Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parachlorella beyerinckii accelerates lead excretion in mice

The effect of Parachlorella beyerinckii CK-5, previously identified as Chlorella vulgaris, on gastrointestinal absorption of lead was investigated in mice. Female ICR mice aged 7 weeks were orally administered lead acetate solution at doses of 20 mg and 40 mg of lead per mouse, with or without 100 mg of P. beyerinckii powder (BP). The mice were bred for 24 hours. The amount of lead excreted in feces within 24 hours, and the lead levels of the blood, liver and kidney were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrometry. The percentage of total fecal excretion in mice administered BP increased by 27.7% in 20 mg lead administered mice and 17.2% in 40 mg lead administered mice in comparison to control mice, respectively. On the other hand, the lead levels of the blood, liver and kidney of BPadministered mice at 24 hours after lead administration were 48-63% lower as compared with those of control mice. The lead adsorption ability of BP and the pepsin non-digestive residue of BP (dBP) were investigated in vitro. One hundred mg of BP and dBP could adsorb 10.6 mg and 6.0 mg of lead in a 20 mg per 10 mL of lead solution, respectively. The lead absorption abilities of BP and dBP were considered to contribute to the prevention of gastrointestinal absorption of lead and the promotion of the excretion of lead. These results suggested that BP treatment might be useful in animals and humans exposed to lead.
Factors influencing stress and job satisfaction of nurses working in psychiatric units: a research review

Background: Mental health nursing has been reported as a stressful speciality, with low job satisfaction. Method: An extensive literature search was performed aiming to identify and review research studies that investigate variables which influence stress and job satisfaction of nurses working in mental health settings. Results: This review shows that a variety of factors influence stress and job satisfaction of mental health nurses. Among these, clinical leadership and quality inter-professional collaboration between nurses and doctors and amongst nurses are particularly important. Nurses’ job satisfaction was found to be influenced primarily by psychological stress and the quality of clinical leadership. Conclusions: The influence of the quality of collaboration amongst nurses and between nurses and doctors on nurses’ job satisfaction is uncertain. A strong negative relationship was found between clinical leadership, inter-professional collaboration, stress and job satisfaction. Although a positive relationship between clinical leadership and nurses' job satisfaction was found, the association between clinical leadership and quality of inter-professional collaboration is unclear. The association between these variables and job satisfaction is positive but tenuous. In addition, a positive but weak relationship was revealed between the clinical leadership and the quality of relationships amongst nurses. Organisational issues, lack of nursing staff and patient care were found to be related to ward type mental health nurses’ stress emerged as mediating variables between stress and job satisfaction. A hypothetical model of the relationships between these variables is presented for testing at a future study.
Infrahepatic cavocavostomy: Expanding the armamentarium for the liver transplant surgeon

We describe our experience with a modification of the piggyback (PB) technique for orthotopic liver transplantation in which the donor infrahepatic vena cava is used as the venous outflow tract. From May 1997 to January 2006, a total of 109 cases using this technique were performed in 101 patients. Collected data included recipient demographics and diagnosis, warm ischemia time, use of venovenous bypass or temporary portacaval shunt and complications related to the venous outflow and graft, and patient survival. Data were compared with the patients undergoing standard PB technique during the same period. The reasons for using the technique were grouped according to whether there was a problem with the recipient hepatic veins or a concern about the length or diameter of the donor suprahepatic vena cava. These included the presence of a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (eight cases), retransplantation (22 cases), thin-walled, friable hepatic veins (32 cases), Budd-Chiari syndrome (two cases), domino liver procurement (six cases), reduced or split liver grafts (five cases), and graft inferior vena cava to recipient hepatic veins size discrepancy (34 cases). There was no graft loss. The warm ischemia time was 39.65 minutes compared with 37 minutes in the standard PB group. The long-term graft and patient survival rates were similar in the two groups. Infrahepatic vena cavocavostomy is a useful variation of the standard PB technique.
Studies on route sustenance and outage probability in cognitive mobile secondary user networks

