Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thrombin‐Induced Activation of Cultured Rodent Microglia

Abstract: Microglia are the resident immune cells of the CNS. Upon brain damage, these cells are rapidly activated and function as tissue macrophages. The first steps in this activation still remain unclear, but it is widely believed that substances released from damaged brain tissue trigger this process. In this article, we describe the effects of the blood coagulation factor thrombin on cultured rodent microglial cells. Thrombin induced a transient Ca2+ increase in microglial cells, which persisted in Ca2+‐free media. It was blocked by thapsigargin, indicating that thrombin caused a Ca2+ release from internal stores. Preincubation with pertussis toxin did not alter the thrombin‐induced [Ca2+]i signal, whereas it was blocked by hirudin, a blocker of thrombin's proteolytic activity. Incubation with thrombin led to the production of nitric oxide and the release of the cytokines tumor necrosis factor‐α, interleukin‐6, interleukin‐12, the chemokine KC, and the soluble tumor necrosis factor‐α receptor II and had a significant proliferative effect. Our findings indicate that thrombin, a molecule that enters the brain at sites of injury, rapidly triggered microglial activation.
Dissociation of Per1 and Bmal1 circadian rhythms in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in parallel with behavioral outputs

Significance The circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) regulates seasonality in physiology and behavior, which is best characterized by the change in the activity time of behavioral rhythms. In nocturnal rodents, the activity time was shortened in long summer days and lengthened in short winter days because of the change in the phase relationship of activity onset and offset, for which different circadian oscillators are predicted. Taking advantage of in vivo monitoring of clock gene expression in freely moving mice, we demonstrated that the circadian rhythms of Per1 and Bmal1 in the SCN are associated differentially with the phase shifts of activity onset and offset, respectively, suggesting the existence of two oscillations with different molecular mechanisms in timing of circadian behavior. The temporal order of physiology and behavior in mammals is primarily regulated by the circadian pacemaker located in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Taking advantage of bioluminescence reporters, we monitored the circadian rhythms of the expression of clock genes Per1 and Bmal1 in the SCN of freely moving mice and found that the rate of phase shifts induced by a single light pulse was different in the two rhythms. The Per1-luc rhythm was phase-delayed instantaneously by the light presented at the subjective evening in parallel with the activity onset of behavioral rhythm, whereas the Bmal1-ELuc rhythm was phase-delayed gradually, similar to the activity offset. The dissociation was confirmed in cultured SCN slices of mice carrying both Per1-luc and Bmal1-ELuc reporters. The two rhythms in a single SCN slice showed significantly different periods in a long-term (3 wk) culture and were internally desynchronized. Regional specificity in the SCN was not detected for the period of Per1-luc and Bmal1-ELuc rhythms. Furthermore, neither is synchronized with circadian intracellular Ca2+ rhythms monitored by a calcium indicator, GCaMP6s, or with firing rhythms monitored on a multielectrode array dish, although the coupling between the circadian firing and Ca2+ rhythms persisted during culture. These findings indicate that the expressions of two key clock genes, Per1 and Bmal1, in the SCN are regulated in such a way that they may adopt different phases and free-running periods relative to each other and are respectively associated with the expression of activity onset and offset.
Veillonella tobetsuensis sp. nov., an anaerobic, gram-negative coccus isolated from human tongue biofilms.

Four previously unknown, gram-negative, anaerobic coccal strains were isolated from the tongue biofilm of healthy human adults (ages 22-29 years). The isolates displayed all phenotypic characteristics of the genus Veillonella. Comparative analysis of the 16S rRNA, dnaK and rpoB gene sequences indicated that the four strains were phylogenetically homogeneous and comprised a distinct novel lineage within the genus Veillonella. The production of major cellular fatty acids (C13 : 0 and C17 : 1ω8) was consistent with that of other members of the genus Veillonella. Based on these observations, strains B16(T), A16, B4 and Y6 represent a novel species, for which the name Veillonella tobetsuensis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain B16(T) ( = JCM 17976(T) = ATCC BAA-2400(T)).
Multiple Regression Analyses in Artificial-Grammar Learning: The Importance of Control Groups

In artificial-grammar learning, it is crucial to ensure that above-chance performance in the test stage is due to learning in the training stage but not due to judgemental biases. Here we argue that multiple regression analysis can be successfully combined with the use of control groups to assess whether participants were able to transfer knowledge acquired during training when making judgements about test stimuli. We compared the regression weights of judgements in a transfer condition (training and test strings were constructed by the same grammar but with different letters) with those in a control condition. Predictors were identical in both conditions—judgements of control participants were treated as if they were based on knowledge gained in a standard training stage. The results of this experiment as well as reanalyses of a former study support the usefulness of our approach.
Crystal Structure of Human Cytochrome P450 2D6*

