Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Suppression of constitutively expressed cyclooxygenase-2 in the epididymis of mice by nimesulide decreases sperm motility

Significant levels of constitutive cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) are present in the male reproductive organs of rodents, especially in the vas deferens and epididymis. In the epididymis, the sperm storehouse, COX-2 is thought to play a vital role in altering the membrane lipids of sperm. The present study aims at localizing COX-2 in the epididymis and analyzing the effects of the preferential COX-2 inhibitor nimesulide. COX-2 protein activity was nearly equal to that of COX-1 in the cauda epididymis. Immunohistochemical studies showed an intense staining for COX-2 in the cauda epididymis but not in the caput epididymis. Nimesulide administration induced a significant reduction in both COX-2 staining intensity and protein activity, followed by an initial decline in total prostaglandin levels but a reversible increase upon sustained COX-2 suppression. Sperm numbers and vitality showed no significant change, but motility decreased and total and free serum testosterone levels mildly increased.
Control Network Data over IP Networks: An Architectural Overview

The current race in the information technology society of today to connect every piece which is powered by a microprocessor over the Internet has lead to many applications that weren't even thinkable a couple of years ago. Much of the communication frenzy is mainly about information mining and exchange. Well known and widely used ways of this exchange include news-groups, electronic mails and WWW transfers. This type of communication does not require strict timing constraints. Electronic mail mostly needs to be delivered on the scale of minutes, file transfers do not need to maintain a minimum transfer rate and, finally, the responsiveness of inter-active WWW applications suffices to be in the second domain.
Increased Expression of E-cadherin, Endothelin-1, and CD68 in Preeclamptic Placentas

Objective: Preeclampsia (PE) is a complex pregnancy-specific disorder characterized by the onset of hypertension and proteinuria in the second trimester of pregnancy. The pathogenesis of PE still remains unknown. Revealing the specific proteins involved in placental functions is important for a better understanding of the pathogenesis of PE. In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression levels of E-cadherin, endothelin-1, and CD68 in both preeclamptic and normal placentas. Materials and Methods: In this study, placentas after birth at 35–38 weeks were included. Ten preeclamptic placentas and 10 normal placentas were used. The expression levels of E-cadherin, endothelin-1, and CD68 were measured by western blot. Results: It was observed that the expression of E-cadherin and endothelin-1 was not at detectable levels in normal placentas; however, E-cadherin and endothelin-1 were observed to be highly expressed in preeclamptic placentas. In addition, the expression of CD68 was found to be markedly increased in preeclamptic placentas in comparison to control placentas. Conclusion: The increased expression of E-cadherin, endothelin-1, and CD68 may play an important role in impaired trophoblast invasion, endothelial dysfunction, and inadequate spiral remodeling, which are key factors involved in the pathogenesis of PE.
An improved secret key update for multiple intersymbol obfuscation in physical layer security

Communications security has become an integral part of wireless networks. A commonly known method to attain secrecy of information is done by addition of noise to corrupt the intruder's channel. In this paper, we undertake the principle of multiple inter-symbol obfuscation (MIO) method to improve security in wireless based communication in the last level of the OSI (Open System Interconnect) model, i.e. the physical layer. On encryption using the concept of MIO, an arbitrary subgroup of the respective symbols are put into data packets that are obscured with a group of artificially included noise symbols, commonly known as the symbols key. This tends to corrupt the third party's quality of the channel and make it worse than the genuine receiver. Hence he cannot unravel the information correctly without knowledge of the symbols key used in encryption. A self-updating process for the key is designed for automatic update of the key to enhance the encryption process. With the help of a dynamic key update process the legitimate receiver is able to encrypt the given information from the transmitter and protect it from the intruders who try to extract the message. Hence this method can deliver secrecy against passive eavesdropping and computational discretion against the fake packet injection attacks. This paper has been implemented using tools such as MATLAB and simulations have been carried out to determine the efficacy of MIO in wireless communication.
Using PMCMC in EM algorithm for stochastic mixed models: theoretical and practical issues

Biological processes measured repeatedly among a series of individuals are standardly analyzed by mixed models. Recently, stochastic processes have been introduced to model the variability along time for each subject. Although the likelihood of these stochastic mixed models is intractable, various estimation methods have been proposed when the latent stochastic process is a discrete time finite state Markov chain. This is not the case when the hidden stochastic process is a continuous time process with non finite state space. This paper focuses on mixed models defined by parametric Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs). We propose to use Particle MCMC algorithm for the maximum likelihood estimation of mixed SDE models, by combining it with SAEM algorithm. Theoretical and numerical convergence properties are discussed. Two simulated examples, an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and a time-inhomogeneous SDE with stochastic volatility, illustrate this estimator convergence, including the volatility parameter which is known to be hard to estimate.
Anti‐tumor effects of interferon in mice injected with interferonsensitive and interferon‐resistant friend leukemia cells. VI. Adjuvant therapy after surgery in the inhibition of liver and spleen metastases