Use of mobile Secondary users as relays in cognitive networks is becoming popular. In this scenario due to dynamic nature of the mobile secondary users the route sustenance time, throughput and outage of the network will be of importance for successful secondary network operation. In this work we studied the route sustenance duration and outage probability for a synthetic network of cognitive users. The results show that by including the mobile relays beyond the coverage of network the route sustenance time improves substantially and also helps in extending the service area.
Modelos de estimación de la probabilidad de negociación informada: una comparación metodológica en el mercado español

Caracterizar el grado de asimetria informativa ocupa un papel predominante en la literatura de microestructura moderna. En este trabajo, se revisa y analiza la idoneidad de los metodos existentes para calibrar la probabilidad de negociacion informada [Easley et al., 1996; Nyholm, 2002, 2003]. El analisis empirico toma como referencia el mercado espanol. La evidencia obtenida senala que el modelo de regimen cambiante de Nyholm (2002, 2003) no ofrece medidas consistentes con los efectos de asimetria informativa. El analisis sobre el mercado espanol revela una mayor probabilidad de negociacion informada en los activos menos liquidos como consecuencia de una reduccion drastica en el numero de agentes que negocia por motivos de liquidez. Esta evidencia sugiere un fuerte comportamiento de aversion al riesgo de seleccion adversa.
The zinc finger region of simian virus 40 large T antigen

Simian virus 40 large T antigen contains a single sequence element with an arrangement of cysteines and histidines that is characteristic of a zinc finger motif. The finger region maps from amino acids 302 through 320 and has the sequence Cys-302LeuLysCys-305IleLysLysGluGlnProSerHisTyrLysTyrHis- 317GluLysHis-320. In a conventional representation, the binding of zinc to the cysteines and histidines at positions 302, 305, 317, and 320 would form two minor loops and one major loop from the intervening amino acids. We made single amino acid substitutions at every position in the finger to identify possible functional elements within the putative metal-binding domain. Amino acids in the zinc finger could be divided into three classes characterized by distinct roles in DNA replication and transformation. Class 1 consisted of amino acids in the two minor loops of the finger and in the amino-terminal part of the major loop. Mutations here did not affect either replication or transformation. Class 2 consisted of the SerHisTyrLysTyr amino acids located in the carboxy terminus of the major loop of the finger. Mutations in this contiguous region reduced replication of the mutant viruses to different degrees. This clustering suggested that the region is an active site important for a specific function in DNA replication. With the exception of a mutation in the histidine at position 313, these mutations had no effect on transformation. Class 3 consisted of the proposed zinc-binding amino acids at positions 302, 305, 317, and 320 and the histidine at position 313 in the major loop of the finger. Mutations in these amino acids abolished the viability of the virus completely and had a distinctive effect on the transforming functions of the protein. Thus, the five cysteines and histidines of class 3 may play an important role in determining the overall structure of the protein. The histidine at position 313 may function both in the active site where it is located and in cooperation with the proposed zinc-binding ligands.
Quantum molecular dynamics approach to heavy ion collisions: Description of the model, comparison with fragmentation data, and the mechanism of fragment formation.

We present a detailed microscopic quantum molecular dynamic analysis of fragment formation in the reaction Ne(1.05 GeV/nucleon) + Au. The theoretical predictions of the total mass yield, the multiplicity distribution of clusters, their average momentum, and their angular distribution agree well with the available data. We find a rather localized hot participant zone, which predominantly emits protons and neutrons. The multiplicity of light clusters depends strongly on the impact parameter whereas the heavier fragments A\ensuremath{\ge}40 result from the decay of spectator residues. Their yield can provide a good measure for the impact parameter. The hypothesis of a compound system of ${A}_{P}$ and ${A}_{T}$ nucleons which is globally heated and equilibrated is not supported by our results. Light and massive fragments occupy different regions in phase space. Semiperipheral reactions do not lead to a stopping of the projectile. We observe a power law behavior of the inclusive mass yield distribution. Its form, however, is caused by averaging over different impact parameters. This rules out inclusive mass yield distributions as candidates for revealing a possible liquid gas phase transition. Light and intermediate mass fragments are formed during the early compressional stage of the reaction. We find that the projectile causes a high density wave to travel through the target. It causes the target to fragment and transfers transverse momentum to the intermediate mass fragments. Lighter fragments receive additional momentum transfer due to n-n collisions.
Polski słownik biograficzny T. 1

