Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PHARMACOLOGICAL POTENTIAL OF MATRICARIA RECUTITA-A REVIEW

Matricaria recutita, once it has been called as Marticaria chamomilla, Chamomilla recutita, and Chamomilum nobile family Asteraceae. The main constituents of this plant include the terpenoids α-bisabolol and its oxides and azulenes, including chamazulene. Matricaria recutita shows different pharmacological activities like anti-inflammatory, anti- cancer, treatment of stress and depression, anti-allergic etc. This review focuses on the detailed chemical constituents, pharmacological activities of different parts of this plant.
Nitrite Elimination and Hydrolytic Ring Cleavage in 2,4,6-Trinitrophenol (Picric Acid) Degradation

ABSTRACT Two hydrogenation reactions in the initial steps of degradation of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol produce the dihydride Meisenheimer complex of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol. The npdH gene (contained in the npd gene cluster of the 2,4,6-trinitrophenol-degrading strain Rhodococcus opacus HL PM-1) was shown here to encode a tautomerase, catalyzing a proton shift between the aci-nitro and the nitro forms of the dihydride Meisenheimer complex of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol. An enzyme (which eliminated nitrite from the aci-nitro form but not the nitro form of the dihydride complex of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol) was purified from the 2,4,6-trinitrophenol-degrading strain Nocardioides simplex FJ2-1A. The product of nitrite release was the hydride Meisenheimer complex of 2,4-dinitrophenol, which was hydrogenated to the dihydride Meisenheimer complex of 2,4-dinitrophenol by the hydride transferase I and the NADPH-dependent F420 reductase from strain HL PM-1. At pH 7.5, the dihydride complex of 2,4-dinitrophenol is protonated to 2,4-dinitrocyclohexanone. A hydrolase was purified from strain FJ2-1A and shown to cleave 2,4-dinitrocyclohexanone hydrolytically to 4,6-dinitrohexanoate.
Timing of Initiation of the Preovulatory Luteinizing Hormone Surge and Its Relationship with the Circadian Cortisol Rhythm in the Human

The relationship between the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been well documented in the rat. In most cases, a negative coupling was observed and an inhibitory effect of the HPA axis upon the HPG was shown. In the female rat, a marked circadian rhythm of corticosterone plasma values is observed during each day of the estrous cycle, with maximal values around 08:00 p.m. The preovulatory luteinizing hormone (LH) surge also occurs at 08:00 p.m. on the day of proestrus. Here we measured circadian variations of plasma cortisol in humans in relation with the time of initiation of the preovulatory LH surge. Blood samples were taken at 08:00 a.m., 12:00 a.m., 04:00 p.m. , 08:00 p.m. , 12:00 p.m. , and 04:00 a.m. from 19 subjects for 4 consecutive days, once 17β-estradiol (E2) values reached 125 pg/ml (days 7–10 of the menstrual cycle). Serum E2 and LH determinations were performed by microparticle enzyme immunoassays. Serum progesterone and plasma cortisol determinations were made using RIA methods. For plasma cortisol values, a marked circadian rhythm, with 2- to 3-fold higher values during the morning than during the afternoon, was almost identical before, during and after the LH surge. However, values were generally higher during the follicular phase than during the luteal phase. Maximum cortisol values occurred between 04:00 and 08:00 a.m. and minimal cortisol values between 04:00 and 08:00 p.m. Initiation of the LH surge (50% over the mean of previous values) occurred at 04:00 a.m. (20% of the cases) or at 08:00 a.m. (80% of the cases). There was a strong coupling between the onset of the surge and the acrophase of the cortisol circadian rhythm: maximal cortisol plasma values were seen at 04:00 a.m. when the LH preovulatory surge started at 04:00 a.m. and 08:00 a.m. when it started at 08:00 a.m. The present results show that the positive coupling documented in the female rat between the HPA and the HPG axis at the time of preovulatory LH surge is also present during the menstrual cycle in the human.
Simulation-based word-length optimization method for fixed-point digital signal processing systems

