Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical Composition and Biological Activity of Pulicaria vulgaris Essential Oil from Iran

The present study investigated the chemical composition of the essential oil (EO) from aerial parts (flowering stage) of Pulicaria vulgaris Gaertn. by GC–MS. Also, the antimicrobial activity of the EO against Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus), Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and fungi (Aspergillus niger and Candida albicans) was tested. In total, 23 compounds were recognized, accounting for 98.08 % of the EO. The main compounds in the EO were thymol (50.22%), p-menth-6-en-2-one (carvotanacetone, 20.2%), thymol isobutyrate (16.88%), menthan-2-one (4.31%), 1-methyl-1,2-propanedione (4.13%), 2,5-dimethoxy-p-cymene (4.01%), myrtenol (1.22%), linalool (1.1%), and β-myrcene (1.9%). Results of antibacterial test of P. vulgaris essential oil showed that all assayed concentrations significantly inhibited the growth of B. cereus, S. aureus, E. coli, and P. aeruginosa at P < 0.05. MIC for B. cereus, S. aureus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa was 17.5, 25.2, 19.4 and 33.2 μg/mL respectively; antifungal screening of the essential oil of P. vulgaris showed that the oil significantly inhibited the growth of A. niger and C. albicans (MIC = 15.5 and 9.9 μg/mL, respectively). Results of cytotoxicity assay showed that the essential oil exhibited a significant cytotoxic activity against both cell lines. In case of MCF-7 and Hep-G2 cell lines, IC50 of the essential oil were 5.36 and 7.16 μμg/ml, respectively. The potent antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities of the EO may be attributed to its high contents of thymol, carvotanacetone and thymol isobutyrate. Antimicrobial and antitumor chemotherapies are showing diminishing effectiveness because of emergence of drug-resistance. Hence, using efficient natural chemotherapeutic agents such as Pulicaria vulgaris essential oil with fewer side effects is an encouraging approach to fight cancer and infectious diseases in medicine, agriculture, food science and related fields.
Use of unconventional therapies by individuals with multiple sclerosis

Objective: To examine the prevalence and patterns of use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) in the USA and to explore the reasons for use, symptoms treated and perceived effectiveness of these therapies. Methods: Surveys were mailed to the entire mailing list of the MS Foundation, constituting 11 600 individuals with MS or their family members; 3140 adults with MS returned surveys, yielding a response rate of 27.1%. Results: More than half of the responding sample (57.1%) had used at least one CAM modality. The longer that people had MS and the less satisfied they were with conventional health care the more likely they were to use CAM therapies. The most common reasons for using CAMs were the desire to use holistic health care (i.e., treatments that recognized the interrelatedness of mind, body and spirit) and dissatisfaction with conventional medicine. Ingested herbs were the most frequently used CAM modalities (26.6%), followed by chiropractic manipulation (25.5%), massage (23.3%) and acupuncture (19.9%). Women were 25% more likely than men and whites were 30% more likely than non-whites to use CAM therapies. There was no significant relationship between the frequency of use and the reported efficacy of the CAM techniques (r = 0.17, p > 0.10). Conclusions: The prevalence of CAM use in this population warrants more research on the efficacy and safety of these therapies, especially those with high usage or high efficacy ratings, such as herbs, chiropractic manipulation and massage, but for which there is little or no research evidence for efficacy or safety.
Revisão sistemática sobre os efeitos da reabilitação vestibular em adultos de meia-idade e idosos

