Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antiproliferative and Antioxidant Effects of Withania coagulans Extract on Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia in Rats

Background: Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is a common urological disorder in elderly men. Phytotherapy is frequently used to alleviate the symptoms of this condition. Objectives: The present study investigated the effect of Withania coagulans extract (WCE), which is known to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycemic, and anti-cancer properties, on testosterone-induced BPH in rats. Materials and Methods: Forty Wistar rats were divided into five groups (each n = 8): the control group, the untreated BPH group, and three WCE-treated groups (WCE250, 500, and 1000). BPH was induced with 3 mg/kg subcutaneous injections of testosterone propionate for four weeks. WCE was concomitantly administrated by oral gavage. At the end of the induction schedule, the animals were sacrificed and their prostate glands were dissected, weighed, and fixed for histological examination (H&E and proliferating cell nuclear antigen [PCNA] staining). Half of each sample was prepared for measurement of malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) levels in the prostate. Results: The present study revealed that BPH caused elevation of MDA levels, suppression of TAC levels, and increased PCNA expression in the prostate gland. Interestingly, in a dose-dependent manner, WCE caused decreased MDA levels and increased TAC levels in the prostate gland, compared to the untreated BPH group. Histopathological examinations showed a reduction in PCNA expression in the prostate epithelium of the WCE animals. Conclusions: W. coagulans inhibits the development of BPH can be useful for the treatment of this condition.
On the preconditioning of the symmetric formulation for the EEG forward problem by leveraging on calderon formulas

Among Boundary Element Methods (BEMs) for solving the Electroencephalography (EEG) forward problem, the symmetric formulation is one of the most accurate and widely adopted ones. However, differently from less precise standard BEM formulations, such as the double layer potential and its adjoint, the symmetric formulation is first kind in nature. This results in practice in a condition number of the associated linear system that grows when the average mesh size decreases (as it happens in the case of highly detailed models). This work solves this drawback by proposing a novel preconditioning strategy that leverages on Calderon formulas. The preconditioned equation can be easily integrated into an existing EEG symmetric implementations, it shows conditioning properties that are (theoretically provably) independent of the discretization, and in practice orders of magnitude better than the unpreconditioned symmetric formulation.
NK Cell Receptor/H2-Dk–Dependent Host Resistance to Viral Infection Is Quantitatively Modulated by H2 q Inhibitory Signals

The cytomegalovirus resistance locus Cmv3 has been linked to an epistatic interaction between two loci: a Natural Killer (NK) cell receptor gene and the major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) locus. To demonstrate the interaction between Cmv3 and H2k, we generated double congenic mice between MA/My and BALB.K mice and an F2 cross between FVB/N (H-2q) and BALB.K (H2k) mice, two strains susceptible to mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV). Only mice expressing H2k in conjunction with Cmv3MA/My or Cmv3FVB were resistant to MCMV infection. Subsequently, an F3 cross was carried out between transgenic FVB/H2-Dk and MHC-I deficient mice in which only the progeny expressing Cmv3FVB and a single H2-Dk class-I molecule completely controlled MCMV viral loads. This phenotype was shown to be NK cell–dependent and associated with subsequent NK cell proliferation. Finally, we demonstrated that a number of H2q alleles influence the expression level of H2q molecules, but not intrinsic functional properties of NK cells; viral loads, however, were quantitatively proportional to the number of H2q alleles. Our results support a model in which H-2q molecules convey Ly49-dependent inhibitory signals that interfere with the action of H2-Dk on NK cell activation against MCMV infection. Thus, the integration of activating and inhibitory signals emanating from various MHC-I/NK cell receptor interactions regulates NK cell–mediated control of viral load.
Prevention of upper aerodigestive tract cancer in zinc‐deficient rodents: Inefficacy of genetic or pharmacological disruption of COX‐2

