Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships Between Testosterone Levels and Cognition in Patients With Alzheimer Disease and Nondemented Elderly Men

Background/Aims: Previous research suggests that low levels of testosterone may be associated with the development of Alzheimer disease (AD), as well as poorer performance on certain neuropsychological tests and increased risk of depression. Methods: This study utilized data from 61 nondemented older men and 68 men with probable AD. Results: Testosterone levels did not differ between the groups. Regression analyses in men with AD revealed that testosterone levels did not significantly predict performance on neuropsychological tests or a measure of depression. Among controls, testosterone levels predicted estimated premorbid verbal IQ and performance on a verbal fluency test. Conclusion: Findings suggest that testosterone is not associated with most neuropsychological test performances in patients with AD.
Mechanical stretch induces podocyte hypertrophy in vitro.

BACKGROUND Increased intraglomerular pressure is a final pathway toward glomerulosclerosis in systemic hypertension, diabetes, and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Increased intraglomerular pressure causes stress-tension, or stretch, on resident glomerular cells. However, the effects of stretch on podocyte growth, and the mechanisms that underlie this, have not been elucidated. METHODS To test the hypothesis that stretch alters podocyte growth, cultured mouse podocytes were exposed to cyclic mechanical stretch created by vacuum; control cells were grown under similar conditions, but not exposed to stretch. Proliferation (cell cycle phases) and hypertrophy (forward light scatter) were measured in stretched and control podocytes by flow cytometry. The role of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors, p21 and p27, was examined by stretching podocytes isolated from p21 and p27 knockout (-/-) mice, and the role of specific signaling pathways was assessed by Western blot analysis and blocking studies. RESULTS Our results showed that stretch reduced cell cycle progression in wild-type and single p27-/- podocytes and induced hypertrophy in these cells in all phases of the cell cycle at 24, 48, and 72 hours. In contrast, stretch did not induce hypertrophy in single p21-/- and double p21/p27-/- podocytes. Stretch-induced hypertrophy required cell cycle entry, and was prevented by specifically blocking extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (Erk1/2) or Akt. Although stretch increased p38 activation, inhibition of this pathway had no effect on hypertrophy. CONCLUSION Mechanical stretch induces hypertrophy in podocytes in vitro in all phases of the cell cycle. This effect is cell cycle dependent, and requires p21, Erk1/2, and Akt. Stretch may play a role in podocyte injury when intraglomerular pressure is increased.
Receiver-Buffer-Driven Layered Quality Adaptation for Multimedia Streaming

A novel receiver-buffer-driven layered quality adap- tation mechanism is proposed for multimedia streaming over the Internet. The receiver constantly monitors its buffer occupancy and initiates quality adaptation by sending back the request command to the sender when its buffer occupancy is out of range. The sender then adjusts the quality and the amount of layered multimedia packets to be sent out according to the requests. Simulation results show that by using the proposed mechanism, a steady buffer occupancy and overall quality improvement for the multimedia streams can be achieved. Moreover, an efficient utilization of network resources is ensured by using the spare time in the time window to transmit more higher level enhancement layer packets.
Optimal Unemployment Insurance with Endogenous Search Effort

In the framework of a search and matching model, when search effort enters the labor market matching function, search effort by one worker generates a negative externality on other workers searching for jobs. The solution to the social planner's problem may not be decentralized in a competitive market. Calibration shows that the current US unemployment insurance (UI) system generates an 8.07% welfare loss relative to the socially optimal allocation. An alternative scheme with higher replacement rate and lower wage, which achieves the highest welfare level among all competitive equilibria with unemployment insurance, leads to a welfare loss of only 1.18%.
Antecedents of Citation Impact and Intention to Publish on Open Access Journals: A Case of Agricultural Research Institutes Tanzania

This study assessed the factors that contribute to intention to publish in open access journals among researchers in Tanzanian Agricultural Research Institutes. Five factors derived from the literature were used to predict intention to publish in Open Access Journals. These factors are: journal reputation, the speed of publishing, content relevance, visible advantage and citation impact. Data were collected from 121 researchers through a cross-section survey questionnaire. The findings revealed that journal reputation, visibility advantage and citation impact have significant effect on intention to publish in open access journals. Nonetheless, further analysis showed that the speed of publishing as well as content relevance have no significant influence on citation impact. This article articulates the basis for research institutions and practitioners to nurture open access publishing in order to address the dearth of empirical studies on open access journal publishing in Tanzania.
Using Green Infrastructure as a Tool to Enhance Rural Land Use Planning