Cytochrome P450 2D6 is a heme-containing enzyme that is responsible for the metabolism of at least 20% of known drugs. Substrates of 2D6 typically contain a basic nitrogen and a planar aromatic ring. The crystal structure of human 2D6 has been solved and refined to 3.0Å resolution. The structure shows the characteristic P450 fold as seen in other members of the family, with the lengths and orientations of the individual secondary structural elements being very similar to those seen in 2C9. There are, however, several important differences, the most notable involving the F helix, the F-G loop, the B′helix, β sheet 4, and part of β sheet 1, all of which are situated on the distal face of the protein. The 2D6 structure has a well defined active site cavity above the heme group, containing many important residues that have been implicated in substrate recognition and binding, including Asp-301, Glu-216, Phe-483, and Phe-120. The crystal structure helps to explain how Asp-301, Glu-216, and Phe-483 can act as substrate binding residues and suggests that the role of Phe-120 is to control the orientation of the aromatic ring found in most substrates with respect to the heme. The structure has been compared with published homology models and has been used to explain much of the reported site-directed mutagenesis data and help understand the metabolism of several compounds.
Earnings Quality, Corporate Governance and Firm Performance

Quality of earnings as reflected by the lower absolute discretionary accruals in the accounting disclosures of firms identifies whether firms manage their earnings disclosure in order to meet market expectations. Literature evidence suggests that corporate governance initiatives of firms have improved the earnings quality of firms. This research identifies the relationship between earnings quality and firm performance in order to test the ability of market to infer managed earnings. In addition corporate governance initiatives taken by the firms and its influence on earnings quality is examined to improve governance and reporting practices of firms towards true firm valuation by the market. Further across the industry comparison of earnings quality and firm performance and their influence by governance initiatives examine industry specific practices in India.
An Adaptive Estimator for Passive Range and Depth Determination of a Maneuvering Target

Abstract : The report describes an adaptive state estimator that can significantly improve the passive range and depth determination of a randomly maneuvering target. The target in this study is a submarine, which, while being tracked, performs large-magnitude depth changes at times unknown to the tracking submarine. Present passive tracking techniques usually utilize a Kalman filter to process the azimuth and/or elevation observations. A Kalman filter will theoretically give the 'best' estimates of target range, depth, and velocity when the system and measurement errors can be modeled as Gaussian processes. The main difficulty in using a Kalman filter in passive tracking applications is that large bias errors invariably develop as the target makes large alterations in velocity or depth. A technique for including a feedback-type learning processor in conjunction with the Kalman filter has been found to greatly reduce bias errors produced by the maneuvering target.
A fast feature selection approach based on extreme learning machine and coefficient of variation

Feature selection is the method of reducing the size of data without degrading their accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel feature selection approach, based on extreme learning machines (ELMs) and the coefficient of variation (CV). In the proposed approach, the most relevant features are identified by ranking each feature with the coefficient obtained through ELM divided by CV. The achieved accuracies and computational costs, obtained with the use of features selected via the proposed approach in 9 classification and 26 regression benchmark data sets, were compared to those obtained with all features, as well as those obtained with the features selected by a wrapper and a filtering method. The achieved accuracy values obtained with the proposed approach were generally higher than when using all features. Furthermore, high feature reduction ratios were obtained with the proposed approach, including the achieved feature reduction ratios in epilepsy, liver, EMG, shuttle, and abalone. Stock data sets were 90.48%, 90%, 70.59%, 66.67%, 75%, and 77.78%, respectively. This approach is an extremely fast process that is independent of the employed machine-learning methods.
An Active Soft Switched Phase-Shifted Full-Bridge DC–DC Converter: Analysis, Modeling, Design, and Implementation

A novel active soft switched phase-shifted full-bridge (PSFB) dc-dc converter is presented in this paper. An auxiliary circuit is added to the pulse width modulation counterpart to achieve the soft switching. The proposed circuit achieves soft switching for both main and auxiliary switches, without increasing the main device current/voltage rating. The auxiliary circuit is gated appropriately in order to achieve zero voltage switching for lagging leg. Tapping in the primary winding of power transformer is added for the purpose of commutation. The proposed circuit is capable of operating at elevated switching frequencies of several hundreds of kilohertz in a range of line and load variations. Steady-state analysis and evaluation of losses for the proposed circuit is presented. Analytical models valid for steady state and dynamic performance are proposed. A 350-W, 100-kHz active soft switched PSFB dc-dc converter prototype is implemented. The proposed analytical models are validated experimentally on 350-W prototype. Experimental results verifying steady state and dynamic models are presented.
To Bargain or Not to Bargain: The Role of Fixed Costs in Price Negotiations

