Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physicochemical Characteristics of Garlic (Allium sativum L.) Oil: Effect of Extraction Procedure

Garlic oil (GO) is behaves as a nutraceutical compound; however, its application is limited due to its pungency, undesirable aroma, low stability and solubility. The physicochemical properties of GO are certainly key parameters in the encapsulation process. Therefore, the aim of the current work was to study the effect of different extraction procedures such as solvent extraction, distillation method and supercritical fluid extraction (SCF) on the physicochemical properties of garlic oil. The yield of GO was influenced by extraction method and was approximately 5.5, 6 and 7% for steam distillation, solvent methods and SCF-Co2, respectively. The specific gravity was obtained as 0.894 g/cm3 and independent to the extraction method, while the viscosity was changed and more viscosity was obtained by SCF-Co2. The chemical analyses revealed 2.5 as the acid value, 1.27 for free fatty acids, 1.8 as the saponificacation value and 14.5 as the iodine value of GO by SCF-Co2.The results showed that the SCF-Co2 had minor quality and nutritional loss on the GO, and could be applied for special purposes such as encapsulation of garlic oil.
Improvement of Forward-Backward Pursuit Algorithm Based on Weak Selection

Forward-backward pursuit (FBP) algorithm is a novel two-stage greedy approach. However once its forward and backward steps were determined during iteration, it would make computing time increased and affected the reconstruction efficiency. This paper presents a algorithm called forward-backward pursuit algorithm based on weak selection (SWFBP) by introducing threshold strategy into FBP algorithm, and in view of that in the first few iterations, most of the atoms which are selected are right, so this part of atoms are directly incorporated into support set instead of using backward strategy to reduce them. Flexible forward and backward steps accelerate the speed of atom selecting and improve the reconstruction accuracy. We compared SWFBP and FBP algorithm via one-dimensional signal and two-dimensional image reconstruction experiments. The simulation results demonstrate that compared with FBP, SWFBP algorithm has superior performance, including higher PSNR, faster computing speed and lower recovery time.
Performance of packet scheduling methods with different degree of fairness in HSDPA

The present paper focuses on assessing the performance of the packet scheduler in HSDPA. The investigation has especially concentrated on assessing different scheduling methods with different degrees of fairness for non-delay-sensitive elastic traffic. The fairness ultimately determines the QoS perceived by the users. The results show that very unfair scheduling methods provide the highest HSDPA cell throughput for best effort NRT traffic, although, under heavy load situations, the unfairness of these policies causes the starvation of users under poor average radio propagation conditions. Under minimum user throughput guarantees, the proportional fair algorithm provides the highest cell capacity of all tested algorithms. With this scheduler, the provision of user throughput guarantees of CA, 128 and 384 kbit/s (for at least 95% of the users) incurs on a cell throughput reduction respectively of around 10, 30 and 80% relative to the maximum cell throughput for best effort traffic (i.e. no user throughput guarantees at all).
Measles on a cruise ship: links with the outbreak in the Philippines.

To the editor: In their recent article, Lanini et al. describe an outbreak of measles on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean during February 2014 involving 27 cases (21 crew members, four passengers, two unknown) [1]. The article reported measles sequence data which appear to attribute the outbreak to measles cases in United Kingdom. We discuss this and several omissions from the article which are critical in our understanding of the source of transmission and the appropriateness of interventions on the cruise ship.
miR-1423 p restricts cAMP production in CD 4 þ CD 25 T cells and CD 4 þ CD 25 þ TREG cells by targeting AC 9 mRNA

