Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vitro antioxidant and anti-cholinesterase activities of Rhizophora mucronata

Abstract Context: Rhizophora mucronata Lam. (Rhizophoraceae), commonly known as Asiatic mangrove, has been used traditionally among Asian countries as folk medicine. Objective: This study investigates the cholinesterase inhibitory potential and antioxidant activities of R. mucronata. Materials and method: Rhizophora mucronata leaves were successively extracted using solvents of varying polarity and a dosage of 100–500 µg/ml were used for each assay. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) inhibitory activities were assessed according to the method of Ellman. In vitro antioxidant activity was assessed using free radical scavenging, reducing power, and metal-chelating activity (duration – 3 months). Total phenolic and flavonoid content were quantified spectrophotometrically. Compound characterization was done using column chromatography, NMR, FTIR, and LC-MS analysis. Results: Methanolic leaf extract (500 µg/ml) exhibited the highest inhibitory activity against AChE (92.73 ± 0.54%) and BuChE (98.98 ± 0.17%), with an IC50 value of 59.31 ± 0.35 and 51.72 ± 0.33 µg/ml, respectively. Among the different solvent extracts, methanolic extract exhibited the highest antioxidant activity with an IC50 value of 47.39 ± 0.43, 401.45 ± 18.52, 80.23 ± 0.70, and 316.47 ± 3.56 µg/ml for DPPH, hydroxyl, nitric oxide radical, and hydrogen peroxide, respectively. Total polyphenolic and flavonoid contents in methanolic extract were observed to be 598.13 ± 1.85 µg of gallic acid equivalent and 48.85 ± 0.70 μg of rutin equivalent/mg of extract. Compound characterization illustrated (+)-catechin as the bioactive compound responsible for cholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activities. Conclusion: The presence of rich source of flavonoids, in particular catechin, might be responsible for its cholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activities.
Rate diverse network coding: breaking the broadcast bottleneck

An inherent limitation of the existing digital wireless network coding is that the relay node has to settle for a single broadcast rate for the coded packet transmission. Since the selected rate should be supported on the worst quality links to the intended receivers, the throughput gain by network coding is essentially bound to the capacity of the worst link. Worse yet, the bottleneck capacity diminishes as the diversity of links increases, which generally happens when the nodes participating in network coding operation grow in number. In this paper, we solve this "broadcast bottleneck" by using a novel symbol-level network coding scheme called Rate Diverse Network Coding (RDNC). With RDNC, the relay node can deal with receivers under disparate channel conditions with a single coded data stream, eliminating the single-rate broadcast bottleneck. Through extensive simulation, we find that RDNC significantly boosts the coding gain and the throughput, more when the given topology provides richer opportunities for coding. Specifically, RDNC is as good as COPE in the worst case, but can achieve up to 2.5 times the coding gain if the network topology permits.
Reformulating Planning Problems: A Theoretical Point of View

Automated planning is a well studied research topic thanks to its wide range of real-world applications. Despite significant progress in this area many planning problems still remain hard and challenging. Some techniques such as learning macro-operators improve the planning process by reformulating the (original) planning problem. While many encouraging practical results have been derived from such reformulation methods, little attention has been paid to the theoretical properties of reformulation such as soundness, completeness, and algorithmic complexity. In this paper we build up a theoretical framework describing reformulation schemes such as action elimination or creating macro-actions. Using this framework, we show that finding entanglements (relationships useful for action elimination) is as hard as planning itself. Moreover, we design a tractable algorithm for checking under what conditions it is safe to reformulate a problem by removing primitive operators (assembled to a macro-operator).
Sodium Phenylbutyrate, a Drug With Known Capacity to Reduce Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress, Partially Alleviates Lipid-Induced Insulin Resistance and β-Cell Dysfunction in Humans