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the results of clinical trials on vestibular rehabilitation (VR) in middle-aged and elderly people with vestibular disorders. METHODS: A search for relevant trials was performed in the databases LILACS, EMBASE, MEDLINE, SciELO, Cochrane, ISI Web of Knowledge and virtual libraries of theses and dissertations. Randomized controlled trials published in the last 10 years and written in English, Portuguese or Spanish were included. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed by the PEDro scale. Results from the included studies were analyzed through a critical review of content. RESULTS: Nine studies were included in the review. Four studies reported on participants aged over 40 years (middle-aged and elderly) and five studies consisted exclusively of elderly subjects (over 60 years). Findings of vestibular dysfunction were diverse and the most common complaints were body imbalance or postural instability (3 studies), and vertigo or dizziness (3 studies). The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was the most commonly used instrument to assess subjective perception of symptoms of vestibular dysfunction (4 studies). According to the PEDro scale, four studies were considered to be of good quality. The most common experimental intervention was the Cawthorne & Cooksey protocol (4 studies). For most outcome measures, the studies comparing VR with another type of intervention showed no differences between the groups after the therapy. CONCLUSIONS: The studies included in this review provide evidence for the positive effects of VR in elderly and middle-aged adults with vestibular disturbances.
Characterization of Fecal Microbiota of Children With Diarrhea in 2 Locations in Colombia

Objectives: Diarrhea is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children younger than 5 years in impoverished regions of the world. Our aim was to compare the fecal microbiota of healthy children with that of children with clinical diarrhea in a population from a tropical highland in Colombia, South America. Our hypothesis was that a reduced prevalence of inherent Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species would be associated with enteric viral and bacterial pathogens. Methods: Children between 1 and 5 years of age from 2 different locations were evaluated for presence of clinical diarrhea. Nucleic acid, isolated from fecal samples, was used to determine by molecular protocols the abundance of inherent bacterial species and presence of enteric pathogens compared with clinically healthy children. The effect of host demographic factors on incidence of diarrhea was also analyzed. Results: The composition of the fecal microbiota was affected by host demographic factors: age, health status, location, and sex. In partial support of our hypothesis, the relative abundance of commensal Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species was inversely correlated with incidence of diarrhea regardless of location. Conclusions: Our results suggested that changes in fecal microbiota composition of children with clinical diarrhea are associated with certain demographic factors that should be considered before designing a prophylactic intervention. Delivery of certain Lactobacillus species and Bifidobacterium species or a diet rich in bifidogenic components that promote growth of Bifidobacterium species could provide a prophylactic effect to ameliorate the effect of diarrhea in children at risk.
Learning Boolean Functions in an Infinite Atribute Space (Extended Abstract)

This paper presents a theoretical model for learning Boolean functions in domains having a large, potentially infinite number of attributes. The model allows an algorithm to employ a rich vocabulary to describe the objects it encounters in the world without necessarily incurring time and space penalties so long as each individual object is relatively simple. We show that many of the basic Boolean functions learnable in standard theoretical models, such as conjunctions, disjunctions, K-CNF, and K-DNF, are still learnable in the new model, though by algorithms no longer quite so trivial as before. The new model forces algorithms for such classes to act in a manner that appears more natural for many learning scenarios.
A fast distributed optimal routing algorithm for multicommodity large data networks

A a new distributed algorithm is investigated for optimal routing problems of large data network with multicommodities. The existing algorithms for general network topology have parallel time complexity of at least O(M/spl Phi//sup 2/) using all the nodes of the network as processors. Our algorithm takes O(m/spl Phi//sup 2/) time units using the same number of processors if some mild network conditions are met. Here, /spl Phi/ is the diameter of the network; M is the number of commodities; m is a positive number usually much smaller than M and is a function of the pattern of all the OD pairs including the locations of each origin node and destination node, and the flow demand of each OD pair. The implementation of the algorithm for a 200-node network is simulated using OPNET simulation tool and the results show that our algorithm is much faster than the general algorithms. <<ETX>>
Validity of the Running Anaerobic Sprint Test for Assessing Anaerobic Power and Predicting Short-Distance Performances

