Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OXIDATIVE STRESS, NITRIC OXIDE, AND CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE

Aim: Oxidative stress and free radicals are known to have important roles in the development of atherosclerosis. Malondialdehyde (MDA), a carbonile group produced during lipid peroxidation, is used widely in determining oxidative stress. Nitric Oxide (NO) is a vasodilatator agent derived from the endothelium. The aim of our study was to investigate the relationship between MDA and NO in patient with coronary artery disease. Methods: Forty-five patients diagnosed with 50 % or more stenosis by coronary angiography were included in our study. Patients were separated as 1, 2 and 3 vessel-patients according to the number of vessels affected. Diabetics, smoking patients, patients with malignancy, renal and liver disease, and patients using nitrate preparation were excluded from the study. Forty-five healthy individuals, who had cardiological evaluation in the last year were identified as the control group. MDA, NO, and lipid measurements were performed accordingly. Results: Serum MDA levels were significantly higher in the CAD group when compared to the controls (p<0.001). No statistical difference was observed in terms of the spread of coronary artery disease and MDA levels. No significant relationship was determined between MDA and NO levels. NO was tended to be higher in the CAD group than the controls (p>0.05). No significant differences were observed in the comparison of NO levels between one, two and three vessel patients. NO levels were significantly higher in hypertensive CAD patients than the normotensive ones (p<0.05). Conclusion: In our study, MDA levels showed highly significant relation with coronary artery disease and NO serum levels were mildly increased in the patient group, however, MDA and NO showed no significant relation. The high MDA levels among all patients with CAD demonstrate a strong relationship between the oxidative stress and the coronary artery disease.
Design and Evaluation of an Efficient Schmitt Trigger-Based Hardened Latch in CNTFET Technology

This paper presents a Schmitt trigger (ST) buffer using carbon nanotube FET (CNTFET) for reliable low-power applications. Nanoscale circuits are more susceptible to transient faults or soft errors due to the reduction of the stored charge in their sensitive nodes. Hereupon, low-cost and tolerant circuits design is a significant challenge, especially in the nanoscale storage cells. In addition, the proposed ST is utilized for designing a low-power hardened latch. In the proposed design, instead of up-sizing and increasing the input capacitance, the determined hysteresis mechanism of the proposed ST buffer is utilized to improve the single event upset hardness. The simulations are conducted based on the Stanford CNTFET model at 16-nm technology node. According to the results, the proposed ST has on average 90% lower power-delay product and higher robustness to PVT variations as compared to its most efficient CNTFET-based counterparts. Moreover, the simulations confirm the considerable tolerance of the proposed hardened latch to the multiple node upset as compared to the state-of-the-art designs. The proposed hardened latch has on average 68% higher critical charge, which considerably enhances its reliability and on average 16% smaller area as compared to its counterparts.
Quality of life following remission of mental disorders: findings from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

OBJECTIVE Although psychiatric disorders are associated with decreased health-related quality of life, it is unknown whether symptom remission is associated with its improvement or normalization. METHOD Data were derived from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a large national sample of the United States population. A total of 34,653 adults 18 years and older residing in households completed 2 waves (2001-2002 and 2004-2005) of face-to-face surveys. DSM-IV psychiatric diagnoses of mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders were based on the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-DSM-IV Version. Health-related quality of life was assessed with the Short Form-12 Health Survey, Version 2 (SF-12). RESULTS Remission from alcohol dependence, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, dysthymia, social anxiety disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder was associated with significant improvement in SF-12 scores compared to nonremission (ranging from β = 7.28 in dysthymia to β = 3.16 in social anxiety disorder, all P < .05). However, with the exception of alcohol abuse, individuals who had remitted from all other disorders had lower SF-12 scores than individuals without lifetime history of the disorder. Furthermore, remission of alcohol abuse, cannabis use disorder, nicotine dependence, panic disorder, and specific phobia was not associated with significant improvement in SF-12 scores. CONCLUSIONS The relationship between psychiatric disorders and health-related quality of life is complex and differs across disorders. Although remission of several psychiatric disorders was associated with significant improvements, remission was generally not associated with full restoration of health-related quality of life, even among those without comorbid disorders.
The sympatric occurrence of two genetically divergent lineages of sucking louse, Polyplax arvicanthis (Phthiraptera: Anoplura), on the four-striped mouse genus, Rhabdomys (Rodentia: Muridae)