Zinc deficiency in humans is associated with an increased risk of upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) cancer. In rodents, zinc deficiency predisposes to carcinogenesis by causing proliferation and alterations in gene expression. We examined whether in zinc‐deficient rodents, targeted disruption of the cyclooxygenase (COX)‐2 pathway by the COX‐2 selective inhibitor celecoxib or by genetic deletion prevent UADT carcinogenesis. Tongue cancer prevention studies were conducted in zinc‐deficient rats previously exposed to a tongue carcinogen by celecoxib treatment with or without zinc replenishment, or by zinc replenishment alone. The ability of genetic COX‐2 deletion to protect against chemically‐induced forestomach tumorigenesis was examined in mice on zinc‐deficient versus zinc‐sufficient diet. The expression of 3 predictive biomarkers COX‐2, nuclear factor (NF)‐κ B p65 and leukotriene A4 hydrolase (LTA4H) was examined by immunohistochemistry. In zinc‐deficient rats, celecoxib without zinc replenishment reduced lingual tumor multiplicity but not progression to malignancy. Celecoxib with zinc replenishment or zinc replenishment alone significantly lowered lingual squamous cell carcinoma incidence, as well as tumor multiplicity. Celecoxib alone reduced overexpression of the 3 biomarkers in tumors slightly, compared with intervention with zinc replenishment. Instead of being protected, zinc‐deficient COX‐2 null mice developed significantly greater tumor multiplicity and forestomach carcinoma incidence than wild‐type controls. Additionally, zinc‐deficient COX‐2−/− forestomachs displayed strong LTA4H immunostaining, indicating activation of an alternative pathway under zinc deficiency when the COX‐2 pathway is blocked. Thus, targeting only the COX‐2 pathway in zinc‐deficient animals did not prevent UADT carcinogenesis. Our data suggest zinc supplementation should be more thoroughly explored in human prevention clinical trials for UADT cancer. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstrusting the Talk- Generating Machinery in Natural Convresation

The study entitled. “Language and Interactional Discourse: Deconstructing the Talk - Generating Machinery in Natural Conversation,” is an analysis of spontaneous and informal conversation. The study, carried out in the theoretical and methodological tradition of Ethnomethodology, was aimed at explicating how ordinary talk is organized and produced, how people coordinate their talk –in- interaction, how meanings are determined, and the role of talk in the wider social processes. The study followed the basic assumption of conversation analysis which is, that talk is not just a product of two ‘speakers - hearers’ who attempt to exchange information or convey messages to each other. Rather, participants in conversation are seen to be mutually orienting to, and collaborating in order to achieve orderly and meaningful communication. The analytic objective is therefore to make clear these procedures on which speakers rely to produce utterances and by which they make sense of other speakers’ talk. The datum used for this study was a recorded informal conversation between two (and later three) middle- class civil servants who are friends. The recording was done in such a way that the participants were not aware that they were being recorded. The recording was later transcribed in a way that we believe is faithful to the spontaneity and informality of the talk. Our finding showed that conversation has its own features and is an ordered and structured social day by- day event. Specifically, utterances are designed and informed by organized procedures, methods and resources which are tied to the contexts in which they are produced, and which participants are privy to by virtue of their membership of a culture or a natural language community. Keywords: Language, Discourse and Conversation
Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury: Mechanisms and Future Therapeutic Interventions

Maria A. Hegeman1,2, Marcus J. Schultz1,2, Adrianus J. van Vught3 and Cobi J. Heijnen4 1Laboratory of Experimental Intensive Care and Anesthesiology (LEICA), 2Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, 3Department of Pediatric Intensive Care, 4Laboratory of Neuroimmunology and Developmental Origins of Disease (NIDOD), University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Unique digitized activity signature for human authentication

In the fast evolving world, technology has taken a vast leap towards activity recognition. With the advancement in the use of smartphones, having inbuilt sensors, activity recognition process has become easier. People nowadays have minimal time to spare on any particular exertion. In such a scenario squandering time in giving signatures is an onerous and yet requisite task. In this paper, we propose an unique approach to the authentication process namely, ‘Digitized Activity Authentication’ which is not only time-saving but also highly secured. The system which we propose comprises of a smartphone which stores the data received from the sensors. It sends this data to the concerned organizations server. The server creates an unique map for each user from the received dataset. During the time of authentication, the server then asks the users app to provide the unique key which it then matches with the unique map which it had already created. It the match is successful then the authentication is done. This proposes system is very efficient as there is no chances of scam in any authentication process as the user itself is the signature.
Multiple Functionalities of Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Films: New Biomedical Applications

The design of advanced functional materials with nanometer‐ and micrometer‐scale control over their properties is of considerable interest for both fundamental and applied studies because of the many potential applications for these materials in the fields of biomedical materials, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. The layer‐by‐layer deposition technique introduced in the early 1990s by Decher, Moehwald, and Lvov is a versatile technique, which has attracted an increasing number of researchers in recent years due to its wide range of advantages for biomedical applications: ease of preparation under “mild” conditions compatible with physiological media, capability of incorporating bioactive molecules, extra‐cellular matrix components and biopolymers in the films, tunable mechanical properties, and spatio‐temporal control over film organization. The last few years have seen a significant increase in reports exploring the possibilities offered by diffusing molecules into films to control their internal structures or design “reservoirs,” as well as control their mechanical properties. Such properties, associated with the chemical properties of films, are particularly important for designing biomedical devices that contain bioactive molecules. In this review, we highlight recent work on designing and controlling film properties at the nanometer and micrometer scales with a view to developing new biomaterial coatings, tissue engineered constructs that could mimic in vivo cellular microenvironments, and stem cell “niches. ”
Using Gaussians Functions to Determine Representative Clustering Prototypes

