Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pathophysiological Relevance of Astroglial Angiotensin and the Endocannabinoid Signaling Systems in SHRs

An Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to Nova Southeastern University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL RELEVANCE OF ASTROGLIAL ANGIOTENSIN AND THE ENDOCANNABINOID SIGNALING SYSTEMS IN SHRs by DHANUSH HASPULA June, 2017 BACKGROUND: Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs), an essential hypertension model, are characterized by pro-inflammatory states in brainstems. While Angiotensin (Ang) II, via activation of glial Ang Type 1 receptors (AT1Rs), has been shown to trigger a significant upsurge in pro-inflammatory cytokines, activation of astroglial Cannabinoid Type 1 Receptors (CB1Rs), elicits a potent anti-inflammatory response in the brain. Both brainstem AT1Rs and CB1Rs have also been reported to alter cardiovascular parameters in SHRs. Evidence of crosstalk between CB1Rs and AT1Rs has also emerged, further highlighting a need to understand their signaling interaction in cardiovascular diseases. APPROACH: The purpose of this study was twofoldfirst, to investigate the downstream consequences of AT1R and CB1R activation in astrocytes under early hypertensive and normotensive conditions, and second, to explore potential crosstalk mechanisms between the two receptors. The proposed studies were carried out in brainstem and cerebellar
Trend of Operating Efficiency in Korean Construction Firms, 2002-2013

We examine how the operating efficiency of the Korean construction firms has been changed over the period 2002-2013. We apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate efficiency scores for Korean construction firms. The means of the aggregate, technical, and scale efficiency are 0.76, 0.854 and 0.892, respectively, suggesting that there exists a significant level of inefficiency and still room for improvement. Trend analysis indicates that the efficiency scores for the Korean construction firms have declined over time since 2004.
Blood pressure in Canadian children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND Because blood pressure (BP) tracks from childhood to adulthood, assessing levels in youth is relevant. There are no recent BP data for Canadian children and adolescents, and past studies have used a variety of design and measurement devices. DATA AND METHODS With a clinically validated oscillometric device, resting BP was measured in 2,079 respondents aged 6 to 19 years from the Canadian Health Measures Survey. The average of the last five of six BP measures taken one minute apart at a single visit was used in this report. Borderline or elevated BP was defined as greater than or equal to the 90th percentile of US reference values for participants aged 6 to 17 years. Borderline or elevated BP for 18- to 19-year-olds was defined as equal to or greater than 120 systolic BP or equal to or greater than 80 diastolic BP. Participants of any age who reported taking antihypertensive medication in the past month were also defined as having elevated BP. RESULTS At ages 6 to 11 years, mean (standard error) systolic/diastolic blood pressure was 93(0)/61(1) in boys and 93(0)/60(0) mmHg in girls, and at ages 12 to 19 years, 101(1)/63(1) and 98(1)/63(1) mmHg, respectively. An estimated 2.1% (95% confidence interval 1.3% to 3.0%) of Canadian children and youth had borderline levels; 0.8% (0.4% to 1.4%) had elevated BP. INTERPRETATION Despite the prevalence of obesity among young people, BP levels were lower than reported in provincial samples, which may, in part, reflect differences in methodologies and measurement instruments.
Estimation of Relative Self-Localization Based On Natural Landmark and an Improved SURF

