Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nerve‐Evoked Secretion of Immunoglobulin a in Relation to other Proteins by Parotid Glands in Anaesthetized Rat

Secretion of fluid and proteins by salivary cells is under the control of parasympathetic and sympathetic autonomic nerves. In a recent study we have shown that, in the rat submandibular gland, autonomic nerves can also increase the secretion of IgA, a product of plasma cells secreted into saliva as SIgA (IgA bound to Secretory Component, the cleaved poly‐immunoglobulin receptor). The present study aimed to determine if parotid secretion of SIgA is increased by autonomic nerves and to compare SIgA secretion with other parotid proteins stored and secreted by acinar and ductal cells. Assay of IgA in saliva evoked by parasympathetic nerve stimulation immediately following an extended rest period under anaesthesia indicated that it had been secreted into intraductal saliva in the absence of stimulation during the rest period. The mean rate of unstimulated IgA secretion (2.77 ± 0.28 μg min‐1 g‐1) and the 2.5‐fold increase in IgA secretion evoked by parasympathetic stimulation were similar to results found previously in the rat submandibular gland. Sympathetic nerve stimulation increased SIgA secretion 2.7‐fold, much less than in the submandibular gland. SDS‐PAGE and Western blot analysis with anti‐IgA and anti‐Secretory Component antibodies confirmed that SIgA was the predominant form of IgA in saliva. Acinar‐derived amylase and ductal‐derived tissue kallikrein were more profoundly increased by parasympathetic and particularly sympathetic stimulation than SIgA. Overall, the results of the present study indicate that SIgA forms a prominent component of unstimulated parotid salivary protein secretion and that its secretion is similarly increased by stimulation of either autonomic nerve supply. The secretion of other parotid salivary proteins that are synthesized and stored by acinar or ductal cells is upregulated to a much greater extent by parasympathetic and particularly sympathetic stimulation.
Fouling detection using hammer impact test and wireless comunication

There is a persistent problem that continues to be a relevant demand for the chemical, petroleum, food and pharmaceutical industries. This problem is the fouling detection in systems of ducts. This work shows how the previous tests to develop a platform for detecting fouling of pipes analyze specific locations using the impact hammer test with wireless communication. To minimize the costs of maintaining the pipes and make the system feasible, this platform is practical and portable. Thus, based on previous studies and techniques already developed for the detection of fouling, there is now a portable system allowing great mobility monitoring platform.
Topical application of the adenosine A2A receptor agonist CGS‐21680 prevents phorbol‐induced epidermal hyperplasia and inflammation in mice

The nucleoside adenosine is a known regulator of immunity and inflammation that mediates, at least in part, the anti‐inflammatory effect of methotrexate, an immunosuppressive agent widely used to treat autoimmune inflammatory diseases. Adenosine A2A receptors play a key role in the inhibition of the inflammatory process besides promoting wound healing. Therefore, we aimed to determine the topical effect of a selective agonist, CGS‐21680, on a murine model of skin hyperplasia with a marked inflammatory component. Pretreatment with either CGS‐21680 (5 μg per site) or the reference agent dexamethasone (200 μg/site) prevented the epidermal hyperplasia and inflammatory response induced by topical application of 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate (TPA, 2 nmol/site) for three consecutive days. The histological analysis showed that both CGS‐21680 and dexamethasone produced a marked reduction of inflammatory cell infiltrate, which correlated with diminished myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity in skin homogenates. Both treatments reduced the levels of the chemotactic mediators LTB4 and CXCL‐1, and the inflammatory cytokine TNF‐α, through the suppression of NFκB phosphorylation. The immunohistochemical analysis of the hyperproliferative markers cytokeratin 6 (CK6) and Ki67 revealed that while both agents inhibit the number of proliferating cells in the epidermis, CGS‐21680 treatment promoted dermal fibroblasts proliferation. Consistently, increased collagen deposition in dermis was observed in tissue sections from agonist‐treated mice. Our results showed that CGS 21680 efficiently prevents phorbol‐induced epidermal hyperplasia and inflammation in mice without the deleterious atrophic effect of topical corticosteroids.
In vitro end points for the assessment of cellular immune response-modulating drugs

