minimum variance portfolio model.
Comments on "Observers for nonlinear systems in steady state"

In the above paper (Hunt and Verma, 1994), a nonlinear observer has been constructed when an initial error is sufficiently small. However, the proof of Lemma 2.2/sup /contains some errors. The authors provide a correct proof of Lemma 2.2 and show that the results still hold, but with reduced bounds of the initial error, states, and the new input.