It is important for an autonomous mobile robot to know where it is in any time in an indoor environment. In this paper, we design a relative self-localization algorithm. The algorithm compare the interest point in two images and compute the relative displacement and orientation to determent the posture. Firstly, we use the SURF algorithm to extract the interest points of the ceiling. Second, in order to reduce amount of calculation, a replacement SURF is used to extract orientation and description of the interest points. At last, according to the transformation of the interest points in two images, the relative self-localization of the mobile robot will be estimated greatly. Keywords—Relative Self-Localization Posture, SURF, Natural Landmark, Interest Point.
EEG-based biomarkers on working memory tasks for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative syndrome affecting millions of people worldwide. Also, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are in a group of risk that should be followed and treated since there is a high probability of evolution to AD. In this study we carried out an Event-Related Potential (ERP) analysis on patient and control groups from 32-channel EEG recorded during N-back working memory (WM) tasks with the aim of finding an ERP-based biomarker for early diagnosis of both AD and MCI. Participants were 15 AD patients, 20 individuals diagnosed with MCI and 26 age-matched healthy elderly (HE) controls. Subjects underwent a three-level visual N-back task with ascending memory load difficulty. Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis tests with cluster correction and 5% significance level were used for statistical analysis. A considerable amount of significant differences between patient and control groups were found in the ERP during execution of the WM tasks, predominantly in fronto-centro-parietal electrodes. Such results are promising in the direction of achieving an early EEG-based diagnosis of MCI and AD.
Chronotype and sex effects on sleep architecture and quantitative sleep EEG in healthy young adults.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To evaluate the influence of chronotype (morning types and evening types) on sleep stages and quantitative sleep electroencephalograms when constraints on the sleep schedule are minimal and when sex difference is taken into account. DESIGN A 48-hour session in the laboratory, including 2 nights of polysomnography, preceded by 7 days of ambulatory actigraphy. SETTING Chronobiology laboratory. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-four healthy young subjects: 12 morning types and 12 evening types selected by questionnaire. Each group included 6 men and 6 women. INTERVENTIONS None. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS A polysomnography night of 8 hours in duration was recorded according to preferred sleep schedule. Sleep-stage analysis revealed that morning types and evening types did not differ in sleep architecture. However, morning-type men showed a higher percentage of stage 1 sleep and lower sleep efficiency than evening-type men. Electroencephalogram spectral analysis was conducted in non-rapid eye movement sleep for 6 frequency bands. Morning types had more spectral power in low sigma (12-14 Hz) compared with evening types. The most robust difference between women and men was found in high sigma (14-16 Hz) and was not present between chronotypes. The decay rate of slow-wave activity (1-5 Hz) tended to be faster in morning types compared with evening types (P = .06). This rate was almost identical for women and men. CONCLUSIONS These results agree with the hypothesis that homeostatic sleep regulation differs between morning types and evening types, with morning types showing indications of a higher rate of dissipation of sleep pressure during the night. Morningness-eveningness seems to affect sleep in a sex-specific manner, with men being more affected by their chronotype.
BIODISTRIBUTION AND AUTORADIOGRAPHIC LOCALIZATION OF I‐125-LABELED SYNTHETIC PEPTIDE IN AORTIC ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN CHOLESTEROL‐FED RABBITS

I-125-labeled SP4 is a synthetic oligopeptide derived from apolipoprotein B of low-density lipoprotein that has been shown to localize in atherosclerotic plaques in experimental animals. However, its biodistribution and mechanism of localization need to be further elucidated. Twenty-four cholesterol-fed (CF) and 20 normal (NL) New Zealand White rabbits were injected with I-125-SP4 and killed 15 to 30 min (6 NL; 6 CF) or 2 h (14 NL; 18 CF) later. We obtained aortic autoradiograms and activity concentrations (% injected dose/gin) in aortic segments and other tissues. The uptake of I-125-SP4 was higher in CF than in NL rabbits in all aortic segments (p < 0.05). I-125-SP4 was cleared rapidly in both CF and NL rabbits with 60 to 70% of the injected dose cleared from the blood by 1 h. No statistically significant differences in radiotracer biodistribution were observed between NL and CF rabbits although activity tended to be higher in the liver, gallbladder, and intestine in NL rabbits and in the kidney and spleen in CF rabbits. Silver grains were distributed mainly on foam cells of the fatty streaks in aortic microautoradiograms from two additional rabbits that had been injected with I-125-SP4. There were 23,518 ± 15,878 (SD) grains/mm2 in fatty plaques but only 14,669 ± 11,035 grains/mm2 in media muscle (p< 0.0001 [9 sections, 17 areas evaluated] in an atherosclerotic animal) in injected animals and 13,439 ± 5,565 grains/mm2 in media muscle (two sections, four areas) in the normal control animals (NS versus media of atherosclerotic animal). I-125-SP4 specifically localizes in aortic atherosclerotic plaques in CF rabbits. There is no significant difference in tissue distribution between normal and CF rabbits except in the aorta. Preliminarily, it appears that the site of tracer uptake is on foam cells and this suggests the possibility of relative specificity for fatty plaque.
Systematic assessment of duration and intensity of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation on primary motor cortex excitability