USING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AS A TOOL TO ENHANCE RURAL LAND USE PLANNING Paul R. Kraehling Advisor: University of Guelph, 2018 Dr. Wayne J. Caldwell This paper explores the use of nature, herein referred to as Green Infrastructure (GI), as a new asset to improve the rural condition of communities in southern Ontario. The exploration includes the formulation of a planning framework that can create new understanding around the systems use of nature to address needs and challenges of life in rural areas. The exploration is made through the life lens of a land use planner who is principally interested in looking at mechanisms to improve health and wellness, resiliency and sustainability conditions for rural communities. GI system planning uses nature to leverage beneficial attributes while minimizing risks and potential downsides. At a community level planning effort, matters of public and private interests are discussed, debated and prioritized in the overall formulation of a plan. A simple explanation for describing this planning effort might be described as identifying ways and means to more fully exploit the assets of nature for human endeavour. A subtler and preferred explanation would be aligned with the following to utilize nature/natural assets in a symbiotic association that maximizes utility, multifunctionality and sustenance for both the human and natural worlds. The research employs a qualitative mixed methods approach to inquiry. GI planning as practiced in many other parts of the world may have application in the Canadian/Ontario context. The southern Ontario rural landscape was chosen as the case study investigation area. This landscape, while being richly endowed with natural land and water assets, also may be described as having a land use system that is conflicted/contested – multiple activities vying for prominence, with differing time horizons for achieving success as defined by various public and private interests. Rural planning leaders working within communities of this area provided inputs to this paper. A comprehensive research method comprising a literature review, surveys, key informant interviews, a focus group discussion and a research review meeting was conducted. Content analyses of the compiled information provided the principal data source. As a conclusion, land use planning with green infrastructure can assist in addressing the unique challenges and aspirations for various types of communities within rural Ontario.
Inhibition of β-catenin signalling in dermal fibroblasts enhances hair follicle regeneration during wound healing

New hair follicles (HFs) do not form in adult mammalian skin unless epidermal Wnt signalling is activated genetically or within large wounds. To understand the postnatal loss of hair forming ability we monitored HF formation at small circular (2 mm) wound sites. At P2, new HFs formed in back skin, but HF formation was markedly decreased by P21. Neonatal tail also formed wound-associated HFs, albeit in smaller numbers. Postnatal loss of HF neogenesis did not correlate with wound closure rate but with a reduction in Lrig1-positive papillary fibroblasts in wounds. Comparative gene expression profiling of back and tail dermis at P1 and dorsal fibroblasts at P2 and P50 showed a correlation between loss of HF formation and decreased expression of genes associated with proliferation and Wnt/β-catenin activity. Between P2 and P50, fibroblast density declined throughout the dermis and clones of fibroblasts became more dispersed. This correlated with a decline in fibroblasts expressing a TOPGFP reporter of Wnt activation. Surprisingly, between P2 and P50 there was no difference in fibroblast proliferation at the wound site but Wnt signalling was highly upregulated in healing dermis of P21 compared with P2 mice. Postnatal β-catenin ablation in fibroblasts promoted HF regeneration in neonatal and adult mouse wounds, whereas β-catenin activation reduced HF regeneration in neonatal wounds. Our data support a model whereby postnatal loss of hair forming ability in wounds reflects elevated dermal Wnt/β-catenin activation in the wound bed, increasing the abundance of fibroblasts that are unable to induce HF formation. Summary: Postnatal mouse skin exhibits a decline in its ability to regenerate hair follicles in the wound bed and this can be partially reversed by inhibiting dermal β-catenin activation.
Utilisation, Fund Flows and Public Financial Management under the National Health Mission

This study provides insights on how institutional architecture for public fund flows affects budget execution. Using the case of the National Health Mission (NHM) in India, it highlights how the rules and procedures that govern release of public funds affect utilisation of budgeted resources. It analyses the utilisation of NHM funds in 29 States, and documents the processes for fund releases from State treasuries to implementing agencies in Bihar, Maharashtra and Odisha. The study finds that on average, only about 55 per cent of funds allocated for NHM were utilised in 2015-16 and 2016-17. In Bihar and Maharashtra, this was partly due to significant delays in release of funds from State treasuries to implementing agencies. The delays were a result of complex administrative procedures associated with the release of NHM funds from State treasuries. The existence of implementing agencies outside the States' administrative setup, and the rigid fragmented financial design of NHM has contributed to the complicated architecture of release processes.
Exploring Netflow Data using Hadoop