Change of ed. T. 8-10 / [ed. Kazimierz Lepszy et al.]. Since T. 11 / [ed. Emanuel Rostworowski]. Since T. 39 / [ed. Henryk Markiewicz et al.]. Since T. 42 ed. Andrzej Romanowski.
cAMP response element‐binding protein and Yes‐associated protein form a feedback loop that promotes neurite outgrowth

The cAMP response element‐binding (CREB) protein is a member of the CREB/activating transcription factor family that is activated by various extracellular stimuli. It has been shown that CREB‐dependent transcription stimulation plays a key role in neuronal differentiation and plasticity, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely elusive. Here, we show that Yes‐associated protein (YAP) is a direct target induced by CREB upon retinoic acid (RA)‐induced neurite outgrowth stimuli in N2a cells. Interestingly, YAP knockout using the CRISPR/Cas9 system inhibits neuronal differentiation and reduced neurite length. We further show that YAP could directly bind to CREB via its N‐terminal region, and loss of YAP results in instability of phosphorylated CREB upon neurite outgrowth stimuli. Transient expression of YAP could largely restore CREB expression and neurite outgrowth in YAP knockout cells. Together, our results suggest that CREB and YAP form a positive feedback loop that is critical to maintain the stability of phosphorylated CREB and promote neurite outgrowth.
Effect of Pavement Marking Retroreflectivity on the Performance of Vision-Based Lane Departure Warning Systems

Vision-based lane departure warning systems (LDWS) use images collected by small cameras to track the pavement markings and warn drivers when their vehicles perform unintended drifts out of the travel lanes. Pavement marking visibility at night is a function of the marking's retroreflectivity. During rain, pavement markings are covered by water, reducing the retroreflectivity and adversely affecting the visibility of the markings at night. This study examines the effects of the marking's retroreflectivity on the performance of LDWS, based on tests conducted in the field and in a simulated rain facility. The results indicate that improving the retroreflectivity attributes of commonly used pavement marking materials such as thermoplastic and paints improves the performance of LDWS for rain conditions at night. In addition, this performance improves significantly with the use of enhanced types of pavement markings that have high visibility during rain.
The abnormalities of lysosomal enzymes in mucopolysacc- haridoses.

The activity of acid hydrolases on 13 substrates has been measured in the liver of normal human subjects and of 32 patients with various forms of mucopolysaccharidoses. The most important abnormalities may be summarized as follows: 1 In 3 patients, there was a complete absence of α-fucosidase and an excess of fucose in the mucopolysaccharide fraction. The enzymatic deficiency extended to the brain, lung, kidney and urine. In the liver there was also a large increase in the activity of several acid hydrolases, mostly of the α-galactosidase and of the β-xylosidase. 2 In 5 patients with pseudo-Hurler disease (generalized gangliosidosis), the activity of β-galactosidase, at pH 3.6 was absent and this defect also extended to other tissues. This enzymatic deficiency explains the known accumulation of galactose-rich mucopolysaccharides and of galactosyl-N-acetylgalactosaminyl N-acetyl-neuraminyl)-galactosylceramide (GM1 ganglioside) in the tissues. Several enzymatic activities were greatly elevated, mostly that of α-fucosidase, α-galactosidase and N-acetyl-β-glucosaminidase. 3 In 14 patients with an usual form of Hurler syndrome, the activity of acid β-galactosidase was markedly reduced and this abnormality extended also to the brain and the derm but not to the kidney, spleen and leucocytes. The N-acetyl-β-hexosaminidases, the β-glucuronidase and the α-fucosidase were much more active than normally. 4 In two siblings only, affected by an unusual type of Hurler syndrome, there was a marked elevation of β-galactosidase. The etiological significance of these findings is discussed and a classification of the mucopolysaccharidoses, based on the activity of the lysosomal enzymes in the liver, is proposed.
Candidate Microbicide PPCM Blocks Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection in Cell and Tissue Cultures and Prevents Genital Herpes in a Murine Model