Background: The concept of immunotoxicology and the development of a battery of immune-function assays to screen potential immunotoxic compounds have been increasingly used in the past. Immunotoxic outcome generally seems appropriate to evaluate the risk in drug development. Improving this approach is possible, by using methods now available, to study the effect of a chemical compound on the immune system. Objective: The goal of this review is to provide an overview of the current and recent methodologies for testing the immunological effect and immunotoxic risks in drug candidates. Methods: The methodological details here discussed include a synthetic description of the immunocompetent cells in cell-mediated immunity and the choice of the most appropriate assay (bioassays, immunoassays, molecular biology techniques, flow cytometry). Conclusion: This review offers an assessment of in vitro models to study the toxic impact of (bio)pharmaceuticals on cellular immune system and aid drug scientists in understanding the significance and the methods to approach immunotoxicology.
Risk Perception and Disaster Preparedness in Immigrants and Canadian‐Born Adults: Analysis of a National Survey on Similarities and Differences

Research has documented that immigrants tend to experience more negative consequences from natural disasters compared to native‐born individuals, although research on how immigrants perceive and respond to natural disaster risks is sparse. We investigated how risk perception and disaster preparedness for natural disasters in immigrants compared to Canadian‐born individuals as justifications for culturally‐adapted risk communication and management. To this end, we analyzed the ratings on natural disaster risk perception beliefs and preparedness behaviors from a nationally representative survey (N = 1,089). Factor analyses revealed three underlying psychological dimensions of risk perception: external responsibility for disaster management, self‐preparedness responsibility, and illusiveness of preparedness. Although immigrants and Canadian‐born individuals shared the three‐factor structure, there were differences in the salience of five risk perception beliefs. Despite these differences, immigrants and Canadian‐born individuals were similar in the level of risk perception dimensions and disaster preparedness. Regression analyses revealed self‐preparedness responsibility and external responsibility for disaster management positively predicted disaster preparedness whereas illusiveness of preparedness negatively predicted disaster preparedness in both groups. Our results showed that immigrants’ risk perception and disaster preparedness were comparable to their Canadian‐born counterparts. That is, immigrant status did not necessarily yield differences in risk perception and disaster preparedness. These social groups may benefit from a risk communication and management strategy that addresses these risk perception dimensions to increase disaster preparedness. Given the diversity of the immigrant population, the model remains to be tested by further population segmentation.
A Model for Dependent Defaults and Pricing Contingent Claims with Counterparty Risk

This paper presents a new, intuitive but mathematically powerful model of dependent defaults and derives a general framework for pricing products whose values depend on credit correlation between the counterparty and the reference entity. The dependence framework is a natural extension of the Gaussian factor approach, which can be applied in the context of reduced form credit risk models, allowing i.a. for stochastic hazard and recovery rates. The prices of plain vanilla credit default swaps, first-to-default swaps and default swaptions are derived as particular examples.
Management information requirements for customer relationship management in municipalities

This research project looks into the management information requirements of municipalities in the Netherlands, related to their customer relationship program. Information requirements engineering methodologies for data warehouses are reviewed and a method is proposed based on its perceived suitability for the municipality context. The used methodology by Winter and Strauch matches information requirements elicitation with analyses of the data sources to get an overview of requirements and whether they are attainable. Results are a list of management information requirement, representation requirements and an advice to Exxellence Group on how they can foresee in this demand. The resulting list of management information requirements seems to indicate that the management of client contact centres would like to see more management information than what it currently prescribed by the Antwoord© concept on which they have based their management information needs for the most part. The list was sent back to municipalities to allow them to comment and rate the information needs on their usefulness. Also, the COPC standard on which the Antwoord© indicators are based and the Antwoord© indicators themselves were compared to the results. The results seem to cover almost all of the COPC metrics except for several process areas that are not as relevant in the municipality context. Also potentially interesting additions to the results that could be made from the COPC standard have been identified. The indicators from the Antwoord© concept score relatively high in the ranking of information needs and are a solid basis for measurements. Overall, the information needs voiced by municipalities are on an operational level to measure performance of departments and individual employees over time. To satisfy the information needs, Exxellence group will have to combine data from several back-office source systems along with other information from other sources such as customer satisfaction surveys. These sources will have to be identified per municipality due to the large variance in the types of back-office systems that are used in different municipalities. A data warehouse schema should be created that matches the information needs. The sources of information used to fill the data warehouse can then be identified per municipality. In addition municipalities will have to access their processes and the training level of their personnel to see whether they are able to correctly capture all the information required to satisfy the information needs.
Quadrotor parameters identification and control system design