Adult DBA/2 mice were injected s.c. with the highly malignant, interferon‐resistant 3C18 line of Friend erythroleukemia cells (FLC). Eight or 9 days after established s.c. tumors had developed, the primary tumor was excised and mice were treated i.p. with either mouse interferon α/β or a control preparation. At the time of surgery, mice already had tumor cells in the liver. All control‐treated mice died in the ensuing 2 weeks with extensive tumor metastases in the liver and spleen. Interferon treatment resulted in an inhibition of the development of liver and spleen metastases and a markedly increased survival time. We conclude that interferon α/β is effective as adjuvant therapy after surgery for metastatic disease in mice.
Knockout silkworms reveal a dispensable role for juvenile hormones in holometabolous life cycle

Significance The juvenile–adult transition is a key developmental process in organisms. A long-held paradigm in insect endocrinology is that juvenile hormones (JHs) prevent metamorphosis until larvae attain an appropriate size for the juvenile–adult transition. However, little is known about the roles for JHs during embryonic and very early larval stages. We established knockouts of the silkworm, a classic model insect, and show that embryogenesis and maintenance of juvenile status during the early larval stages are largely independent of JHs or the JH-signaling pathway. Our results also suggest that an unidentified factor or signal is required to acquire the competence for metamorphosis. The presence of this factor has long been overlooked because JHs may conceal its action. Insect juvenile hormones (JHs) prevent precocious metamorphosis and allow larvae to undergo multiple rounds of status quo molts. However, the roles of JHs during the embryonic and very early larval stages have not been fully understood. We generated and characterized knockout silkworms (Bombyx mori) with null mutations in JH biosynthesis or JH receptor genes using genome-editing tools. We found that embryonic growth and morphogenesis are largely independent of JHs in Bombyx and that, even in the absence of JHs or JH signaling, pupal characters are not formed in first- or second-instar larvae, and precocious metamorphosis is induced after the second instar at the earliest. We also show by mosaic analysis that a pupal specifier gene broad, which is dramatically up-regulated in the late stage of the last larval instar, is essential for pupal commitment in the epidermis. Importantly, the mRNA expression level of broad, which is thought to be repressed by JHs, remained at very low basal levels during the early larval instars of JH-deficient or JH signaling-deficient knockouts. Therefore, our study suggests that the long-accepted paradigm that JHs maintain the juvenile status throughout larval life should be revised because the larval status can be maintained by a JH-independent mechanism in very early larval instars. We propose that the lack of competence for metamorphosis during the early larval stages may result from the absence of an unidentified broad-inducing factor, i.e., a competence factor.
Inference-usability confinement by maintaining inference-proof views of an information system

Extending traditional access control and complementing emerging usage control, inference-usability confinement aims at customising sensitive data to be returned to a client in such a way that the manipulated items are still useful for the recipient but do not enable any usage beyond the intended ones. In the context of a logic-oriented information system, a confinement mechanism generates an inference-proof view of the actually stored instance(s) while interacting with a client. We survey our specific approach to policy-driven inference-usability confinement for a server-client architecture, discussing various parameters and the resulting confinement mechanisms. Basically, the confinement is achieved by enforcing an invariant of the following kind: at any point in time, the information content of the data available to a client does not violate any protection requirement expressed by a declarative confidentiality policy. In this context, the information content of data and, accordingly, the inference-proofness of such data crucially depend on the client's a priori knowledge, general reasoning capabilities and awareness of the confinement mechanism.
Coss related energy loss in power MOSFETs used in zero-voltage-switched applications

This paper presents a general method to measure the output capacitance (Coss) related energy loss per switching cycle in power MOSFETs used in zero-voltage-switched (ZVS) applications. It is shown that a simple model using Coss in series with a resistance Ross is inadequate for describing the observed energy loss and a different model is needed. This work also shows that the traditional hard-switched test methods for measuring the dynamic performance of power MOSFETs are inadequate for describing the dynamic performance of power MOSFETs used in ZVS applications. Finally, this study proposes a new power MOSFET figure of merit suitable for differentiating the performance of MOSFETs for use in ZVS applications.
An optimum processor theory for the central formation of the pitch of complex tones.