Word-length optimization and scaling software that utilizes the fixed-point simulation results using realistic input signal samples is developed for the application to general, including nonlinear and time-varying, signal processing systems. Word-length optimization is conducted to minimize the hardware implementation cost while satisfying a fixed-point performance measure. In order to minimize the computing time, signal grouping and efficient search methods are developed. The search algorithms first determine the minimum bound of the word-length for an individual group of signals and then try to find out the cost-optimal solution by using either exhaustive or heuristic methods.
Arsenic in water, food and cigarettes: A cancer risk to Pakistani population

Inorganic arsenic (iAs) in drinking water and food items has been associated with lung and bladder cancers in several countries including Pakistan. In present study water, food items were collected from Arsenic (As) endemic areas (southern part of Pakistan) during 2008–2012, to evaluate its impact on the health of local population. Exposure of As was checked by analyzing biological samples (blood and scalp hairs) of male lung and bladder cancer patients (smokers and non-smokers). For comparative purpose the healthy subjects of same age group and residential area as exposed referents (EXR) and from non-contaminated area (Hyderabad, Pakistan) as non-exposed referents (NER) were also selected. As concentration in drinking water, food and biological samples were analyzed using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. The validation of technique was done by the analysis of certified reference material (CRM) of blood and hair samples. The As contents in drinking water and food were found 3–15-folds elevated than permissible limits, where as in biological samples; EXR have 2–3-folds higher than NER and cancer patients have 5–9-folds higher than NER. The significant difference was observed in smokers (P < 0.01). The outcomes of the study revealed that As levels were elevated in blood and scalp hair samples of both types of cancer subjects as compared to referents (P < 0.001). It was observed that the lung cancer patients (LCP) have 20–35% higher levels of As in both biological samples as compared to bladder cancer patients (BCP) due to smoking habit. This study has proved the correlation among As contaminated water, food and cigarette smoking between different types of cancer risks.
Recent Advances in the Genetics of Autoimmune Diseases

Abstract: Autoimmune diseases in general are complex genetic diseases where genes and environment interact in unknown ways. In recent years technologies have advanced our knowledge and new genes are being identified very rapidly. We can expect that most genes of major importance for the various autoimmune diseases will be discovered in the coming 5 years. The real challenge comes when we try to understand the mechanisms through which these genes confer disease susceptibility and how the interaction with environment takes place such that clinical expression of the disease results.
High resistivity Czochralski-silicon using deep level dopant compensation for RF passive devices

Combinations of analytical and experimental results indicate that deep level doping of Czochralski grown silicon wafers is capable of providing very high resistivity wafers suitable for silicon-on-insulator (SOI), integrated passive devices (IPD) and 3D integration configurations. Deep level doping involves adding trace elements to silicon that compensate for background free carriers introduced by impurities in the silicon and pin the Fermi level near the mid bandgap intrinsic level. Starting from n-type Czochralski-silicon wafers with a nominal resistivity of 50 ? cm, gold ion implantation and subsequent annealing were used to increase the resistivity of silicon wafers by up to 3 orders of magnitude, to values as high as 93 k? cm. Hall measurements performed over a large temperature range show that the increase in resistivity is solely due to a decrease in carrier concentration and not a decrease in mobility. The carrier concentration is only one order of magnitude larger than that of intrinsic silicon over a temperature range of 200-360 K. Hall results also show that the resistivity of the compensated material remains up to two orders of magnitude larger than that of the uncompensated material at near operating temperatures. High frequency attenuation measurements in the 1-67 GHz range for coplanar waveguides show attenuation reductions of up to 76% from 0.76 dB/mm to 0.18 dB/mm at 10 GHz for those fabricated on uncompensated and compensated silicon respectively. Spiral inductors fabricated on both compensated and uncompensated silicon show up to a factor of 10 increase in the maximum quality factor from 0.3 to 3.1 for inductors on uncompensated and compensated silicon respectively. A 70% increase in maximum quality factor from 9 to 15.2 is exhibited by inductors commercially fabricated on compensated silicon when compared to those on float-zone silicon. The coplanar waveguide and spiral inductor results provide clear evidence that deep level dopant compensation is effective in improving the performance of passive devices in the GHz frequency range.
Measurement of T{sub 20} in elastic electron-deuteron scattering