Clustering is a process for grouping a set of objects into classes or clusters so that the objects within a cluster have high similarity, but are very dissimilar to objects in other clusters. Choosing cluster centers is crucial during clustering process. In this paper, we propose an improved fuzzy clustering approach, named FGWC (fuzzy Gaussian weights clustering). We compared FGWC with an enhanced fuzzy C-means (EFCM) clustering approach that we already presented. The EFCM determines automatically the number of clusters which is a user-defined parameter for FCM, and uses the fuzzy weights to compute cluster prototypes, but does nor take into account the distribution of the clusters. FGWC uses Gaussian functions for determining clustering prototypes. The generated cluster centers are more representative and accurate with FGWC than with EFCM
Structural Basis for the Static Mechanical Properties of the Aortic Media

The arrangement and interrelation of the structural components of the rabbit aorta were studied by light and electron microscopy. Segments of abdominal aorta were restored to in vivo length and fixed in formalin or osmic acid while intraluminal pressures ranging from 0 to 200 mm Hg were maintained by a constant pressure perfusion apparatus. Transverse, longitudinal, and tangential sections of vessels fixed at various distending pressures were examined. Micrometric measurements included vessel diameters and wall thickness, thickness and waviness of elastin lamellae and interlamellar distances. With increasing pressures below the diastolic value, aortic radius increased and wall thickness decreased rapidly. Waviness of the tubular elastin lamellae decreased uniformly throughout the wall. Interlamellar distances decreased uniformly and markedly. Lamellar thicknesses decreased uniformly but much less than interlamellar distances. A fine fibrillary elastin network connected the thick lamellae. Collagen fibers showed no definite pattern of orientation. At and above diastolic pressure radius and wall thickness changed little with increasing pressures. Elastin lamellae were straight and interlamellar distances were uniform; the fibrils of the interlamellar elastin net were arranged obliquely. Collagen fibers were arranged nearly circumferentially. Collagen and elastin fibers were closely intermingled in the narrow interlamellar space but no collagen-elastin connections were obserevd. The mechanical properties and organization of the collagen and elastin components of the aortic media indicate that the wall normally functions as a “two-phase” material. At and above physiological pressures, circumferentially aligned collagen fibers of high tensile strength and relatively high modulus of elasticity bear most of the stressing force. Elastin lamellae and fibrils of relatively low modulus of elasticity distribute stressing forces uniformly. Attempts to assess the role of medial pressure and tension gradients in the pathogenesis of aortic disease must take into account the special mechanical properties of this “two-phase” material.
Sub-method structural and behavioral reflection

Computational reflection is a fundamental mechanism in object oriented languages. Reflection has proved useful in many contexts, such as in the design of development environments, language extension, and the dynamic, unanticipated adaptation of running systems We identify three problems with the current approach to reflection in object oriented languages: partial behavioral reflection needs to be anticipated, structural reflection is limited to the granularity of a method, and behavioral reflection cannot be applied to the whole system. To address these problems, we extend structural reflection to cover sub-method elements and present how sub-method structural reflection supports unanticipated partial behavioral reflection. We add the concept of context to represent meta-level execution and show how this allows behavioral reflection to be applied even to system classes. We describe an implementation in Smalltalk. Benchmarks validate the practicability of our approach. In addition, we present an experimental evaluation in which we show how the system is used for dynamic analysis. We realize dynamic feature analysis by annotating the sub-method structure of the system directly to denote features instead of recording full execution traces.
Efficient Approximate Bayesian Computation Coupled With Markov Chain Monte Carlo Without Likelihood

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) techniques permit inferences in complex demographic models, but are computationally inefficient. A Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach has been proposed (Marjoram et al. 2003), but it suffers from computational problems and poor mixing. We propose several methodological developments to overcome the shortcomings of this MCMC approach and hence realize substantial computational advances over standard ABC. The principal idea is to relax the tolerance within MCMC to permit good mixing, but retain a good approximation to the posterior by a combination of subsampling the output and regression adjustment. We also propose to use a partial least-squares (PLS) transformation to choose informative statistics. The accuracy of our approach is examined in the case of the divergence of two populations with and without migration. In that case, our ABC–MCMC approach needs considerably lower computation time to reach the same accuracy than conventional ABC. We then apply our method to a more complex case with the estimation of divergence times and migration rates between three African populations.
The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally

Although under attack from some goal-oriented politicians and parents and often considered superfluous by school administrators and teachers, free play remains vital to human health and creativity. Contrary to the notion that play should serve utilitarian ends or consist primarily of organized sports, the author makes a case for self-initiated physical play free of educational toys, computer games, and television, especially early in childhood but also throughout young life. Combining ideas from Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget, the author views play as one of three necessary elements of a full life, the others being work and love. Language: en
Genetic Analysis of Functions Involved in Adhesion of Pseudomonas putida to Seeds