A theory was formulated for the central formation of the pitch of complex tones, i.e., periodicity pitch. This theory is a logical deduction from statistical estimation theory of the optimal estimate for fundamental frequency, when this estimate is constrained in ways inferred from empirical phenomena. These constraints are (1) the estimator receives noisy information on the frequencies, but not amplitudes and phases, of aurally resolvable simple tones from the stimulus and its aural combination tones, and (2) the estimator presumes all stimuli are periodic with spectra comprising successive harmonics. The stochastic signals representing the frequencies of resolved tones are characterized by independent Gaussian distributions with mean equal to the frequency represented and a variance that serves as free parameter. The theory is indifferent to whether frequency is coded by place or time. Optimum estimates of fundamental frequency and harmonic numbers are calculated upon each stimulus presentation. Multimo.
Peering Into Candida albicans Pir Protein Function and Comparative Genomics of the Pir Family

The fungal cell wall, comprised primarily of protein and polymeric carbohydrate, maintains cell structure, provides protection from the environment, and is an important antifungal drug target. Pir proteins (proteins with internal repeats) are linked to cell wall β-1,3-glucan and are best studied in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sequential deletion of S. cerevisiae PIR genes produces strains with increasingly notable cell wall damage. However, a true null mutant lacking all five S. cerevisiae PIR genes was never constructed. Because only two PIR genes (PIR1, PIR32) were annotated in the Candida albicans genome, the initial goal of this work was to construct a true Δpir/Δpir null strain in this species. Unexpectedly, the phenotype of the null strain was almost indistinguishable from its parent, leading to the search for other proteins with Pir function. Bioinformatic approaches revealed nine additional C. albicans proteins that share a conserved Pir functional motif (minimally DGQ). Examination of the protein sequences revealed another conserved motif (QFQFD) toward the C-terminal end of each protein. Sequence similarities and presence of the conserved motif(s) were used to identify a set of 75 proteins across 16 fungal species that are proposed here as Pir proteins. The Pir family is greatly expanded in C. albicans and C. dubliniensis compared to other species and the orthologs are known to have specialized function during chlamydospore formation. Predicted Pir structures showed a conserved core of antiparallel beta-sheets and sometimes-extensive loops that contain amino acids with the potential to form linkages to cell wall components. Pir phylogeny demonstrated emergence of specific ortholog groups among the fungal species. Variation in gene expression patterns was noted among the ortholog groups during growth in rich medium. PIR allelic variation was quite limited despite the presence of a repeated sequence in many loci. Results presented here demonstrate that the Pir family is larger than previously recognized and lead to new hypotheses to test to better understand Pir proteins and their role in the fungal cell wall.
User evaluation outside the lab: the trial of Físchlár-News

A user study of Fischlar-News system was conducted in Spring 2004 with 16 users, each user using the system for a 1-month period. Fischlar-News is an experimental online news archive that incorporates various automatic content-based video indexing techniques and a news story recommender algorithm to process and index the daily 9 o’clock broadcast news from TV and allows its users to browse, search, be recommended, and play news stories on a conventional web browser. Pre and post-trial questionnaires, interaction logging and incident diary methods collected both qualitative and quantitative usage data during the trial period. While the details of the findings from this evaluation is reported elsewhere, in this paper we report the details of the methodology taken and our experience of conducting this evaluation.
The Threat Detection System that Cried Wolf: Reconciling Developers with Operators

many threat detection systems, such as air cargo screeners and counter-im-provised-explosive-device systems. Threat detection systems that perform well during testing are not always well received by the system operators, however. Some systems may frequently “cry wolf,” generating false alarms when true threats are not present. As a result, operators lose faith in the systems—ignoring them or even turning them off and taking the chance that a true threat will not appear. This article reviews statistical concepts to reconcile the performance metrics that summarize a developer’s view of a system during testing with the metrics that describe an operator’s view of the system during real-world missions. Program managers can still make use of systems that “cry wolf” by arranging them into a tiered system that, overall, exhibits better performance than each individual system alone.
Input urging system using unpleasant notification based on negative motivation

We often fail to arrange the scheduling of a meeting because someone does not input his/her schedule. There are some reasons. For example, someone does not notice the notification, someone forgets the notification, someone ignores the notification. In this paper, we analyze why someone does not input his/her schedules and propose an input urging system using unpleasant notification based on negative motivation. We use unpleasant notifications which disturb user's work and/or a give pressure on a user. Therefore, he/she will input quickly because he/she wants to avoid the unpleasant notifications. The system, first, uses a general notification to ask to input a schedule, however, the system gradually uses unpleasant notifications. Thus, a user who finishing the input soon do not feel unpleasant; however, if a user does not finish the input, he/she become gradually unpleasant. Therefore, by using our system repeatedly, a user will tend to input his/her schedule rapidly to avoid unpleasant. Preliminary experiment shows unpleasant notifications are valid to promote user's input.
PTHrP and PTH/PTHrP Receptor 1 Expression in Odontogenic Cells of Normal and HHM Model Rat Incisors

