Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proteins in spermathecal gland secretion and spermathecal fluid and the properties of a 29 kDa protein in queens of Apis mellifera

One and two dimensional SDS-PAGE were used to characterize the protein pattern of the spermathecal gland secretion and spermathecal fluid in Apis mellifera queen pupae and emerged queens of different ages. The concentration of protein varied from 8.5 and 15.3 mg/mL in the spermathecal fluid, and from 5 to 8.5 mg/mL in the secretion. Development of the protein pattern of the gland secretion and spermathecal fluid was identical from pupae until the age of 3 days. In sexually mature queens (10 days or older) the gland secretion and spermathecal fluid each had one additional band at 79 kDa and at 29 kDa respectively. The 29 kDa protein was N-terminal blocked but several peptide fragments were sequenced after digestion with LysC protease. Only 2 of the sequences showed a distinct homology to the N-terminal half of the glycolytic enzyme triosephosphate isomerase (TPI). TPI antibody reacted with the 29 kDa protein, but the enzymatic activity was only 1/100 compared to TPI of hemolymph. The possible function of the protein is discussed. spermatheca / sperm storage / protein pattern / 29 kDa protein / Apis mellifera
Mathematical model for the reduction of polyphenols in green tealeaf during withering in Low Temperature Nitrogen Plasma (LTNP) environment

Green tealeaf was withered in Low Temperature Nitrogen Plasma (LTNP) environment. The result showed that LTNP decreases its naturally occurring Polyphenol content during withering. The decrease was caused by oxidation due to the presence of oxygen within the LTNP environment. The rate of reduction of polyphenols ( d Pc dt ) with withering time (t) follows an exponential function and approaches a limiting minimum rate. Similarly d Pc dt decreases as the remaining polyphenol content (Pc) in the green tealeaf decreases and also follows an exponential function relationship. Thus indicating that, the kinetic order of the polyphenol reduction changes with withering time and obeys the mass action law in line with the theoretical prediction. The relationship of Pc and t follows an inverse proportionality function relationship, such that Pc decreases with t. Statistical analysis using MS-Excel of the experimental data showed that the mean rate of change of Pc in green tealeaf withered in LTNP was 4.877mg/h. The model prediction equations for d Pc dt in green tealeaf against t, d Pc dt against Pc and Pc against t were: d Pc dt =94.00 e t , d Pc dt =0.889 ec and pc=−7.552t+84.48 respectively. These model predictive equations can be used for the design and processing of green tealeaf to obtain Made tea with specific polyphenol contents.
Weather conditions and conspecific density influence survival of overwintering Dunlin Calidris alpina in North Wales

Capsule Inter-annual survival rates of juvenile Dunlin Calidris alpina increased with wet weather conditions but decreased with the density of conspecifics in winter, ranging from 0.34 to 0.62 in the best model. Adult inter-annual survival remained high and constant at 0.72. Aims To estimate inter-annual survival rates of both adult and juvenile Dunlin in North Wales. To quantify the effects on survival rates of weather conditions and conspecific density. Methods Cormack–Jolly–Seber models in Program MARK were used to analyse 21 years of ringing data (1990–2011) from Traeth Lafan, North Wales. Models were constructed using a two age-class structure. The influence of a range of weather conditions and WeBS census data on survival were examined. Results Adult survival was best modelled at a constant rate of 0.72 (se 0.008) across the 21 years. Juvenile survival rates were found to vary most strongly with total rainfall (mm) during the season and the number of conspecifics present. Survival rates varied from 0.34 (se 0.06) to 0.62 (se 0.09), with higher survival in years with high rainfall and low numbers of birds. Conclusion Survival rates of juvenile Dunlin are affected by both weather and density of conspecifics. These results have implications for the future of Dunlin in the UK when considering both climate change and habitat loss.
PREDICT THE LOCATION OF MOVING OBJECTS USING MINING ASSOCIATION RULES OF MOVEMENT PATTERNS

⁄o, mu h…nh di chuy"n. Abstract. A location-based service is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. Location-Based Services report the current location of the user. In order to support context-prediction and proactive devices, location-based services must be able to predict locations. In the world, there are many research issues of predicting the location of the moving objects. Some issues towards studying fuzzy logic, statistical probability or combining different methods. The goal of this paper is to introduce a framework for pattern extraction and modeling, which helps to design model for moving object databases. This paper also proposes a method to predict the location of moving objects using mining association rules of movement patterns. The experiments are given to show that the proposed method is more accurate when used in combination with the motion function prediction method.
The complex landscape of contemporary fathering in the UK

