Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soluble Guanylyl Cyclase: Physiological Role as an NO Receptor and the Potential Molecular Target for Therapeutic Application

Abstract Nitric oxide (NO) activates soluble guanylyl cyclase, which results in an increased synthesis of cyclic guanosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP), smooth muscle relaxation and vasodilation. The heme group in soluble guanylyl cyclase binds NO and allosterically activates the catalytic site. In addition, a second allosteric site that synergistically activates the enzyme has been reported. BAY 41-2272 was reported as an NO-independent activator of soluble guanylyl cyclase. Treatment with this compound results in anti-platelet activity, a decrease in blood pressure and an increase in survival, indicating a potential for treating cardiovascular diseases. YC-1, another NO-independent activator, activates soluble guanylyl cyclase and the activity is enhanced in the presence of NO. YC-1 relaxed tissue strips in organ bath. Consistent with its biochemical activity, YC-1 induced penile erection in a conscious rat model. Recently, we found a novel series of soluble guanylyl cyclase activators that also NO-independently activate soluble guanylyl cyclase and cause penile erection, suggesting a synergy with the endogenous NO production in vivo. Here I review the NO/cGMP signal transduction pathway and define soluble guanylyl cyclase modulators as a novel approach for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and erectile dysfunction.
A Wideband Multiharmonic Empirical Large-Signal Model for High-Power GaN HEMTs With Self-Heating and Charge-Trapping Effects

A complete empirical large-signal model for high-power AlGaN/GaN HEMTs (GaN HEMT) utilizing an improved drain current (Ids) formulation with self-heating and charge- trapping modifications is presented. The new drain current equation accurately models the asymmetric bell-shaped transconductance (gm) for high Ids over a large range of biases. A method of systematically employing dynamic IV behavior using pulsed-gate IV and pulsed-gate-pulsed-drain IV datasets over a wide variety of thermal and charge-trapping conditions is presented. The composite nonlinear model accurately predicts the dynamic IV behavior, S-parameters up to 10 GHz, and large-signal wideband harmonic behavior for a multitude of quiescent gate-source and drain-source biases as well as third-order intermodulation distortion (IM3).
ME-MD: An Effective Framework for Neural Machine Translation with Multiple Encoders and Decoders

The encoder-decoder neural framework is widely employed for Neural Machine Translation (NMT) with a single encoder to represent the source sentence and a single decoder to generate target words. The translation performance heavily relies on the representation ability of the encoder and the generation ability of the decoder. To further enhance NMT, we propose to extend the original encoder-decoder framework to a novel one, which has multiple encoders and decoders (ME-MD). Through this way, multiple encoders extract more diverse features to represent the source sequence and multiple decoders capture more complicated translation knowledge. Our proposed ME-MD framework is convenient to integrate heterogeneous encoders and decoders with multiple depths and multiple types. Experiment on Chinese-English translation task shows that our ME-MD system surpasses the state-of-the-art NMT system by 2.1 BLEU points and surpasses the phrase-based Moses by 7.38 BLEU points. Our framework is general and can be applied to other sequence to sequence tasks.
Long-Term Exposure to Nicotine Modulates the Level and Activity of Acetylcholine Receptors in White Blood Cells of Smokers and Model Mice

Long-term consumption of tobacco by smokers causes addiction and increases the level of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the brain, a phenomenon known as up-regulation. Here, we show that up-regulation of specific nAChR subunits takes place in white blood cells (WBCs) of smokers and mice subjected to long-term administration of nicotine. The basal level of α-bungarotoxin binding site, which corresponds to the homomeric α7 nAChR subtype, was not affected in WBCs of both smokers and mice administered nicotine. In contrast, epibatidine (EB) binding sites, which correspond to heteromeric nAChR subtypes, were detected in WBCs of smokers but not in WBCs of nonsmokers. The number of EB binding sites significantly decreased after incubation of the smokers' WBCs for 3 days in nicotine-free culture medium. In WBCs of wild-type mice, basal level of EB binding sites was detected before nicotine administration. This basal level is reduced by ∼60% in knockout mice lacking the genes encoding either the β2 or the α4 receptor subunits. Additional analysis of knockout mice revealed that the remaining ∼40% do not undergo up-regulation, indicating that the α4/β2 subunits comprise the up-regulated nAChRs. We further found that upregulation in mouse WBCs is accompanied by a significant decrease in the capacity of the up-regulated receptor channels to convey calcium ions. The phenomenon of nAChR up-regulation in WBCs provides a simple tool to evaluate and study tobacco addiction.
A Holistic Framework for Bridging Physical Threats to User QoE USC / ISI Technical Report