The authors report on a measurement of the tensor analyzing power T{sub 20} in elastic electron-deuteron scattering in the range of four-momentum transfer from 1.8 to 3.2 fm{sup {minus}1}. Electrons of 704 MeV were scattered from a polarized deuterium internal target. The tensor polarization of the deuterium nuclei was determined with an ion-extraction system, allowing an absolute measurement of T{sub 20}. The data are described well by a non-relativistic calculation that includes the effects of meson-exchange currents.
A Randomized Trial of Two e-Learning Strategies for Teaching Substance Abuse Management Skills to Physicians

Purpose To compare the educational effectiveness of two virtual patient (VP)-based e-learning strategies, versus no training, in improving physicians’ substance abuse management knowledge, attitudes, self-reported behaviors, and decision making. Method The 2011–2012 study was a posttest-only, three-arm, randomized controlled trial in 90 resident and 30 faculty physicians from five adult medicine primary care training programs. The intervention was one of two 2-hour VP-based e-learning programs, designed by national experts to teach structured screening, brief interventions, referral, and treatment skills. One used traditional problem solving with feedback (unworked example), and the other incorporated an expert demonstration first, followed by problem solving with feedback (worked example). The main outcome measure was performance on the Physicians’ Competence in Substance Abuse Test (P-CSAT, maximum score = 315), a self-administered, previously validated measure of physicians’ competence in managing substance abuse. The survey was completed at the outset of the study and two months later. Results Overall P-CSAT scores were virtually identical (202–211, P > .05) between both intervention groups and the no-training control group at both times. Average faculty P-CSAT scores (221.9, 224.6) were significantly higher (P < .01) than resident scores (203.7, 202.5) at both times. Conclusions This study did not provide evidence that a brief, worked example, VP-based e-learning program or a traditional, unworked, VP-based e-learning program was superior to no training in improving physicians’ substance abuse management skills. The study did provide additional evidence that the P-CSAT distinguishes between physicians who should possess different levels of substance abuse management skills.
Determination of Non-HDL Cholesterol in Diabetic and Hypertensive Patients

Recently, it has been suggested that non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol measure is a useful evaluation tool to assess heart disease death risk. The non-HDL cholesterol is defined as the value between total cholesterol and HDL − total cholesterol, and it involves the different fractions of lipoproteins: low-density lipoprotein, intermediate-density lipoprotein, and very low density lipoprotein, including highly atherogenic lipoproteins as very low density lipoprotein remnants. The purpose of this study was to compare the values of non-HDL cholesterol as a cardiovascular risk marker in a control population, and one diabetic and hypertensive. It was demonstrated that the mean values of non-HDL cholesterol in the diseased groups were higher than the values from the control group, whereas the low-density lipoprotein showed no marked difference in high-risk patients. Non-HDL cholesterol has shown to be a quick and simple way to estimate the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The enhanced drying effect of Central-Pacific El Niño on US winter

In what is arguably one of the most dramatic phenomena possibly associated with climate change or natural climate variability, the location of El Niño has shifted more to the central Pacific in recent decades. In this study, we use statistical analyses, numerical model experiments and case studies to show that the Central-Pacific El Niño enhances the drying effect, but weakens the wetting effect, typically produced by traditional Eastern-Pacific El Niño events on the US winter precipitation. As a result, the emerging Central-Pacific El Niño produces an overall drying effect on the US winter, particularly over the Ohio–Mississippi Valley, Pacific Northwest and Southeast. The enhanced drying effect is related to a more southward displacement of tropospheric jet streams that control the movements of winter storms. The results of this study imply that the emergence of the Central-Pacific El Niño in recent decades may be one factor contributing to the recent prevalence of extended droughts in the US.
An Improved PSO Algorithm to Optimize BP Neural Network