Zagatto, AM, Beck, WR, and Gobatto, CA. Validity of the running anaerobic sprint test for assessing anaerobic power and predicting short-distance performances. J Strength Cond Res 23(6): 1820-1827, 2009-The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the running anaerobic sprint test (RAST) in anaerobic assessment and predicting short-distance performance. Forty members of the armed forces were recruited for this study (age 19.78 ± 1.18 years; body mass 70.34 ± 8.10 kg; height 1.76 ± 0.53 m; body fat 15.30 ± 5.65 %). The RAST test was applied to six 35-meter maximal running performances with a 10-second recovery between each run; the peak power, mean power, and the fatigue index were measured. The study was divided in two stages. The first stage investigated the reliability of the RAST using a test-retest method; the second stage aimed to evaluate the validity of the RAST comparing the results with the Wingate test and running performances of 35, 50, 100, 200, and 400 m. There were not significant differences between test-retest scores in the first stage of the study (p > 0.05) and were found significant correlations between these variables (intraclass correlation coefficient ≅0.88). The RAST had significant correlations with the Wingate test (peak power r = 0.46; mean power r = 0.53; fatigue index r = 0.63) and 35, 50, 100, 200, and 400 m performances scores (p < 0.05). The advantage of using the RAST for measuring anaerobic power is that it allows for the execution of movements more specific to sporting events that use running as the principal style of locomotion, is easily applied and low cost, and due to its simplicity can easily be incorporated into routine training. We concluded that this procedure is reliable and valid, and can be used to measure running anaerobic power and predict short-distance performances.
Regression-Based Sparse Coding for Facial Point Detection

Facial point detection in real-world conditions presents large variations in shapes and occlusions due to differences in poses, expressions, use of accessories, which may lead to a large difficultly in locating facial points. In this paper, we propose a regression-based sparse coding method for facial point detection. The method combines the regression-based concept with sparse reconstruction methods to search candidate facial feature points. Specifically, during training, the proposed method learns a group of differential shape dictionaries and Facial point detection in real-world conditions presents large variations in shapes and occlusions due to differences in poses, expressions, use of accessories, which may lead to a large difficultly in locating facial points. In this paper, we propose a regression-based sparse coding method for facial point detection. The method combines the regression-based concept with sparse reconstruction methods to search candidate facial feature points. Specifically, during training, the proposed method learns a group of differential shape dictionaries and local appearance dictionaries. Through system analysis, the results show that our approach outperforms the reference method in terms of detection accuracy.
Heuristics and biases − a biased perspective on clinical reasoning

In a recent issue of theBritishMedical Journal, Klein has reviewed several biases in reasoning to which clinicians may fall victim. These biases are not new; all were identified first byTversky andKahneman in a clever series of experiments conducted mainly in the 1970s on ubiquitous samples of psychology undergraduates. Since then, physicians have been shown in numerous studies to be susceptible to the samebiases, the results and warnings being summarised in papers such as Klein’s at regular intervals.
16S ribosomal DNA amplification for phylogenetic study

A set of oligonucleotide primers capable of initiating enzymatic amplification (polymerase chain reaction) on a phylogenetically and taxonomically wide range of bacteria is described along with methods for their use and examples. One pair of primers is capable of amplifying nearly full-length 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) from many bacterial genera; the additional primers are useful for various exceptional sequences. Methods for purification of amplified material, direct sequencing, cloning, sequencing, and transcription are outlined. An obligate intracellular parasite of bovine erythrocytes, Anaplasma marginale, is used as an example; its 16S rDNA was amplified, cloned, sequenced, and phylogenetically placed. Anaplasmas are related to the genera Rickettsia and Ehrlichia. In addition, 16S rDNAs from several species were readily amplified from material found in lyophilized ampoules from the American Type Culture Collection. By use of this method, the phylogenetic study of extremely fastidious or highly pathogenic bacterial species can be carried out without the need to culture them. In theory, any gene segment for which polymerase chain reaction primer design is possible can be derived from a readily obtainable lyophilized bacterial culture.
A tunable epsilon-tube in support vector regression for refining parameters of GM(1,1 | /spl tau/) prediction model - SVRGM(1,1 | /spl tau/) approach

This paper introduces a novel SVRGM(1,1 | /spl tau/) prediction model for forecasting economic indexes like stock price indexes or future trading indexes. SVRGM(1,1 | /spl tau/) model employ the support vector regression (SVR) learning algorithm to improve the control and environment parameters in grey model GM(1,1| /spl tau/) model, that is, enhancing generalization capability in the non-periodic short-term prediction. Therefore, this proposed method could smooth the overshooting problem, that often occurred in GM(1,1| /spl tau/) model or autoregressive moving-average (ARMA) method, so as to achieve better the prediction accuracy.
Modélisation des champs diffus par une équation de diffusion : application à l'acoustique des salles et à l'acoustique urbaine