Since the initial demonstration of linear effects of stimulation duration and intensity on the strength of after‐effects associated with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), few studies have systematically assessed how varying these parameters modulates corticospinal excitability. Therefore, the objective of this study was to systematically evaluate the effects of anodal tDCS on corticospinal excitability at two stimulation intensities (1 mA, 2 mA) and durations (10 min, 20 min), and determine the value of several variables in predicting response. Two groups of 20 individuals received, in two separate sessions, 1 and 2 mA anodal tDCS (left primary motor cortex (M1)‐right supra‐orbital montage) for either 10‐ or 20‐min. Transcranial magnetic stimulation was delivered over left M1 and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) of the contralateral hand were recorded prior to tDCS and every 5 min for 20‐min post‐tDCS. The following predictive variables were evaluated: I‐wave recruitment, stimulation intensity, baseline M1 excitability and inter‐trial MEP variability. Results show that anodal tDCS failed to significantly modulate corticospinal excitability in all conditions. Furthermore, low response rates were identified across all parameter combinations. No baseline measure was significantly correlated with increases in MEP amplitude. However, a decrease in inter‐trial MEP variability was linked to response to anodal tDCS. In conclusion, the present findings are consistent with recent reports showing high levels of inter‐subject variability in the neurophysiological response to tDCS, which may partly explain inconsistent group results. Furthermore, the level of variability in the neurophysiological outcome measure, i.e. MEPs, appears to be related to response.
IDPC Briefing Paper - Policy Responses to Drug Issues in Malaysia

The development of drug policies in Malaysia has historically relied on harsh punitive measures, including widespread arrest and incarceration of users, and the continuing use of the death penalty for trafficking offences. However, since 2005, the introduction of harm reduction services as well as the more recent initiation of a process to transform compulsory drug treatment centres into voluntary needs-based services for people who use drugs indicates that Malaysia’s response to drug-related issues has become increasingly health focused. This paper provides an insight into Malaysian drug policies and the environment in which the national response to drugs has been developing in terms of harm reduction, prisons, drug treatment, law enforcement responses and civil society participation. An analysis of the situation concludes with recommendations for further drug policy development.
Connection of off-shore wind power plants to VSC-MTdc networks using HVdc diode-rectifiers

This paper introduces the use of a diode based HVdc rectifier for the connection of a large off-shore wind power plants (WPP) to an existing multiterminal VSC-HVdc grid. Wind turbines with fully rated converters are used to control the offshore ac-grid voltage and frequency and the power delivered by the WPP. Moreover, the proposed topology allows for black-start operation of the off-shore WPP and exhibits a good response against perturbations such as off-shore faults. The technical feasibility of the proposed topology has been validated by means of detailed PSCAD simulations, assuming a WPP consisting on five aggregated wind turbines of different ratings to evaluate the distributed nature of the control strategy.
Winograd Schema - Knowledge Extraction Using Narrative Chains

The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC) is a test of machine intelligence, designed to be an improvement on the Turing test. A Winograd Schema consists of a sentence and a corresponding question. To successfully answer these questions, one requires the use of commonsense knowledge and reasoning. This work focuses on extracting common sense knowledge which can be used to generate answers for the Winograd schema challenge. Common sense knowledge is extracted based on events (or actions) and their participants; called Event-Based Conditional Commonsense (ECC). I propose an approach using Narrative Event Chains [Chambers et al., 2008] to extract ECC knowledge. These are stored in templates, to be later used for answering the WSC questions. This approach works well with respect to a subset of WSC tasks.
Evaluation of Subjective and Objective Aspects of Russian Students' Well-Being