Submarine cable cuts have become increasingly common, with five incidents breaking more than ten cables in the last three years. Today, around 300 cables carry the majority of international Internet traffic, so a single cable cut can affect millions of users, and repairs to any cut are expensive and time consuming. Prior work has either measured the impact following incidents, or predicted the results of network changes to relatively abstract Internet topological models. In this paper, we develop a new approach to model cable cuts. Our approach differs by following problems drawn from real-world occurrences all the way to their impact on end-users. Because our approach spans many layers, no single organization can provide all the data needed to apply the model. We therefore perform what-if analysis to study a range of possibilities. With this approach we evaluate four incidents in 2012 and 2013; our analysis suggests general rules that assess the degree of a country’s vulnerability to a cut.
Ethnographic Strategies in the Tracking and Retention of Street-Recruited Community-Based Samples of Substance Using Hidden Populations in Longitudinal Studies

The article presents practical and methodological strategies in the tracking and retention of a longitudinal community-based sample of 300 Mexican American noninjecting users of heroin. Presented are the ethnographic strategies the research team utilized to maintain high retention rates among this highly marginalized and hidden population. Findings indicate that these ethnographic strategies are the basis for a reliable method for subject retention among drug-using populations. Further, the strategies illustrate how qualitative methods can complement the collection of quantitative data. Discussed is how these strategies can be used to identify and engage similar populations in research studies.
Protective effects of fish oil, allopurinol, and verapamil on hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats

Background: The major aim of this work was to study the protective effects of fish oil (FO), allopurinol, and verapamil on hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (IR)-induced injury in experimental rats. Materials and Methods: Sixty male Wistar albino rats were randomly assigned to six groups of 10 rats each. Group 1 served as a negative control. Group 2 served as hepatic IR control injury. Groups 3, 4, 5, and 6 received N-acetylcysteine (standard), FO, allopurinol, and verapamil, respectively, for 3 consecutive days prior to ischemia. All animals were fasted for 12 h, anesthetized and underwent midline laparotomy. The portal triads were clamped by mini-artery clamp for 30 min followed by reperfusion for 30 min. Blood samples were withdrawn for estimation of serum alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) activities as well as hepatic thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, reduced glutathione, myeloperoxidase, and total nitrate/nitrite levels, in addition to histopathological examination. Results: Fish oil, allopurinol, and verapamil reduced hepatic IR injury as evidenced by significant reduction in serum ALT and AST enzyme activities. FO and verapamil markedly reduced oxidative stress as compared to control IR injury. Levels of inflammatory biomarkers in liver were also reduced after treatment with FO, allopurinol, or verapamil. In accordance, a marked improvement of histopathological findings was observed with all of the three treatments. Conclusion: The findings of this study prove the benefits of FO, allopurinol, and verapamil on hepatic IR-induced liver injury and are promising for further clinical trials.
An Empirical Basis for Standardizing Adherence Measures Derived From Administrative Claims Data Among Diabetic Patients

Objective:To compare the predictive validity of 8 different adherence measures by studying the variability explained between each measure and 2 outcome measures: hospitalization episodes and total nonpharmacy cost among Medicaid eligible persons diagnosed with diabetes. Research Design:This study was a retrospective analysis of the Arkansas Medicaid administrative claims data from January 2000 to December 2006. Subjects:Diabetic (ICD-9-CM = 250.0x–250.9x, where x = 0 or 2) patients were identified in the recruitment period July 2000 through April 2004. Patients had to be ≥18 years old and have at least 2 prescription fills in the index period for an oral antidiabetic drug. Measures:Adherence rates to oral antidiabetic therapy were contrasted using the following 8 measures; including the medication possession ratio (MPR), proportion of days covered (PDC), refill compliance rate (RCR), compliance ratio (CR), medication possession ratio, modified (MPRm), continuous measure of medication gaps (CMG), and continuous multiple interval measure of oversupply (CMOS and continuous, single interval measure of medication acquisition (CSA). Multivariate and univariate linear and logistic regression models were used to prospectively predict nonpharmacy costs and hospitalizations in the follow-up year. Results:A total of 4943 diabetic patients were studied. In predicting any cause hospitalization, univariate models with PDC and CMG had the highest predictive validity (C-statistic: 0.544). Multivariate models with MPR, PDC, CMG or continuous multiple interval measure of oversupply (CMOS) as adherence measures had the highest C-statistics of 0.701 in predicting diabetes specific hospitalizations. None of the adherence measures were significantly associated with nonpharmacy cost. Conclusions:MPR and PDC had the highest predictive validity for hospitalization episodes. These 2 measures should be considered first when selecting among adherence measures when using administrative prescription claims data.
Cardiovascular Reactivity in Friendships: Length of Relationship and Frequency of Contact as Potential Moderators