Retailers routinely allow consumers to negotiate a discount off the posted price for big-ticket items such as home appliances and automobiles, and on online platforms such as Amazon and eBay. The profitability of such a strategy, relative to selling only at posted prices, depends on consumers’ willingness to initiate a negotiation and ability to negotiate a discount. In this article, the authors incorporate consumers’ decision of whether to negotiate into a demand model. The decision to negotiate hinges on how the expected discount from negotiation compares with the magnitude of a nonpecuniary cost that the consumer incurs by initiating the negotiation. The current study shows how this cost can be nonparametrically identified, separately from consumers’ ability to get a discount and marginal utility of income. The application of this model to individual-level data on refrigerator transactions reveals that, conditional on negotiating, consumers get, on average, 41% of the available surplus and incur an average cost of $28 to initiate a negotiation. The magnitude of these nonpecuniary costs’ not only affects retailer profits but also has implications for pricing strategy and consumer surplus. Ignoring these costs results in biased estimates of consumers’ willingness to pay, translating to annual losses of $1.6 million in the current study setting.
The value relevance of earnings and earnings components: the case of Saudi Arabia

The extant literature on the value relevance of accounting information focuses on common-law or code-law countries. There is no credible evidence on the value relevance of accounting information in Islamic-code countries. This thesis provides the first empirical evidence on this issue in Saudi, which is recognised as the centre of the Islmaic faith. The focus of the thesis is on the examination of the Saudi market reaction to the release of accounting reports and the association between reported earnings and earnings components with security returns of Saudi firms. Using a sample from the 1995-1999 period, the empirical evidence suggests that inconsistencies between Islamic principles and adopted accounting principles in Saudi do not affect the value relevance of accounting information in Saudi. Most of the empirical tests provide evidence consistent with and highly comparable to those reported in common -law and code-law countries, in general, and those in the United States, in particular.
Micronucleus test and metaphase analyses in mice exposed to known and suspected spindle poisons.

Micronucleus (Mn) and metaphase chromosome analyses were performed in mouse bone marrow cells with two known and eight suspected mitotic spindle poisons. Polychromatic (PCEs) and normochromatic (NCEs) erythrocytes were scored for presence of Mn, while structural (CAs) and numerical chromosome aberrations (NCAs), i.e. hyperploid cells, were evaluated by metaphase analysis. CAs were scored in first, and NCAs in the second metaphases, identified by BrdUrd differential staining. Hydroquinone induced Mn, NCAs and CAs; colchicine, vinblastine and, to a lesser extent, chloral hydrate, diazepam and econazole induced both Mn and NCAs; cadmium chloride and thimerosal induced Mn and CAs, while pyrimethamine and thiabendazole induced Mn only. The proposed stepwise protocol allowed satisfactory statistical evaluation of the effects induced with a reduction in the number of animals killed. An acceptable agreement was found between induction of Mn and NCAs, suggesting a possible use of the Mn test for revealing compounds with aneugenic properties.
Social networking meets recommender systems: survey

Today, the emergence of web-based communities and hosted services such as social networking sites, wikis and folksonomies, brings in tremendous freedom of web autonomy and facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing between users. Along with the interaction between users and computers, social media is rapidly becoming an important part of our digital experience, ranging from digital textual information to diverse multimedia forms. These aspects and characteristics constitute of the core of second generation of web. Social networking (SN) and recommender system (RS) are two hot and popular topics in the current Web 2.0 era, where the former emphasises the generation, dissemination and evolution of user relations, and the latter focuses on the use of collective preferences of users so as to provide the better experience and loyalty of users in various web applications. Leveraging user social connections is able to alleviate the common problems of sparsity and cold-start encountered in RS. This paper aims to summarise the research progresses and findings in these two areas and showcase the empowerment of integrating these two kinds of research strengths.
Automatic 3-D face model adaptation for model-based coding of videophone sequences

For model-based coding of videophone sequences at very low bit rates, an algorithm for the automatic adaptation of a generic 3-D face model to individual faces in videophone sequences is presented. The face model is adapted to the individual facial features of the person-namely, to the eye centers, the eye corners, the eyelids, the irises, the mouth center, the mouth corners, the lips, the eyebrows, the nose, and the chin and cheek contours. First, these facial features are estimated from the videophone sequence. Then, using these estimated facial features, the 3-D face model is adapted to the individual face. Applying the presented algorithm to the videophone sequences Akiyo, Claire, and Miss America, all required facial features are successfully estimated, and face models are adapted. The distance between manually determined facial feature points in the image and projections of the corresponding vertices of the adapted 3-D face model onto the image plane is between 1.5 and 3.5 pels.
The Effects of the Customs Union on Trade Between Turkey and European Union