We conducted an online research using a questionnaire and a case study in order to reveal how objective aspects, such as income, consumer assets, positive and negative events, correspond to self-reported subjective well-being of Tomsk students. The result of the study is that non-economic aspects (family and health) are more valuable for respondents. Most of them underestimate their health status and do not see any gains in getting useless good available for free.
Fairness and the Future of the Sector

The community and welfare sector is playing an important role in helping to create change in the communities and it also helps in promoting a heightened sense of community and social awareness to the welfare of Australian society. This sector's capacity to secure a fairer Australia depends on its capacity to shape its own future and articulating its distinctive value to the wider Australian community and drawing support from the community.
The effect of the World Kidney Day campaign on the awareness of chronic kidney disease and the status of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and renal progression.

BACKGROUND Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a worldwide problem. We describe the trends in CKD awareness before and after the World Kidney Day (WKD) campaign and the impact of the WKD campaign in increasing awareness and appropriate management of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and renal progression. METHODS We selected 57 718 people who had undergone a routine health check-up. RESULTS The average CKD awareness was 3.1% (95% CI: 2.6-3.7%) and was increased with progressing CKD stage. The awareness was increased from 1.1% before the WKD campaign to 5.8% after the campaign (P < 0.001). CKD awareness in the post-WKD period was increased in CKD stages 2 (OR 4.535: 95% CI: 2.044-10.062) and 3 (OR 6.614: 95% CI: 4.282-10.217) and profoundly increased in stage 4 (OR 13.800: 95% CI: 2.127-89.524), compared to the pre-WKD period. In the CKD-aware group compared to the CKD-unaware group, the awareness of diabetes mellitus (90.0% versus 54.2%, P < 0.001) and hypertension (87.2% versus 64.7%, P < 0.001) was higher and the levels of systolic blood pressure (116.9 +/- 1.0 versus 120.1 +/- 0.2, P < 0.01) and serum cholesterol (198.3 +/- 2.7 versus 205.0 +/- 0.5, P < 0.05) were lower by covariance analysis. CONCLUSIONS The WKD campaign had a positive impact on the awareness and control of risk factors in CKD subjects but the absolute frequency of CKD awareness still remains undesirable in Korea. We need new campaign strategies to publicize the importance of early diagnosis and appropriate management of CKD.
Assignment of two mitochondrially synthesized polypeptides to human mitochondrial DNA and their use in the study of intracellular mitochondrial interaction

Two mitochondrially synthesized marker polypeptides, MV-1 and MV-2, were found in human HeLa and HT1080 cells. These were assigned to the mitochondrial DNA in HeLa-HT1080 cybrids and hybrids by demonstrating their linkage to cytoplasmic genetic markers. These markers include mitochondrial DNA restriction site polymorphisms and resistance to chloramphenicol, an inhibitor of mitochondrial protein synthesis. In the absence of chloramphenicol, the expression of MV-1 and MV-2 in cybrids and hybrids was found to be directly proportional to the ratio of the parental mitochondrial DNAs. In the presence of chloramphenicol, the marker polypeptide linked to the chloramphenicol-sensitive mitochondrial DNA continued to be expressed. This demonstrated that resistant and sensitive mitochondrial DNAs can cooperate within a cell for gene expression and that the CAP-resistant allele was dominant or codominant to sensitive. Such cooperation suggests that mitochondrial DNAs can be exchanged between mitochondria.
Effect of Dispersive Conductivity and Permittivity in Volume Conductor Models of Deep Brain Stimulation