OBJECTIVE Chronically elevated free fatty acids contribute to insulin resistance and pancreatic β-cell failure. Among numerous potential factors, the involvement of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress has been postulated to play a mechanistic role. Here we examined the efficacy of the chemical chaperone, sodium phenylbutyrate (PBA), a drug with known capacity to reduce ER stress in animal models and in vitro, on lipid-induced insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction in humans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Eight overweight or obese nondiabetic men underwent four studies each, in random order, 4 to 6 weeks apart. Two studies were preceded by 2 weeks of oral PBA (7.5 g/day), followed by a 48-h i.v. infusion of intralipid/heparin or saline, and two studies were preceded by placebo treatment, followed by similar infusions. Insulin secretion rates (ISRs) and sensitivity (SI) were assessed after the 48-h infusions by hyperglycemic and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps, respectively. RESULTS Lipid infusion reduced SI, which was significantly ameliorated by pretreatment with PBA. Absolute ISR was not affected by any treatment; however, PBA partially ameliorated the lipid-induced reduction in the disposition index (DI = ISR × SI), indicating that PBA prevented lipid-induced β-cell dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that PBA may provide benefits in humans by ameliorating the insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction induced by prolonged elevation of free fatty acids.
Emotional Perception of Fairy Tales: Achieving Agreement in Emotion Annotation of Text

Emotion analysis (EA) is a rapidly developing area in computational linguistics. An EA system can be extremely useful in fields such as information retrieval and emotion-driven computer animation. For most EA systems, the number of emotion classes is very limited and the text units the classes are assigned to are discrete and predefined. The question we address in this paper is whether the set of emotion categories can be enriched and whether the units to which the categories are assigned can be more flexibly defined. We present an experiment showing how an annotation task can be set up so that untrained participants can perform emotion analysis with high agreement even when not restricted to a predetermined annotation unit and using a rich set of emotion categories. As such it sets the stage for the development of more complex EA systems which are closer to the actual human emotional perception of text.
Erythromycin and azithromycin transport into Haemophilus influenzae ATCC 19418 under conditions of depressed proton motive force (delta mu H)

The effect of collapsing the electrochemical proton gradient (delta mu H) on [3H]erythromycin and [14C]azithromycin transport in Haemophilus influenzae ATCC 19418 was studied. The proton gradient and membrane potential were determined from the distribution of [2-14C]dimethadione and rubidium-86, respectively. delta mu H was reduced from 124 to 3 mV in EDTA-valinomycin-treated cells at 22 degrees C with 150 mM KCl and 0.1 mM carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone. During the collapse of delta mu H, macrolide uptake increased. Erythromycin efflux studies strongly suggested that this increase was not due to an energy-dependent efflux pump but was likely due to increased outer membrane permeability. These data indicated that macrolide entry was not a delta mu H-driven active transport process but rather a passive diffusion process.
Uplink Performance of Wideband Massive MIMO With One-Bit ADCs

Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) stand for a significant part of the total power consumption in a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) base station. One-bit ADCs are one way to reduce power consumption. This paper presents an analysis of the spectral efficiency of single-carrier and orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) transmission in massive MIMO systems that use one-bit ADCs. A closed-form achievable rate, i.e., a lower bound on capacity, is derived for a wideband system with a large number of channel taps that employ low-complexity linear channel estimation and symbol detection. Quantization results in two types of error in the symbol detection. The circularly symmetric error becomes Gaussian in massive MIMO and vanishes as the number of antennas grows. The amplitude distortion, which severely degrades the performance of OFDM, is caused by variations between symbol durations in received interference energy. As the number of channel taps grows, the amplitude distortion vanishes and OFDM has the same performance as single-carrier transmission. A main conclusion of this paper is that wideband massive MIMO systems work well with one-bit ADCs.
The Araneus Web-based management system