Abstract Distinguishing between fatherhood as a social construction and fathering as a social practice, this paper presents empirical evidence from the UK concerning the complex landscape of contemporary fathering. The paper focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of fathering, particularly following moments of rupture and transition such as family break-up or bereavement. Based on narrative interviews and ethnographic observation, including the co-production and analysis of video data, the paper identifies three key issues: the diversity of contemporary fathering practices, the complex emotional geographies of lone fathering and the relationality of fathering both in terms of the research participants and their female partners (as fathers and mothers) and inter-generationally (between the research participants and their own fathers). The study supports previous research on the ‘awkward spaces’ of fathering with a particular emphasis on moments of transition and their complex social and emotional geographies.
Thresholds for Software Quality Metrics in Open Source Android Projects

Quality is an important aspect of every software development project. Different stakeholders are interested in different aspect of quality. For instance, from the users’ point of view, it represents to what extent the application is satisfying their needs. On the other hand, developers may be more interested in the efforts needed to fix bugs, testing, maintaining existing functionalities provided by the application and adding new ones. One aspect of measuring and ensuring quality can be achieved by utilizing software metrics. Multiple metrics suites have been proposed and they all capture different aspects of quality. Product metrics, can reveal internal characteristics of an application and help developers to reach better quality. They indicate how maintainable, testable and extendable one application is based on inheritance characteristics, size and complexity of the applications’ modules. Since the metrics are represented by a number only and the guidelines for each metric specify the desired value, thresholds are needed that will define the lower and upper limit for each metric i.e., reference values that developers can relate to. Five metrics, including Number Of Methods, Response For Class, Depth of Inheritance Tree, Number Of Children and Coupling Between Objects were successfully computed for 865 Android applications. By calculating the metrics on large number of applications, thresholds for 17 categories of applications have been proposed. These thresholds are different depending what category does the application belong to system, games, multimedia, etc. In addition, each category was divided into subcategories based on size and thresholds were proposed for the appropriate subcategories. By sub-categorizing we allow developers to have a reference values for their applications based on the size in addition to category.
DEPENDENCY OF OPTIMAL PARAMETERS OF THE IRIS TEMPLATE ON IMAGE QUALITY AND BORDER DETECTION ERROR

Abstract. Generation of a template containing spatial-frequency features of iris is an important stage of identification. The template is obtained by a wavelet transform in an image region specified by iris borders. One of the main characteristics of the identification system is the value of recognition error, equal error rate (EER) is used as criterion here. The optimal values (in sense of minimizing the EER) of wavelet transform parameters depend on many factors: image quality, sharpness, size of characteristic objects, etc. It is hard to isolate these factors and their influences. The work presents an attempt to study an influence of following factors to EER: iris segmentation precision, defocus level, noise level. Several public domain iris image databases were involved in experiments. The images were subjected to modelled distortions of said types. The dependencies of wavelet parameter and EER values from the distortion levels were build. It is observed that the increase of the segmentation error and image noise leads to the increase of the optimal wavelength of the wavelets, whereas the increase of defocus level leads to decreasing of this value.
How Preferences Change After Receiving New Product Information in an Experimental Choice Task

Discrete choice experiments typically assume that preference structures remain stable over time and over multiple exposures to information about choice alternatives. However, this assumption may not be valid when the study concerns a new product, which individuals are less familiar with. This paper tests how attribute preferences shift when respondents are exposed to new product information in an experimental choice task. The findings indicate how attribute utilities vary across the before and after exposure conditions; further analysis however shows these effects to partly disappear when the effect of information on the scale constant is accounted for.
Local short path generation for autonomous commercial vehicles

In recent years, breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) have drawn the attention to the subject from many fields including the automotive industry, where it could become a cornerstone in order to develop fully autonomous vehicles. In the automotive industry the applications for these AI-techniques varies from classification of a vehicle's surroundings to behavioral-re ex approaches that mimics human behaviour. In this master thesis, the capability to navigate a truck in mining environments using neural networks has been investigated, tested and verified in a simulated 3D environment. As input to the neural networks, Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) sensors in different configurations has been used. The main focus has been to create an algorithm that can create short paths at a high rate using limited computational power. Consequently, the networks has been tried on Raspberry Pi to prove their capability. Several approaches are proposed using both 2D LIDARs as well as 3D LIDARs. The developed networks are simple, does not require high performance computational units and are able to make decisions at intersections according to a global planner. Apart from the developed networks, a tool-chain for collection of training data, network training and testing in simulated environment is described in detail in the report.
Alterations in Low-Z Elements Distribution in Heart Tissue after Treatments to Breast Cancer Using LEXRF Technique