Analyzing network flows is challenging both because of the complexity of interactions that it captures, but also because of the sheer volume of the data that can be captured from routers and monitors in large networks. Hadoop is a popular parallel processing framework that is widely used for working with large datasets. However, there is a lack of information about effective uses of Hadoop on NetFlow datasets. Typically, research publications focus on presenting results of work built on top of Hadoop, rather than enlightening about effective uses of the popular framework. In this paper we make a first step in achieving that goal. We identify basic tasks making up any exploratory analysis process of netflow datset, describe their realization in Hadoop framework and characterize their performance in two commonly used Hadoop deployments.
Les EDP en traitement des images et vision par ordinateur

On assiste depuis quelques temps a un regain d'interet pour un certain nombre de problemes lies au domaine du traitement des images et ceci pour plusieurs raisons dont principalement une demande accrue au niveau des applications pour des algorithmes efficaces et performants d'amelioration, de restauration, d'analyse multiechelle,. et l'emergence d'une methodologie nouvelle pour resoudre ces problemes, methodologie qui permet de les traiter a partir d'une base mathematique solide, celle des equations aux derivees partielles, en abrege EDP. Cet outil, dont l'introduction en traitement des images date de quelques annees seulement permet de traiter aisement de nombreux problemes dont certains sont exprimes sous forme variationnelle, d'aborder relativement sereinement des problemes non-lineaires, d'obtenir dans de nombreux cas des resultats d'existence et d'unicite de solution, voire des schemas de resolution numerique tres efficaces. De par leur interet, certaines des idees developpees dans ce cadre ont commence aussi a etre appliquees a un certain nombre de problemes dans le domaine de la vision par ordinateur comme la caracterisation de primitives images, la stereoscopie, l'analyse du mouvement, etc. Ce rapport est un inventaire non exhaustif de l'etat de la recherche dans ce domaine en pleine expansion ou les techniques les plus recentes de la theorie des EDP se mesurent aux problemes parmi les plus difficiles du traitement des images et de la vision artificielle.
A State Estimation Method for Sound Environment System with Unknown Observation Mechanism by Introducing Fuzzy Inference

The observed phenomena in real sound environment system often contain uncertainty such as the additional external noise with unknown statistics. Furthermore, there is complex nonlinear relationship between the specific signal and the observations, and it cannot be exactly expressed in any definite functional form. In these situations, it is one of reasonable analysis methods to treat the objective sound environment system as a fuzzy system. In this study, a state estimation method for a specific signal under the existence of an unknown observation mechanism and external noise of unknown statistics is proposed by introducing fuzzy inference. The effectiveness of the proposed theoretical method is experimentally confirmed by applying it to the actually observed data in the sound environment.
Specific Gene Expression of ATP-binding Cassette Transporters and Nuclear Hormone Receptors in Rat Liver Parenchymal, Endothelial, and Kupffer Cells*

Hepatic cholesterol(ester) uptake from serum coupled to intracellular processing and biliary excretion are important features in the removal of excess cholesterol from the body. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters play an important role in hepatic cholesterol transport. The liver consists of different cell types, and ABC transporters may exert different physiological functions dependent on the individual cell type. Therefore, in the current study, using real time PCR we compared the mRNA expression of ABC transporters and genes involved in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in liver parenchymal, endothelial, and Kupffer cells. It appears that liver parenchymal cells contain high expression levels compared with endothelial and Kupffer cells of scavenger receptor class BI (∼3-fold), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)α and PPARγ (8–20-fold), cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase A1 (>100-fold), and ABCG5/G8 (∼5-fold). Liver endothelial cells show a high expression of cholesterol 27-hydroxylase, liver X receptor (LXR)β, PPARδ, and ABCG1, suggesting a novel specific role for these genes in endothelial cells. In Kupffer cells, the expression level of LXRα, ABCA1, and in particular ABCG1 is high, leading to an ABCG1 mRNA expression level that is 70-fold higher than in parenchymal cells. It can be calculated that 51% of the total liver ABCG1 expression resides in Kupffer cells and 24% in endothelial cells, suggesting an intrahepatic-specific role for ABCG1 in Kupffer and endothelial cells. Because of a specific stimulation of ABCG1 in parenchymal cells by a high cholesterol diet, the contribution of parenchymal cells to the total liver increased from 25 to 60%. Our data indicate that for studies of the role of ABC transporters and their regulation in liver, their cellular localization should be taken into account, allowing proper interpretation of metabolic changes, which are directly related to their (intra)cellular expression level.
A Film-Profile-Engineered 3-D InGaZnO Inverter Technology With Systematically Tunable Threshold Voltage