SUMMARY Within southern Africa, the widely distributed four-striped mouse genus (Rhabdomys) is parasitized by, amongst others, the specific ectoparasitic sucking louse, Polyplax arvicanthis. Given the presence of significant geographically structured genetic divergence in Rhabdomys, and the propensity of parasites to harbour cryptic diversity, the molecular systematics of P. arvicanthis was investigated. Representatives of P. arvicanthis were sampled from Rhabdomys at 16 localities throughout southern Africa. Parsimony and Bayesian gene trees were constructed for the mitochondrial COI, 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA and nuclear CAD genes. Our findings support the existence of 2 genetic groups within P. arvicanthis separated by at least 25% COI sequence divergence, which is comparable to that observed among recognized Polyplax species. We therefore propose that these 2 genetic lineages probably represent distinct species and that the apparent absence of clear morphological differences may point to cryptic speciation. The 2 taxa have sympatric distributions throughout most of the sampled host range and also occasionally occur sympatrically on the same host individual. The co-occurrence of these genetically distinct lineages probably resulted from parasite duplication via host-associated allopatric divergence and subsequent reciprocal range expansions of the 2 parasite taxa throughout southern Africa.
Endometriosis is associated with an altered profile of intestinal microflora in female rhesus monkeys.

BACKGROUND The intestinal microflora provide a strong defence against intestinal pathogens, and may be altered in inflammatory conditions that impact the gut, such as endometriosis. Therefore, intestinal bacteria shed from rhesus monkeys with endometriosis were compared with age-matched healthy controls. A second study assessed the prevalence of intestinal inflammation in female monkeys to determine whether endometriosis is associated with an increased likelihood of intestinal inflammation. METHODS Differential and selective agars were used to enumerate total and Gram-negative aerobic and facultatively anaerobic bacteria, as well as Lactobacilli, from female monkeys with or without endometriosis. In addition, the prevalence of intestinal inflammation in monkeys with or without endometriosis was determined in a retrospective analysis of necropsy reports. RESULTS Monkeys with endometriosis had a significantly different profile of shed microflora. Endometriosis was associated with lower Lactobacilli concentrations and higher Gram-negative bacteria concentrations. Moreover, there was a higher prevalence of intestinal inflammation in monkeys with endometriosis in comparison to healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS Endometriosis is associated with an altered profile of intestinal microflora in rhesus monkeys. Although the exact mechanisms linking endometriosis and the microflora are unknown, it is possible that the microflora were affected by endometriosis-associated intestinal inflammation.
Network Centric Core Avionics

Network centric core avionics attempts to solve the question of simplicity and dependability in computing by means of a fault-tolerant and robust architecture called middleware. By this means software services can be distributed via nodes which are non-dependable and which can migrate in the case of node failure, thus creating a reliable network of unreliable parts.
Sodium chloride improves photosynthesis and water status in the succulent xerophyte Zygophyllum xanthoxylum.