Cardiovascular Reactivity in Friendships: Length of Relationship and Frequency of Contact as Potential Moderators Benjamin David Clark Department of Psychology, BYU Master of Science Social support has been linked to positive health outcomes. Specifically, having available support from a friend may act as a buffer to the negative effects of stress on cardiovascular reactivity. Relationship quality is an important moderator of this effect. The purpose of this study was to examine how cardiovascular reactivity is affected by relationship quality within friendships and whether the length of relationship and frequency of contact may moderate the effect. 134 healthy male and female adults (and their same-sex friend) were recruited to participate. Results revealed no significant difference between subjects interacting with supportive friends compared to interacting with ambivalent friends on cardiovascular reactivity. Length of relationship was independently associated with higher cardiac output (CO) and lower total peripheral resistance (TPR), but there was no statistical interaction between length of relationship and relationship quality. Frequency of contact was not a significant predictor of cardiovascular reactivity and no statistical interaction was found between frequency of contact and relationship quality. This study provides some evidence that length of relationships may be important to consider in future studies examining stressful relationships.
Assessing and improving the performance and scalability of an iterative algorithm for Hadoop

Large volumes of data are generated and collected nowadays through sensors, devices, social networks, among others. The ability to handle large datasets has become an important expertise for the success of many organizations around the world, demanding increasingly parallel and distributed processing. Parallel computing, based on multicore architecture, re-emerged in recent years as a solution for this challenge. To help developers to design parallel programs, there exists several parallel and distributed tools (frameworks), such as Apache Hadoop and Spark. These frameworks provide a plenty of configuration parameters (e.g., Hadoop has more than 200) and to configure all of them optimally is a non-trivial task. This work investigates the influence of various parameters on the performance of Apache Hadoop when process HEDA, an iterative algorithm that calculate metrics of centrality in large graphs. The execution of HEDA in a complex network is extremely important because there are several centrality measures that determine the importance of a node in the graph. The centrality of a node is a key issue in the analysis of complex networks, especially on social networks. It was observed that in some cases the improvement in execution time reached almost 80% by applying the proposed values in the selected parameters. Moreover, it was possible to increase CPU consumption four times and to achieve a Speedup of 92% of linearity. The work also describes the steps that were followed to perform the experiments, which can help other researchers to conduct new experiments.
A REVIEW OF COMMUNITY-BASED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

This paper reviews initiatives of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) from 21 case studies in different countries. The study uses Ostrom’s design principles and eight objective measures. These are empowerment, public participation, equity, conflict resolution mechanisms, similarities between misuse and establishment of rules for indigenous environments, effective monitoring, collective choice arrangements and sanctioning activities for the use of common resources to evaluate and compare the case studies to examine the cases. Based on the analyses, successes and failures of CBNRM were determined. Successes were evident in the management of water resources in Honduras, India, Kenya, Nepal and St Lucia. CBNRM was also successful in Fiji, in joint forest management in India and other instances such as in Alaska, China, Cambodia, Namibia, Malaysia, Mexico, Washington, and to a small extent in Papua New Guinea. However, CBNRM initiatives failed in managing wildlife conservation in Nepal and Kenya, and in Tanzania wildlife management, Uganda and Zimbabwe. CBNRM failure was attributed to the uneven distribution of the benefits of natural resources, lack of empowerment, low community participation, failure to resolve conflicts, among many factors. In this study, the recommendation is made that similar research should be conducted with a larger sample size and employ other techniques such as Principal Component Analysis for examining the characteristics that achieve effective and sustainable CBNRM initiatives.
Energy-Efﬁcient Computation of L1 and L2 Norms on a FPGA SIMD Accelerator, with Applications to Visual Search

—This paper presents a novel accelerator architecture which is SIMD in nature and fully programmable. It provides support in an energy effective manner to a wide range of vector computations, including scalar products and similarity metrics like sum of absolute differences and sum of squared differences. We have evaluated an implementation of the proposed architecture on the Xilinx Zynq-7000 EPP featuring the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, running a SIFT descriptor matching benchmark. Our results indicate that the processor can ofﬂoad the most intensive computational kernels of the benchmark to the accelerator, thus delivering 4 - 6 x better matching throughput than the ARM processor alone. Moreover, the execution of the SIFT matching benchmark on the accelerated platform consumes 3 x less energy than on the ARM Cortex-A9, at a similar power consumption. Our results also suggest that the accelerated ARM system is 40 % more energy effective than Intel Core i7 2600K and Nvidia GTX680 when executing the SIFT matching benchmark.
Temporal variation of the population structure and genetic diversity of Farfantepenaeus notialis assessed by allozyme loci