In this paper, a new depletion-load metal oxide-based inverter with 3-D structure is realized with film-profile-engineered InGaZnO (IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). The proposed inverter possesses vertically stacked load and drive TFTs whose threshold voltage can be flexibly adjusted into a wide range of -2.3-1 V through merely adjusting the geometric parameters without the necessity of additional processes or masks. The 3-D IGZO inverters constructed through the proposed technology demonstrate full-swing switching with voltage gains up to 19 V/V under an operation voltage of 9 V. The 3-D inverters can not only reduce the footprint but also promote the resistance toward light-induced instability.
Alterations in glucose homeostasis in the pediatric intensive care unit: Hyperglycemia and glucose variability are associated with increased mortality and morbidity*

Objectives: Critically ill patients with alterations in glucose equilibrium may experience adverse outcomes. We sought to describe the distribution of blood glucose values in the absence of insulin therapy and to evaluate the association of hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, and glucose variability with mortality and morbidity of critically ill children. Design: Retrospective cohort analysis. Setting: University-affiliated children's hospital pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Patients: All children admitted to the PICU for >24 hrs with at least one blood glucose level recorded from a 1-yr period. Patients were excluded if >18 yrs of age, if insulin was administered during their PICU stay, and if the PICU admitting diagnosis included diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Patients were categorized with isolated hyperglycemia (blood glucose ≥150 mg/dL, [≥8.3 mmol/L]), isolated hypoglycemia (blood glucose ≤60 mg/dL, [≤3.3 mmol/L]), and glucose variability (both hyper- and hypoglycemia), and the associations with mortality, hospital length of stay, and nosocomial infections were assessed. Fisher's exact test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and logistic and linear regression were used to test for associations. Hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic measurements occurred in 56.1% and 9.7% of all patients, respectively. Glucose variability occurred in 6.8% of all patients. Glucose variability (odds ratio 63.6; 95% confidence interval, 7.8–512) and hyperglycemia (odds ratio 11.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.5–85.6) in the univariate analysis were associated with increased mortality. There were no deaths among patients with isolated hypoglycemia. Hyperglycemia and glucose variability were also associated with nosocomial infections (p = .01) and increased hospital length of stay (p < .001). Hypoglycemia and glucose variability occurred more commonly in younger patients (p < .001). Conclusions: We found a relationship between blood glucose level and PICU patient outcomes. The relationship is similar to that found in adults and raises the question whether attention to control of blood glucose will improve outcomes in critically ill children.
Sonocatalytic activity of solution processed zinc oxide nanowires: Efficient remediation of organic pollutants

This paper demonstrated the formation of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanowires by room temperature solution process and its catalytic activity towards the degradation of organic pollutants e.g. eosin B in aqueous medium when irradiated with ultrasonic vibrations without any external light illuminations. Our as prepared pure ZnO nanostructure exhibit sonocatalytic efficiency upto 75.13% within 100 minutes whereas by the sonolysis process, eosin B was degraded only upto 25.70% within same time. The effect of variation of sonocatalyst dosage on decolorization efficiency was also evaluated. The energy conversion mechanism was also discussed in details. Therefore, pure ZnO nanowires can be used as potential candidate for sonocatalytic degradation of organic contaminations for remediation of waste water.
Pengaruh IFR dan Mekanisme CG terhadap Nilai Perusahaan dengan Kualitas Laba sebagai Variabel Intervening

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh pelaporan keuangan berbasis internet (internet financial reporting–ifr) dan mekanisme corporate governance terhadap nilai perusahaan dengan kualitas laba sebagai variabel intervening (studi empiris pada perusahaan yang terdaftar dalam indeks kompas 100 tahun 2014). Penelitian dilakukan pada perusahaan yang terdaftar dalam Indeks Kompas 100 tahun 2014 dengan teknik pengambilan sampel secara purposive sampling. Teknik analisis data menggunakan metode path analysis yang dibantu komputer menggunakan software SPSS 19.0 for Windows. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan variabel content, timeliness, technology, kepemilikan institusional, kepemilikan manajerial, komisaris independen komite audit dan kualitas laba berpengaruh secara langsung terhadap nilai perusahaan sedangkan user support tidak berpengaruh secara langsung terhadap nilai perusahaan. Dan variabel content, timeliness, technology, kepemilikan institusional, komisaris independen, dan komite audit berpengaruh secara langsung terhadap kualitas laba sedangkan kepemilikan manajerial dan user support tidak berpengaruh secara langsung terhadap kualitas laba. Serta variabel content, timeliness, technology, kepemilikan institusional, komisaris independen dan komite audit berpengaruh secara tidak langsung terhadap nilai perusahaan melalui kualitas laba sedangkan user support dan kepemilikan manajerial tidak berpengaruh secara tidak langsung terhadap nilai perusahaan melalui kualitas laba sebagai variabel intervening.