ABSTRACT Many agricultural uses of bacteria require the establishment of efficient bacterial populations in the rhizosphere, for which colonization of plant seeds often constitutes a critical first step.Pseudomonas putida KT2440 is a strain that colonizes the rhizosphere of a number of agronomically important plants at high population densities. To identify the functions involved in initial seed colonization by P. putida KT2440, we subjected this strain to transposon mutagenesis and screened for mutants defective in attachment to corn seeds. Eight different mutants were isolated and characterized. While all of them showed reduced attachment to seeds, only two had strong defects in their adhesion to abiotic surfaces (glass and different plastics). Sequences of the loci affected in all eight mutants were obtained. None of the isolated genes had previously been described in P. putida, although four of them showed clear similarities with genes of known functions in other organisms. They corresponded to putative surface and membrane proteins, including a calcium-binding protein, a hemolysin, a peptide transporter, and a potential multidrug efflux pump. One other showed limited similarities with surface proteins, while the remaining three presented no obvious similarities with known genes, indicating that this study has disclosed novel functions.
Development and Psychometric Validation of the State-Trait Spirituality Inventory

The present study contributes to the widening body of spirituality research by conceptualizing it as a state-trait construct. A new measure of spirituality, the State-Trait Spirituality Inventory (STSI), was created and validated according to psychometric methods of test construction. In its current form, the STSI contains seven state spirituality items and six trait spirituality items. A thorough review of the literature identified common themes in spirituality definitions and assisted in developing definitions of trait and state spirituality. Internal consistency for the trait scale was . 88 and for the state scale, . 68. Good test-retest reliability was found with coefficients of . 84 for trait spirituality and . 81 for state spirituality. Results from a preliminary undergraduate sample as well as from the validation sample yielded a two-factor solution. In general, items determined by expert panels as trait items loaded on one factor and items deemed to be state items loaded on the second factor. Multitrait multimethod analysis yielded mixed findings for convergent, divergent, and concurrent validity for the spirituality and religiosity traits. Methods consisted of paper-and-pencil cognitive and behavioral measures. Cognitive measures were more likely to support convergent/divergent validity than were behavioral measures. A major emphasis in the study was to determine whether state and/or trait spirituality were able to predict current health status and provide evidence for predictive validity. Positive relationships were identified between trait spirituality and the mental health measures of the Short Form-36® (SF-36). In contrast, it was negatively related to the Role-Physical scale. State spirituality was inversely related to the Physical Component scale. These findings are discussed within the context of minimal research using the SF-36 and spirituality measures. The MTMM analysis was limited by available spirituality and religiosity measures that contain only cognitive or behavioral items. Suggestions for future research are offered.
Secure Distance Bounding Protocol on TH-UWB

Due to the nature of the shared radio channel, wireless communication suffers from different available attacks. To remind against these attacks, distance bounding protocols are the most popular counter measures. In this paper, we proposed a novel protocol based on distance bounding to thread the most popular attacks: Distance Fraud, Mafia Fraud and Terrorist fraud. In our work, we study the way to adapt the secure distance bounding protocols to time-hopping ultra-wideband (TH-UWB) radios. To ameliorate the performances of the proposed protocol in terms of communication security in ultra- wideband (TH-UWB) radios, we combine the modified protocol to ultra- wideband impulse radio technology (IR-UWB). The security and the different merits of the proposed protocols are analyzed.
On readings, literariness and schema theory: A reply to Jeffries

I am grateful for this opportunity to reply to Lesley Jeffries’ article in this issue, ‘Schema affirmation and white asparagus: cultural multilingualism among readers of texts’. I hope that this response, although critical of Jeffries’ article in many respects, shows that this is a debate between people who share many assumptions about the role of language in textual understanding and who are engaged in the same enterprise: that of producing ever better accounts of how interpretations are arrived at in the interaction between texts and minds. One the whole, I agree with Jeffries that the phenomena she talks about should be part of the agenda for further research in text analysis, and in the modelling and investigation of text processing. I also agree that progress in this area will involve the adoption of more refined theories of the organization and use of background knowledge than the version of schema theory I used in Part 3 of Semino (1997). However, progress depends on a fair assessment of what has been achieved in the past. In this respect, I will argue that the usefulness of Jeffries’ suggestions and insights is undermined by fundamental problems in her critique of Cook (1994) and, particularly, Semino (1997). As well as pointing out that Jeffries has misrepresented some important aspects of my work, I will suggest a partly different account of her responses to the two poems, and discuss some of the implications of Jeffries’ article for schema theory and for work in cognitive text analysis generally. Although I will often refer to Cook (1994) as well as to my own work, I should make clear that I am writing this reply on my behalf only.