L'objectif de ce travail a consiste a developper un nouveau modele de champ diffus dans les salles et dans les rues, regi par une equation de diffusion du meme type que pour la conduction de la chaleur. Dans un premier temps, des simulations numeriques du deplacement de particules sonores dans un reseau periodique de batiments hexagonaux ont montre que la propagation sonore peut se ramener a un processus de diffusion, parametre entre autres par un coefficient de diffusion qui depend de la morphologie du tissu urbain et de la modenature des facades des batiments. Une etude theorique, fondee sur l'analogie du concept de diffusion en acoustique et en physique du solide, a ensuite ete realisee pour valider et generaliser cette observation a tout milieu diffusant (salle diffuse, rue). Ce modele de diffusion, qui peut etre considere comme une extension naturelle de la theorie classique des champs diffus, fait intervenir un nouveau parametre fondamental, le coefficient de diffusion. Un second terme, le coefficient d'echange, est egalement introduit pour tenir compte de l'absorption sonore au niveau des parois. Les solutions de l'equation de diffusion, en regime permanent et dependant du temps, ont ete comparees avec succes a des simulations numeriques de champs diffus, aux theories classiques de l'acoustique des salles, ainsi qu'a des mesures de temps de reverberation et de niveau sonore dans des salles et dans des rues. Pour valider le modele de diffusion en acoustique urbaine, un systeme experimental, base sur des mesures acoustiques dans des maquettes de rues, a egalement ete developpe.
TRIP6, a novel molecular partner of the MAGI‐1 scaffolding molecule, promotes invasiveness

We recently established the critical role of the PTEN/MAGI‐lb signalosome in stabilization of cell‐cell contacts and suppression of invasiveness. The PTEN tumor suppressor is recruited to E‐cadherin junctional complexes through the binding to the second PDZ domain of the MAGI‐1b scaffolding molecule, whereas β‐catenin interacts with the fifth PDZ domain. To identify additional effectors of this signalosome, we used yeast 2‐hybrid screening. Among the clones identified, we focused on TRIP6, which belongs to the zyxin family of proteins. We demonstrated that TRIP6 interacted directly with MAGI‐lb by binding to its fifth PDZ domain. Ectopic expression of TRIP6 induced invasiveness in the epithelial MDCK and MDCKts‐src cells in a PI3‐kinase‐ and a NF‐κB‐dependent manner and impaired cell‐cell aggregation at least in part by uncoupling adherens junctional complexes from the cytoskeleton. The TRIP6Stop473 mutant, which lacks the PDZ binding motif, was still able to increase NF‐κB and Akt activities but did not promote invasiveness or interfere with cell‐cell aggregation. Intracellular delivery of competing peptides corresponding to TRIP6 or β‐catenin C terminus restored invasive properties in MDCKts‐src TRIP6Stop473 cells, highlighting the requirement of PDZ scaffolds in junctional complexes activity. TRIP6 overexpression in colon tumors suggest its critical role in cancer progression. — Chastre, E. , Abdessamad, M. , Kruglov, A. , Bruyneel, E. , Bracke, M. , Di Gioia, Y. , Beckerle, M. C. , vanRoy, F. , Kotelevets, L. TRIP6, a novel molecular partner of the MAGI‐1 scaffolding molecule, promotes invasiveness. FASEB J. 23, 916–928 (2009)
Implications of diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) extend well beyond reproductive concerns