Cyclic AMP (cAMP) is a ubiquitous second messenger that regulates diverse cellular functions. It has been found that CD4þCD25þ regulatory T (TREG) cells exert their suppressor function by transferring cAMP to responder T cells. Here, we show that miR-142-3p regulates the production of cAMP by targeting adenylyl cyclase (AC) 9 messenger RNA in CD4þCD25 T cells and CD4þCD25þ TREG cells. miR-142-3p limits the level of cAMP in CD4þCD25 T cells by inhibiting AC9 production, whereas forkhead box P3 (FOXP3) downregulates miR-142-3p to keep the AC9/cAMP pathway active in CD4þCD25þ TREG cells. These findings reveal a new molecular mechanism through which CD4þCD25þ TREG cells contain a high level of cAMP for their suppressor function, and also suggest that the microRNA controlling AC expression might restrict the final level of cAMP in various types of cells.
Continuous Therapeutic Epinephrine but not Norepinephrine Prolongs Splanchnic IL-6 Production in Porcine Endotoxic Shock

Catecholamines play a central role in the treatment of sepsis-associated hypotension. However, these hormones have also been shown to modulate the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced induction of cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin (IL)-10, and IL-6 in vitro and in human endotoxemia. We hypothesized that catecholamines applied therapeutically in septic shock also influence cytokine patterns. We studied the cytokine response in tissues of the splanchnic compartment in a porcine endotoxin shock model up to 4 h. Shock was induced by a short infusion of LPS, and animals were treated either with fluid resuscitation alone or in combination with continuous epinephrine or norepinephrine. Animals, receiving epinephrine therapy, showed a significantly prolonged upregulation of IL-6 mRNA expression at 4 h after LPS application in liver (P = 0.0014), spleen (P < 0.0001), and mesenteric lymph nodes (P = 0.0078) as compared with animals treated with norepinephrine or fluid resuscitation. Serum IL-6 increased over time in all groups. The total concentration of the cytokine (area under the curve) was significantly higher in the epinephrine group as compared with the norepinephrine and fluid resuscitation groups (P = 0.017). The peak of serum tumor necrosis factor alpha at 1 h after LPS application was already significantly reduced by epinephrine, which was only administered at a mean of less than 0.05 &mgr;g/kg/min at this time point (P < 0.01). None of the catecholamines had a significant effect on IL-10 serum levels when compared with animals receiving fluid resuscitation alone. Our data suggest that the therapeutic application of epinephrine but not of norepinephrine is associated with a profound effect on the IL-6 response of splanchnic reticuloendothelial tissues.
Hearing aids in the real world: use of multimemory and volume controls.

BACKGROUND Despite advances in technology, hearing aid users continue to express a desire for some control over their devices. Access to a suitable control can significantly affect overall satisfaction with amplification, yet little is known about the circumstances that drive hearing aid users to manipulate controls. Such information would be useful in guiding clinical decisions about the selection of controls and synchronization of their operation in a bilateral pair of hearing aids. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine the real-world use of multimemory (MM) and volume (VC) controls and environmental characteristics that may influence their use. RESEARCH DESIGN Real-time data about MM and VC usage were gathered in the real world. Subjective reports of the environmental characteristics were obtained. This design allowed examination of the nature of hearing aid adjustments as well as exploration of factors affecting them. STUDY SAMPLE Ten adults with bilaterally symmetric, mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss participated in the study. All had previous experience with hearing aids. INTERVENTION Participants were fitted bilaterally with BTE (behind-the-ear) hearing aids equipped with an MM button and/or VC wheel. The devices were connected to a PDA (personal digital assistant) that logged data from the hearing aids and stored surveys completed by participants in various listening situations. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS The following data were obtained from the PDA: (1) MM and VC settings in the left and right devices, (2) broadband input level at the microphone of the left and right devices, and (3) participant reports of the presence, distance, and location of signal and background noise. Prevalence of nondefault settings and bilateral symmetry of hearing aid adjustments were summarized descriptively, while the influence of environmental characteristics on hearing aid adjustments was analyzed using nonparametric methods. RESULTS Over 4-5 wk, 912 hr of data were logged and 184 surveys completed. Results showed that (1) the default (i.e., the programmed or "use") setting was preferred most often, (2) the preferred hearing aid settings were mostly bilaterally symmetrical, and (3) nondefault settings were often used in difficult listening situations. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study generally support the use of synchronized MMs and/or VCs, although there may be exceptions to their utility.
Flicker study on variable speed wind turbines with doubly fed induction generators