The paper describes the ARANEUS Wel-Base Management System [l, 5, 4, 61, a system developed at Universitb di Roma Tre, which represents a proposal towards the definition of a new kind of data-repository, designed to manage Web data in the database style. We call a WebBase a collection of data of heterogeneous nature, and more specifically: (i) highly structured data, such as the ones typically stored in relational or objectoriented database systems; (G) semistructured data, in the Web style. We can simplify by saying that it incorporates both databases and Web sites. A Web-Base Management System (WBMS) is a system for managing such Web-bases. More specifically, it should provide functionalities for both database and Web site management. It is natural to think of it as an evolution of ordinary DBMSs, in the sense that it will play in future generation Web-based Information Systems the same role as the one played by database systems today. Three natural requirements arise here:first, the system should be fully distributed: databases and Web sites may be either local or remote resources; second, it should be platform-independent, i.e., it should not be tied to a specific platform or software environment, coherently with the nature of the Internet; finally, all system functionalities should be accessible through a hypertextual user interface, based on HTML-like markup languages, i.e., the system should be a site itself. We can list three main classes of applications that a WBMS should support, in the database spirit: (1) queries: the system should allow to access data in a Web-base in a declarative, high-level fashion; this means that not only structured data can be accessed and queried, but also semistructured data in Web sites; (2) views: data coming from heterogeneous sources should be possibly reorganized and integrated in new Web-bases, in order to provide different views over the original data, to be navigated and queried by end-users; (3) updates: the process of maintaining Web sites is a delicate one which should be carefully supported;
Metabolism of Fostamatinib, the Oral Methylene Phosphate Prodrug of the Spleen Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor R406 in Humans: Contribution of Hepatic and Gut Bacterial Processes to the Overall Biotransformation

The metabolism of the spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor N4-(2,2-dimethyl-3-oxo-4-pyrid[1,4]oxazin-6-yl)-5-fluoro-N2-(3,4,5-trimethyoxyphenyl)-2,4-pyrimidinediamine (R406) and its oral prodrug N4-(2,2-dimethyl-4-[(dihydrogenphosphonoxy)methyl]-3-oxo-5-pyrid[1,4]oxazin-6-yl)-5-fluoro-N2-(3,4,5-trimethyoxyphenyl)-2,4-pyrimidinediamine disodium hexahydrate (R788, fostamatinib) was determined in vitro and in humans. R788 was rapidly converted to R406 by human intestinal microsomes, and only low levels of R788 were observed in plasma of human subjects after oral administration of 14C-R788. R406 was the major drug-related compound in plasma from human subjects, and only low levels of metabolites were observed in plasma. The plasma metabolites of R406 were identified as a sulfate conjugate and glucuronide conjugate of the para-O-demethylated metabolite of R406 (R529) and a direct N-glucuronide conjugate of R406. Elimination of drug-related material into the urine accounted for 19% of the administered dose, and the major metabolite in urine from all the human subjects was the lactam N-glucuronide of R406. On average, 80% of the total drug was recovered in feces. Two drug-related peaks were observed; one peak was identified as R406, and the other peak was identified as a unique 3,5-benzene diol metabolite of R406. The 3,5-benzene diol metabolite appeared to result from the subsequent O-demethylations and dehydroxylation of R529 by anaerobic gut bacteria because only R529 was converted to this metabolite after the in vitro incubation with human fecal samples. These data indicate that the major fecal metabolite of R406 observed in humans is a product of a hepatic cytochrome P450-mediated O-demethylation and subsequent O-demethylations and dehydroxylation by gut bacteria.
Comparative study of IDH1 mutations in gliomas by immunohistochemistry and DNA sequencing.

