Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lysosomes and tegument pathology in the chemotherapy of schistosomiasis with 1,7 -bis(p-aminophenoxy)heptane(153C51)

SUMMARY One therapeutic oral dose (400 mg/kg) of 153C51 administered to infested mice caused pathological changes in the dorsal region of the tegument of male Schistosoma mansoni during the period 3–24 h after treatment. These changes occurred prior to the ‘hepatic shift’. At the ultrastructural level they consisted of a gradual accumulation in the tegument epidermis of numerous membranous inclusions with the characteristics of residual lysosomes and changes in the localization of acid phosphatase, a lysosomal enzyme. It seemed likely that these changes were due to inhibition or exhaustion of enzyme in the epidermis, followed by re-synthesis of enzyme in the cell bodies and its export to the epidermis. The elimination of hydrolytic activity from lysosomes in the epidermis would explain the accumulation of residual lysosomes. Drug- treated parasites retained their disguise of host red blood cell ghost antigens as shown by indirect fluorescent antibody-labelling and, therefore, it seemed unlikely that immunological factors could be important in producing the tegument pathology.
Atorvastatin Attenuates TNF-&agr;–induced Increase of Glucose Oxidation Through PGC-1&agr; Upregulation in Cardiomyocytes

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that atorvastain has anti-inflammatory effect and can prevent cardiac hypertrophy. The development of cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction is associated with an increase in cardiac glucose utilization. In this study, we investigated the effect of atorvastatin on glucose oxidation in tumor necrosis factor &agr; (TNF-&agr;)–stimulated cardiomyocytes (H9c2 cells) and the potential role of peroxisome proliferation-activated receptor coactivator 1&agr; (PGC-1&agr;) in this effect. Exposure of H9c2 cells to TNF-&agr; inhibited the expressions of PGC-1&agr;, pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4, and carnitine palmityl transferase 1 and induced a significant increase in glucose oxidation rate. However, the effects of TNF-&agr; were significantly reversed by atorvastatin. Selective silence of PGC-1&agr; in H9c2 cells resulted in the downregulation of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 and carnitine palmityl transferase 1 and further increased the TNF-&agr;–induced glucose oxidation. Interestingly, the effect of atorvastatin on PGC-1&agr; was almost abolished by mevalonate and partially by farnesol but not by geranylgeraniol. In conclusion, atorvastatin inhibits TNF-&agr;–induced glucose oxidation through PGC-1&agr; upregulation in cardiomyocytes, which might be associated with the regulation of isoprenoid metabolites.
Gender Differences in Factors Related to Diabetes Management in Chinese American Immigrants

Chinese American women with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are more vulnerable to poor diabetes outcomes than men because immigrant status, ethnicity, and economics intersect with gender to diminish disease management opportunities. We explored gender differences in factors associated with diabetes management at intake and after treatment with a behavioral intervention in first-generation Chinese American immigrants. A sample of 178 Chinese Americans with T2DM was enrolled in a single-cohort, repeated-measures delayed-treatment trial. Data were collected at baseline, 8, 16, 24, and 32 weeks with 6-week treatment provided after 16 weeks. Gender differences at baseline and gender by treatment interactions were noted. Women at baseline reported significantly worse depressive symptoms and general health. Significant gender by treatment interactions were observed for diabetes self-efficacy, bicultural efficacy, family instrumental support, and diabetes quality of life–satisfaction. Only women showed improvement, suggesting women benefited more from the intervention in psychosocial factors related to diabetes management.
The Strength of Dithering in Recommender System

An important goal of a recommender system is to solve the top-k recommendation problem, however, there is no perfect ranking list for any recommender algorithm. Much work has been done on the recommendation list to improve user experience. In this paper, we focus on the technique of dithering which can be used in an online recommendation situation and be neglected in most academic research, and propose a new dithering method for the ranking formulation of recommendation problem. At first step, the system (e.g. recommender engine) collects user's preference and provides a corresponding ranking. The user responds with domain predefined operation (e.g. clicking), and at the following each step, the ranking will be slightly changed, for example, shaking things up by intentionally including in a list of less relevant items. The difference of the list depends on the dithering method and its parameters. We demonstrate the feasibility and utility of proposed methods through a case study.
Modeling for high resolution SAR image data

To resolve the problem of performance degeneration of K-S test for non-independent samples, one enhanced version of K-S test based on data per-treatment is proposed. Before K-S test, the samples are extracted with an interval which is decided by independence test in this enhanced method for ensuring independence. Considering the fact of the absence of statistical analysis about land image data of high-resolution SAR, the data of grassland is modeled by studying the data's compatibility with SIRV model. To resolve the problem that the higher order statistical characteristic is mathematically tractable in SIRV model, the definition of “Coherent Region” is proposed, which means the image is processed locally, according to the viewpoint that the texture component is slowly-varying in SIRV model. The experiments show that the enhanced method of K-S test has perfect robustness for non-independent samples. The data for the grassland here are compatible with SIRV model. By analysis of grassland data, the rationality of the concept of “Coherent Region” is proved and the space scale of “Coherent Region” for the data is found here.
Efficient Record Linkage Using a Compact Hamming Space