This paper presents a new BP neural network algorithm which is based on an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The improved PSO (which is called IPSO) algorithm adopts adaptive inertia weight and acceleration coefficients to significantly improve the performance of the original PSO algorithm in global search and fine-tuning of the solutions. This study uses the IPSO algorithm to optimize authority value and threshold value of BP nerve network and IPSO-BP neural network algorithm model has been established. The results demonstrate that this model has significant advantages inspect of fast convergence speed, good generalization ability and not easy to yield minimal local results.
Lipid Production by a Soil Yeast

It has been well established that fatty substances are produced by various microorganisms, notably by certain yeasts and filamentous fungi as well as by the tubercle bacilli and a species of Azotobacter. The tubercle bacilli and other acid-fast bacteria contain from 20 to 40 per cent lipid on the dry-weight basis (Anderson, 1939). Even some of the common non-acid-fast bacteria may contain considerable amounts of lipid. Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus albus, and Bacillus megatherium were found to contain from 8 to 40 per cent lipid when grown on certain media (Larson and Larson, 1922). More commonly, however, the lipid content of bacteria has been reported to be below 10 per cent. The results of Gorbach and Sablatnog (1934a, 1934b) may be cited in this connection. They found that whereas the lipid content of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was 0.6 per cent when grown on meat extract agar at pH 7.0, there was as much as 3.9 per cent lipid when the organism was cultivated on mannitol. Anderson (1939) reported 2 to 6 per cent lipid in cells of Phytpmonas tumefaciens and 7 per cent in Lactobacillus acidophilus. Among the bacteria, Azotobacter indicum is unique in lipid production (Starkey and De, 1939). The cells of this bacterium commonly contain two large fat globules, one at each end of the rod-shaped cells, and as much as 50 per cent of the cell volume is occupied by the fat globules. The lipid content of filamentous fungi ranges between 1 and 40 per cent, and differs with the various cultures and the conditions under which they are grown. (Pruess, Eichinger, and Peterson, 1934; Prescott and Dunn, 1940; Bloor, 1943). The lipid content of 24 filamentous fungi studied by Pruess and Strong (1933) was from 1 to 25 per cent with an average between 6 and 9 per cent. Ward, Lockwood, May, and Herrick (1935) determined the lipid content of 61 fungi and reported that six of the fungi contained over 20 per cent lipid. Under favorable conditions of cultivation, Penicillium javanicum was found to contain as much as 41.5 per cent. Large amounts of lipid were produced by species of Oospora Wallroth when grown on milk, and the results of Geffers (1937) indicate that this organism can be used to synthesize fat from milk wastes. Up to 50 per cent of the mycelium could be extracted with fat solvents. Attention was focused on lipid production by yeasts and related organisms through the results of Lindner and associates, who developed a process for the production of fat from carbohydrates by Endomyces vernalis in Germany during World War I (Fink, Haehn, and Hoerburger, 1937; Prescott and Dunn, 1940). When cultivated under conditions favorable for lipid production, this yeast con-
Out-of-plane connection in an orthogonal assembly

In this work, an out-of-plane connection in an orthogonal assembly is demonstrated. The proposed method for the orthogonal connection will help to overcome critical issues faced in this type of connection, such as lead transfer and bonding plane mismatch. It proposed to utilize the laser assisted soldering technique to achieve the lead transfer in the connection. Being a highly flexible probe array, it is more conformal to the tissue, minimizing tissue damage after implantation. Compared to previous works, the proposed flexible probe array has excellent flexibility and can easily conform to the shape of tissue, preventing the micromotion of probe after implantation. The measured impedance at the typical frequency of action potential (1 kHz) is about 12.8 kΩ.
Can We Beat DDoS Attacks in Clouds ? ( Supplementary Material )