Abstract: In this study, the effects of the Customs Union on the foreign trade between European Union and Turkey were analyzed using 1980-2015 period data. According to the co-integration test results of the export and import models, CU positively affects both Turkey's exports to the EU and its imports from EU. The overall results of the study show that the CU has trade creation effect; however this effect is very limited. Examination of the market share of Turkey's total exports after joining the CU shows that the decrease of EU's share and the increase of the exports to third country markets is an indicator of the fact that CU is not a trade diversion effect for Turkey. Keywords: Economic Integrations, Customs Union, European Union, Turkey, Foreign Trade.
3-D Numerical Modeling of AC Losses in Multifilamentary MgB2 Wires

Due to their high-current-carrying capacity, round geometry, and low cost, MgB2 wires are promising candidates for realizing high-power cables. However, their operating temperature between 4.2 K and 25 K makes ac losses a critical issue for those cables. To optimize the cable architecture for minimizing ac losses, one must be able to predict them quite accurately. As a first step in this direction, we addressed the numerical computation of a single multifilamentary MgB2 wire that forms the basic element of a high-current cable. The wire under consideration has 36 twisted MgB2 filaments disposed on three concentric layers and embedded in a pure-nickel matrix. An initial comparison between 2-D and 3-D finite elements was performed to justify the need for a full 3-D model, without which coupling losses in the matrix cannot be modeled properly. This is of prime importance since coupling loss is the dominant loss mechanism at high applied fields. Then, simulations of simpler geometries (6- and 18-filament wires) submitted to various transport currents and/or applied fields were performed to identify trends in ac losses and find the best numerical tools for scaling up simulations to the full 36-filament case. The complexity of the model was progressively increased, starting with MgB2 filaments in the air matrix and then adding electrical conductivity and magnetic properties in the nickel matrix.
[Mitochondrial DNA analysis on pre-Columbian bone remains of the Herrera period].

INTRODUCTION Ancient bone remains constitute an important source of biological information, and their genetic characterization allows the confirmation or rebuttal of human affiliations proposed on the basis of non-molecular approaches. Pre-Columbian history of the Eastern Andes in Colombia has been divided into three main periods: (i) an early colonization by groups of hunter-gatherers, (ii) an intermediate period "Herrera" characterized by primitive agriculture and (iii) a late stage of Chibcha-speaking groups, with agriculture and ceramics ("agroalfarero"). OBJECTIVE The mitochondrial DNA on ancient bone remains of the Herrera period were analyzed for comparison with modern and other ancient DNAs. MATERIALS AND METHODS Mitochondrial DNA was extracted from 11 Herrera individuals [approximately 2,000 years before present (YBP)] found in the Madrid 2-41 archaeological site near Bogotá, Colombia. A 192 bp segment of the hypervariable segment I was amplified and sequenced, following stringent archaic DNA authenticity criteria. The sequences were compared with those in American and European databases using bioinformatics tools. RESULTS All individuals had identical sequences and were classified as haplogroup B. This identity may be related to the type of ritual burial performed in the site, probably exclusively for members of a hierarchically important family of the ancient Herrera society. The search for homologous sequences in the American and European mtDNA data bases produced no identical coincidences, although a Brazilian Amazonic individual (approximately 4,000 YBP) was recorded with a matching sequence. CONCLUSION Individuals buried in the Madrid 2-41 site were maternally closely related and showed a mtDNA sequence that is apparently absent in contemporary populations.
Development of human resources in hardware security through practical information technology education program

This paper presents a framework for developing human resources in the field of hardware security based on a practical education program, called enPiT Security. The Hardware Security Exercise of enPiT Security aims to learn the fundamentals of information leakage from computer hardware, such as information communication devices, and to understand the importance of hardware security through practical exercises. Specifically, in this exercise, students learn about the principles of side-channel attacks and possible countermeasures against them. Such attacks can be threats to steal secret information from secondary (side-channel) information leaked during the operation of cryptographic hardware installed on IC cards, smartphones and other personal communication terminals.
The Effect of Transportation Hubs in the Canadian Economic Context

This paper analyzes the effect of transportation hubs on economic centrality and four economic and social welfare variables. To do so, we construct the economic centrality variable using a weighted-network approach. We then study its determinants, focusing on whether transportation hubs have an impact on the economic integration of a province. We infer that transportation hubs do have a positive effect on economic centrality. These determinants are then implemented in the analysis of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, life expectancy, share of the labor force with a secondary education, and infant mortality rate. Our results show that life expectancy and share of the labor force with a secondary education are both positively affected by transportation hubs. On the other hand, we discover that not all methods of transportation have a positive impact on GDP per capita. Lastly, we find that some, but not all, of the determinants of economic centrality explain infant mortality rates.