Grid connected wind turbines may produce flicker during continuous operation. This paper presents a simulation model of a MW-level variable speed wind turbine with a doubly fed induction generator developed in the simulation tool of PSCAD/EMTDC. Flicker emission of variable speed wind turbines with doubly fed induction generators is investigated during continuous operation, and the dependence of flicker emission on mean wind speed, wind turbulence intensity, short circuit capacity of grid and grid impedance angle are analyzed. A comparison is done with the fixed speed wind turbine, which leads to a conclusion that the factors mentioned above have different influences on flicker emission compared with that in the case of the fixed speed wind turbine. Flicker mitigation is realized by output reactive power control of the variable speed wind turbine with doubly fed induction generator. Simulation results show the wind turbine output reactive power control provides an effective means for flicker mitigation regardless of mean wind speed, turbulence intensity and short circuit capacity ratio.
Separation and measurement of direct and indirect effects of light on stomata.

Conductance for water vapor, assimilation of CO(2), and intercellular CO(2) concentration of leaves of five species were determined at various irradiances and ambient CO(2) concentrations. Conductance and assimilation were then plotted as functions of irradiance and intercellular CO(2) concentration. The slopes of these curves allowed us to estimate infinitesimal changes in conductance (and assimilation) that occurred when irradiance changed and intercellular CO(2) concentration was constant, and when CO(2) concentration changed and irradiance was constant. On leaves of Xanthium strumarium L. , Gossypium hirsutum L. , Phaseolus vulgaris L. , and Perilla frutescens (L.), Britt. , the stomatal response to light was determined to be mainly a direct response to light and to a small extent only a response to changes in intercellular CO(2) concentration. This was also true for stomata of Zea mays L. , except at irradiances < 150 watts per square meter, when stomata responded primarily to the depletion of the intercellular spaces of CO(2) which in turn was caused by changes in the assimilation of CO(2). Stomata responded to light even in leaves whose net exchange of CO(2) was reduced to zero through application of the inhibitor of photosynthetic electron transport, cyanazine (2-chloro-4[1-cyano-1-methylethylamino]-6-ethylamino-S-triazine). When leaves were inverted and irradiated on the abaxial surface, conductance decreased in the shaded and increased in the illuminated epidermis, indicating that the photoreceptor pigment(s) involved are located in the epidermis (presumably in the guard cells). In leaves of X. strumarium, the direct effect of light on conductance is primarily a response to blue light.Stomatal responses to CO(2) and to light opposed each other. In X. strumarium, stomatal opening in response to light was strongest in CO(2) free air and saturated at lower irradiances than in CO(2) containing air. Conversely, stomatal closure in response to CO(2) was strongest in darkness and it decreased as irradiance increased. In X. strumarium, P. vulgaris, and P. frutescens, an irradiance of 300 watts per square meter was sufficient to eliminate the stomatal response to CO(2) altogether. Application of abscisic acid, or an increase in vapor pressure deficit, or a decrease in leaf temperature reduced the stomatal conductance at light saturation, but when the data were normalized with respect to the conductance at the highest irradiance, the various curves were congruent.
Integrating Sexual Objectification With Object Versus Person Recognition

Objectification refers to treating people as objects rather than persons. When people are sexually objectified, they are reduced to their sexualized bodies or body parts, available for satisfying the desires of others. At the same time, research on object and person recognition suggests that people are perceived configurally, whereas objects are perceived analytically. For example, the inversion effect (i.e, inverted stimuli are more difficult to recognize than upright ones) occurs for person recognition and not object recognition. Based on our suggestion that sexualized women are perceived similarly to objects, we hypothesized that an inversion effect would emerge for the recognition of sexualized men, but not women. Consistently, an inversion effect only occurred for sexualized men, but not women. Implications for objectification theory are discussed.
Titanium dioxide nanoparticles induce emphysema‐like lung injury in mice