Parathyroid hormone related peptide (PTHrP) was discovered as a causative factor of humoral hypercalcemia of malignancy (HHM). We examined PTHrP and its receptor (PTHR1) expression patterns in odontogenic cells in normal and HHM model rat incisors. Nontreated nude rats serving as the normal control and HHM model rats produced by implantation of PTHrP-expressing tumor (LC-6) cells were prepared. HHM rats fractured its incisor, and histopathologically, restrict population of odontoblasts showed findings classified as “shortening of high columnar odontoblasts” and “dentin niche. ” The incisors were immunostained against PTHrP and PTHR1. In normal rats, PTHrP and PTHR1 colocalized in ameloblasts, cementoblasts, and odontoblastic cells from mesenchymal cells to columnar odontoblasts. In high columnar odontoblasts, PTHrP solely expressed. In the HHM animals, although the expression patterns were identical to those of the normal rats in normal area, the shortened high columnar odontoblasts maintained PTHR1 expression and dentin niche comprising odontoblastic cells expressed both proteins. In the HHM model, the protein expression patterns changed in the odontoblastic cells with histological anomalies, and thus direct relations between the anomalies and PTHrP/PTHR1 axis are suggested.
An active queue management algorithm based on Internal Model PID control with integral separate

In order to overcome the disadvantages of the traditional PI controller, e.g., the long time adjustment and weak robust performance. This paper proposed an internal model PID control with integral separate. The key feature of the present algorithm lies in that it is easy to adjust its parameters and with the use of integral separate method, it not only maintain the integral effect but also decrease the overall capacity. Simulation results show that IMC PD-PID has stronger robust performance and quicker queue adjusting velocity.
Heuristic evaluation of Malay Folktales Animated Courseware for childhood education

Heuristic evaluation is an early process to help developers to identify and list down all of the problems and defects of the developed courseware before the application can be released. The evaluation usually involves small group of experts in certain fields, and the process is fast and cheap. This paper discusses the heuristic evaluation of Malay Folktales Animated Courseware for childhood education. In order to make sure the courseware is free from interface and design problems, as well as suitable for the target users, a heuristic evaluation has been carried out, which comprises of a questionnaire distributed to five animators and five Malay language primary school's teachers. There were 14 heuristics and 69 subheuristics included in the questionnaire, where eight heuristics were used for the animators and six heuristics were used for the teachers. The results of this study showed that there were several comments and feedback from the experts that would be considered. In addition, there are needs for some modification on the courseware, and the courseware suitability has been identified through this study.
Leadtime-Inventory Trade-Offs in Assemble-to-Order Systems

This paper studies the trade-off between inventory levels and the delivery leadtime offered to customers in achieving a target level of service. It addresses the question of how much a delivery leadtime can be reduced, per unit increase in inventory, at a fixed fill rate. We show that for a class of assemble-to-order models with stochastic demands and production intervals there is a simple linear trade-off between inventory and delivery leadtime, in a limiting sense, at high fill rates. The limiting slope is easy to calculate and can be interpreted as the approximate marginal rate for trading off inventory against leadtime at a constant level of service. We also investigate how various model features affect the trade-off-in particular, the impact of orders for multiple units of a single item and of orders for multiple units of different items.
Antimicrobial resistance: its emergence and transmission

Abstract New concepts have emerged in the past few years that help us to better understand the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). These include, among others, the discovery of the mutator state and the concept of mutant selection window for resistances emerging primarily through mutations in existing genes. Our understanding of horizontal gene transfer has also evolved significantly in the past few years, and important new mechanisms of AMR transfer have been discovered, including, among others, integrative conjugative elements and ISCR (insertion sequences with common regions) elements. Simultaneously, large-scale studies have helped us to start comprehending the immense and yet untapped reservoir of both AMR genes and mobile genetic elements present in the environment. Finally, new PCR- and DNA sequencing-based techniques are being developed that will allow us to better understand the epidemiology of classical vectors of AMR genes, such as plasmids, and to monitor them in a more global and systematic way.
CONFRONTING THE “GRAY ZONES” OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT: EVALUATING GENETIC TESTING SERVICES FOR PUBLIC INSURANCE COVERAGE IN CANADA

We describe an evaluation model to guide public coverage of new predictive genetic tests in Ontario, Canada. The model confronts common “gray zones” in evaluation and coverage policy for challenging new technologies. Analysis addresses three domains of the evaluation picture. The first specifies evaluative criteria (purpose, effectiveness, additional effects, unit cost, demand, cost-effectiveness). The second induces or deduces acceptable cutoffs for each criterion. The third domain addresses the need to make decisions under uncertainty and to respond to “gray” evaluations with conditional-coverage decisions. The evaluation criteria should be applied within sound decision-making processes.