Zygophyllum xanthoxylum, a C(3) woody species, is a succulent xerophyte that is well adapted to arid environments. Our previous investigations showed that Na(+) has a positive effect on the growth of Z. xanthoxylum under drought conditions, which was closely related to high Na(+) accumulation in leaves. To reveal the physiological mechanisms underlying how Na(+) accumulation improves the drought resistance of Z. xanthoxylum, 3-week-old seedlings were treated with a series of additional external NaCl concentrations (5-150 mM) in sand culture experiments. Seedlings were also subjected to water deficit (30% of field water capacity) in the presence or absence of additional NaCl (50 mM) in pot experiments. The results indicated that 50 mM NaCl could mitigate deleterious impacts of water deficit on the growth of Z. xanthoxylum, by improving the relative water content, inducing a significant drop in leaf water potential and, concomitantly, increasing leaf turgor pressure and chlorophyll concentrations resulting in an enhancement of overall plant photosynthetic activity (i.e., photosynthetic rate and water use efficiency). Furthermore, NaCl (50 mM) could alleviate the inhibitory effect of water deficit on the activity of photosystem II in Z. xanthoxylum. The contribution of Na(+) to the total osmotic potential varied from 8% in the control to 13% in plants subjected to water deficit and, surprisingly, to 28% in plants grown in the presence of 50 mM NaCl under water deficit; however, the contribution of K(+) significantly decreased from 13 to 8%. These findings suggest that, under arid environments, Z. xanthoxylum is able to accumulate a high concentration of Na(+) in its leaves and use it directly for osmotic adjustment, which was coupled with an improvement in leaf hydration and photosynthetic activity.
Modeling and simulation of DC characteristics of a novel NMOS based high pressure sensor

This work utilizes an 0.5 μm NMOS device as a pressure sensor by using a suspended metal gate technology. The gate electrode of Pressure Sensitive Insulated Gate Field Effect Transistor (PSIGFET) is freely suspended by four 1-Mender based serpentine springs at four corner and acts as a pressure sensing diaphragm. The large area requirement of diaphragm is minimizes be using a square shaped membrane of area 0.5 μm × 0.5 μm. The pressure measuring capacity is enhanced by using a Tungsten diaphragm (Modulus of Elasticity=410 GPa) and the device is capable of measuring Pressure in the range of 10-205 MPa. The spring constant of the membrane is determined from Coventorware Simulations of the diaphragm and compared with analytical value (3.8639133×10-4 μm/MPa). The pressure sensitivity of the device is found to be quite good, in the range of 0.1355-0.3167 μA/MPa. The temperature stability of the sensor device is further investigated and the temperature coefficient of pressure sensitivity is found to quite low (0.01-0.02 μA/MPa/10oC) at VGS= 3V indicating that the device is stable again the temperature variation up to 77oC.
A Novel Approach for Combining Micro and Macro Mobility in 6LoWPAN Enabled Networks

Industrial applications of IEEE 802.15. 4 networks require autonomous network reconfiguration and high mobility support. Therefore, dynamic meshing in case of node failures or changing environmental influences is needed as well as handover strategies when nodes change network domains. Recently a growing number of low rated, low power sensor nodes are deployed within Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to support e.g. data acquisition and transmission. Therefore, this work focuses on a mobility management to combine micro and macro mobility aspects in form of mobile ad hoc network (MANET) protocols and Mobile Internet Protocol Version 6 (MIPv6) without changing the original MIPv6 stack. In addition to that the application of 6LoWPAN is addressed to make efficient data transmission feasible within embedded devices by IPv6 header compression which increases resulting payloads significantly. Finally, our approach is validated within a real world industrial simulation environment by combining the protocol simulator OMNeT++ with a ray tracing tool.
Who Should Supervise? The Structure of Bank Supervision and the Performance of the Financial System

We assemble data on the structure of bank supervision, distinguishing supervision by the central bank from supervision by a nonbank governmental agency and independent from dependent governmental supervisors. Using observations for 140 countries from 1998 through 2010, we find that supervisory responsibility tends to be assigned to the central bank in low-income countries where that institution is one of few public-sector agencies with the requisite administrative capacity. It is more likely to be undertaken by a non-independent agency of the government in countries ranked high in terms of government efficiency and regulatory quality. We show that the choice of institutional arrangement makes a difference for outcomes. Countries with independent supervisors other than the central bank have fewer nonperforming loans as a share of GDP even after controlling for inflation, per capita income, and country and/or year fixed effects. Their banks are required to hold less capital against assets, presumably because they have less need to protect against loan losses. Savers in such countries enjoy higher deposit rates. There is some evidence, albeit more tentative, that countries with these arrangements are less prone to systemic banking crises.
Procaine, a local anesthetic, signals through the EnvZ receptor to change the DNA binding affinity of the transcriptional activator protein OmpR