BACKGROUND Mutations involving isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH 1) occur in a high proportion of diffuse gliomas, with implications on diagnosis and prognosis. About 90% involve exon 4 at codon 132, replacing amino acid arginine with histidine (R132H). Rarer ones include R132C, R132S, R132G, R132L, R132V, and R132P. Most authors have used DNA-based methods to assess IDH1 status. Preliminary studies comparing imunohistochemistry (IHC) with IDH1-R132H mutation-specific antibodies have shown concordance with DNA sequencing and no cross-reactivity with wild-type IDH1 or other mutant proteins. The present study compares results of IHC with DNA sequencing in diffuse gliomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty diffuse gliomas with frozen tissue samples for DNA sequencing and adequate tissue in paraffin blocks for IHC using IDH1-R132H specific antibody were assessed for IDH1 mutations. RESULTS Concordance of findings between IHC and DNA sequencing was noted in 88% (44/50) cases. All 6 cases with discrepancy were immunopositive with DIA-H09 antibody. While in 3 of these 6 cases, DNA sequencing failed to reveal any mutations, R132L (arginine replaced by leucine) mutation was found in the rest 3 cases. Interestingly, of the immunopositive cases, 46.6% (14/30) showed immunostaining in only a fraction of tumor cells. CONCLUSIONS IHC is an easy and quick method of detecting IDH1-R132H mutations, but there may be some discrepancies between IHC and DNA sequencing. Although there were no false-negative cases, cross-reactivity with IDH1-R132L was seen in 3, a finding not reported thus far. Because of more universal availability of IHC over genetic testing, cross-reactivity and staining heterogeneity may have bearing over its use in detecting IDH1-R132H mutation in gliomas.
BMP8A sustains spermatogenesis by activating both SMAD1/5/8 and SMAD2/3 in spermatogonia

BMP8A activates distinct sets of SMADs to control the proliferation and differentiation of spermatogonia in mice. BMP8A activates SMAD1/5/8 and SMAD2/3 simultaneously Like other members of the transforming growth factor–β (TGF-β) superfamily, bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) signal through heteromeric receptor complexes to stimulate activation of SMAD transcription factors. Whereas TGF-βs typically activate SMAD2/3, BMPs typically stimulate activation of SMAD1/5/8. Wu et al. found that BMP8A stimulated activation of both SMAD2/3 and SMAD1/5/8 in mouse spermatogonia. BMP8A acted through different sets of receptor complexes to stimulate each set of SMADs. Signaling through SMAD2/3 was important for proliferation of spermatogonia, and signaling through SMAD1/5/8 was important for the differentiation of spermatogonia into spermatids. These findings identify an unusual signaling mechanism for BMP8A and suggest that BMP8A might be useful for treating male infertility because BMP8A treatment enhanced the in vitro production of functional sperm in mouse testis explants. Mutation in either of the genes encoding bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) 8A or 8B (Bmp8a or Bmp8b) causes postnatal depletion of spermatogonia in mice. We found that Bmp8a, but not Bmp8b, was expressed predominantly in the neonatal mouse spermatogonia. Although most BMPs induce activation of SMADs 1, 5, and 8 (SMAD1/5/8), but not SMADs 2 and 3 (SMAD2/3), we found that BMP8A induced signaling through both sets of transcription factors. In undifferentiated mouse spermatogonia, BMP8A activated SMAD1/5/8 through receptor complexes formed by ALK3 and either ACVR2A or BMPR2 and activated SMAD2/3 through receptor complexes formed by ALK5 and ACVR2A, ACVR2B, or TGFBR2. Signaling through SMAD2/3 promoted the proliferation of germ cells, whereas that through SMAD1/5/8 directed the subsequent differentiation of spermatogonia. BMP8A promoted spermatogenesis in cultured mouse testis explants, and the resulting spermatids were functionally competent for fertilization. These results suggest that the dual role of BMP8A in promoting proliferation and differentiation of spermatogonia may be exploited clinically to treat male infertility.
Making Dependency Labeling Simple, Fast and Accurate

This work addresses the task of dependency labeling—assigning labels to an (unlabeled) dependency tree. We employ and extend a feature representation learning approach, optimizing it for both high speed and accuracy. We apply our labeling model on top of state-of-the-art parsers and evaluate its performance on standard benchmarks including the CoNLL-2009 and the English PTB datasets. Our model processes over 1,700 English sentences per second, which is 30 times faster than the sparse-feature method. It improves labeling accuracy over the outputs of top parsers, achieving the best LAS on 5 out of 7 datasets 1 .
Advanced optical microscopy toolkits for non-invasive imaging in oncology