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nanoTiO2) have been widely used as a photocatalyst in air and water cleaning. However, these nanoparticles inhalation can induce pulmonary toxicity and its mechanism is not fully understood. In this study we investigated the pulmonary toxicity of nanoTiO2 and its molecular pathogenesis. The adult male ICR mice were exposed to intratracheal single dose of 0.1 or 0.5 mg nanoTiO2 (19–21 nm) and lung tissues were collected at 3rd day, 1st wk, and 2nd wk for morphometric, microarray gene expression, and pathway analyses. NanoTiO2 can induce pulmonary emphysema, macrophages accumulation, extensive disruption of alveolar septa, type II pneumocyte hyperplasia, and epithelial cell apoptosis. NanoTiO2 induced differential expression of hundreds of genes include activation of pathways involved in cell cycle, apoptosis, chemokines, and complement cascades. In particular, nanoTiO2 up‐regulates placenta growth factor (PlGF) and other chemokines (CXCL1, CXCL5, and CCL3) expressions that may cause pulmonary emphysema and alveolar epithelial cell apoptosis. Cultured human THP‐1 cell‐derived macrophages treated with nanoTiO2 in vitro also resulted in up‐regulations of PlGF, CXCL1, CXCL5, and CCL3. These results indicated that nanoTiO2 can induce severe pulmonary emphysema, which may be caused by activation of PlGF and related inflammatory pathways. —Chen, H‐W. , Su, S‐F. , Chien, C‐T. , Lin, W‐H. , Yu, S‐L. , Chou, C‐C. , Chen, J. J. W. , Yang, P. C. Titanium dioxide nanoparticles induce emphysema‐like lung injury in mice. FASEB J. 20, E1732–E1741 (2006)
Diagnostic Accuracy of T1-Weighted Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced–MRI and DWI-ADC for Differentiation of Glioblastoma and Primary CNS Lymphoma

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Glioblastoma and primary CNS lymphoma dictate different neurosurgical strategies; it is critical to distinguish them preoperatively. However, current imaging modalities do not effectively differentiate them. We aimed to examine the use of DWI and T1-weighted dynamic contrast-enhanced–MR imaging as potential discriminative tools. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 18 patients with primary CNS lymphoma and 36 matched patients with glioblastoma with pretreatment DWI and dynamic contrast-enhanced–MR imaging. VOIs were drawn around the tumor on contrast-enhanced T1WI and FLAIR images; these images were transferred onto coregistered ADC maps to obtain the ADC and onto dynamic contrast-enhanced perfusion maps to obtain the plasma volume and permeability transfer constant. Histogram analysis was performed to determine the mean and relative ADCmean and relative 90th percentile values for plasma volume and the permeability transfer constant. Nonparametric tests were used to assess differences, and receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed for optimal threshold calculations. RESULTS: The enhancing component of primary CNS lymphoma was found to have significantly lower ADCmean (1.1 × 10−3 versus 1.4 × 10−3; P < .001) and relative ADCmean (1.5 versus 1.9; P < .001) and relative 90th percentile values for plasma volume (3.7 versus 5.0; P < .05) than the enhancing component of glioblastoma, but not significantly different relative 90th percentile values for the permeability transfer constant (5.4 versus 4.4; P = .83). The nonenhancing portions of glioblastoma and primary CNS lymphoma did not differ in these parameters. On the basis of receiver operating characteristic analysis, mean ADC provided the best threshold (area under the curve = 0.83) to distinguish primary CNS lymphoma from glioblastoma, which was not improved with normalized ADC or the addition of perfusion parameters. CONCLUSIONS: ADC was superior to dynamic contrast-enhanced–MR imaging perfusion, alone or in combination, in differentiating primary CNS lymphoma from glioblastoma.
Similarity measures based on sentence semantic structure for recognizing paraphrase and entailment

The similarity measure on the sentence level plays an increasingly important role in many applications about text-related areas and natural language processing. In this paper, we employ sentence semantic structures to overcome the difficulty from the variability of natural language expression. We represent a sentence as verb-argument pairs of semantic structures. The similarity between sentences is reflected through the relation between verb-argument pairs. We evaluate the proposed measure on two applications: recognizing paraphrases and entailments. The experimental results show that our method outperforms existing methods in the task of identifying similar sentences.
Learning curves for TAVR: Not quite see one, do one teach one