Local anesthetics are known to reduce the level of OmpF and increase the synthesis of OmpC in the outer membrane of Escherichia coli K-12. It has been shown that the anesthetics procaine and phenethyl alcohol (PEA) act at the transcriptional level for ompF and ompC and that in the case of procaine, its action is dependent on EnvZ, the membrane-bound signal transducer required for ompF and ompC expression. In an effort to further understand how anesthetics regulate ompF and ompC expression, we have analyzed the DNA binding properties of OmpR (the transcriptional activator protein for ompF and ompC genes) from cells treated with procaine or PEA. Treatment of a wild-type cell with either anesthetic converted OmpR from a low-affinity DNA binding form to a high-affinity DNA binding form. The change in DNA binding affinity was correlated with alterations in outer membrane porin profiles and could occur in the absence of protein synthesis. A strain lacking EnvZ was unable to respond to procaine to produce either the shift in the OmpR DNA binding property or cause any change in the outer membrane porin profile. PEA treatment was also dependent on EnvZ for the alteration in the OmpR DNA binding property, but it could induce ompC expression in the absence of EnvZ. Further studies suggest that the amino-terminal region of EnvZ is responsible for the procaine signalling. Our results indicate that procaine and PEA regulate ompF and ompC expression by modifying the DNA binding properties of OmpR through EnvZ signal transduction.
Re-visit blocking texture cache design for modern GPU

Texture cache plays a significant position in GPU design especially in a limited memory bandwidth environment such as mobile SoC system. In this paper, we evaluate the 6D blocking texture cache design through a sophisticated GPU simulator using DRAM memory model. Our experiment reveals that using a larger block can take advantage of the spatial locality of texel accesses, however, fetching a larger block which requires several burst runs in DRAM access, results in poor memory access efficiency. As a result, the block size used has to match with the DRAM burst length for the best memory access efficiency.
Building Strong Brands

As industries turn increasingly hostile, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survive and prosper. In David Aaker's pathbreaking book, "Managing Brand Equity, " managers discovered the value of a brand as a strategic asset and a company's primary source of competitive advantage. Now, in this compelling new work, Aaker uses real brand-building cases from Saturn, General Electric, Kodak, Healthy Choice, McDonald's, and others to demonstrate how strong brands have been created and managed. A common pitfall of brand strategists is to focus on brand attributes. Aaker shows how to break out of the box by considering emotional and self-expressive benefits and by introducing the brand-as-person, brand-as-organization, and brand-as-symbol perspectives. The twin concepts of brand identity (the brand image that brand strategists aspire to create or maintain) and brand position (that part of the brand identity that is to be actively communicated) play a key role in managing the "out-of-the-box" brand. A second pitfall is to ignore the fact that individual brands are part of a larger system consisting of many intertwined and overlapping brands and subbrands. Aaker shows how to manage the "brand system" to achieve clarity and synergy, to adapt to a changing environment, and to leverage brand assets into new markets and products. Aaker also addresses practical management issues, introducing a set of brand equity measures, termed the brand equity ten, to help those who measure and track brand equity across products and markets. He presents and analyzes brand-nurturing organizational forms that are responsive to the challenges of coordinated brands acrossmarkets, products, roles, and contexts. Potentially destructive organizational pressures to change a brand's identity and position are also discussed. As executives in a wide range of industries seek to prevent their products and services from becoming commodities, they are recommitting themselves to brands as a foundation of business strategy. This new work will be essential reading for the battle-ready.
Adaptive Collaborative Detection for Opportunistic Vehicle Sensor Networks