Record linkage, the process of identifying similar records that correspond to the same real-world entities across databases, is a well-established research problem in the database, data mining, and information retrieval communities. Computing distances between string values of records is the key component in order to determine the similarity of the represented entities. Due to the typically large volumes of records, a two-step process is followed. A blocking mechanism is first applied for grouping similar records together, and then a matching mechanism is performed for comparing the records which have been inserted into the same block. However, there does not exist any efficient blocking/matching mechanism which provides theoretical guarantees for identifying similar records which consist of strings. Towards this end, we put forth the novel notion of embedding string-based records into a Hamming space, where such a mechanism exists. The size of these embeddings is kept as small as needed in order to guarantee the correspondence of distances in that space to the types of errors that exist between strings, e.g., a missing or a modified character. We build embeddings whose size is 120 bits for representing accurately four fields of a publicly available data set. We also present a distance threshold-aware blocking technique for higher accuracy rates compared to blocking approaches which ignore the specified threshold. Our empirical study conducted on real-world data sets shows the efficacy achieved by our embedding method as compared to several existing solutions.
Time-varying complex spectral estimation with applications to ISAR imaging

Complex spectral estimation is very important for improving the target detection and classification capability from complex SAR/ISAR (synthetic aperture radar/inverse synthetic aperture radar) images. In ISAR, due to the noncooperative motion of maneuvering targets, the Doppler shifts are often time-varying during the coherent integration time. In this case, ISAR imaging algorithms based on the range-Doppler processing will produce blurred images. In this paper, we present a recursive APES (amplitude and phase estimation) algorithm for the time-varying complex ISAR image formation of maneuvering targets, which is computationally efficient. Both numerical and experimental examples show that the proposed method significantly outperforms the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) approach.
Impact of oral contraceptives on sex hormone-binding globulin and androgen levels: a retrospective study in women with sexual dysfunction.

INTRODUCTION Oral contraceptives (OCs) have been the preferred method of birth control because of their high rate of effectiveness. OC use, however, has been associated with women's sexual health complaints and androgen insufficiency. OC use is associated with a decrease of androgen ovarian synthesis and an increase in the production of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). There have been limited studies assessing SHBG values after discontinuation of OC use. AIM To retrospectively investigate SHBG levels before and after discontinuation of OC use. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Sex hormone-binding globulin values were compared at baseline, while on the OC, and well beyond the 7-day half-life of SHBG at 49-120 (mean 80) days and >120 (mean 196) days after discontinuation of OCs. METHODS A total of 124 premenopausal women with sexual health complaints for >6 months met inclusion/exclusion criteria. Three groups of women were defined: (i) "Continued-Users" (N = 62; mean age 32 years) had been on OCs for >6 months and continued taking them; (ii) "Discontinued-Users" (N = 39; mean age 33 years) had been on OCs for >6 months and discontinued them; and (iii) "Never-Users" (N = 23; mean age 36 years) had never taken OCs. RESULTS Sex hormone-binding globulin values in the "Continued-Users" were four times higher than those in the "Never-User" group (mean 157 +/- 13 nmol/L vs. 41 +/- 4 nmol/L; P < 0.0001). Despite a decrease in SHBG values after discontinuation of OC use, SHBG levels in "Discontinued-Users" remained elevated in comparison with "Never-Users" (N = 26; P < 0.0001 for >120 days). CONCLUSION In women with sexual dysfunction, SHBG changes in "Discontinued-Users" did not decrease to values consistent with "Never-Users. " Long-term sexual, metabolic, and mental health consequences might result as a consequence of chronic SHBG elevation. Does prolonged exposure to the synthetic estrogens of OCs induce gene imprinting and increased gene expression of SHBG in the liver in some women? Prospective research is needed.
Online Thermal Monitoring Models for Induction Machines

This paper presents a new transfer function approach for calculating both the average temperature and hot spot temperature of an induction machine with the consideration of temperature-dependent material properties and speed-dependent heat transfer coefficient. Green's functions are introduced and taken as the new transfer functions. Online thermal monitoring models for induction machines are obtained based on Green's function method. Using the presented method, the hot spot temperature and average temperature can be calculated accurately and rapidly. The proposed method is validated via finite-element method and experimental measurement.
Biochemical methane potential, biodegradability, alkali treatment and influence of chemical composition on methane yield of yard wastes