Objectives:To investigate whether a diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) in premenopausal years has adverse implications for skeletal health and quality of life. Design:This was a cross-sectional study of infertile, albeit healthy, mid-reproductive-age women (younger than 42 y) attending an academic infertility practice. Results:Eighty-nine women with varying causes of infertility were prospectively enrolled. Serum (cycle d 1-3) was collected for markers of ovarian reserve, bone metabolism, testosterone, and free androgen index. Bone mineral density (BMD) was assessed and categorized as low if the Z score was less than −1.0). Infertile women with DOR (n = 28) demonstrated significantly higher serum follicle-stimulating hormone levels (P < 0.001), lower müllerian-inhibiting substance (MIS) levels (P < 0.001), smaller ovarian dimensions (P < 0.05), lower testosterone levels (P = 0.035), lower free androgen index (P = 0.019), and enhanced bone metabolism (P = 0.003); although the prevalence of low BMD was higher in women with DOR who were younger than 41, this relationship was not of statistical significance (P = 0.106). Women younger than 41 years of age with DOR were significantly more likely to manifest disturbed sleep (P = 0.049) and acknowledge dissatisfaction with sexual intimacy (P = 0.004) compared with those with infertility and normal ovarian reserve. After adjustment for potential confounders, a diagnosis of DOR was significantly associated with low BMD, increased bone turnover, sexual dissatisfaction, and disturbed sleep. Conclusions:Our data suggest that DOR unmasked in the context of infertility evaluation has adverse implications for a woman's well-being that extend well beyond the thus far appreciated reproductive concerns. A decline in ovarian hormones, specifically estrogen and testosterone, concomitant with DOR may be hypothesized as a mechanism that can explain the observed multisystem ramifications of DOR including increased bone turnover, low BMD, sexual distress, and disturbed sleep.
A Single-Phase to Three-Phase Power Conversion System with Reduced Switches and Improved Output Voltages

In this paper, a topology is proposed to convert a single-phase power supply to independent three phases so that balanced or unbalanced, linear or non-linear three-phase loads can be operated. It can be used in places, e.g., rural areas, where only a single-phase power supply is available. The converter consists of four legs: one rectifier leg to generate a DC-bus voltage; two phase legs to generate two independent phases to form balanced three-phase voltages together with the single-phase power supply and one neutral leg to generate a neutral point, which is common to the single-phase supply and the two phases generated. Decoupled control strategies are developed to make sure that the current drawn from the single-phase supply is sinusoidal and in phase with the supply voltage, the generated phase voltages contain low voltage harmonics even when the load is non-linear and the neutral point is maintained stable. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the excellent performance of the system.
Benchmarking and assessing the performance of Arabic stemmers

Previous studies on the stemming of the Arabic language lack fair evaluation, full description of algorithms used or access to the source code of the stemmers and the datasets used to evaluate such stemmers. Freeing source codes and datasets is an essential step to enable researchers to enhance stemmers currently in use and to verify the results of these studies. This study laid the foundation of establishing a benchmark for Arabic stemmers and presents an evaluation of four heavy (root-based) stemmers for the Arabic language. The evaluation aims to assess the accuracy of each of the four stemmers and to show the strength of each. The four algorithms are: Al-Mustafa stemmer, Al-Sarhan stemmer, Rabab’ah stemmer and Taghva stemmer. The accuracy and strength tests used in this study ranked Rabab’ah stemmer as the first followed by Al-Sarhan, Al-Mustafa, and Taghva stemmers respectively.
Diagnosing of heart diseases using average k-nearest neighbor algorithm of data mining

The most important and prevalent diseases that commonly occur in people and causes 80% of death in country is heart disease. It is estimated that by 2030, approximately 25 millionpeople die because of heart diseases. Though many researchers have suggested and proposed methods for diagnosing the heart diseases from the enormous amount of heart disease data, there is no proper effective techniques and are not properly mined. To get improved classification accuracy and efficiency a new approach called average k-nearest neighbor algorithm is proposed in this paper. The dataset used for prediction is obtained and utilized from UCI machine learning repositories. The main objective of this research work is to diagnose heart disease with reduced number of attributes that are relevant to heart diseases.
A Theoretical Foundation for the Stein-Winter "Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD)" Multitarget Tracking Approach

Abstract : In several unpublished manuscripts written from 1993 to 1995, Michael Stein, C.L. Winter, and Robert Tenney introduced a multitarget tracking and evidential-accumulation concept called a "Probability Hypothesis Surface" (PHS). A PHS is the graph of a probability distribution-the Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD)-that, when integrated over a region in target state space, gives the expected number of targets in that region. The PHD is uniquely defined by this property: Any other density function that satisfies it must be the PHD.