DDoS attacks aim to exhaust the resources of victims, such as network bandwidth, computing power and operating system data structures. Early DDoS attacks emerged around the year 2000, and well-known web sites, such as CNN, Amazon and Yahoo, have been the targets of hackers since then. The purpose of early attacks was mainly for fun and curiosity about the technique. However, recently we have witnessed an explosive increase in cyber attacks due to the huge financial or political rewards available to cyber attackers [1]. Botnets are the engines behind major DDoS attacks. Hackers exploit the vulnerability of computers connected to the Internet, and establish an overlay network of compromised computers to commit malicious activities, such as DDoS attacks or information phishing. This kind of malicious network is what we call a botnet [2], [3]. A DDoS attack can be carried out in various forms, such as flooding packets or synchronization attacks [2]. Flooding packets is the most common and effective DDoS attack strategy amongst all the available attack weapons. It is critical for defenders to understand the size of botnets, which helps us to estimate the possible attack volume. There has been plenty of work completed on this issue, such as [1] and [4]. Rajab et al. [5] found the number of active bots a botmaster could manipulate was usually at the hundreds or a few thousands level. This means the resources a botnet owner can use is limited. Based on this fact, Yu et al. [6] proposed a similarity based DDoS detection method to beat flash crowd mimicking attacks. Traditionally, a potential victim would be vulnerable if they were left to deal with a DDoS flooding attack by themselves. As nature of the Internet is anarchical, potential victims, such as popular web sites, are usually left
Cutting Edge: Role of TANK-Binding Kinase 1 and Inducible IκB Kinase in IFN Responses against Viruses in Innate Immune Cells1

TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) and inducible IκB kinase (IKK-i) are involved in the activation of transcription factors inducing the production of type I IFNs. Although TBK1, but not IKK-i, is critical for LPS-induced IFN induction, the role of these kinases in the responses against viral infection is yet to be determined. In this study, we show that type I IFN production against various RNA viruses was completely abrogated in conventional dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages induced from fetal liver cells lacking both TBK1 and IKK-i, whereas considerable amounts of IFN were produced in cells lacking either of them. Microarray analysis revealed that various IFN-inducible genes were also regulated by the kinases. In contrast, Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand-induced DCs produced IFN-α even in the absence of both TBK1 and IKK-i. Thus, these two kinases are essential and compensate each other for the regulation of IFN responses in innate immune cells except plasmacytoid DCs.
Genetic and Functional Analysis of the Soluble Oxaloacetate Decarboxylase from Corynebacterium glutamicum

ABSTRACT Soluble, divalent cation-dependent oxaloacetate decarboxylases (ODx) catalyze the irreversible decarboxylation of oxaloacetate to pyruvate and CO2. Although these enzymes have been characterized in different microorganisms, the genes that encode them have not been identified, and their functions have been only poorly analyzed so far. In this study, we purified a soluble ODx from wild-type C. glutamicum about 65-fold and used matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) analysis and peptide mass fingerprinting for identification of the corresponding odx gene. Inactivation and overexpression of odx led to an absence of ODx activity and to a 30-fold increase in ODx specific activity, respectively; these findings unequivocally confirmed that this gene encodes a soluble ODx. Transcriptional analysis of odx indicated that there is a leaderless transcript that is organized in an operon together with a putative S-adenosylmethionine-dependent methyltransferase gene. Biochemical analysis of ODx revealed that the molecular mass of the native enzyme is about 62 ± 1 kDa and that the enzyme is composed of two ∼29-kDa homodimeric subunits and has a Km for oxaloacetate of 1.4 mM and a V max of 201 μmol of oxaloacetate converted per min per mg of protein, resulting in a k cat of 104 s−1. Introduction of plasmid-borne odx into a pyruvate kinase-deficient C. glutamicum strain restored growth of this mutant on acetate, indicating that a high level of ODx activity redirects the carbon flux from oxaloacetate to pyruvate in vivo. Consistently, overexpression of the odx gene in an l-lysine-producing strain of C. glutamicum led to accumulation of less l-lysine. However, inactivation of the odx gene did not improve l-lysine production under the conditions tested.
Rates of estimation for determinantal point processes

Determinantal point processes (DPPs) have wide-ranging applications in machine learning, where they are used to enforce the notion of diversity in subset selection problems. Many estimators have been proposed, but surprisingly the basic properties of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) have received little attention. In this paper, we study the local geometry of the expected log-likelihood function to prove several rates of convergence for the MLE. We also give a complete characterization of the case where the MLE converges at a parametric rate. Even in the latter case, we also exhibit a potential curse of dimensionality where the asymptotic variance of the MLE is exponentially large in the dimension of the problem.