Transportation is a huge problem that curbs development of societies and economy in many countries nowadays. Participatory sensing technologies encourage people to be involved in environment monitoring through smart devices. Vehicle sensor networks (VSNs) are a novel solution for road event detection with advantages. In this paper, we consider runtime road event detection using VSNs to satisfy the application-specific requirements through collaboration among vehicles. A group road detection scheme (GRD) by using dynamic clustering in VSNs is presented to improve detection performance with low time complexity and message complexity. The simulations with testbed of 5 remote controllable vehicles show that GRD scheme provides effectiveness under different road scenarios.
Overcoming the effects of sampling of band-limited stationary analog signals in HOC-based MA modeling

This paper discusses the implications of sampling of band-limited stationary analog signals in moving average higher order cumulant (MA HOC) based modeling. It has been reported in the literature that the bispectrum of samples of continuous analog signals cannot be factorised in the manner assumed by almost all HOC-based MA identification methods. In this paper we present a method for 2D prefiltering of the cumulant statistics in order to obtain the cumulants of the linear model. The filtered set of cumulants can then be used for system identification. The paper also presents a modification of cumulant matching methods for the MA modeling of samples of band-limited stationary analog signals.
Vascular endothelial growth factor is a neurotrophic factor which stimulates axonal outgrowth through the flk‐1 receptor

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an angiogenic factor that stimulates axonal outgrowth. Here we used in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry to study the VEGF receptor flk‐1 in cultured superior cervical ganglia (SCG) and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) from adult mice, and also the effects of VEGF on regeneration in vitro. Neurons in both ganglia contained the flk‐1 receptor and showed an increased mRNA expression and immunoreactivity for flk‐1 after 48 h in culture. In SCG, but not in DRG, double immunostaining for flk‐1 and VEGF revealed coexpression in many neurons, implying that VEGF may exert both autocrine and paracrine actions. One proportion of the flk‐1‐positive neurons in DRG stained positive for the large neuron marker RT97 and another proportion expressed calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP). Small IB4‐positive neurons were devoid of flk‐1 immunoreactivity. Most flk‐1‐positive neurons in the DRG, but not in the SCG, were also immunoreactive to neuropilin‐1. VEGF was found to stimulate axonal outgrowth from DRG, both by an action on the growing axons and the nerve cell bodies. The latter effect could be mediated by retrograde axonal transport as revealed by the use of a two compartment system to assay axonal outgrowth. We also found that the VEGF‐induced axonal outgrowth was blocked by the flk‐1 inhibitor SU5416. The results strongly suggest that VEGF acts as a neurotrophic factor and plays an important role during the regeneration of peripheral nerves.
Circulating neuroblastoma cells detected by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction for tyrosine hydroxylase mRNA are an independent poor prognostic indicator in stage 4 neuroblastoma in children over 1 year.

PURPOSE In this prospective, multicenter study, the independent prognostic power of neuroblastoma cells detected by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) mRNA was evaluated. PATIENTS AND METHODS The clinical significance of disease detected by RT-PCR in peripheral blood from children at diagnosis was compared with established prognostic markers [ie, age, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), neuron-specific enolase, ferritin, and MYCN gene amplification] by multivariate analysis. The value of disease detection by RT-PCR during treatment and follow-up was also examined. RESULTS TH mRNA was detected in peripheral blood from 33 of 49 (67%) children with stage 4 neuroblastoma > 1 year old at diagnosis and was a significant predictive factor for overall survival [hazard ratio (HR) = 2.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19 to 4.84, P =. 014) and event-free survival (HR = 2.09, 95% CI 1.06 to 4.17, P =.034) in a multivariate analysis. Detection of disease in blood from clinically disease-free children was related to increased risk of death (HR 2.54, 95% CI 1.42 to 4.55, P =.0014). CONCLUSION TH mRNA in peripheral blood of children with neuroblastoma is a poor prognostic indicator, reflecting the propensity for dissemination via the bloodstream. When combined with a serum LDH > 1500 IU/L, this is the most powerful poor prognostic model at diagnosis for children > 1 year old with stage 4 disease. The detection of TH mRNA in peripheral blood from clinically disease-free children is related to increased risk of relapse and death.