In this study, the biochemical CH4 potential, rate, biodegradability, NaOH treatment and the influence of chemical composition on CH4 yield of yard wastes generated from seven trees were examined. All the plant parts were sampled for their chemical composition and subjected to the biochemical CH4 potential assay. The component parts exhibited significant variation in biochemical CH4 potential, which was reflected in their ultimate CH4 yields that ranged from 109 to 382 ml g-1 volatile solids added and their rate constants that ranged from 0.042 to 0.173 d-1. The biodegradability of the yard wastes ranged from 0.26 to 0.86. Variation in the biochemical CH4 potential of the yard wastes could be attributed to variation in the chemical composition of the different fractions. In the Thespesia yellow withered leaf, Tamarindus fruit pericarp and Albizia pod husk, NaOH treatment enhanced the ultimate CH4 yields by 17%, 77% and 63%, respectively, and biodegradability by 15%, 77% and 61%, respectively, compared with the untreated samples. The effectiveness of NaOH treatment varied for different yard wastes, depending on the amounts of acid detergent fibre content. Gliricidia petals, Prosopis leaf, inflorescence and immature pod, Tamarindus seeds, Albizia seeds, Cassia seeds and Delonix seeds exhibited CH4 yields higher than 300 ml g-1 volatile solids added. Multiple linear regression models for predicting the ultimate CH4 yield and biodegradability of yard wastes were designed from the results of this work.
JEIDA’s test - sets for quality evaluation of MT systems

This paper describes a method of evaluating quality for developers of machine translation systems to easily check imperfections in their own systems. This evaluation method is a systematic, objective method along with test example sets in which we clarified the evaluation procedure by adding yes/no questions and explanations to the example sentences for evaluation. In March 1995, our two test-sets (English-to-Japanese and Japanese-to-English) were completed and made publicly available.
A main memory database method supporting synchronous cooperative application

There is no good solution of data management for CSCW applications in synchronous work mode. The choice now is no management or duplicate. In the former case, it is common that phone tool discards audio data that is worth to store. In the latter, the performance is still not high, especially when there involves large amount of multimedia data. We take advantages of main memory database technology to support synchronous cooperative work. After analyzes the cooperative design process based an cooperative concept design instance, the paper provides a main memory-based distributed data management model. The model schedules memory according to the features of synchronous cooperative application, greatly improving the performance of data access.
Three weeks on a high-fat diet increases intrahepatic lipid accumulation and decreases metabolic flexibility in healthy overweight men.

CONTEXT In rodents, high-fat diets increase intrahepatic lipid (IHL), but human studies are scarce. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to examine whether high-fat diets influence IHL, intramyocellular lipids (IMCL), and insulin resistance. DESIGN Twenty overweight men were randomly allocated to low- or high-fat groups (age, 54.0 ± 2.3 and 56.4 ± 2.5 yr; body mass index, 29.3 ± 0.6 and 28.3 ± 0.5 kg/m(2), respectively). Both groups started with a 3-wk low-fat diet [15% energy (En%) as protein, 65 En% as carbohydrates, 20 En% as fat], after which half of the subjects switched to a 3-wk isocaloric high-fat diet (15 En% protein, 30 En% carbohydrates, 55 En% fat). After 3 and 6 wk, IHL and IMCL content were assessed by (1)H magnetic resonance spectroscopy and a muscle biopsy, and insulin sensitivity was studied using a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp. An additional liver scan was performed after 1 wk in the high-fat group. RESULTS IHL decreased by 13% in the low-fat group and increased by 17% in high-fat group (P = 0.047). IMCL content was unaffected (P = 0.304). Insulin sensitivity was unaffected. At wk 3, IHL correlated negatively with insulin sensitivity (r = -0.584; P = 0.009, all subjects combined). Metabolic flexibility, defined as change in respiratory quotient upon insulin stimulation, was decreased after 3 wk of the high-fat diet (change in respiratory quotient was +0.02 ± 0.02 vs. -0.05 ± 0.1 in low-fat vs. high-fat group, P = 0.009). Basal plasma glucose increased after the high-fat diet (P = 0.038). Plasma parameters insulin, free fatty acids, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and liver enzymes and body weight were unaffected by diet. CONCLUSION A 3-wk high-fat diet leads to IHL accumulation and a decreased metabolic flexibility, but insulin sensitivity is unaffected.
Alterations in the synthesis of a fibroblast surface associated 35 K protein modulates the binding of somatomedin-C/insulin-like growth factor I.