Data from Global Cancer Statistics show that breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer among women, leading the number of deaths caused by cancer. The developments in diagnosis and treatment techniques for the BC, including chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, increased the survival rates for this type of cancer. One late complication induced by BC treatment is the cardiotoxicity. This term comprises different cardiotoxic side effects, which include blood pressure alterations, myocardial ischemia, congestive heart failure and other damages. This study aimed to evaluate the cardiac alterations induced by radiotherapy and chemotherapy, simulating a treatment for BC in Wistar rats. It is, therefore, important to understand the mechanisms involved in the cardiotoxicity, in order to prevent women from this late effect, when they undergo BC treatments. The major interests in this work are in Low atomic weight elements as Sodium, because it is strongly related to cardiomyocyte contraction; Magnesium, because it is important in the cardiac metabolism; and Iron, because BC treatment induced cardiotoxicity can be associated to the oxidative stress. Changes that occur in unhealthy tissues in case to cardiovascular damages can be better understood when elemental compounds and structures of healthy tissues are known. Low Energy X-ray Fluorescence (LEXRF) technique was used to obtain elemental maps of low Z-elements providing a semi-quantitative analysis of the tissues evaluated under different conditions. Through the technique LEXRF we obtained elemental and absorption maps. The results showed more damages when associating chemotherapy and radiotherapy in comparison to myocardium healthy. Those images taken together with light microscopy, X-ray absorption and phase contrast images, satisfactorily characterize the cardiac tissue for the first time in the literature, from the structural and morphological points of view. LEXRF was carried out at TwinMic beamline in the ELETTRA Synchrotron Fa-cility, at the beamline TwinMic, in Trieste, Italy.
The relationship between contraceptive use and unintended pregnancies among married women in Thatta district, Pakistan.

Background & aim: The rate of unintended pregnancy has decreased from 24% to 16% in the last four to five years in Pakistan. However, this rate stills varies among the women living in the rural and urban areas of Pakistan. The females residing in the rural areas are less likely to have many contraceptive choices and receive no/low-quality family planning services; as a result, they end up with birth control failure and unintended pregnancy. Regarding this, more studies are needed to investigate the association between the unintended pregnancy and contraceptive use, particularly in the rural areas of Pakistan.Therefore, the aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between contraceptive use and unintended pregnancy among the women at reproductive age living in Thatta district, Sindh, Pakistan. Methods:This nested case-control study was conducted on the women living in Thatta district during June 2011-July 2012. The pregnant women who did not want more children were considered as cases, and those who intended to have more children were considered as controls. The categorical and continuous variables were analyzed using the Chi-square test and independent t-tests, respectively. Results: According o the results of the present study, the use of contraceptive methods was significantly associated with increased risk of unintended pregnancy among the women living in Thatta district [OR: 2.77 (1.46-5.25)]. Moreover, there was 14% increased risk of unintended pregnancy with one year increase in the age of the women [OR: 1.14 (1.10-1.19)]. The age at marriage showed negative association with unintended pregnancy [OR: 0.92 (0.87-0.97)]. The women having at least one son (alive) were almost three times more likely to report their recent pregnancies as unintended, compared to those with no living son [OR: 2.97 (1.82-4.84)]. In addition, the husband’s education and their opposition with the use of family planning methods [OR 2.16 (1.06-4.39)] were found to be associated with unintended pregnancy. Conclusion: As the findings of the present study indicted, the unintended pregnancy is likely to occur when the women have achieved their desired family size as evidenced by the higher mean age and presence of at least one living son. We recommend to improve the quality of care and family planning services to deal with issues of birth control failure by taking such measures as the provision of emergency contraception and support.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Ras family GTPase signaling contributions to inflammation and joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis

Objectives: Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-dependent activation of protein kinase B (PKB) has been observed in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) synovial tissue, and interfering with PI3K-dependent PKB activation is protective in animal arthritis models. PKB can regulate cellular survival and proliferation via phosphorylation-dependent inactivation of FoxO family transcription factors. We examined if FoxO transcription factors are differentially inactivated in RA synovial tissue and if this inactivation correlates with disease parameters. Methods: We assessed FoxO family expression and phosphorylation in synovial biopsies from 12 RA and 9 inflammatory osteoarthritis (OA) patients by immunohistochemistry and quantitative computerassisted image analysis. IL-1β and TNF-α -induced phosphorylation of FoxO1 and FoxO4 in cultured fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) and macrophages, respectively, was detected by immunoblotting. Results: FoxO1, FoxO3a, and FoxO4 were expressed and phosphorylated in both RA and OA synovial tissue. Phosphorylation of FoxO1 was observed in both RA FLS and synovial macrophages. FoxO3a and FoxO4 were phosphorylated in T lymphocytes and macrophages, respectively. FoxO1 and FoxO4 were phosphorylated in RA and OA FLS, and macrophages, respectively, following IL-1β and TNF-α stimulation. Inactivation of FoxO4 was significantly enhanced in RA synovial sublining compared to inflammatory OA. Strong negative correlations were observed between inactivation of FoxO4 in RA synovial tissue and CRP and ESR serum levels. Conclusion: Although all three FoxO family members are phosphorylated in both RA and OA synovial tissue, inactivation of FoxO4 in synovial macrophages is significantly enhanced in RA. Cell-specific inactivation of FoxO family members may differentially regulate cell survival and proliferation in the RA synovium. 149 Ras Family GTPase Signaling Contributions to Inflammation and Joint Destruction in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Molecular identification and characterization of Ceratocystiopsis spp. associated with the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosa)