ABSTRACT A structurally novel candidate microbicide, PPCM, which is formed from the reaction of d,l-mandelic acid with sulfuric acid, provides activity against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) and is not cytotoxic. The objectives of the current studies were to comprehensively evaluate the activity of PPCM in cell and explant cultures, explore the possibility of combining PPCM with HIV-specific reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and evaluate the efficacy of a formulated gel against genital herpes in a murine model. PPCM inhibited infection by laboratory and clinical R5 and X4 clade B and clade C HIV strains in cell culture. Ectocervical and endocervical tissue explants exposed to HIV-1BaL in the presence of PPCM were protected (50% inhibitory concentrations [IC50] of 3.9 μg/ml for ectocervix and 3.1 μg/ml for endocervix), and transfer of virus to target T cells via migratory cells was significantly impaired (IC50 of 35.7 μg/ml for ectocervix and 54.6 μg/ml for endocervix). The drug also blocked infection by cell-associated virus. Combinations of PPCM with UC-781 or PMPA in vitro exhibited additive anti-HIV activity. PPCM was incorporated into stable, low-pH gel formulations at concentrations of 0.4% and 4%. Both gels prevented genital herpesvirus infection in mice, even when virus was introduced in human seminal plasma. The abilities of PPCM to inhibit primary HIV isolates, reduce infection by cell-associated virus, and transfer of HIV from migratory to T cells, combined with the complete protection provided by formulated gel against genital herpes, indicate that this drug is an excellent candidate for inclusion in a combination microbicide and would provide protection against both HIV and HSV.
Validation and Cross-Cultural Pilot Testing of Compliance with Standard Precautions Scale: Self-Administered Instrument for Clinical Nurses

Objective. To perform detailed psychometric testing of the compliance with standard precautions scale (CSPS) in measuring compliance with standard precautions of clinical nurses and to conduct cross-cultural pilot testing and assess the relevance of the CSPS on an international platform. Design. A cross-sectional and correlational design with repeated measures. Setting. Nursing students from a local registered nurse training university, nurses from different hospitals in Hong Kong, and experts in an international conference. Methods. The psychometric properties of the CSPS were evaluated via internal consistency, 2-week and 3-month test-retest reliability, concurrent validation, and construct validation. The cross-cultural pilot testing and relevance check was examined by experts on infection control from various developed and developing regions. Results. Among 453 participants, 193 were nursing students, 165 were enrolled nurses, and 95 were registered nurses. The results showed that the CSPS had satisfactory reliability (Cronbach α = 0.73; intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.79 for 2-week test-retest and 0.74 for 3-month test-retest) and validity (optimum correlation with criterion measure; r = 0.76, P < .001; satisfactory results on known-group method and hypothesis testing). A total of 19 experts from 16 countries assured that most of the CSPS findings were relevant and globally applicable. Conclusions. The CSPS demonstrated satisfactory results on the basis of the standard international criteria on psychometric testing, which ascertained the reliability and validity of this instrument in measuring the compliance of clinical nurses with standard precautions. The cross-cultural pilot testing further reinforced the instrument's relevance and applicability in most developed and developing regions.
Latent Regression Forest: Structured Estimation of 3D Hand Poses

In this paper we present the latent regression forest (LRF), a novel framework for real-time, 3D hand pose estimation from a single depth image. Prior discriminative methods often fall into two categories: holistic and patch-based. Holistic methods are efficient but less flexible due to their nearest neighbour nature. Patch-based methods can generalise to unseen samples by consider local appearance only. However, they are complex because each pixel need to be classified or regressed during testing. In contrast to these two baselines, our method can be considered as a structured coarse-to-fine search, starting from the centre of mass of a point cloud until locating all the skeletal joints. The searching process is guided by a learnt latent tree model which reflects the hierarchical topology of the hand. Our main contributions can be summarised as follows: (i) Learning the topology of the hand in an unsupervised, data-driven manner. (ii) A new forest-based, discriminative framework for structured search in images, as well as an error regression step to avoid error accumulation. (iii) A new multi-view hand pose dataset containing 180 K annotated images from 10 different subjects. Our experiments on two datasets show that the LRF outperforms baselines and prior arts in both accuracy and efficiency.
Investimento em Contratos Futuros de Commodities: Uma Análise Quanto ao Risco e Retorno