Population genetic studies carried out on penaeid shrimps have disclosed different patterns of population subdivision, revealing new aspects of shrimp biology as well as the effects of historical contingency molding those patterns. However, the stability of observed allele frequencies over time still remains untested. The objective of this article is to show the analysis of the temporal variation of allozymes in a shrimp species inhabiting Cuba which proves that the genetic structure of this species could significantly change in time. The study involves four populations of Farfantepenaeus notialis sampled in a period of 8 years. The significant statistics obtained from partitions observed in 1995 were not detected in 2003 (as suggested by amova and FST), whereas temporal genetic differentiation and heterozygosity became highly significant. The results strongly suggest that the effect of migrations could be the cause for the loss of F. notialis genetic structure in 2003. It is therefore imperative to call attention on the vulnerability of these populations when facing unstable environmental and habitat conditions.
HIV drug resistance transmission threshold survey in Bangkok, Thailand

Background Antiretroviral therapy (ART) began in Thailand in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area (BMA) in 1988 and scale-up began in 2001. The national first-line regimen is stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine in fixed-dose combination, which is a regimen with a low genetic barrier for resistance. Because viral load and resistance testing are not widely available, unidentified HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) may occur during treatment and could be transmitted. Methods We undertook a threshold survey to assess HIVDR transmission in two subsets of recently infected individuals in the BMA. The first group consisted of returning blood donors tested at the Thai Red Cross National Blood Centre who seroconverted within the past 12 months. The second group comprised recently infected (as defined by BED assay) clients of the Thai Red Cross voluntary counselling and testing centre (VCT). Results Genotyping of 50 consecutive specimens each from blood donors and VCT clients during 2005–2006 showed no mutations associated with HIVDR in the reverse transcriptase or protease regions of the HIV pol gene. These results are categorized by the WHO HIV drug resistance threshold survey method as representing a low prevalence (<5%) of transmitted HIV drug resistance. Conclusions Every effort should be made to minimize the emergence of resistance in treated individuals and to prevent primary and secondary HIV transmission. To continue to monitor HIVDR transmission, Thailand has planned additional surveys – including longitudinal surveys – in these and additional groups of individuals.
XRay: Enhancing the Web's Transparency with Differential Correlation

Today's Web services - such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook - leverage user data for varied purposes, including personalizing recommendations, targeting advertisements, and adjusting prices. At present, users have little insight into how their data is being used. Hence, they cannot make informed choices about the services they choose. To increase transparency, we developed XRay, the first fine-grained, robust, and scalable personal data tracking system for the Web. XRay predicts which data in an arbitrary Web account (such as emails, searches, or viewed products) is being used to target which outputs (such as ads, recommended products, or prices). XRay's core functions are service agnostic and easy to instantiate for new services, and they can track data within and across services. To make predictions independent of the audited service, XRay relies on the following insight: by comparing outputs from different accounts with similar, but not identical, subsets of data, one can pinpoint targeting through correlation. We show both theoretically, and through experiments on Gmail, Amazon, and YouTube, that XRay achieves high precision and recall by correlating data from a surprisingly small number of extra accounts.
Distribution of 99mTc-phosphate compounds in osteoarthritic femoral heads.

UNLABELLED In a study of the distribution of 99mTc-polyphosphate and 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate in osteoarthritic femoral heads by macroautoradiography of samples obtained during replacement surgery, the bone-seeking agents were seen to accumulate in the weight-bearing, denuded areas, mainly in the cyst walls and at the osteochondral junctions in the osteophytes. The autoradiographic findings were substantiated by findings from impulse-counting of different zones in the femoral heads that were done on frozen sections. Morphological studies of sections adjacent to the cut surface used for autoradiography showed that the accumulations of the radionuclides were located in areas of new-bone formation, particularly enchondral ossification. This finding was confirmed by histochemical staining for alkaline phosphatase, a marker enzyme for bone mineralization. The over-all distribution of alkaline phosphatase activity in cells roughly paralleled the deposition of the bone-seeking agents. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Scintigrams of osteoarthritic joints reflect primarily the rate of osteogenesis in subchondral bone and osteophytes. As the scan is positive even in very early stages in the development of the disease, a more detailed knowledge of the mechanism responsible for an increased uptake of 99mTc-phosphate compounds may, among other things, contribute to the elucidation of the pathogenesis.
A tree is a Baum is an árbol is a sach’a: Creating a trilingual treebank

This paper describes the process of constructing a trilingual parallel treebank. While for two of the involved languages, Spanish and German, there are already corpora with well-established annotation schemes available, this is not the case with the third language: Cuzco Quechua (ISO 639-3:quz), a low-resourced, non-standardized language for which we had to define a linguistically plausible annotation scheme first.