The article is devoted to the parameter's identification of the propulsion subsystem and control system design for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) helicopter type. Parameter's identification is realized with a special test rig developed by authors of the project, the description of which is presented in the article. The designed test rig application is the parameter's identification of power systems with fixed step propeller. The test rig can also be used for identification of drives with variable step propellers, which requires the additional channel for swashplate control. The measurements are static and dynamic characteristics of the propulsion subsystem and can be used for computer model design and verification. The parameters identification results can be used to develop control systems for UAV control systems propulsion systems of the UAV. Moreover, UAV control system performance allows it to keep stable flight and execute various tasks. To debug and tune control system gimbals test rig was designed. The gimbals test rig has a capability to research various control system behaviors without probable injuries of untuned subsystem UAV.
Proposal for an algorithm for liver transplantation in Caroli's disease and syndrome: putting an uncommon effort into a common task

Liver transplantation (LT) represents an uncommon indication for Caroli's disease (CD) or syndrome (CS). Excellent results of LT have been reported as shown by recent multicentric European and American registry reports. Clear therapeutic flowcharts to adopt in these diseases are still lacking. This review aims at analyzing highlighting recent transplant experiences in this field and also at focusing on the role of LT in case‐specific comorbidities such as development of cholangiocellular cancer or renal failure are present.
Data Fusion and Efficient Algorithm for Moving Target Tracking

The principle of target tracking and data fusion techniques are discussed. To resolve high uncertainty that exists in sensors of mobile robots, one multi-sensor data fusion algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based on particle filter techniques, fuses the information coming from multiple sensors and merges different state space models. So it can be used to eliminate system and measurement noise and estimate value of position and headings of mobile robot. On simulation experiments, we compare different cases such as single sensors and multi-sensor data fusion, the results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this algorithm and exhibits good tracking performance.
The elusiveness of neutrality – why is it so difficult to apply VAT to financial services?

Under the VAT system of the European Union, domestic supplies of financial services are exempt. That exemption has significant drawbacks, not least of which is that it compromises the neutrality of the tax. In this article, the author indicates how, depending on government policy views, margin-based financial services could be taxed. He also indicates how financial institutions could give new impetus to the discussion on the VAT treatment of the services in that sector.
Liquidity Costs in Futures Options Markets

The major finding is that liquidity costs in futures options market are two to three times higher than liquidity costs in the futures market. Liquidity cost is one potential factor to consider when choosing between hedging with a futures contract or with an option contract. While there is considerable research that estimates liquidity costs of futures trading, there is little comparable research about options markets. This study, for the first time, attempts to determine and compare liquidity costs in options and futures markets. The study uses July 2007 wheat futures and options contracts traded on Kansas City Board of Trade. Two measures of liquidity costs were used for both options and futures markets. One measure of liquidity costs in options markets is the average bid-ask spread that is calculated from the available bidask quotes. A new measure of liquidity costs in options markets is derived based on the Black model and it uses trade prices instead of observed bid-ask quotes. The liquidity costs in the options market was estimated to be 1.60 cents per bushel using observed bid-ask spreads and it was 1.37 cents per bushel when the new measure was used. Liquidity costs in the futures markets are estimated using Roll’s measure and average absolute price changes. The estimates were 0.45 and 0.49 cents per bushel, respectively for futures contracts. A positive relation was found between option liquidity costs and moneyness of the option. Days to expiration of the contracts was not statistically significant in explaining the liquidity cost of the option.
The Impact of Electricity Crisis and Prices on the Consumption Behavior of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES)

The major objectives of this study are to divert the government attention to the burning issues of the country regarding increasing electricity crises and prices and their ultimate effect on SMEs. This study analyses the responses from 200 employees selected randomly from different SMEs of Pakistan. Correlation and regression analysis are used in this research. Increasing Electricity prices & crises put negative impact on the consumption behavior of SMEs. Crises enormously affected the consumption behavior of SMEs instead of electricity prices. These crises put direct negative impact on the operation of SMEs and reduce their production, sale revenues and employment. SMEs sector should be granted legal permission produce their own electricity to overcome the shortfall in order to avoid its adverse effects on production and employment.
Virtues and risks of poverty