The learning curve for TAVR is determined based on technical (procedural) data from PARTNER‐1 Trial The number of cases needed to reach a learning curve for TAVR in PARTNER‐1 was 50 for original sites and fell to 25 for late entering sites Analyses such as this is important in developing guidelines for other emerging technologies
Carcinoma in situ and early invasive carcinoma of the bronchus

Ten patients are described who underwent lobectomy or pneumonectomy and were shown to have a bronchial carcinoma in situ or early invasive carcinoma. The diagnosis was generally made only by histological examination following resection. The lesions were all squamous in type. It is probably uncommon for such lesions to be multifocal at any one time and following removal they carry a good prognosis. However, we think that these patients have a much increased chance of subsequently developing further squamous bronchial carcinomas in the remaining lung tissue, and so a prolonged follow-up over many years is desirable. In our series, these early lesions were present in only 2·0% of all resections for lung cancer. A group of patients with such early tumours present with disproportionately severe radiographic changes, as there is a papillary lesion producing bronchial obstruction, and so the lesion appears clinically to be more advanced than it really is. A pre-operative diagnosis of carcinoma in situ is more likely in the other group of patients without obstruction, who are heavy smokers, are chronic bronchitics, and are having repeated small haemoptyses. This group presents a problem in management and requires careful observation. Investigations for finding early lesions include regular cytological examination of the sputum, followed by bronchoscopy in an attempt to localize the lesion if cytology is positive. Lobectomy or pneumonectomy should be undertaken when the site is established.
Wextractor: Follow-up of the evolution of prices in web pages

In the e-commerce world, the follow-up of prices in detail web pages is of great interest for things like buying a product when it falls below some threshold. For doing this task, instead of bookmarking the pages and revisiting them, in this paper we propose a novel web data extraction system, called Wextractor. It consists of an extraction method and a web app for listing the retrieved prices. As for the final user, the main feature of Wextractor is usability because (s)he only has to signal the pages of interest and our system automatically extracts the price from the page.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF FERMI-2LAC BLAZARS TO DIFFUSE TEV–PEV NEUTRINO FLUX

The recent discovery of a diffuse cosmic neutrino flux extending up to PeV energies raises the question of which astrophysical sources generate this signal. Blazars are one class of extragalactic sources which may produce such high-energy neutrinos. We present a likelihood analysis searching for cumulative neutrino emission from blazars in the 2nd Fermi-LAT AGN catalog (2LAC) using IceCube neutrino data set 2009-12, which was optimized for the detection of individual sources. In contrast to those in previous searches with IceCube, the populations investigated contain up to hundreds of sources, the largest one being the entire blazar sample in the 2LAC catalog. No significant excess is observed, and upper limits for the cumulative flux from these populations are obtained. These constrain the maximum contribution of 2LAC blazars to the observed astrophysical neutrino flux to 27% or less between around 10 TeV and 2 PeV, assuming the equipartition of flavors on Earth and a single power-law spectrum with a spectral index of −2.5. We can still exclude the fact that 2LAC blazars (and their subpopulations) emit more than 50% of the observed neutrinos up to a spectral index as hard as −2.2 in the same energy range. Our result takes into account the fact that the neutrino source count distribution is unknown, and it does not assume strict proportionality of the neutrino flux to the measured 2LAC γ-ray signal for each source. Additionally, we constrain recent models for neutrino emission by blazars.
A novel BMNoC configuration algorithm utilizing communication volume and locality among cores

Network-on-chip (NoC) architectures are emerged as a promising solution to the lack of scalability in multiprocessor systems-on-chips (MPSoCs). In this paper, we propose a novel BMNoC configuration algorithm together with simulation results. Our BMNoC configuration algorithm analyses the data traffic of the target application and determines which core is the right one to put into the certain cluster with its communication volume and locality. Furthermore, the simulation results illustrate the better latency than earlier studies and feasibility of BMNoC.