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of dispersive tissue properties on the volume-conducted voltage waveforms and volume of tissue activated during deep brain stimulation. Inhomogeneous finite-element models were developed, incorporating a distributed dispersive electrode-tissue interface and encapsulation tissue of high and low conductivity, under both current-controlled and voltage-controlled stimulation. The models were used to assess the accuracy of capacitive models, where material properties were estimated at a single frequency, with respect to the full dispersive models. The effect of incorporating dispersion in the electrical conductivity and relative permittivity was found to depend on both the applied stimulus and the encapsulation tissue surrounding the electrode. Under current-controlled stimulation, and during voltage-controlled stimulation when the electrode was surrounded by high-resistivity encapsulation tissue, the dispersive material properties of the tissue were found to influence the voltage waveform in the tissue, indicated by RMS errors between the capacitive and dispersive models of 20%-38% at short pulse durations. When the dispersive model was approximated by a capacitive model, the accuracy of estimates of the volume of tissue activated was very sensitive to the frequency at which material properties were estimated. When material properties at 1 kHz were used, the error in the volume of tissue activated by capacitive approximations was reduced to -4.33% and 11.10%, respectively, for current-controlled and voltage-controlled stimulations, with higher errors observed when higher or lower frequencies were used.
Current control of single-phase inverter for wind turbine applications

This paper presents a wind turbine system operating in grid-connected mode. Grid connection of small permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) based wind turbines requires a power conditioning system comprising a bridge rectifier, a dc-dc converter and a grid-tied inverter. The control structure, based on a current controller and a synchronization algorithm are implemented in the grid-tied inverter. The goals of this paper are to implement a control technique for the grid side inverter including a LC filter and a harmonic compensation technique. An evaluation in terms of current harmonic distortion when running in steady state condition is made. Simulation results present the evolution of analyzed current controller, concerning the quality of the delivered energy.
One-Bit SAR Imaging Based on Single-Frequency Thresholds

This paper addresses a novel SAR imaging scheme based on 1-bit sampling assisted with a single-frequency threshold. The 1-bit sampling approach is able to considerably reduce the quantization cost. However, when the sampling technique simplifies the SAR system by reducing the word length of each sample to only 1 bit, amplitude information of the SAR echo is lost and high-order harmonics are introduced, degrading the SAR imaging quality. The strategy of single-frequency threshold is able to linearly maintain the amplitude information and shifts the spectra of the harmonics away from the imaging component caused by the intermodulation. Hence, the imaging quality using 1-bit sampled data can be guaranteed. By selecting different SAR parameter groups according to a comprehensive consideration on spectrum aliasing, filter mismatching, and radio frequency interfering, a good tradeoff can be achieved between imaging quality and system simplification. Examples of ideal scatterers and a real measured scene are provided for quantitative analysis. Real measured RADARSAT-1 data are also imaged using the proposed scheme to validate its effectiveness.
Specific NF-kappa B subunits act in concert with Tat to stimulate human immunodeficiency virus type 1 transcription

NF-kappa B is a protein complex which functions in concert with the tat-I gene product to stimulate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transcription. To determine whether specific members of the NF-kappa B family contribute to this effect, we have examined the abilities of different NF-kappa B subunits to act with Tat-I to stimulate transcription of HIV in Jurkat T-leukemia cells. We have found that the p49(100) DNA binding subunit, together with p65, can act in concert with Tat-I to stimulate the expression of HIV-CAT plasmid. Little effect was observed with 50-kDa forms of p105 NF-kappa B or rel, in combination with p65 or full-length c-rel, which do not stimulate the HIV enhancer in these cells. These findings suggest that the combination of p49(100) and p65 NF-kappa B can act in concert with the tat-I gene product to stimulate the synthesis of HIV RNA.
Use of VectorAutoregressive Model toAnalyze the Stock Market Behavior in Indonesia

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the stock index stock market index of the world, namely the DJI index, the FTSE 100 index, the Hang Seng, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng index . The method of analysis used in this study were Multivariate Time Series, in particular the Vector Autoregression ( VAR). Besides research, whether there is a case of outliers in the data. To detect outliers performed multivariate analysis using Mahalanobis Distance. This study uses monthly data from the years 2001 - 2011 for each study variable. The results of this study using T 2 shown Oulier no data, so that the VAR modeling is done and it can