Subsidiaries off-balance sheet appears to be in breach of the New Zealand Equivalent to International Accounting Standard 27 Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements (NZ IAS 27). The objective of NZ IAS 27 is to enhance the relevance, reliability and comparability of the information that a parent entity provides in its separate financial statements and in its consolidated financial statements for a group of entities under its control.
Using Latent Semantic Analysis to Evaluate the Contributions of Students in AutoTutor

AutoTutor is a fully automated computer tutor that assists students in learning about hardware, operating systems, and the Internet in an introductory computer literacy course. AutoTutor presents questions and problems from a curriculum script, attempts to comprehend learner contributions that are entered by keyboard, formulates dialog moves that are sensitive to the learner's contributions (such as prompts, elaborations, corrections, and hints), and delivers the dialog moves with a talking head. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is a major component of the mechanism that evaluates the quality of student contributions in the tutorial dialog. LSA's evaluations of college students' answers to deep reasoning questions are equivalent to the evaluations provided by intermediate experts of computer literacy, but not as high as more accomplished experts in computer science. LSA is capable of discriminating different classes of student ability (good, vague, erroneous or mute students) and in tracking the quality of contributions in tutorial dialog.
Use of seismocardiogram for the beat-to-beat assessment of the Pulse Transit Time: A pilot study

We propose a new methodology for the estimation of Pulse Transit Time, PTT, based on the use of the seismocardiogram for the identification of the aortic valve opening, AO. This method has been implemented to obtain a first description of the AO-derived PTT beat-to-beat variability at rest and during the recovery after a cycloergometer exercise at 25W and 100W, its relation with systolic blood pressure, S(BP), and its difference with respect to variability of the Pulse Arrival Time, PAT (i.e. the BP transit time estimated by considering the ECG R peak instead of AO as proximal site). Our preliminary data indicate that 1) the fast components of the PTT variability are only marginally influenced by respiration; 2) only the slower components of the PTT variability are correlated with systolic BP; 3) major differences exist in the dynamics of PTT and PAT, being PAT variability significantly larger and importantly influenced by the beat-to-beat changes occurring in the Pre Ejection Period.
Natural killer and interleukin‐2 induced cytotoxicity in asthmatics

Natural killer (NK) cell activity and interleukin‐2 (IL‐2) induced cytotoxicity to NK‐resistant targets T24 in a group of patients with grass pollen seasonal asthma were investigated. Acute bronchial provocation with this antigen was also performed and blood samples were taken before and 15 min after the maximal clinical response. NK activity was elevated in this group but there was a significant decrease after acute challenge. IL‐2 induced cytotoxicity was also increased and declined after antigen challenge. Limiting dilution analysis for minimal frequencies of precursors of the IL‐2 induced killer cells was introduced and showed increased numbers of lymphokine‐activated killing precursors in this group of patients. These data might indicate the abberations of the IL‐2 system in immediate type allergy but the clinical significance of these findings remains to be determined.
The immune tissues of the endangered red‐tailed phascogale (Phascogale calura)

The lymphoid tissues of the red‐tailed phascogale (Phascogale calura) were examined using histological and immunohistochemical techniques. The distribution of immune cells in the tissue beds was documented using antibodies to surface markers CD3 and an MHC Class II antigen (equivalent to HLA DRII). Spleen, gut‐associated lymphoid tissues (GALT), lung, bronchus‐associated lymphoid tissue (BALT) and liver were examined. The spleen had defined areas of red and white pulp, with follicles containing tingible‐bodied macrophages. Anti‐CD3 and anti‐HLA DRII antibodies revealed the presence of T cells in areas of white pulp and around the peri‐arterial lymphatic sheaths. GALT and BALT were detected and appeared as scattered areas of lymphocytes in the tissues beds. This is the first study to report on the lymphoid tissues of this endangered species of marsupial and the first report of the capacity of anti‐human antibodies to a surface MHC molecule to react with Dasyurid cells.
Adaptive level control to improve QoS in OCDMA local area networks

In this paper, we propose a new method for creating more distinguishable QoS levels in OCDMA networks. The key idea behind the proposed scheme is to adaptively control the transmit power level in each chip based on OCDMA channel state. The structure of the transmitter and receiver are proposed. We provide performance analysis of the recommended scheme and show that it can reduce the system BER and provide better QoS differentiation in a multiclass network. We provide simulation results and demonstrate that they have a good match with the results obtained from mathematical analysis.