The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosa) attack has been the most devastating disturbance in the logdepole pine (Pinus contorta) forests in interior British Columbia, Canada. Previous studies have found several fungal species associated MPB: Ophiostoma clavigerum, Ophiostoma monitum, Leptographium longiclavatum, Grosmannia clavigera and some Ceratocystiopsis (Cop.) species. The aim of the study was to identify and characterize the Ceratocystiopsis species associated with MPB using molecular methods. In total, 72 samples were isolated from the beetles from 12 collection sites in BC and Alberta. They were distinguished as Cop. – like species based on morphological features. 61 of them were investigated in the phylogenetic analyses, using sequences of internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS), and portion of the large ribosomal subunit (LSU) of RNA, and β-tubulin gene. Surprisingly, the results showed that most of the isolates belonged to Sporothrix, which had rarely been reported as a symbiont with beetles in Canada. Results from β-tubulin gene showed that there were many variations under this genus. Future study will be needed to resolve the species-level taxonomy.
Unikaryon montanum sp. n. (Protista: Microspora), a new pathogen of the spruce bark beetle, Ips typographus (Coleoptera: Scolytidae)

Unikaryon montanum sp. n. infects the fat body, muscle, Malpighian tubules and ovaries of adult Ips typographus L. The development is haplokaryotic, with separate nuclei during the schizogony and sporogony. Sporonts have the cellular envelope with added layer of electron dense material. Two types of spores are formed: small broad-oval primary spores, 1.5 × 1.0 µm, with warty surface of spore wall, uninucleate, with isofilar polar filament in 5/6 coils and elongated-oval environmental spores, 0.8-1 × 2 µm, with warty spore wall attenuated at the anterior end, uninucleate, with spore polar filament in 8 coils. Both types have a dual polaroplast with the anterior part of a layer of confluent fine lamellae ending posteriorly in bulbous processes, and posterior part composed of coil of tubules.
KeyLiSterber: Inferring Keystrokes on QWERTY Keyboard of Touch Screen through Acoustic Signals

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of a side-channel attack to infer keystrokes on touch screen leveraging an off-the-shelf smartphone. Although there exist some studies on keystroke eavesdropping attacks on touch screen, they are mainly direct eavesdropping attacks, i.e., require the device of victims compromised to provide side-channel information for the adversary, which are hardly launched in practical scenarios. In this work, we show the practicability of an indirect eavesdropping attack, KeyListener, which infers keystrokes on QWERTY keyboards of touch screen leveraging audio devices on a smartphone. We investigate the attenuation of acoustic signals, and find that a user’s keystroke fingers can be localized through the attenuation of acoustic signals received by the microphones in the smartphone. We then utilize the attenuation of acoustic signals to localize each keystroke, and further analyze errors induced by ambient noises. To improve the accuracy of keystroke localization, KeyListener further tracks finger movements during inputs through phase change and Doppler effect to reduce errors of acoustic signal attenuation-based keystroke localization. In addition, a binary tree-based search approach is employed to infer keystrokes in a context-aware manner. The proposed keystroke eavesdropping attack is robust to various environments without the assistance of additional infrastructures. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the accuracy of keystroke inference in top-5 candidates can approach 90% with a top-5 error rate of around 6%, which is a strong indication of the possible user privacy leakage of inputs on QWERTY keyboard.
143 osteosarcoma cells to Apo 2 L / TRAIL-induced apoptosis is mediated by acquisition of DcR 2 / TRAIL-R 4 expression : resensitisation with chemotherapy

Bouralexis, Stelios; Findlay, David Malcolm; Atkins, Gerald James; Labrinidis, Agatha; Hay, Shelley J.; Evdokiou, Andreas Progressive resistance of BTK-143 osteosarcoma cells to Apo2L/TRAIL-induced apoptosis is mediated by acquisition of DcR2/TRAIL-R4 expression: resensitisation with chemotherapy British Journal of Cancer, 2003; 89 (1):206-214 © 2003 Cancer Research UK From twelve months after its original publication, this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.nature. com/bjc/journal/v89/n1/full/6601021a.html