Despite significant advances in the fields of biophotonics and oncology alike, several challenges persist in the study, assessment, and treatment of cancer, ranging from the accurate identification and examination of potential risk factors, early diagnosis of dysplastic lesions, and monitoring of the complex heterogeneity of cellular populations within tumors. To study such dynamics at the microscale, non-invasive optical toolkits offer the potential to identify, characterize, and visualize key molecules and their interactions in their native biological context, ranging from in vitro cell cultures to in vivo studies in both animal models and humans. In the present thesis, examples of such applications of optical tools will be presented, including: (1) the assessment of cellular oxidative stress in ex vivo human skin cultures by imaging endogenous and exogenous fluorescent compounds using two-photon excitation fluorescence (TPEF) and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM); (2) visualizing water and lipid distribution as well as cellular morphology using coherent Raman scattering (CRS) imaging techniques in the stratum corneum, the most superficial layer of the epidermis; (3) using photoconvertible labels to optically tag cell sub-populations of interest in situ for long-term monitoring of heterogeneous cell cultures from in vitro monolayers to in vivo xenograft models; (4) visualizing melanin species in the context of melanoma with coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) and sum-frequency absorption (SFA) microscopies. Altogether, development of such advanced microscopy toolkits will serve to improve both understanding of cancer pathology, as well as to validate clinical diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
Diagnostic accuracy of dual-source multi-slice CT-coronary angiography in patients with an intermediate pretest likelihood for coronary artery disease.

I read the article by Leber et al. with great interest. However, in my opinion, the clinical implications presented are unacceptable. The proposed sequence of procedures (CT scan, followed in some cases by non-invasive stress test to verify ischaemia, followed by cardiac catheterization) causes unnecessary exposure to radiation, risks of complications, costs and contradicts current ESC, and national guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of angina pectoris and PCI (http://www.escardio.org/knowledge/ guidelines/, http://leitlinien.dgk.org/images/pdf/ leitlinien_volltext/2003-03_koronare_herzer krankung.pdf). The knowledge of coronary anatomy is mainly required in high-risk situations where special therapeutic options as coronary bypass operation or—in selected cases—PCI may serve to improve survival or limiting symptoms despite medical therapy. Thus, evidence of ischaemia prior to cardiac catheterization is an integral part of quality assurance programmes in Germany in order to detect clinical centres with unnecessary coronary investigations. At present, introducing CT scans after an initial superficial examination of the patient is a paradigm shift without scientific evidence for its benefit, but with the potential of misleading patients, exploding costs and damaging our reputation.
Alcohol involvement and participation in residential learning communities among first-year college students.

OBJECTIVE Residential learning communities (RLCs) on U.S. college campuses are assumed to build connections between formal learning opportunities and students' living environment. The objective of this longitudinal study was to examine the association between living in RLCs and alcohol misuse among first-year undergraduate students. METHOD A Web-based survey was self-administered to a stratified random sample of 923 first-year undergraduate students (52.7% women) attending a large Midwestern research university. The sample included 342 students who lived and participated in RLCs (termed RLC) and 581 students who did not participate in RLCs (termed non-RLC). First-year students were asked about their drinking behaviors before college, during their first semester, and approximately 6 months later during their second semester. RESULTS RLC students reported lower rates of drinking than non-RLC students before college. RLC students reported lower rates of drinking and fewer alcohol-related consequences than non-RLC students during the first and second semesters. Maximum drinks in 1 day increased from precollege to first semester, and this increase was larger among non-RLC students than RLC students. The number of drinks per occasion and alcohol-related consequences increased between first semester and second semester for all students regardless of RLC status. CONCLUSIONS Lower rates of alcohol misuse among RLC students predate their entrance into college, and the increase in drinking from precollege to first semester is lower in magnitude among RLC students. RLCs' influence involves selection and socialization processes. These findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts aimed at incoming first-year undergraduate students.