Operacoes envolvendo derivativos estao associadas a grandes prejuizos de instituicoes financeiras e organizacoes corporativas. Em funcao desses eventos, a imagem atribuida aos derivativos e que tais instrumentos sao ativos de alto risco. Esse estudo avaliou o risco e retorno de um investimento direto em contratos futuros de commodities com base na metodologia do ICB – Indice Commodities do Brasil da BM&FBOVESPA e o comparou com acoes e titulos publicos, em um periodo de maio de 2004 a abril de 2011, totalizando 1770 observacoes. Avaliou-se tambem a relacao funcional entre as series de retorno dos contratos futuros de commodities com o mercado acionario e renda fixa atraves do coeficiente de Spearman. A metodologia utilizada para calculo do risco dos ativos foi a abordagem elaborada por Box e Jenkins (1970) e os modelos da familia ARCH propostos por Engle (1982) e GARCH por Bollerslev (1986). Os resultados obtidos apontam que, a volatilidade da serie de retornos dos contratos futuros de commodities foi menor que a volatilidade apresentada pelo mercado acionario. O retorno, porem, apresentado pelo mercado acionario foi superior ao mercado de renda fixa e commodities. O coeficiente de Spearman acusou uma baixa correlacao entre as series de retornos dos ativos analisados, logo, com base nessa pesquisa, nao se pode afirmar que a insercao de contratatos futuros de commodities com base na metodologia adotada pelo ICB possa mitigar riscos em carteiras de investimentos.
Aging Benefits in Nanometer CMOS Designs

In this brief, we show that bias temperature instability (BTI) aging of MOS transistors, together with its detrimental effect for circuit performance and lifetime, presents considerable benefits for static power consumption due to subthreshold leakage current reduction. Indeed, static power reduces considerably, making CMOS circuits more energy efficient over time. Static power reduction depends on transistor stress ratio and operating temperature. We propose a simulation flow allowing us to properly evaluate the BTI aging of complex circuits in order to estimate BTI-induced power reduction accurately. Through HSPICE simulations, we show 50% static power reduction after only one month of operation, which exceeds 78% in ten years. BTI aging benefits for power consumption are also proven with experimental measurements.
Construction of 2-closed M-representations

The sporadic simple group Monster, denoted by M, acts on the Griess algebra, which is a real vector space of dimension 196,884, equipped with a positive definite scalar product and a bilinear, commutative, and non-associative algebra product. Certain properties of this linear representation of M, together with properties (discovered by Conway and Miyamoto) of idempotents in the Griess algebra that correspond to 2A involutions in M, have been defined by Ivanov as the M-representation of the Monster. This definition enables us to talk about M-representations of arbitrary groups G that are generated by involutions. In general, an M-representation may or may not exist, but if G is isomorphic to a subgroup of the Monster and a representation is isomorphic to the corresponding subalgebra of the Griess algebra then we say that the M-representation is based on an embedding of G in the Monster. In this paper, we describe a generic theoretical procedure to construct M-representations, and a GAP computer program that implements the procedure. It turns out that in many cases the representations are based on embeddings in the Monster, thereby providing a valuable tool of studying subalgebras of the Griess algebra that were unaccessible in the 196,884-dimensional setting.
Bagging and boosting variants for handling classifications problems: a survey

Abstract Bagging and boosting are two of the most well-known ensemble learning methods due to their theoretical performance guarantees and strong experimental results. Since bagging and boosting are an effective and open framework, several researchers have proposed their variants, some of which have turned out to have lower classification error than the original versions. This paper tried to summarize these variants and categorize them into groups. We hope that the references cited cover the major theoretical issues, and provide access to the main branches of the literature dealing with such methods, guiding the researcher in interesting research directions.