Human fibroblasts, a cell type that is used extensively to determine the pleiotypic effects of the insulin-like growth factors, have been shown to secrete a 35K protein that binds somatomedin-C/insulin-like growth factor I (Sm-C/IGF-I) but not insulin. This 35 K protein is associated with the fibroblast surface and following transfer to the surface of cell types that do not have this protein on their surfaces, it alters the binding of radiolabeled Sm-C/IGF-I. In this study human fibroblast monolayers that were incubated with cyclohexamide (50 micrograms/ml) for 14 h at 37 C had no detectable 35 K protein on their cell surface, but type I Sm-C/IGF-I receptors were still present. Loss of the 35 K protein was associated with 60-70% increase in binding of Sm-C/IGF-I to type I receptors. The relative affinity of the type I receptor for Sm-C/IGF-I was apparently increased because unlabeled Sm-C/IGF-I (12 ng/ml) competitively displaced 63% of radiolabeled Sm-C/IGF-I after cycloheximide exposure, whereas in cultures not exposed to cycloheximide [125I]Sm-C/IGF-I binding was increased by 11%. Coincubation of fibroblast conditioned media containing the 35 K protein with cycloheximide-treated fibroblast monolayers resulted in restoration of the paradoxical increase in Sm-C/IGF-I binding and loss of sensitivity to competition by unlabeled Sm-C/IGF-I. Exposure of suspended fibroblasts, which do not have 35 K on their cell surface, to media conditioned by fibroblast monolayers also induced both of these changes. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Implementation of Maximum Power Point Tracking Control in Single Phase Utility Interconnected Photovoltaic Inverter

This paper presents an implementation of maximum power point tracking control in a single phase utility interconnected photovoltaic inverter. The control algorithm is based on the perturbation and observation method, and realized by a PIC microcontroller which controls the entire supervisory task in the system. To operate P&Q algorithm properly a PV voltage control loop is added. The characteristic performance of the MPP algorithm is obtained by simulation and verified by experiments. Daily operation results are also included.
Sparse Representation for Color Image Super-Resolution with Image Quality Difference Evaluation

The sparse representation models have been widely applied in image super-resolution. The certain optimization problem is supposed and can be solved by the iterative shrinkage algorithm. During iteration, the update of dictionaries and similar patches is necessary to obtain prior knowledge to better solve such ill-conditioned problem as image super-resolution. However, both the processes of iteration and update often spend a lot of time, which will be a bottleneck in practice. To solve it, in this paper, we present the concept of image quality difference based on generalized Gaussian distribution feature which has the same trend with the variation of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), and we update dictionaries or similar patches from the termination strategy according to the adaptive threshold of the image quality difference. Based on this point, we present two sparse representation algorithms for image super-resolution, one achieves the further improvement in image quality and the other decreases running time on the basis of image quality assurance. Experimental results also show that our quantitative results on several test datasets are in line with exceptions. key words: image super-resolution, sparse representation, generalized Gaussian distribution feature, image quality difference, fast iterative shrinkage algorithm
Analysis of the intestinal bacterial microbiota in maize- or sorghum-fed broiler chickens using real-time PCR

Abstract 1. An experiment was conducted to study the effect of two different diets on zootechnical performance and the major bacterial groups in association with the host mucosa and dispersed in the lumen contents of the small intestine of broiler chickens. 2. The two experimental diets were maize or sorghum-based. In addition to the total bacteria, bacterial groups belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae (Enterococcus and Lactobacillus) were quantified by real-time PCR. 3. There were no differences in body weight gain and feed intake, but feed conversion ratio increased for sorghum-fed broilers at 21 and 42 d of age. 4. The Enterococcus group decreased in all gut segments from 7 to 42 d, while the Lactobacillus group increased in both ecosystems. In the ileal mucosa, the enterobacterial counts decreased from 7 to 42 d in the maize-based diet, but remained stable in the sorghum-based diet. 5. The results shed light on the spatial and temporal distribution of bacterial groups that play important physiological roles in the small intestine of chickens. Specifically, the increased Enterobacteria population in the ileum is consistent with the relatively poor feed conversion in sorghum-fed broilers.
Disentangling the Web: Neologistic Perseverative Errors in Jargon Aphasia

Abstract This article explores the relationship between the neologisms and perseverative errors produced by KVH, a man with severe neologistic jargon aphasia. Detailed examination of KVH's level of language processing breakdown revealed mild difficulties with phonological encoding and severe difficulties accessing the lexical form of the word. Many of KVH's neologisms contained phonemes perseverated from previous neologisms, suggesting an integral relationship between the production of neologisms and the perseveration of phonemes. Furthermore, KVH's patterns of whole word (total) and phonological (blended) perseverations reflected his proposed underlying language processing deficits, consistent with recent literature on perseveration (e.g., Cohen and Dehaene, 1998). However, the simple binary distinction of total and blended perseveration is proposed to be somewhat limited for understanding the underlying nature of KVH's complex neologistic errors. Possible explanations regarding the mechanisms underlying the production of KVH's neologistic and perseverative errors also are discussed.